A Single Breath

by Lucy Clarke

  When he gets closer he can see that Eva is fiddling with the strap of a snorkel mask. She wears a sweater, but her legs are bare and nut brown. She looks up, squinting against the sun. And then she smiles, her lips parting, her teeth white against her tanned face.

  That smile. He feels as if it’s pouring right inside him like sunlight, heating some central part of himself. There is something strong between them, he can feel it. And the truth is it terrifies him because, what happens from here?

  A thought of his, a feeling, is suddenly illuminated, clear and bright. His breath shortens as he understands: he is in love with Eva.

  Saul stops in front of her.

  She’s still looking at him, her smile crinkling into mild bemusement.

  He struggles to come up with a single thing to say. All he is thinking is: I’m in love with you. I’m in love with you.

  She glances at the box in his arms, which prompts him to remember what he came over for. “I’ve cleared the house of alcohol. For Dad,” he adds.

  She peers into the box and he sees the smooth skin of the back of her neck. “You’re going to trust me with all that?”

  He should make a quick retort, but his mind is blank. He places the box down and then sits beside her on the edge of the deck. He is so close to Eva that he can feel the heat of her body in the space between them.

  He picks up the snorkel mask and turns it through his hands to give them something to do. “Your mask strap okay?”

  “The clasp got jammed, but I’ve loosened it now.”

  He nods.

  “You still on for hiking up to Eagle Cape?” Eva asks.

  “Yeah.” They’d planned to walk up to the top of the cape, which gives views right out over the Tasman Peninsular. “If we hike from here, it’ll be a couple of hours to the top. You okay with that?”

  “Definitely. We’ve got all afternoon.” Eva smoothes her hair back from her face and he can see the sun freckles across her forehead and a tiny scar above her eyebrow.

  He cannot stop leaning forward and pressing his lips to hers. She tastes sweet and welcoming and he feels her body respond to his.

  Suddenly Saul jerks back.

  On the deck behind Eva he’s caught sight of a checked shirt belonging to Jackson. It’s hanging over the back of a chair, the square angle of the wood filling it out as if Jackson is standing there, broad-shouldered, watching them. Saul remembers the shirt from years ago. Jackson wore nothing else for a whole summer, always having the sleeves pushed up, the collar open.

  “Saul?”

  When he doesn’t answer, Eva twists around, following his gaze. “Oh.”

  “Sorry . . . I just . . . it took me by surprise.” Absurdly, he finds himself taking a step away, putting distance between him and Eva. Looking at the shirt, he could almost believe that Jackson was here minutes ago.

  A cloying jealousy sticks in his throat. He rubs the back of his head, saying, “You . . . wear it?”

  Eva hesitates, her brow dipping at the question. “I sleep in it sometimes.”

  Saul swallows hard, trying to push aside the image of Eva’s naked body wrapped in Jackson’s shirt. What he wants to ask is: Why, after everything he’s done to you, do you still want to feel as if he’s next to you?

  But he doesn’t ask, because he’s not sure he’s ready to hear her answer.

  AN HOUR LATER, EVA follows Saul up a dirt path that ascends through a forest of gum trees, slices of sunlight slanting through the canopy of leaves. The air is damp and earthy, and sweat builds at the waist of her shorts and across her brow.

  Ahead she watches the hard muscles in Saul’s calves as he strides on. He keeps his eyes on the ground watching for tiger snakes, which he’s told her often doze on the warm path at this time of the year. It’s one of the few things they’ve said to each other so far on the walk.

  Eva doesn’t want to feel culpable or embarrassed for sleeping in Jackson’s shirt. She’s barely able to understand it herself; all she knows is that she’d once loved Jackson deeply and she can’t just wash away everything she felt.

  When she’d found the shirt on her pillow almost a week ago, thick with Jackson’s smell, she sat on the bedroom floor with the material pressed into her face, sobbing until the sky fell dark. She knew it was guilt that was causing her mind to play such a powerful trick on her senses, but the experience still left her feeling flayed.

