A Single Breath: A gripping, twist-filled thriller that will have you hooked

When we met for the first time and you focused your wide, hazel eyes on me, I felt like I did as a boy – light, hopeful, free.

Like I said, Eva, two years with you wasn’t long enough.

But it was two years more than I deserved.

2

Eva sits on the edge of the bed gazing numbly at the phone in her hand. She’s still in her pyjamas, yet she has the feeling it is nearing evening again. Her mother keeps popping upstairs to encourage her to do things: Take a shower. Get some fresh air. Call Callie. But everything feels so utterly pointless that Eva doesn’t even answer. Instead, she stays in her room waiting for Jackson to walk back in, kiss her on the mouth, and say in his beautiful, lilting accent, Don’t worry, darl. I’m here now.

It’s been four days. The coastguard tells them it is possible his body will wash up further down the coast, towards Lyme Regis or Plymouth, because of the strong north-easterlies. But she’s not ready to think about a body, her husband’s body …

The red woollen hat Jackson had been wearing was recovered. An apologetic policewoman brought it around sealed inside a clear plastic bag. Eva had stared at the condensation forming against the polythene, thinking it looked as if the hat were breathing.

Downstairs she hears the low voices of her mother greeting someone. Her name is spoken and then Jackson’s. She catches the word tragic.

The house has been awash with visitors and Eva finds it odd how similar death can be to birth: the cards propped on windowsills, the bunches of flowers perfuming each room, the food in plastic containers stacked in the fridge. Then the hushed voices, broken sleeps, and the knowledge that life will never be the same again.

She blinks, her focus returning to the phone. She must speak to Dirk, Jackson’s father. She feels guilty that it was the police, rather than she herself, who informed him of what happened. But Eva couldn’t. She just couldn’t find the words.

She glances at the long number written in pen across the back of her hand, then dials. Pressing the phone to her ear, she listens to the foreign ringtone, thinking about the physical distance between them. They are on opposite sides of the earth; there it is morning, here evening; there it is summer, here winter.

She has only spoken to Dirk once and that was before she and Jackson were married. They kept in light contact by writing and she took pleasure in composing those letters on quiet evenings curled up on the sofa. She loved receiving Dirk’s replies, which were written in a spidery hand on airmail stationery and gave her a glimpse of Jackson’s life in Tasmania.

‘Yeah?’ a gruff voice answers.

‘Dirk?’ She clears her throat. ‘It’s Eva. Jackson’s wife.’

There is silence at the other end.

She waits, wondering if it’s a bad connection. She runs her tongue over her teeth. Her mouth feels dry and somehow swollen.

‘Right,’ he says eventually.

‘I … I’ve been wanting to call … but, well.’ She pushes a hand through her matted hair, rubbing her scalp. ‘I know the police have spoken to you.’

‘He drowned. That’s what they told me.’ His voice wavers as he says, ‘Drowned while fishing.’

‘He was swept in by a wave.’ She pauses. ‘The water here – it’s cold. Freezing. A lifeboat came. And a helicopter, too. They searched all day …’

‘Have they found his body?’

‘No. No, not yet. I’m sorry.’

There is silence.

‘They found the hat he was wearing,’ she offers, although she knows this isn’t enough. Nothing – other than Jackson – can be enough.

‘I see,’ he says slowly.

‘I’m sorry. I should’ve called you sooner, not let the police do it, but … I just … I can’t seem to get my head straight.’ She feels tears blocking up her throat. She takes a breath. ‘None of it feels … real.’

Dirk says nothing.

She swallows back her tears and takes a moment to gather herself. Then she says, ‘There’ll need to be a funeral … or memorial service.’ These are words her mother keeps on saying to her. ‘I don’t know when it’ll be yet … after Christmas, I suppose. Maybe you’d like to come over for it?’

‘Right.’ She hears a chair being scraped across a floor, then a clink of glass. She waits a moment.

When Dirk doesn’t say anything, she finds herself filling the silence. ‘I know you don’t like to fly, but if you did want to come you’d be welcome. You could stay at our place … my place,’ she corrects herself. She squeezes the roots of her hair, feeling herself coming undone. Everything she has wanted to say seems to have been tipped out of her brain. ‘Jackson’s brother is welcome. I know things between them were …’ She fumbles for a word, but only comes up with ‘strained’.

