by Lucy Clarke
When her phone vibrates, she stretches across to the bedside table to reach for it. Looking at the screen, she sees it is Callie and finds herself hesitating. They’ve only spoken twice since Eva left Melbourne, and the conversations were stilted, almost formal, as if they were both treading carefully. She knows Callie will be calling to see how the visit to Jeanette’s went, but right now Eva doesn’t want to think about Jeanette or Jackson—or any of it.
“Everything okay?” Saul asks.
“That was Callie,” she says, glancing at her phone. “When I was in Melbourne, we sort of had a . . . fight. She didn’t want me to come back to Tasmania.” There’s a pause. “She thinks I’m making a mistake.”
“Are you?”
She meets his gaze. “I don’t know.”
“Eva,” he says, looking at her levelly, “I’m glad you’re here.”
He is watching her, his gaze so intent that it seems to reach right inside her, as if he can see into her very being. She is aware of her heart beating in her chest. Longing spreads through her body with a force that shocks her, and her eyes move to the curve of his mouth.
Suddenly an image burns into her thoughts of Jackson’s mouth, his lips slightly thinner than Saul’s, and she watches as they move around the word, Don’t.
She jumps to her feet. “I should clear these,” she says, sweeping the pizza boxes from the bed. The cardboard is too large for the wastebasket, so she stacks them beside it, keeping her back to Saul. “I’ll just wash my hands.”
She closes the bathroom door and places her hands on the edge of the sink. The mirror is still misted with condensation and she cannot see the pink shame that’s overtaken her face, but she feels it. He’s Jackson’s brother.
His fucking brother!
She won’t let it happen. Whatever it is that she feels for Saul, it’s grown out of such a dark place that she’s scared the roots are too twisted and fragile. She looks at her face in the mirror. How could she want this? What is wrong with her? She cares about Saul and knows his friendship has helped her survive these past few weeks—but it needs to end there.
Running the tap, she washes the pizza grease from her fingers, then dries her hands carefully. When she leaves the bathroom, Saul is placing his empty beer can in the wastebasket. He tugs his room key from his back pocket, saying, “I’m gonna head off. Been a long day.”
Eva feels the burn of disappointment as Saul moves toward the door. When he pulls it open, cool, fume-tinged air breezes into the room, and she watches the beaming headlights from passing cars outside.
Saul gives her a light smile and says, “Catch you tomorrow.” He looks at her for a moment and something like resignation settles over his face. “Sleep well, Eva.” Then he turns to leave.
She closes her eyes and swallows. “Don’t go.”
The words, barely whispered to the room, are followed by silence. Then she hears, or just senses, the movement of air as Saul turns back to face her. “What did you say?”
“Don’t go.”
When she opens her eyes, she sees that Saul is poised in the doorway, his fingers still curled around the handle.
Slowly, he steps back into the room and pulls the door gently closed. “Eva?”
Tears are pricking her lower lids. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, what she’s feeling.
Saul crosses the room and stops in front of her. She can smell fresh soap rising from his skin. Slowly he reaches out and lightly places his fingers on her left cheek, almost at her jawline. Warmth pulses from his touch.
“I don’t know what this is . . .” she whispers.
His dark gaze holds her steady. “Neither of us does.” He leans down and places his lips on hers. Logic and hesitation dissolve in the heat of her desire.
Their hands reach for one another, their tongues sliding into the intimate warmth of each other’s mouth.
It’s not rushed or greedy or drunken. It is something tender and filled with compassion, something physical to make up for the words they cannot say. In a city motel, they make love, and for that wonderful stretch of time, she is not thinking of Jackson or the past. She is right here in this moment with Saul.
24
Eva wakes from a deep, dreamless sleep. She’s in her motel room, alone. She sits up, pushing her hair away from her face. Glancing at the clock, she sees it is eleven in the morning. She has to check this fact. She blinks and looks again, but the numbers remain the same. It amazes her that she’s slept for so long.
