A Single Breath

by Lucy Clarke

  There is a deafening screech of tires and the blare of a horn. A taxi roars to a halt just a few feet from her. She freezes, heart hammering against her ribs. The taxi driver holds down the horn again, and Jackson turns at the sound.

  Only he is not Jackson. He is just a man of a similar age, with a similar build. Now that she can see him properly, her mistake is clear.

  She staggers back onto the sidewalk, where people stand staring at her. The taxi accelerates away, the driver shaking his head as he mouths the word, Crazy.

  SAUL HOLDS THE LAST nail steady as he bangs the hammer down with quick, hard taps. The wood splinters slightly where it’s aged, but the nail eventually goes all the way in. He’s losing the light and the mosquitoes are starting to prowl, so he’ll have to call it quits for tonight.

  He steps back to inspect his work, nodding to himself, pleased. He’s been working on this project for most of the summer, just using an hour here or there whenever he’s free. Another couple of days and it’ll be finished. He could even get it tied up this weekend now that his friends aren’t coming to stay. He feels bad for canceling, but he’s just not in the mood for company.

  Saul knows that what he should be doing this weekend is visiting his dad. It’s been ages. But he’s still pissed at him. If Dirk hadn’t asked him to lie to Eva, maybe she’d still be here.

  He puts the tools away, then drags the tarp over the wood, securing it with a few rocks. He adds a couple of extra ones at the corners since the wind is starting to pick up.

  He ducks inside to grab a beer, and takes it down to the bay. A southerly is blowing straight in from Antarctica, bringing with it a deep chill. The water is already churned up, so there’ll be no chance of a free-dive this weekend. He drove down to Broken Point earlier and the swell was blown out, too. He hates the bloody wind. No good for anything.

  He moves along the shore, kicking up the foam that’s trembling on the tide line. No footprints other than his own down here tonight. That makes him feel low. He takes a long gulp of beer, barely tasting it, and walks on toward Eva’s shack. He visits every night, just to check in case she’s decided to come back.

  Just as he expected, her stuff is still inside. He sits on the sofa and finishes his beer. At first Saul kept telling himself that she’d return for her belongings, but now two weeks have passed and there’s still no word. She doesn’t answer any of his calls, and in the back of his mind he’s thinking: Clothes and toiletries, they’re replaceable. She doesn’t need to come here again.

  He sets the empty beer down and picks up the free-diving book that’s open on the table. He’d lent it to her when they’d first started diving together. He loved her enthusiasm for free-diving and the long discussions they had about it. She’d taken to it quickly, as if she was born to be in the water. He spends a few minutes thinking about some of the dives they’d made together, the determined look on her face as she filled her lungs with air before making a neat surface dive toward the ocean bed.

  He misses Eva more than he had imagined and doesn’t want to think about what this means. She brought the bay to life and now it feels empty without her.

  With a sigh, he gets to his feet and leaves the shack.

  He’ll check again tomorrow.

  Saul and I were close once. It seems an age ago now, but we were. I loved being the older brother and getting to do things first, like showing Saul how to gut a squid and take out the quill, or carve a branch into a spear.

  One of our favorite things was cliff jumping. It started when we were just kids and we’d dive off the low cliffs and rocks around Wattleboon. Back then, Mum was still alive and she and Dad would take photos with an old film camera and coo over how brave we were. Those early dives were rarely higher than ten meters, so it was all about skill and grace, about seeing who could do a double rotation, or who could keep their swan dive in free fall to the last moment.

  After the bush fire, we didn’t come back to Wattleboon, so we found new places to cliff-jump. Dad didn’t watch anymore—he was still trying to hold onto the business, tell himself that the drinking was just a phase. But Saul and me wanted to get out of that house as much as possible.

  The cliff jumps we found got bigger and riskier. Saul would scout them out from the water up, swimming with his mask and fins to check the depth, looking for submerged rocks, finding the right place to climb back up afterward. Me, I used to like standing on the cliff top and looking down, relying on instinct to know if I could make it. I think Saul thought I was brave—but I wasn’t. I went for those big, wild jumps without checking the water below because I didn’t care about the landing or coming back up. All I wanted was to jump.

