A Single Breath. Lucy Clarke

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СКАЧАТЬ is unsettling. Looking towards the edge of the bay where Saul’s house stands, she feels a thread of unease snake through her. He is the only one who knows she is here, a man Jackson told her he couldn’t trust. She wishes she hadn’t left her car at the jetty; she would feel safer knowing that she could leave.

      She settles into a canvas chair on the deck, the seat damp with dew. The sound of her mobile phone suddenly ringing makes her jump, the screen flashing like a siren in the darkness.

      Pressing the phone to her ear, she answers. ‘Hello?’

      There is the sound of a connection at the other end, a distant line. But no voice.

      ‘Hello? Eva speaking.’

      She waits, hearing only the bay murmuring beyond her.

      ‘Hello?’ she repeats. ‘Sorry, I can’t hear anything. Hello?’

      Silence.

      Then there is a faint noise and she is almost certain that it’s the sound of someone drawing a breath.

      A moment later, the line goes dead.

      Eva stares at the phone in her hand. The display shows that it was an international call, but there’s no number. She waits, hoping the caller will ring back. She is desperate to hear a familiar voice from home, someone to remind her that she’s not alone.

      But the caller doesn’t phone again. Eva draws her knees to her chest, and pulls the long sleeves of Jackson’s checked shirt down over her hands. She buries her face into the open collar and breathes in deeply, trying to draw his scent from the fabric.

      But there is nothing.

      *

      Hazy morning sunlight teases Eva awake and she opens her eyes to the shimmer of the bay. Her clothes feel damp and her neck aches. She rolls her head from side to side to loosen the muscles in her shoulders. The blanket has slipped to the ground and she sees her hands are resting on her abdomen.

      She removes them in a flash and holds onto the sides of the chair. She sits like this for a moment, looking as if she is bracing herself.

      Then very slowly she draws her hands back to her stomach, sliding them beneath her shirt. Her fingertips move in a slow circle across the warm skin of her lower belly. It is faint, but it is there: the swell of a baby.

      Jackson’s baby.

      She realizes that a part of Jackson is still here, still living. He has left a piece of himself behind for Eva to nurture. She feels a surge of love for him that enfolds her like an embrace. The corners of her lips lift into a quiet smile as she imagines Jackson watching her as she sits here looking out over the bay, their baby growing in her stomach.

      She stays on the deck with her hands on her stomach for some time, letting her thoughts settle around the idea of their child. Eventually she goes into the shack, changes into a pair of shorts and a cardigan, and packs up her bag. She makes a cup of instant coffee and sits on the edge of the deck to drink it, wondering when Saul will come for her. Looking towards the far end of the bay, she can just make out his house. Tall trees clamber up a rocky hill and at the top there is the slant of a roof.

      Her gaze sweeps away over the bay, which is glistening beneath a rising sun. There’s an outcrop of dark rocks at the edge of the water, and beyond them the contours of Tasmania are mauve shadows in the distance.

      At the edge of her vision she notices someone down by the shore. She shades a hand in front of her eyes and sees Saul at the water’s edge, slipping on a pair of fins. He moves into the shallows and seems to melt into the water, kicking with powerful strokes.

      She watches him swim until he’s right out in the middle of the bay. There he stops and floats on the surface, arms outstretched at his sides.

      After a minute or two he makes a smooth dive and the sea settles around him as if he had never been there.

      Eva waits.

      Time passes slowly.

      She knows he will come back up, yet she feels her heart quicken.

      Twenty seconds, now. Thirty, perhaps?

      She becomes aware of her pulse ticking in her throat and the cold Atlantic sea dripping into her thoughts. The flash of an orange lifeboat. The roar of a helicopter in the sky.

      Her mouth turns dry as she waits, her gaze pinned to the point at which he dived down. He has to come up. She knows he must. Yet her heart is drilling against the cage of her ribs.

      Without thinking, she is suddenly jumping from the deck and jogging towards the water. With each step, she is back on that Dorset beach in December, gusts of sand sheeting along the beach, the wild, grey seascape empty of Jackson.

      Eva stops at the shoreline, panting. The sun glances off the water, making her squint as she scans the bay for Saul. But it is mirror flat; there is not a ripple.

      Sweat prickles underarm. Could she swim out far enough to reach him? Would it be better to call for help? Would anyone even hear?

      More images flood through her mind: a policeman speaking into a radio; a crowd of people huddled together, waiting; a lifeboat making a search pattern in the raging sea.

      Then suddenly there’s movement out in the middle of the bay. Saul breaks through the surface. She imagines the water pouring from his face as he gasps for air.

      She steps back, the tension in her muscles sending tremors through her body and making her knees shake. She waits for the tide of relief to fill her, but it never comes. Because all Eva is thinking is: It’s not Jackson.

      *

      When Saul wades in, he finds Eva standing on the shore, her expression taut. He puts down his mask and fins and wipes the salt water from his face. ‘Everything okay?’

      She nods quickly. She takes a breath, then asks, ‘Good dive?’

      ‘Like glass out there.’

      She glances over the length of the bay. ‘It’s quiet here.’

      ‘Yeah, every so often you get the odd fishing boat or kayaker passing. That’s about it.’

      Silence follows. A gull soars above, white wings struck with sunlight. They both watch as it glides beyond them, dipping low to the water.

      Saul shifts on the spot. ‘The shack all right for you?’

      ‘Yes. Very comfortable,’ she answers banally.

      ‘Good.’

      ‘Thanks for organizing it.’

      ‘No problem.’

      Small talk sets like a cast around the delicate bones of what they’re both afraid to talk about: Jackson.

      ‘I can run you to your car in a bit?’

      She nods. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘Where’ll you go next?’

СКАЧАТЬ