‘No, no. I don’t think so. I don’t think it’d work.’

Her throat thickens. She wants Dirk to say he’ll come. She may not know her father-in-law, but they are connected by their shared love of Jackson, their shared loss. ‘Please,’ she says. ‘Think about it.’

*

Somehow, time continues to crawl forward. The days pass for Eva in a thick fog of grief. She’ll only remember brief moments from this period: a tray of food untouched outside her door; a dawn walk to the rocks, from which she returns soaked and shivering; a bunch of lilies that drop orange pollen onto her mother’s glass table, which Eva smears with a fingertip.

Now, a month later, she stands in her dressing gown in front of the full-length mirror. In half an hour a car is arriving to take her to her husband’s memorial service. She is 29 and a widow.

‘Widow,’ she says to the mirror, trying out the word. ‘I’m a widow.’

Leaning close to her reflection, she sees how drawn she’s become. The skin around her nose and the corners of her mouth is pink and cracked. She notices the new crease between her eyebrows and presses her fingertips against it, trying to smooth away the frown that seems to have settled there.

Footsteps sound up the wooden stairway, accompanied by the jangle of a bracelet sliding along the banister. Then there is a bright knock at the door and Callie, her best friend, sweeps in, filling the room with her smile.

She lays a dress on the bed, and then she crosses the room to Eva and wraps her arms around her from behind. A head taller, Callie lowers her chin to rest on Eva’s shoulder, so both their faces are visible in the mirror.

In a low voice she says, ‘This is going to be a hard day. But you will get through it. And you will get through the other hard days that follow. And then there will be some days when it’s not so hard. Okay?’

Eva nods.

Callie fetches the dress and holds it up for Eva. ‘I got it from that shop you like near Spitalfields. What do you think? If it’s not right, I’ve got two backups in the car.’

Eva undoes her dressing gown and steps into the heavy black material, which tapers in at her waist. She pulls the zip up her side and then faces herself in the mirror. The dress fits as if it’s been made for her.

Callie smiles. ‘You know what Jackson would’ve said, don’t you?’

Eva nods. Look at you, darl. Just look at you! She closes her eyes, briefly losing herself to the memory of his voice and the image of him taking her hand and turning her once on the spot, making a low whistle as she spun.

Callie glances at her silver wristwatch and says, ‘The car will be arriving in twenty minutes. When we get to the church, you’re just going to walk straight in with your mother. I spoke to the priest about the music. That was fine to change tracks.’

‘Thank you.’

Callie squeezes her hand. ‘You okay?’

Eva tries for a smile but it doesn’t come. Her head throbs at the temples and she feels raw inside. ‘It feels … too soon.’

‘What do you mean?’ Callie asks softly.

Eva bites down on her bottom lip. ‘Four weeks. Is it long enough to wait?’

‘Wait for what?’

She swallows. On the morning of your husband’s memorial service you do not say, I am still waiting for him to come back. So instead she says, ‘It’s just … I can’t picture it, Cal. I can’t imagine my life without Jackson in it.’

*

In Tasmania, Saul unclips his seat belt and leans forward, his thick hands locked together on the steering wheel of his truck. He gazes through the windscreen at the view from the top of Mount Wellington. On a clear day it feels as if you can see the whole of Tasmania from up here, but this afternoon the vista is obscured by the gathering clouds.

Beside him, his father shifts in the passenger seat as he slips a silver flask from his suit pocket. His hands tremble as he unscrews the lid. Whisky fumes seep into the truck.

‘One for courage,’ Dirk says.

Saul looks away, watching instead as the mourners arrive in their dark suits. Some of them are friends of Jackson’s that Saul hasn’t seen in years – from school, or the boatyard – but most are people Saul’s never even met.

Dirk tucks the flask back in his pocket. He sniffs hard, then says, ‘Ready?’

Saul slips the key from the ignition and climbs out of the truck. Sharp mountain air fills his lungs, and his borrowed suit jacket flaps in the breeze. He does up his top button, then bends to look in the dust-covered wing mirror as he straightens his tie.

When he’s done, they walk reluctantly towards the group of mourners. Beside him, Dirk says, ‘No father should have to outlive his son.’ He gives a terse shake of his head, adding, ‘England! He should never’ve bloody gone there!’

