A Single Breath

by Lucy Clarke

  “No . . .” he says, but she can see he’s losing conviction in his own theory. “You were sobbing. I hated seeing how much I’d hurt you. I wanted to comfort you. I’m your . . .” He grinds to a halt.

  “Husband?” Eva finishes. She looks closely at Jackson, trying to find traces of the man she’d married, the man she’d promised her future to.

  But he is no longer her husband. In truth, he never really was.

  A TAP ON THE window makes Saul turn. A large tiger moth has hit the glass and is trying to beat its way through to the light.

  “So what now?” Saul says, turning back to the room and pushing his hands into his pockets. “What do you want? Are you gonna go to the police? Tell Jeanette?” He wonders if she’s owed that honesty, or whether it’ll be worse hearing the great lengths Jackson went to in order to excavate her from his life.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Jackson says, his fingers kneading at his forehead. “I can’t decide what to do.”

  It was so like Jackson: reactive, impulsive, thinking only of the moment and not the potential consequences of his actions.

  “What about Dad?” Saul asks.

  Jackson stares at Saul. “How is he?”

  “He’s doing okay,” Saul says more gently. “Given up the drinking.”

  “Yeah? That’s really good to hear.”

  “If it lasts, it is.”

  “I saw him. Here. Saw you all having dinner together out on the deck.”

  From the sofa, Eva glances up sharply.

  Saul sees her surprise and remembers how, the evening Jackson is talking of, Eva had suddenly risen from the table and drifted down to the garden’s edge, her face washed pale. Now he wonders whether she had sensed Jackson watching them all from a distance.

  “When I saw Dad, he didn’t look too good,” Jackson says. “He’s ill, isn’t he?”

  “Pancreatitis. Like before.”

  “Is it serious?”

  Saul nods.

  “You reckon he’ll stay off the drink?”

  “He says he wants to. But who knows. If he doesn’t, it could end him.”

  Jackson is silent for some time. Then he says, “He couldn’t cope with . . . this. Could he?”

  Saul’s been asking himself the same question. It’s not only the deception that Jackson is alive that Dirk would have to deal with, but also the truth about the bush fire, which would unearth all the pain of losing his wife. Saul worries that he’s too fragile, that it’ll send him straight back to the bottle. Eventually he answers, “No, I don’t think he could.”

  He sees Jackson swallow as he absorbs what this means.

  As Saul stands at the edge of the living room looking at his brother, he feels a decision beginning to form. He can’t control what Jackson does next, or what Eva wants, but he does know his own mind. Sweat builds at his temples and across his brow as he realizes what he’s about to say.

  “I don’t want to lie to Dad, live a split life where I’m in contact with you but keeping it from him. It wouldn’t work.”

  Jackson remains very still, so Saul forces himself to go on. “What happened the day of the bush fire was an accident. You were just a kid who made a mistake. I wish you’d told me what happened, trusted me with the truth, but what’s done is done.” He pauses, letting his eyes meet his brother’s as he says, “I forgive you for it.”

  Emotion stains Jackson’s face as he battles against the tears that are welling in his eyes.

  There is more to say and Saul holds Jackson’s gaze steady as he talks. “But I need to ask you to forgive me, too. You’re my brother and I love you, but I can’t have you in my life. Not now, Jackson. Not ever.”

  Jackson’s expression is stretched thin with pain as he nods. “I understand.”

  After a moment, he rises from his chair so that he is standing eye level with Saul. He reaches out his hand.

  Saul looks at it for a moment, then clasps it.

  They do not hug, or hold each other, but instead shake hands: it is a gesture of agreement, of forgiveness, of good-bye.

  EVA WATCHES AS SAUL slips out onto the deck, pulling the sliding glass doors behind him. A fresh drift of sea air reaches her and then disperses in the dry heat of the room. She has the fleeting sensation that she is trapped here with Jackson, sealed indoors.

  Jackson’s face is filled with anguish as he watches his brother go.