  She needs to move cautiously with Saul, almost an inverse pattern of her relationship with Jackson. She has lost confidence in herself and her own judgments and worries whether—just as her mind conjured up the scent of Jackson—her heart is misguiding her, too? She can’t tell whether she’s falling in love with Saul, or falling in love with the version of Jackson she is mourning. She shakes her head and picks up her pace, trying to close the distance between them.

  It’s another half hour before the path begins to level out and they reach the top of the cape. Saul leads them to a clearing in the trees where she can see the sunstruck ocean glinting. The fresh breeze moves over her skin and she closes her eyes and sighs.

  Saul slides off his pack and takes out a bottle of water, which he passes to Eva. It’s slightly warm, but she drinks from it thirstily, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Behind Eva a fallen log makes the perfect seat and she lowers herself down, the muscles in her legs relaxing. Saul sits beside her, saying, “This spot used to be a lookout point for whalers. They had a station up here so they could see when the whales were coming in and alert the men.”

  Looking out over the open ocean, she feels the timelessness of the place as if it’s been built on ancient bones. “It’s so peaceful up here.”

  “That’s what my mum used to say. She’d hike out here when she needed the space to write. When Jackson and I were young, we’d come with her sometimes and sit on a blanket and draw while Mum wrote.”

  She glances at him and sees that his expression has turned distant. Suddenly she realizes: “This is the place, isn’t it?” She remembers Jackson telling her that their mother was writing in her favorite spot when the bush fire happened.

  “Yes.”

  On the hike up she’d noticed that some of the trees were much smaller than the others lower down; young trees that would have grown since the fire. “Is it strange for you being out here?”

  He thinks for a moment. “I didn’t come for a long time after the fire. Dad never wanted to go back to Wattleboon, so I felt like it’d be wrong somehow if I did.” He crosses his arms, tucking his hands lightly beneath his armpits. “But as I got older, I thought it was sad that none of us ever came here. It’s where Mum’s ashes are scattered. She loved it here.”

  Eva looks out to sea, where a sailing boat is just visible in the distance. “Jackson used to have nightmares about this place.”

  Saul turns, surprised. “Did he?”

  “He’d wake up coughing. The nightmares were about the bush fire. He was out in the woods trying to reach your mum. Trying to save her.”

  “I had no idea. We never spoke about the fire. None of us.”

  “Why not?”

  Saul seems to think about this before he says, “I guess some things are just too hard.”

  THEY FALL INTO STEP, descending through the cool shade of the fir trees, the breeze from the sea at their shoulders. Saul can’t pinpoint why he’s started talking about the fire; perhaps it’s because being with Eva invites an intimacy that he hasn’t felt with anyone else. “I was thirteen at the time. Jackson was fifteen. We’d been on Wattleboon all summer and it was our last weekend in the shack before school started up again.”

  Eva walks at his side, their pace slower than on the climb up. The path is covered in a layer of pine needles and there’s almost no sound to their footsteps. “Dad and I had driven to the other side of the island to look at a boat trailer. I’d just gone for the ride because the guy selling it owned some terrapins—apparently I thought terrapins were the height of cool at thirteen.�
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  He catches Eva’s smile and it gives him the confidence to go on.

  “We were driving back when we saw the smoke. There was this huge, dark cloud that rose into the sky.” Because of the position of the sun behind it, the smoke looked backlit, hazy and magical. He feels guilty now as he remembered his excitement: bush fires always signaled drama and exhilaration and he’d been eager to know what was ablaze.

  Eva asks, “What caused it?”

  “We still don’t know. It’d been a dry summer and the bush was like tinder. Could’ve been anything—a campfire, kids messing around. Sometimes all it takes is for a piece of broken glass to heat up enough to get some dry leaves smoldering.”

  The path narrows so that they have to walk one at a time. He goes first, and somehow telling the story without looking at Eva is easier.