‘Will there be a service or anything over there?’

‘Yeah. They’re having a memorial, too.’

‘Who’s arranged it?’

‘His wife—’

Saul stops. He turns to look at his father, who has frozen on the spot, his mouth hanging open. ‘What did you just say?’

Dirk screws up his eyes, then rubs a thick hand across his face.

‘Dad?’

Dirk exhales hard. When he opens his eyes, he looks directly at Saul. ‘You and me, son, we’re gonna need to have a talk.’

3

Eva slots the key into the door lock, then hesitates. She hasn’t been back to their flat since Jackson’s death. She’s been staying with her mother, as she wanted to get through Christmas and then the memorial service before she could even think of returning. Perhaps it was a mistake to refuse her mother’s offer of coming to the flat with her. She’d insisted on doing it alone, but now the idea of going inside fills her with dread.

She takes a deep breath, then pushes open the door, putting the weight of her shoulder behind it to force it over the mound of post on top of the doormat. With her foot, she moves aside junk mail, Christmas cards and bills, and squeezes into the hallway. The air smells musty and stale, and there’s an undertone of leather from Jackson’s coat that hangs on a hook behind the door.

She puts down her bag and moves silently along the hall, peering into each room. She has the strangest sensation that if she moves slowly enough, she may catch Jackson lounging on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table, or see his long back in the shower as water streams down his body.

But, of course, the flat is empty. A deep wave of loneliness storms her. It is so intense and so absolute that it steals the breath from her lungs and the floor seems to lurch beneath her. She leans against the wall for balance, breathing deeply till the sensation passes. She must hold it together. Jackson has gone and she is alone. These are the facts and she needs to get used to them.

After a moment or two, she swallows, lifts her chin, then propels herself towards the kitchen. In a rush of movement, she throws the windows wide open, hearing traffic, voices, the scuffling of a pigeon on the roof. Then she flicks on the central heating and hurries through the flat switching on lamps, radios and the TV. Noise and light and fresh air swirl through the rooms.

Eva keeps her coat on and returns to the kitchen. She will make tea, and then unpack. Kettle. Fill it with water, she tells herself. She curls her fingers around the handle, glancing away from her reflection which is distorted in the curve of aluminium. She carries it over to the sink – and then freezes.

A used tea bag lies there, bloated and dried out, the basin stained rust brown around it. It’s Jackson’s. He had the infuriating habit of dropping his tea bags in the sink, not the bin. Seeing it is such a tiny, inconsequential detail of his life, but somehow the mundaneness of it is what chokes her.

She stands there staring with the kettle poised in her hand, thinking that right now she would give anything to watch Jackson walk into this kitchen, make a cup of tea, and drop the tea bag into the sink with a wet thud.

Eva puts the kettle back and drifts into the bedroom, where the radio is blasting out a tinny pop tune. The electronic beat is like an itch in her head and she snaps it off. She stares at their unmade double bed, biting on her lip as memories filled with warmth and comfort float towards her. Before she can stop herself, she climbs into the bed in her coat and pulls the covers up to her chin.

Grief is physical, she thinks. It feels like something corrosive is burning through her insides, dissolving layers of herself, leaving her raw. She buries her face in Jackson’s pillow, breathing in the faint musk of his skin through her sobs.

*

Eva must have fallen asleep because, when she opens her eyes, the room is in darkness. Her head throbs and her skin feels clammy and hot. She shakes herself free of her coat and sits up, switching on Jackson’s bedside lamp.

His drawer beneath it is ajar and she pulls it wider, her gaze wandering over bundles of receipts, a pair of broken binoculars, a pack of cards, condoms, a book about Henry VIII that he’d never finished reading, two AA batteries, and some loose change.

She slips out a photo of them that had been taken in Paris, where they’re standing overlooking the Arc de Triomphe. Just after this photo was taken, the rain had come down and they’d run into a café, the floor soaked from dripping coats and shaken umbrellas. They’d dried off eating pastries and drinking coffee, and by the time they’d left, the sun was glaring off rain-slick pavements.