  “Oh, Jackson.” Eva sighs, feeling worn down, exhausted. She wonders if she can walk away from him, too, abandon the man she’d loved. “What is it you want?”

  His gaze is heartbreakingly sad and he holds her in it as he says, “To go back.”

  She closes her own eyes. “We can’t.”

  “I could come clean, go to the police, tell them what I’ve done.”

  “And go to jail? Ruin your dad? You lied to everyone, Jackson.” She thinks of the memorial service and all the people who’d come, telling her what a good man Jackson was. Who would he have left to go back to?

  “Or we could go somewhere, you and me. Start fresh.” The words sound hollow and she sees he doesn’t believe them himself.

  She gets to her feet and moves toward Saul’s bookcase, letting her eyes trail the titles. Her gaze rests on The Sea Around Us, the book Jackson had once told her inspired his decision to be a marine biologist. A lie. So many lies.

  When she turns back to Jackson, she says, “You told me that we’d visit Tasmania together in the autumn.”

  His eyes brighten. “I’d always wanted to bring you here.”

  “But you couldn’t have,” she says, a fist of anger clenching tight in her stomach. “You’d have had to make up an excuse about why we couldn’t come. What would you’ve said, Jackson?”

  “I . . . I don’t—”

  “That your dad was ill, or the flights were too expensive, or work wouldn’t let you go?” All the lies he’d told begin circling in her thoughts; the letters from Dirk he’d forged; the stories about traveling; his fake career as a marine biologist; the wedding day he’d had before; Jeanette’s arrival in London; the final moments fishing on the rocks. “I was so pathetically trusting, lying to me must have been easy.”

  “I hated lying to you!” Jackson shouts, his face flushed, his eyes glassy. “It tore me up. I wanted it to be true so much that I couldn’t bear it.”

  If that were true, she cannot begin to imagine the stress Jackson must’ve been under keeping all those lies spinning. He would’ve been constantly on edge, needing to remember each of the intricate mistruths that he’d woven together.

  She pictures him on the morning he disappeared, sheltering beneath a tarpaulin in a boat. As his body shuddered with cold and shock, his thoughts must have been pared right back to the desire to survive. Perhaps he’d felt so exhausted by it all that he just wanted to begin again, have a clean slate. He must’ve known that it wasn’t just Jeanette’s arrival in the UK that pushed him into a corner: his lies had already boxed him in a long time ago.

  “You were always going to run,” she says, straightening as realization dawns. “That’s why you allowed your lies to get bigger, more complicated. You were in so deep that you knew one day your only choice would be to leave.”

  She wants him to refute this statement and tell her that he saw his future with her, but Jackson gives the lightest of nods.

  Something within her collapses, like a tent sighing to the ground. “My God,” she whispers, putting a hand to her mouth. “You knew one day all the lies would catch up with you. That’s why you put money aside, wasn’t it?”

  He looks at her, tears spilling onto his cheeks.

  “You were always going to run,” she repeats, the truth spooling out before her. “You’ve done it before. You ran from the bush fire, you ran from Jeanette and Kyle, and you ran from me.”

  Her heart breaks—for him, for herself—as she says, “And you’re still running now.”

  SAUL SITS ON THE deck watching the pearl-gray glow of daylight emerging at t
he edge of the horizon. He feels drained. He doesn’t want to think about what’s happening inside the walls of his home so he keeps his gaze steady on the bay.

  Sometime later the sliding doors open and Eva steps out. The floodlight flares on, but she reaches for the wall and flicks it off, a fading darkness settling over the deck once more. She pulls up a chair beside his and looks out over the bay. They sit in silence listening to the murmur of the water and the first notes of birdsong rising from the bush.

  Despite everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, sitting here beside Eva, Saul feels almost peaceful. When she first arrived on Wattleboon, it was as though she had opened a window inside him and shown him an entirely new view of the world. Now he cannot imagine his life without her in it.

  “Callie said you’ve decided to leave tomorrow.”

  “Yes.”

  “You were on your way over here to tell me.”

  She nods.