  “Dad dropped me off at the shack and said to make sure everyone stayed there while he went to find out what was going on. But when I went inside, Mum and Jackson weren’t home.”

  He tells Eva how he walked along the bay to Jeanette’s shack and found Jackson inside, lounging on her sofa playing Super Mario Kart. It had annoyed him seeing his brother there: Jeanette was Saul’s friend and Jackson didn’t even like her—but she had a Nintendo and he didn’t.

  “Seen the fire?” Saul asked.

  “Yeah.” Jackson had shrugged without taking his eyes off the screen.

  Jeanette stepped out onto the deck and looked up at the smoke. “Do you think it’ll come this far?”

  “Course it won’t,” Jackson said. “Firemen will be all over it by now.”

  “Dad said we’ve gotta wait back at the shack,” Saul told his brother.

  Jackson didn’t move till he’d finished his game. Then he chucked the handset down and said, “Let’s go.”

  They were just getting back to their place when Dirk swung into the drive. His face was strained and he kept looking up at the sky. “Where’s your mother?”

  “Dunno,” Jackson had said. “Isn’t she here?”

  “Maybe she’s writing?” Saul had suggested.

  He knew it was the wrong answer from the way his father’s features twisted into a dark expression he’d never seen before. “Get in the car!”

  But Saul didn’t move because suddenly it had started to snow. He gazed up at the pale flakes that turned and danced with the warm breeze.

  A flake the size of his thumbnail landed so lightly on the back of his hand that he couldn’t even feel it. He pressed his forefinger to it and the flake disintegrated against his skin, leaving a dark gray smear.

  Then he’d felt a sharp yank on his arm as his father started dragging him toward the car.

  There was a four-wheel-drive route that took you halfway up the track to Eagle Cape, or you could go on foot through the bush. Dirk knocked the car into its lowest gear, the engine straining as they roared along the pitted track. Overhanging branches thwacked against the sides of the car and Saul and Jackson were thrown around so much in the back that their heads smacked against the roof. They tried bracing themselves each time they saw a pothole, but soon they couldn’t even see them because the air was so dense with smoke. It poured in through the air vents and door seals and Saul ducked his head into his T-shirt to stop himself from coughing.

  Dirk had glanced back at his sons, his eyes searching their faces. At the time, Saul had wondered what his father was looking for. But now he knew. Dirk was making a decision: Do I risk my sons’ lives to try and save my wife’s?

  A moment later, Dirk braked hard and then clunked the car into reverse. His face was a gray mask as he twisted around in his seat to reverse back down the smoke-filled track.

  The decision to turn back had haunted him for the rest of his life. The bush burned to the ground. The firemen found their mother’s body three hundred feet away from the lookout point where she went to write. She’d been trying to run.

  When Saul finishes speaking, he looks at Eva. They are no longer walking and have come to a standstill on the narrow path, facing each other. He’d never spoken about the fire before and it felt good to have shared it with her.

  “The fire—that’s why your dad hasn’t come back to Wattleboon?”

  “Yeah. He always said it was too hard—too many memories. But hiding from the past, that’s not done him any good. It hasn’t done any of us any good.”

  “Tomorrow you’re bringing him back to your place?”

  Saul nods. “That’s the plan. Although I’m half expecting him to change his mind.”

  “Maybe it’ll be good for him to be here.”

  “I hope so.”

  She steps forward and puts her arms around him. Her body is warm and slight and the muscles in his chest contract.

  “Eva,” he says quietly, pulling back a little. He doesn’t want to say this—he wishes everything were simpler and he didn’t have to. “I was thinking, if Dad does stay, I’m not sure whether we should tell him . . . you know, about . . . well, us.” With the toe of his boot he nudges at the pine needles on the ground. “I want you to know that it’s not because I’m in any way ashamed of what’s happening. I mean that. It’s just, I think right now it might be difficult for Dad to understand.”

  She nods slowly. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  They look at each other for a long moment, and then they continue on.