As she leafs through the rest of the items in the drawer, she sees an envelope addressed in her handwriting. She tugs it free and finds it is a letter to Dirk. It was her most recent one about a surprise trip to Wales that Jackson had arranged. She’d thought they were going to see her mother, but he managed to distract her so completely that it was half an hour into the journey before she realized they weren’t heading to Dorset at all. He’d booked them into a cosy B&B in the Brecon Beacons and they’d spent the weekend strolling through damp bracken-lined mountains and making love by the open fire in their room.

At the bottom of the letter she sees that Jackson had added his own message asking if his dad had seen many Wallabies games. Jackson always liked to include a personal note and he sent the letters from the post room at work, but he must’ve forgotten this one.

As she returns it to the drawer her fingers meet a second letter, which she slips out. It is another one of hers to Dirk, the date showing the end of August. She scans the contents, which are innocuous: an account of a summer picnic on Clapham Common; a trip to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream; a photo of them at a gig.

She smoothes both letters out on her lap, an uneasy sensation stirring in her stomach as she wonders why neither was sent. She checks through the drawer again but doesn’t find any more. Logic tells her it must have been a simple oversight, yet she can’t help wondering if there was another reason why Jackson hadn’t sent them.

*

A week later, Eva is sitting in a bar with Callie, a bottle of white wine in an ice bucket between them. Callie pours generously and slides a glass across the wooden table to Eva. ‘Drink.’

Eva obeys, taking a large gulp. She had called Callie in tears after her first shift back at the hospital.

‘What happened?’

‘I … I just couldn’t handle it. I left. Ran out.’

‘It was your first day.’

‘I thought I was ready. I delivered the baby and everything was fine – I was focused. I barely thought about Jackson. But, afterwards …’ She shakes her head.

Eva had lifted the baby from the birthing pool and handed it carefully to its mother, a Polish woman called Anka, who looked worn out. The new father had gazed at his son in wonderment, placing the backs of his fingers gently to the boy’s cheek. Then his eyes lifted to meet his wife’s. There was a moment when the room went still. He had said something in a choked voice, the words floating to his wife whose lower lip trembled as she smiled.

Eva hadn’t needed to speak Polish to understand what he was saying. He was telling his wife that she was incredible, that he was so proud of her, that he loved her deeply. It was this look, the intensely intimate moment between husband and wife that followed the strain and exhaustion of labour, that had always made Eva love what she did.

But today, she had felt paralysed by it. She had stared at the couple – who were only a year or two older than her and Jackson – as she realized with silent horror that she would never know what it would be to hold Jackson’s baby in her arms, or to have him look at her in that way, to be loved like this man loved the mother of his child.

Because her husband was dead.

The thought had slammed into her, and suddenly she was backing away and asking the support worker to call another midwife. Then she was sprinting down the corridor, bursting into the nurses’ toilets, and leaning over the sink just in time for bile and tears to be caught in the ceramic basin.

‘I couldn’t stand it,’ she tells Callie. ‘I literally could not stand seeing the husband and wife together. In love. I envied them so much I couldn’t breathe.’

‘That’s how I feel at weddings.’

Eva manages a laugh.

‘I was starting to forget what your laugh sounded like.’

Eva tilts her head to one side. ‘You’re dressed up. You were out, weren’t you?’

‘Only with David,’ Callie replies, waving her fingers through the air.

‘I’m so sorry! He was taking you for dinner. You were going to talk about the Melbourne contract. You told me yesterday. My head’s all over the place.’

‘You did me a favour. He’d booked a table at Vernadors,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘I ate there before Christmas and was in bed for two days. Never touch their mussels.’

‘I remember.’

‘Course – Jackson was there too that night! I bumped into him having a business dinner. God, hardly the way to hook a new client. Give them food poisoning.’

‘He was fine.’

‘Well, yes, but he did grow up eating stuff he’d scraped off rocks.’ Callie takes a drink, then tops up both their glasses. ‘So, tell me exactly where you’re at.’

‘It was a rough day, that’s all.’

‘Cut the crap. This is me. I want to know everything, all the gory, grisly details of how catastrophically bad your life is right now. Spill.’