  He shifts his chair so he’s directly facing her. She still wears his sweater, the sleeves bunched at her wrists. Her hair has dried in soft waves around her face and he thinks she looks young, tired. He leans across and takes both her hands. They are warm and small within his.

  “Eva, I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through. I truly am.” He plans to tell her that she is strong and brave and will cope with whatever decision she makes, and that there is no pressure from him. But when he opens his mouth, instead he says, “Earlier Jackson told me I never fight for anything—and he is right. So this is me fighting: I don’t want you to leave, Eva.”

  He holds her hands tighter within his. “This place has come alive since you’ve been here. It feels like home to me now, not because it’s tied to my past—but because I can see a future here. If none of this had happened—if you hadn’t married my brother, if Jackson hadn’t chosen to disappear, if he wasn’t sitting inside right now—then you’d just be an English girl that came to Tas. And when everything is stripped away and I think of it like that, suddenly it’s simple: I’m in love with you.”

  He thinks of the weeks she’s been here and it’s not the difficult times that he remembers, it’s the sound of her laughter at the squid ink on Callie’s shins; it’s the beautiful moment they hung suspended underwater watching a sea dragon; it’s the way sunlight glances off her face, lighting the amber flecks of her eyes. They made those moments, the two of them. And if they managed to find happiness among all the turbulence, then he knows they can find it again.

  Tears gather on Eva’s lower lids. She presses her lips together and does not speak.

  “I don’t have any answers about what happens next,” Saul says, “or how we can make this work. All I know, all I can tell you, is that I’ll do my best to make you happy. Always. So please, Eva. Stay.”

  38

  Eva leaves the house, her footsteps moving in rhythm with his. Outside the sky has lightened, a pale oyster dawn yawning. It won’t be long until sunrise. They’ve talked through the night and Eva feels as though she has no more words left in her, no more energy to listen. But oddly, she no longer feels afraid.

  What she feels is a strange sense of calm. It reminds her of the long, stressful nights on the labor ward, when the more pressure she was under, the more lucid her thoughts became, giving her the composure to take control of whatever situation she was faced with.

  They move through the damp garden, a chorus of birds singing their greetings. Soon the sun will lift out of the sea and a new day will begin.

  The stone steps are cool against her bare soles as they climb down to the bay. In the predawn light she feels as if they don’t really exist, that they are drifting somewhere transient, caught between night and day.

  They walk side by side along the empty beach, moving in a dreamlike state, the sand absorbing the noise of their footsteps, the lapping of the water almost in beat with their breath. Neither of them speaks.

  They are halfway along the bay when Eva notices a dark shape on the shore. At first she thinks it is a pile of kelp, but as they draw nearer she realizes it’s her wetsuit and fins that she left here last night. It already seems a lifetime ago that she was standing here, swilling the shallows with her feet.

  She gazes out over the bay. The water is a soft mauve, glassy and still. Without a word, she slips off her clothes. She feels his eyes on her body but she does not mind that he sees her. She shivers as she pulls on the wetsuit, the cool neoprene damp with dew.

  Then she turns and faces Jackson. She takes his hand and feels the warmth of his fingers closing around hers.

  “What will you do now?”

  He smiles at her bravely. “Go somewhere else. Start again.”

  She knows that he will. Jackson will be able to build a new life—a good life. She believes that. She has to.

  Eva doesn’t hate him for what he’s done. She knows it was a child’s lie that spawned a chain of events he couldn’t break out of. She holds his hand tight in her own as she says just one word. They both know it is the only word there can be.

  “Good-bye.”

  Then her fingers slide free of his.

  Eva wades into the sea, the water slipping over her feet, around her legs, circling her waist. She pulls on the mask and fins, then falls forward letting the bay carry her. She swims out with clean, smooth strokes, slicing through the water until she is in the middle of the bay.

  She floats with her arms outstretched at her side, her face gazing down into the sea. The cold chills her cheeks and she tastes salt on her lips. Her breathing begins to settle and her heart rate slows.