  26

  Saul parks the truck in front of his house. He glances at his father, who sits in the passenger seat. It’s been fifteen years since Dirk last stepped foot on Wattleboon.

  Saul climbs out of the truck and opens the door for his father, helping him down.

  “The air,” Dirk says, his eyes wide. “I remember it exactly.”

  Saul breathes in the faint peppermint of the gums, the tang of brine, the rich earthy smell of the soil.

  Dirk stands very still. “This is right where I parked my old Ford when I brought Lynn and you boys here for the first time. There wasn’t a proper track then, just a steep dirt path that I had to put the car in first gear to get up.”

  “It’s changed a lot,” Saul agrees. He’s graveled and widened the track, and cleared some of the trees to make more of the view. There’s new fencing, the old tree stumps have been dug out, and a new water unit has gone in.

  Dirk starts moving, ambling forward with small steps as he circles the house. He runs a hand along the woodwork, and Saul sees him checking the sealed knots and smooth joins. Dirk makes a fist of his hand and taps his knuckles against the wood. “Good, strong Huon pine,” he says.

  When Dirk reaches the front of the house, he stops. “The view.” His face breaks into a smile as he looks toward the sweep of the bay. “This was the view that made me buy the plot of land all those years ago. Your mother and I used to love watching you boys running down to the bay together.”

  Saul smiles. “Here, I want to show you something else.”

  They move toward the edge of the garden, Dirk struggling on the uneven ground.

  “You okay?” Saul asks. “We can do this later.”

  Dirk waves a hand through the air. “I’ve been sitting on my arse all week in the hospital. Being up and about in the fresh air—that’s the best medicine I know.”

  They get a little way through the trees when Saul stops, pointing ahead of them.

  Dirk halts, blinking. His hands rise to the collar of his shirt. “My God! Our shack!”

  Seeing the surprise on Dirk’s face, Saul smiles.

  “I can’t believe it. But . . . how?”

  “I dismantled it. Moved it here.”

  Dirk shakes his head. “I remember building it, erecting the timber structure, hammering down each plank of wood, laying the roof on a hot, windless day. And you’ve re-pieced it all.” He turns to look at Saul. “Why?”

  Saul knows life moves on and history is history, but he wanted to keep a piece of their family, show that it meant something to him. He tells his father, “It wouldn’t have been right to knock
it down. Plus, if you wanted to come and stay again sometime, you may fancy your own space.”

  Dirk places a large hand on his shoulder. “Thank you,” he says with meaning.

  THREE DAYS LATER EVA stands in the bedroom holding a large glass of red wine and wondering what to wear. Saul has invited her over for dinner with Dirk and, stupidly, her stomach churns with nerves.

  After her disastrous first meeting with Dirk, she has no idea how this will go. She wonders if he will apologize, or whether he still resents her for coming out to Tasmania. Dirk is the one person whom Jackson spoke to about his life in England, the only one who knew Eva existed. He must have some answers. As she thinks about the evening ahead, she realizes she’s both desperate to hear, and afraid to hear, what Dirk has to say.

  Eva takes a sip of wine thinking it’s strange that when she was writing to him from England she believed they had a rapport, yet in person that closeness didn’t exist.

  A thought spears her: what if Dirk never got her letters? He hadn’t wanted Eva to marry Jackson, so why would he be writing to her? Her fingers tighten around her wineglass as she realizes that the letters were probably just another layer to Jackson’s deception. It would explain why Jackson had always offered to send the letters from the mail room at work, and why she’d found two of them unsent in his bedside drawer.

  It would also mean that Jackson had forged Dirk’s return letters. Bile rises in her throat at the thought of all this would entail: perfecting fake handwriting, buying airmail stationery, leaving the letters out for Eva to read. The lengths he’d gone to in order to deceive her were astounding.

  Anger pulses through her veins. How dare he! How dare he do this to her! Humiliate her. Tear her memories apart. Tell her he loved her over and over . . .

  Glass explodes into the room.

  Her hand and chest are covered in red liquid. Everywhere there are fragments of glass.