  19

  A weekend vibe swings through the waterfront bar; faces are tanned and the chatter is loud and vibrant.

  Eva wants this brightness to flow into her, but instead she feels like a rock jammed into a fast-moving river: dark and hard and impenetrable. Conversation and music move fluidly around her, but she is stuck firm.

  “Darling?” Callie is saying as they stand beside a tall table they’re sharing with another group of women. “Are you okay? We can go somewhere quieter. Go back to the apartment, if you prefer?”

  Eva doesn’t want to be cooped up in there, and she doesn’t want to be feeling like a specter in the crush of this bar. It was Callie’s idea to go out and Eva is doing her best to make an effort. At the restaurant she’d had no appetite and washed down her sushi with mouthfuls of wine so that Callie wouldn’t worry that she’s not eating.

  “Are you okay?” Callie repeats. “Really?”

  “I . . . I’m just . . .” What? What should she say? Exhausted? Numb? Quietly splintering? “I’m just going to get us more cocktails.” At the bar she has to shout above the music to order two Long Island iced teas. She does a shot of sambuca while she waits, the hot sweetness burning her throat. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, hoping the sambuca will help shake off the deep weariness that clings to her.

  She’s not sleeping. Every night her dreams are smothered beneath the same disturbing nightmare that Eva is walking along Jeanette’s hallway, only to reach the end and find Jackson living there happily. The nightmare is so vivid that Eva wakes twisted in the covers and dripping with sweat, his name on her lips.

  Suddenly Eva wants to be in England. She wants to see her mother. She wants time to rewind and for it to be two years earlier, and for her to be moving along the aisle of a plane looking for her seat number, and rather than taking the empty seat beside the tanned stranger with the clear blue eyes, Eva wants to have walked straight past him. She wants Jackson to have never entered her life.

  Yet she also wants Jackson here. Right now. She wants to feel his strong arms wrapped tight around her. She wants his baby to still be growing inside her, to feel Jackson’s hands on her pregnant belly. She wants to hear him say, I love you, with his lips close to her ear. She needs him to tell her: You’ve got it all wrong.

  She knows she should hate him for what he’s done, but she can’t because she still remembers the Jackson who’d lifted her onto the kitchen counter, put a glass of wine in her hand, and then lowered his face to hers, whispering, “I’ve been waiting for you to get back.” And the Jackson who, on the evening they moved into their apartment, asked her to unpack one of the boxes, then watched as she pulled out a bottle of champagne with a note around the neck that read: We’re home.

  That Jackson. That’s the one she misses.

  There is a hand on her back and she swings around.

  “Here, I’ve got them,” Callie says, easing the drinks from Eva, who hadn’t realized she was holding them.

  Eva follows Callie back to the table, her thoughts spinning. “Why did he marry me?”

  “Because he loved you.” Callie places the drinks down and then reaches out and takes Eva’s hands. “I know everything’s a mess right now—but please, darling, just remember that he did love you. Everyone could see how crazy he was about you.”
/>
  “How do I know, though? What if that was just another lie?”

  “It was real.”

  “Who was he, Cal?” she says, withdrawing her hands. “I don’t even know, not really. Everything was lies. His whole past was borrowed from Saul. He had another wife. It makes me question . . . everything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I can’t let him go. There was no good-bye. No body. Nothing. When he died, I thought . . . that was it. That was the worst thing—the very worst thing—that could happen. I’d lost the person I’d planned to spend the rest of my life with. But it wasn’t,” she says, her hands balling into fists. “The worst thing is: now I’ve lost my past, too.”

  EVA LOSES COUNT OF the number of cocktails she’s had, but by the way she sways onto the dance floor, she guesses it must be a lot.