  Only then does she draw a deep, full breath, filling her lungs with crisp air. She dives down and the world closes behind her. She descends through layers of cool blue as if the sea is melting around her. She slides downward, arms pressed to her thighs, her legs working as one.

  As she moves deeper underwater she sees there is so much beneath the surface that she hasn’t noticed before; tiny flecks of plankton that spin and dance in the light; intricate patterns on the ribbons of seaweed swaying beneath her; the way the whole sea sparkles with air bubbles so tiny they look like glitter.

  When she begins to feel her lungs whispering their desire for air, she stops kicking and, for a moment, she feels as if she’s hovering, entirely weightless.

  The peaceful motion seems to loosen her thoughts, unknotting them. They are set free and she sees everything with a bright, liquid clarity. She thinks of the babies she has delivered in birthing pools and how they can stay peacefully underwater until they take their first breath and then their whole world changes. She thinks of the early free-dives she made with Saul when she had gone down fighting the ocean—but come up having understood something about it and herself. She thinks of Jackson in the freezing sea, the shadow of his past standing over him, the trace of a decision already being made.

  She realizes how much can change with a single breath.

  Her lungs call to her now, demanding air—but she holds herself still. She imagines an airplane taking off for England in a few hours’ time, her sitting beside Callie, watching the contours of Tasmania shrinking until it is only the size of a thumbprint left behind on her heart.

  And then she knows what it is she wants.

  Eva looks up and kicks for the surface. As she floats toward the silver skin of the sea, she sees a brilliant red orb glowing above the bay. She knows that when she surfaces, the first rays of sunlight will be breaking, pouring over the sea. She understands that the beach will be empty, Jackson gone. And she hopes that Saul will be standing on his deck, the light of the new day warm on his face as he holds onto the railing, watching for her.

  Author’s Note

  Bruny Island, which lies off the southeastern coast of Tasmania, was the inspiration behind the fictional setting of Wattleboon. Good friends introduced me to the wild landscapes and seascapes of Bruny over two Tasmanian summers. We camped, fished, dived, and hiked, and Bruny nestled so deeply into my heart that by the tim
e I returned to England, I knew I must set my novel there. I chose to apply some artistic license and reimagine the landscape to suit the fiction of A Single Breath.

  Acknowledgments

  This book started out as just a thread of an idea. That thread was slowly woven into a story, onto a page, and finally into this book you’re now holding. There are many people I have to thank for that.

  Firstly, a huge thanks to Becky and Hugo Jones, great friends and fellow adventurers, who introduced me to the rugged beauty of Tasmania, and showed me how to catch a squid, shuck an oyster, and cook a flathead. Know this: James and I will be back!

  Secondly, I’d like to thank my wonderful agent, Judith Murray, for her smart counsel and continued support. (I sleep easier knowing you’re in my corner!) I also work with a brilliant and enthusiastic team at HarperCollins, and across the pond at Touchstone/Simon & Schuster. In particular, thank you to my insightful editors, Kimberley Young and Sally Kim.

  Many people have helped with the research for this novel, including Dr. Gretta Pecl, who has an expansive knowledge in the field of cephalopods; Dr. Oliver Atkinson for his help with medical queries; Hannah Stone for her insights into midwifery; and Emma and Jane Reed-Wilson for talking to me about TV production.

  I’m VERY grateful to my network of friends who are kind enough to read my early drafts—and brave enough to share their thoughts. Thank you for helping shape this book.

  Thank you to my parents and parents-in-law, who are my cheering squad and editorial advisors. A special thanks to my mother—always my first reader—who somehow manages to leave a message of encouragement on my answering machine just when I’m hitting a wall.

  And finally, my husband, James. I’m dedicating this book to him because he’s the one I talk to in the kitchen about plot problems and misbehaving characters; he’s the one who traipses around the world with me on quests for inspiration and setting details; he’s the one who surfaces from a free-dive and lets me question him about what he saw. He’s the one who hugs me when I’m struggling; the one who laughs with me when I’m celebrating; the one who anchors me when I’m adrift. He’s the one.