Eva takes a deep breath. ‘I … I just … I don’t even know where to start.’ She lifts her hands to her head, squeezing her hair at the roots. ‘I can’t bear it. I literally can’t bear it. I miss him so much. I think of him constantly. I mean constantly. I have full-blown conversations with him in my head. Some days it hurts so much, I don’t think I can do it. I feel like I’m just dragging myself forward, when all I want is to close my eyes and sleep. I want to wake up sometime in the future when it is easier, less painful than this.’

Eva swallows and continues. ‘And Mum … she’s calling me continually to ask if I’m okay, telling me I can move back home.’ She shakes her head sharply. ‘And I’m not okay. Of course I’m not! But moving in with her isn’t what I want. I’ll suffocate there. I can’t go back.’ She bites down on her bottom lip and then says, ‘I thought we’d have our whole lives together. And now … he’s dead. I’ll never get to see him again, or hold him, or hear his laugh … or do any of the things we’d planned. And it feels so … unfair. Why Jackson? Why did it have to be him? We were married for less than a year. We had everything ahead of us – and he died!’ She slams her palm down on the table, making their wineglasses tremble. ‘I’m furious with him for being so fucking stupid, for being out there on those rocks in the middle of winter, fishing! And I’m furious with Mum for asking us to come and stay that weekend. But mostly … mostly I’m furious with myself – because if I’d got out of bed a few minutes earlier, or not bothered making a Thermos, then I’d have been there in time. I’d have told him to get off the rocks. And then … he’d still be here.’

Tears roll down Eva’s cheeks and Callie reaches across the table and squeezes both her hands.

‘I hate this, Cal. I hate feeling like this. I’m so lonely without him. The flat … it’s awful. It’s so quiet. It’s like the life has been sucked out. I’m living in a vacuum.’ Eva slides one of her hands free from Callie’s and wipes her face. ‘At night it’s just me in there and our bedroom … it feels so empty … so silent. I sleep with the fucking radio on and a hot-water bottle wrapped in Jackson’s clothes! It’s pathetic!’

Eva reaches for her wine and takes a long gulp, draining half of it. ‘I wanted – needed – to go back to work, to keep myself busy, help me stay sane. But today, God, it was awful. That poor couple.’ She shakes her head again. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to be back.’

The lights in the bar are dimmed and the music is turned up as the barman sets the ambience for the evening ahead. ‘You’re an incredible midwife,’ Callie says, leaning in closer to be heard. ‘You could open a florist’s with all the bouquets new mothers send. But maybe it is too soon. Give yourself some time.’

‘What would I do with it? I feel so … separated from him. I know that sounds ridiculous, because of course I feel separated – he’s dead! It’s just, there’s no one I can share this with. I’m so grateful to have you to talk to, but what I mean is, there’s no one here that knew him, really knew Jackson like I did. His friends are great and adored him, and Mum liked Jackson, but she’s grieving for me, not him. I feel like I need to be around people that really loved him, like I did.’

‘You mean his family?’

She nods. ‘His dad still hasn’t called back. I keep trying him – but he never picks up.’

‘Maybe it’s too hard for him right now.’

Eva finishes her wine. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says, running a finger over the stem of her glass, ‘what if I went out there?’

‘Tasmania?’

She nods. ‘I want to meet Dirk. Meet Jackson’s old friends. See where he grew up. We were planning to go together in the autumn. And it’s not far from Melbourne …’

‘So you could come and visit me!’ Callie finishes, a smile spreading over her face.

Callie was due to start a six-month contract there in February but kept on saying that she would cancel it if Eva wanted her to stay in London.

‘I could even meet you in Tasmania,’ Callie says, ‘and then we could fly on to Melbourne together. The company’s paying for my flat. It’s a two-bed place, so you would have your own room.’

‘What about David?’

‘He doesn’t do long haul. Tells me it plays havoc with his sleep patterns. That’s what happens when you screw a 45-year-old.’

Eva tries for a smile, but feels the sadness that lingers around her mouth and in the dark hollows beneath her eyes.

‘Seriously, Eva, why not take a sabbatical? Give yourself some time.’

She nods. ‘I’ve been thinking about it.’

‘Have you spoken to your mum about this?’

Eva shakes her head. ‘She won’t like it.’ Her mother’s life had been punctured by sadness; she’d lost her second daughter at birth and then, twelve years later, lost her husband to a stroke. All her love – and all her fears – were poured into Eva.