  She and Callie dance within a crowd, colored lights strobing over bodies, illuminating a pair of silver heels, the swing of a loosened tie, the blink of false lashes. The air is warm with the smell of perspiration and beer. Eva spins, feeling a rush of air around her thighs as her dress swirls.

  She remembers seeing Jackson dance for the first time and she’d laughed, amazed by how good he was. He moved with confidence and a swagger, as if the music was playing through his body. Her mother had always said, Be wary of a man who can dance.

  Had her mother been wary of Jackson? She seemed genuinely elated when they’d announced their engagement. But perhaps her fondness for him was only an extension of her love for Eva. Had anyone seen what she hadn’t?

  Her feet move over the polished black floor. The bass of the track vibrates in her chest, and she shakes her body to the beat. She’s distantly aware of Callie saying something to her, but Eva spins away, letting the crowd become a blur around her.

  She allows the alcohol to loosen the hard knots of memory and she twists, light and free, as music falls through the air around her.

  CALLIE WATCHES AS EVA dances with her head tilted back, as if only loosely attached to her neck. Eva is drunk, too drunk. She’s been taking an extra shot every time she goes to the bar.

  Two men watch appreciatively as Eva swings her hips. She looks beautiful, but God, she looks sad. It’s as if someone has reached inside her and turned out a light.

  When the song changes Callie slips over to Eva and leans close to her ear, saying, “Let’s go back now.”

  “Back? No!” Eva weaves beyond her in the direction of the bar.

  But Callie knows she needs to get Eva home. She threads her arm through Eva’s, saying, “There’s a club farther down the street. Fancy taking a look?”

  “Sure,” Eva says, letting Callie lead her through the crowd and toward the door.

  Outside, the air is cool after the clammy heat of the bar. They walk slowly along the pavement, low laughter ebbing from a bench where a crowd of teenagers loiters, holding beer cans.

  When Callie sees a taxi, she steps forward, raising her hand. It pulls up next to them. “Let’s jump in.”

  “What about the club?” Eva slurs.

  “Oh, we passed it. I don’t think it was open.”

  Eva unlinks her arm from Callie. “You’re lying.” The headlights of a passing car illuminate them both so that for a moment she can see the anger in Eva’s narrowed eyes.

  “Listen, Eva—”

  “I hate being lied to. I fucking hate it!”

  “Okay, okay! There’s no club. I just wanted to get you home.” Callie glances at the taxi. “Please, Eva. The taxi’s waiting.”

  Eva twists away from her and starts walking unevenly back toward the bar, her heels making hard clicks on the pavement. Then she stops to crouch down and starts pulling things out of her handbag. She yanks out her cell phone, sending coins spinning to the ground.

  Callie dashes over to Eva, giving up on the taxi. “What are you doing?”

  “Calling Saul.”

  “What?”

  “Everyone’s been lying to me. It’s bullshit. It’s fucking bullshit!”

  “Oh, darling,” Callie says, seeing the tears filling Eva’s eyes. “Don’t do this.”

  “I need to talk to him,” she says, clumsily scrolling through her numbers.

  Callie presses a hand to her forehead. “Listen, how about you call Saul in the morning? It’s late now.”

  “I’m going back there.”

  “Where?”

  “Tasmania,” Eva says, pressing call.

  Callie reaches forward and lifts the phone from Eva’s hands.

  Eva’s face twists with outrage. “You’re taking my phone away?”

  “You can call him in the morning—but not like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re drunk. I need to get you home.”

  “You don’t want me to speak to Saul,” Eva says, straightening, “because I kissed him—and you think it was a mistake.”

  Callie knows there’s no point trying to talk when Eva’s like this, but she feels a nerve firing up inside her. “Of course it was a mistake—he’s Jackson’s brother!”

  “Don’t you think I know?” Eva spits through gritted teeth. “Don’t judge me. I’ve never said anything about the men you’re with.”

  “I’m not judging—”

  “What about David? The self-proclaimed eternal bachelor. You were only with him because he didn’t want to get married, didn’t want children.”