Propped against the clock is a note. It’s been penned on a torn piece of pizza box, a grease smear spreading from the corner. She leans across to read it.
Saul’s written it using a ballpoint pen, the nib sinking into the corrugated insides of the cardboard, making his handwriting look comically knobbly.
Gone to the hospital. Back about noon. Then on to Wattleboon . . . Saul x
She sinks back down into the bed, the covers sliding against her naked skin. She thinks about how they’d made love, Saul’s body rising above hers. She’d pressed her fingers into his back, pulling him close so they were moving in one rhythm. Afterward they’d fallen asleep curled into the warmth of each other.
Rolling onto her side, Eva sees the indentation in the pillow beside her. She presses her palm into the dip where Saul’s head had been, thinking, Jackson used to sleep on the right-hand side, too.
Guilt kicks her sharply in the gut and her knees draw up to her stomach. Suddenly she is picturing the mornings she’d woken up beside Jackson, seeing the peppering of stubble dusting his chin, his eyelids lightly swollen with sleep. He’d always cast out a heavy arm, drawing her close to him, his skin warm against hers.
“I’ve slept with your brother,” she whispers, her hand smoothing the pillow, as if feeling for Jackson’s imprint. “I’m so sorry,” she says, tears rising at the back of her throat.
A low wail builds in her chest, the sound clawing its way out of her mouth in a long, desolate vibration. How could she? Eva imagines Jackson’s hurt if he could’ve seen her with Saul.
But then she thinks of Jeanette. Of Kyle. Of all the ways Jackson had betrayed her. Her fingers clench into a fist around the pillow, feeling the cotton strain beneath her grip. In one hard movement, she flings the pillow across the room. It skims the ceiling as it travels, then hits the door with a dull thump that makes the lock rattle.
She sinks back down into the bed, pulling the covers tight to her chin.
“MORNING,” SAUL SAYS AS he approaches his father’s hospital bed. “How you feelin’?”
“Like I’ve got the worst hangover of my life and been beaten up on top of that.” Dirk tries to push himself up so he’s sitting straight. When he’s caught his breath, he asks Saul to fetch him some water.
“Manage to eat anything for breakfast?” Saul asks, pouring water into a plastic cup and handing it to him.
“Just some liquidized vitamin muck. I’m not absorbing the right things, they reckon.” He sips at the water. “Thanks for comin’ here last night. Hope I didn’t mess up any plans.”
Saul moves to the window and looks out over the hospital parking lot. He knows he’s got to say something. With his back to Dirk, he begins, “I was in Warrington yesterday.”
“What were you doin’ up there?”
Saul turns, clasping his hands behind his head. “Listen, Dad. Eva’s still here.”
“In Tasmania?”
He nods. “She knows about Jeanette.”
“What?” Dirk barks, jolting forward. His face twists in pain. “How does she know?”
“She bumped into Flyer. He started talking about Jackson. I couldn’t shut him up. He mentioned Jeanette’s name, so I had to tell Eva.”
“Jesus Christ, Saul! What were you doin’ with her in the first place? She should be back in England by now!”
“Yeah, well, she’s not. She’s still in Tasmania and she knows,” Saul says, eyes flashing.
“Tell me you didn’t go to Warringt
on to see Jeanette?”
“Eva wanted to meet her.”
“And you let her?” Dirk says, his voice coming out in a weak gasp. “Are you a bloody idiot? Now every fuckin’ person in Tasmania will know!”
“Jeanette might not tell anyone. Even if she does—so what? Does it even matter?”
“Matter? I’ve lost my son. Isn’t that enough? I don’t want his name dragged through the mud, too.”
“We should never have kept it from Eva. She had a right to know.”
“She’s a nice girl, Saul. I liked her. But what good does it do her knowin’? You tell me that.”
“Maybe none. But it was never up to us to decide.”
Dirk winces, sucking in his breath as he clutches his stomach.
“You all right, Dad?”
He nods, but Saul is relieved when a nurse comes by a few minutes later and gives him another dose of pain relief.
When the nurse leaves, Dirk says, “I’m sorry for yellin’. Comin’ off the drink, it’s tough for a while. Makes me flare up a bit quick.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Saul says with a shrug. Then he stands and grabs his jacket from the back of the chair. “You better get your rest.”
Just as he’s heading out the door, Dirk says, “I’ve been thinking a bit about your offer.”
“Wattleboon?”
“Yeah.” He sniffs. “I can’t go on hiding from that place forever, can I?”
“What? So you’ll stay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll stay.”
PULLING UP OUTSIDE THE motel, Saul cuts the engine but doesn’t get out. Eva will be waiting in her room, ready to head back to Wattleboon. He left her sleeping this morning. It was hard to pull himself out of bed with her lying there, an arm flung out over the pillow, her eyelids faintly flickering as if she were dreaming.
He knows exactly why he’s sitting here in a motel parking lot, listening to the ticking of the engine as it cools. He’s scared that he’ll knock on that door and Eva will say to him, It was a mistake.
The longer he sits here, the longer he can play back the memory of last night: how her skin was so smooth beneath his hands; how her lips parted as she moaned so he could see the pink tip of her tongue.
He pulls the key from the engine and climbs out of the truck, telling himself to man up. He crosses the parking lot and bounds up the concrete stairway. Reaching her room, he gives a loud rap on the door, then thrusts his hands in his pockets as he waits.
Behind him, a motorbike roars to life, engine revving. The sound always reminds him of when Jackson bought an old bike off a guy he worked with at the boatyard. He loved riding around on that thing in his jeans and battered leather jacket—told Saul he got laid all summer because of it.
Out of nowhere the image of his brother with Eva lunges forward. Saul’s whole body tenses as guilt and jealousy vie for space in his head. He can’t stand the thought of his brother’s hands around Eva’s waist, his mouth on hers. Saul has no right to be jealous—Eva was Jackson’s wife—but it doesn’t stop the images from searing.
He exhales hard, pushing thoughts of Jackson away. He knocks again, louder this time. As he waits, he runs a hand through his hair. Christ, he’s like a teenager on a first date. He leans near the door, listening, but he can’t hear any movement from inside.
Stepping back, he checks the door number. It’s definitely the right room. He glances at his watch. It’s noon. Exactly when he said he’d be back from the hospital. He’s starting to worry that Eva’s left. Perhaps she got cold feet—her head must be all over the place right now. Christ, he hopes he hasn’t ruined things by rushing it.
He pulls his phone from his pocket and is about to dial when he hears a voice. “You calling me?”
Eva is standing behind him holding two coffees. She’s wearing a simple cream top, her smooth neck wonderfully bare. She looks impossibly fresh-faced, her eyes wide and clear. “Ran out to get these.”
“Oh,” he says, relief flooding through him.
She holds out his coffee, smiling almost shyly. “How’s your dad?”
“They managed to get a bit of food into him. Hopefully he’ll start building up his strength again.”
“Good. You’ll visit again?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow after work.”
Eva unlocks the room. “I’ll just grab my bag.”
He follows her in. The stale motel smell is disguised by the fresh scent of soap and Eva’s perfume. He glances at the bed. The covers are thrown back and all he can think about is the way she’d lain beneath him right there, her body arching toward him.
“I think that’s everything,” Eva says, picking up her overnight bag.
“Here, let me get that.”
As he takes it from her, she pauses, looking up at him.
His pulse accelerates. “You okay?”
She nods slowly. “Yes. I think I am.”
EVA WATCHES SAUL’S TRUCK pull away in a cloud of red dust. She is smiling as she turns toward the shack, thinking about the light graze of Saul’s stubble against her cheek as he kissed her good-bye. It felt good. More than good.
She looks up, taking in the bay. A light breeze ruffles its surface, but it’s still calm enough for a free-dive and she thinks she’ll take her things in and then check the visibility.
The key to the shack is lodged beneath a flecked pebble and she unlocks the door and swings her bag from her shoulder as she steps inside.
Then she freezes.