  Callie balks, shocked by the veer of the conversation.

  “It was the easy option,” Eva continues, “because you’re scared of getting too close to someone who’ll want more. Who’ll want a family.”

  Callie feels as if she’s had the wind knocked out of her. Eva may be drunk, but what she is saying cuts right to the bone. Callie turns from her to catch her breath.

  “You’re just going to leave?”

  Callie is on the verge of tears and feels a wall of exhaustion closing in on her. She doesn’t have the energy to deal with this.

  “I’m being a bitch! Are you going to let me get away with that? Tell me what a bitch I am! Tell me!”

  Callie takes a breath, then turns back to face her.

  Eva is standing in the middle of the sidewalk, her arms hanging loose at her sides, her body leaning unstably forward. Her face is wet with tears and a streak of mascara is smudged beneath her left eye. She looks haunted.

  Callie moves toward her and takes Eva’s damp face in her hands. “You are my best friend and you’re going through hell right now. No matter what you say to me, I will not leave you.”

  Eva’s chest rises and falls as she breathes in Callie’s reassurance. Then she nods and, in a voice so small it could be a whisper, says, “Thank you.”

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, EVA wakes feeling stiff, knotted. It’s as if her body has been wrung out, all the moisture squeezed from her so that every joint grinds as she crosses the bedroom. Her eyes burn as she opens the blinds onto midmorning sun.

  She hears the apartment door open and the squeak of sneakers along the hall. Callie must have been out jogging. The bathroom door clicks shut and the rush of the shower sounds through the wall.

  Eva takes a deep breath, then sets about changing into a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. The dress she’d borrowed from Callie is heaped on the floor and she shakes it out, draping it over the back of a chair.

  She leaves the bedroom and goes into the kitchen, opens the fridge, and gets to work.

  By the time Callie comes in wearing a crisp cotton dress, her wet hair smelling of shampoo, Eva has made a fresh fruit salad and a pot of strong coffee, and has laid out croissants and jam.

  “Looks nice,” Callie says.

  Eva carries two glasses of apple juice to the table, saying, “It’s a peace offering.”

  “None needed.”

  They sit opposite each other and Eva pours the coffee. She splashes in milk and slides a mug to Callie. “I’m so sorry about last night. I was a mess.”

 
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” Callie says this without looking at Eva.

  “I feel terrible.”

  “Honestly, don’t even mention it.” Callie smiles, but there is something strained in the set of her lips that tells Eva she should drop it.

  “So, how was your jog?”

  “Nice. It’s hot out already. It’s going to be a lovely weekend.”

  “Great.”

  Eva spoons some fruit salad into a bowl, but the sweet smell of it overpowers her and she covers her mouth with her hand.

  “That bad?”

  She nods, breathing deeply through her nose. She pushes the bowl aside.

  “Go back to bed if you like. I need to go into the studio anyway.” She takes a sip of coffee. “Maybe we could do something tomorrow. A trip to the coast?”

  “Listen, Cal,” Eva says, pushing back her chair. “I’m not sure I’ll be here. I’ve decided to go back to Tasmania.”

  Callie’s mouth opens. “What? When you said that last night, I thought you were . . .”

  “Drunk? I was. But I meant it.” Eva realizes her mistake too late, the remark implying she meant the things she said about Callie, too.

  There is a clink as Callie puts down her spoon. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I thought I could walk away from everything, but I can’t.”

  “How will going back help?”

  “I’m not sure. All I know is I’ve got so many questions and I’m not going to find the answers here.”

  “Questions about what?”

  “Everything. I want to know who Jeanette is, how long they were married, why they separated, whether they’d been in touch since. I need to understand.” Her thoughts feel flayed, set loose in all directions, scrambling over distant memories, dragging out scraps of history and circling, circling over the word, Why?

  “But what if there aren’t any answers? Jeanette might not want to speak to you. We don’t even know if she’s still in Tasmania.”