Her skin prickles along the nape of her neck: she has the strangest sensation that someone has been in here.
She lowers her bag to the ground and moves slowly forward. “Hello?”
There is no answer.
She scans the room. Everything appears to be exactly as she left it—yet she knows something is not quite right.
It is the smell, she realizes, halting. The air carries the faint scent of leather and an earthy musk. Jackson’s smell.
Her skin turns cool. The room is so strongly laced with his smell that it’s as if he has—just this minute—walked through the shack.
She glances toward the shelf where the photo of her and Jackson used to stand. It is still missing.
She takes a few steps forward until she reaches the bedroom door. She curls her fingers around the metal handle and then pushes it open.
The room is empty, the curtains stirring lightly in the breeze.
Of course it is empty, she tries telling herself lightheartedly. On her pillow she sees Jackson’s red-checked shirt that she sleeps in. She had left it folded there before going to Warrington, but something about it strikes her as odd. She drifts toward it trying to see what is different about it.
When she gets closer, she sees it’s folded just as she left it. She shakes her head briskly, telling herself that this is absurd. These ideas have got to stop.
Just as she turns to leave the room, she finds her hand reaching for the shirt. She plucks it into the air and presses her face into the fabric.
Eva has worn and worn this shirt in the months since Jackson’s death, so any trace of his scent left long ago. But now her nose fills with Jackson’s smell. It is so thick and heavy, it’s as if she is burying her face into his neck.
Her heart drills, blood surging to her head. She drops his shirt to the floor, the material collapsing at her feet with a sigh.
There were so many times when I thought about telling you the truth. What stopped me was always the same thing: fear of losing you. So I’d keep quiet, and the deeper the lies became, the harder it was to reach the truth.
I used to lay small tests for you, gauging your reaction to situations. Once I told you about my colleague Tony, who you’d met a couple of times and liked. He had a gambling problem that he’d been keeping from his wife for years. Eventually she found out, but by then he’d already remortgaged their home to cover up his debts. His wife had thrown him out and he was sleeping on his stepbrother’s sofa.
You listened to
his story and said, “It’s so sad—for both of them.”
I asked, “If it were you, would you have taken him back?”
While you considered the question, I felt my heart starting to race as if you were about to deliver a verdict for us.
Eventually you said, “I like Tony, he’s a lovely guy, but if I were his wife, then no, I don’t think I could take him back.”
“What?”
“It’s not so much the gambling—it’s the fact that he’d been lying to her for so long. She’d never trust him again.”
“But she loves him,” I said, my voice raised a notch.
You lifted your shoulders. “Maybe that’s not always enough.”
25
Saul slides wine bottles from the rack and stands them in a cardboard box. When the rack is empty, he goes to the fridge and opens the lower drawer. Beer bottles lie on their sides, glass gleaming like freshly caught fish. He hesitates for a moment, wondering if he could just keep a couple hidden somewhere. He’ll miss the after-work beer he cracks open on the deck, letting the day fade behind him.
No, he decides as he loads the beers into the box, he can’t leave any alcohol in the house. He grabs the whiskey and rum from the cupboard above the cutlery drawer, and then leaves with the box held to his chest.
Saul follows the bay toward Eva’s shack. It’s a Saturday morning and he sees her from a distance sitting on the edge of the deck, her head bent as if she’s looking at something in her hands. He’s come to think of it as her shack. He knows there’s going to be a time when Joe is back from Darwin, or maybe Eva will decide to leave before that even happens. They haven’t talked about it—it’s almost been a week since they spent the night together in the motel and everything feels tentative, as though they are feeling their way in the dark.
All week Saul’s found himself checking his watch at the end of each day, eager to get out of the lab and back to Eva. The evenings when he’s home early enough, they go free-diving together in the bay. Now that she’s no longer fighting against the water or trying to force her breathing, he’s starting to see a graceful style emerging in her dives. What he loves the most about diving with her is that out in the bay, with the sea on their skin, it feels as though nothing else exists or matters. It’s just them.
