A Single Breath

As Dirk continues to talk and drink, his eyes become glassy and she catches the beginnings of a slur to his words, but still she listens closely. Even when the whisky causes him to muddle his sons’ names and he tells her Saul was always the traveller, Jackson the Tassie boy, she doesn’t interrupt. Eva will do nothing to stop his flow, because she is just grateful to hear the words of somebody who loved Jackson as deeply as she did.

‘Were Saul and Jackson close once?’ Eva asks.

‘Tight as a mussel. Did everything together. They were an enterprising little duo. Used to get up early and snorkel off the jetty down at Wattleboon, looking for lost squid jigs to sell to the tourists and make a bit of extra pocket money.’

‘But they haven’t been close for a while?’

He shakes his head sharply.

‘Is Saul still living in Tasmania?’

‘Yeah. Works over at the university in Hobart. Doing some big project on cephalopods. That’s squid to you and me.’ He takes a glug of whisky and she sees him wince, placing a hand over his stomach.

‘Hobart. Is that where he lives?’

‘No, no. Moved to Wattleboon Island. Built himself a place out in Shoal Bay.’

Eva’s head tilts. ‘That’s where you used to have a shack, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, beautiful place.’ Under his breath he adds, ‘But too many bad memories for me.’

‘I’d like to meet Saul.’

Dirk’s expression turns wary. ‘Why?’

‘He was Jackson’s brother.’

‘Nah, don’t think he’d be too keen.’

‘It’s important to me.’

He looks at her closely. ‘Sorry, Eva, but I think you’d best forget about the idea.’ He lifts his glass and downs the whisky.

*

Jackson had told her that his father liked a drink, but he’d never explicitly said Dirk was an alcoholic. But he is; she can see it in the high colour of his skin, the broken veins across his cheeks, and the way his fingers cling to the glass. It hurts knowing Jackson left out this information, as if he didn’t trust her enough to show her the darker corners of his family life.

She wonders how Jackson would feel now if he could see his father getting steadily more drunk after Eva has travelled thousands of miles to meet him. A quiet anger simmers inside as she thinks about her countless calls that went unanswered, and the invite to the memorial service she’d extended to him – but that wasn’t returned.

It feels like a personal affront to Jackson, and before she can check herself, she is saying, ‘You didn’t come to our wedding.’

Dirk shrugs. ‘England’s a long way. A lot of money.’ He pours himself another whisky, the neck of the bottle clattering against the glass. He swirls it around and then takes a slug. Is that his third or fourth since she’s been here?

‘Weren’t you interested in seeing who your son was going to marry?’ she presses Dirk, wanting to understand his absence.

‘Y’know what?’ he says, and there’s something in his tone she doesn’t like, a loosening, as if whatever he’s been holding back is beginning to spill out, dragging with it the sharp edges of his thoughts. ‘I wasn’t interested. Because I didn’t want him to marry you.’

Her eyes widen.

‘I thought he was bloody mad! And I told him.’ He shakes his head. ‘You two should never’ve got married.’

She feels as though she’s had the breath kicked out of her. ‘What?’

Dirk runs a thick hand down the length of his face, exhaling loudly. Then he gets to his feet and crosses the room unsteadily. He sets his hands square on the windowsill and looks out onto the street.

‘Dirk?’ She shakes her head back and forth. ‘Why are you saying this?’

He shrugs. ‘I’d never have seen him again. He wouldn’t have come home when he was married. That’s all.’

Tears burn the back of her throat.

When Dirk turns, his expression has softened and she thinks he’s going to apologize. But then he says, ‘Listen, Eva, I can see you loved Jackson. And I’m sorry for what you’re going through. I am. But my boy’s dead. You being out here isn’t going to make that any better. So I reckon it might be best if you go now, don’t you?’

6

A knot of anger is wedged into the pit of Eva’s stomach as she replays Dirk’s words: You two should never’ve got married. She keeps reminding herself it was the whisky talking, or perhaps the lash of his grief, but the remark has left her unsettled.

She is even more determined now to try to find Saul. As she leans her elbows on the ferry railing, watching Wattleboon Island come into focus, she wonders how Jackson would have felt about her coming here to meet the brother he hadn’t spoken to in over four years. The few times Jackson mentioned Saul’s name, his expression darkened, as if Saul’s betrayal still had the power to wound him.

The island reveals itself by degrees; first the forested sea cliffs rising up in the distance, then the green curve of the hills. Jackson had talked about his summers spent here with a sense of nostalgia, as if the island were both treasured yet also lost to him – a place he could never get back to.

From her pocket she takes out the free visitors’ map she’d picked up at the ferry building and unfolds it, the edges flitting in the breeze. The map shows one road running the fifty-kilometre length of the island, and stemming from it are veins of unsealed tracks and four-wheel-drive routes leading to secluded inlets and bays. Looking at the key, she sees there is a pub, two cafés, a doctor’s office, a general store and a community hall. Most of the symbols denote boat launches, surf spots, camping areas and hiking trails.

She locates Shoal Bay in the south-east corner of the island. While she doesn’t know Saul’s address, with a population of only 500 permanent residents, someone must know which house is his.

The crossing only takes twenty-five minutes, but by the time the ferry docks, Eva feels as if she’s arriving at the edge of the world. The small throng of passengers return to their cars. Engines are started and cars nose forward as the boat ramp is lowered.

Just beyond the dock a hand-painted sign reads: PLEASE REMOVE WATCHES AND MOBILE PHONE BATTERIES. YOU’RE ON WATTLEBOON NOW!

The road is quiet – just the occasional motorhome or truck passes in the other direction, surfboards and bikes strapped to roofs. She drives with the windows down, absorbing the smell of sun-warmed grass and the salt breeze drifting in. She sees two hikers standing before a shallow lagoon with binoculars hanging around their necks, a flock of black swans drifting beyond them.

When she gets to the general store, Eva pulls in. It’s a simple building with a cork bulletin board tacked to an exterior wall, which is filled with handwritten signs about boat trailers for sale, holiday cottages to rent, and two Kelpie pups that need a home.

The door is propped open by a faded ice-cream sign, and inside, a stocky woman with a wedge of yellow hair plants her hands on the counter and smiles. ‘G’day. How’s it goin’?’

‘I was wondering if you could help. I’m looking for Saul Bowe’s place on Shoal Bay.’

‘Well, that’s easy,’ she says, smiling. ‘It’s the only house in the bay. You keep on this road heading south for about five minutes. You’ll pass a berry farm on your right and you wanna take the track straight after that. Leads you right down to the bay.’

‘That’s great –’

‘But he won’t be there now. Saw him launching the boat ’bout couple of hours ago.’ The woman comes around from behind the counter and crosses to the open shop door, from which she peers out. ‘His truck’s still there,’ she says, nodding towards a group of vehicles parked beside a long wooden jetty. ‘Might wanna wait for him there. Tide’s just turned, so he’ll be in soon.’ The woman glances sideways at Eva. ‘Known Saul long, have ya?’

Eva guesses that this is a shop where gossip is traded along with the groceries. ‘I knew his brother.’

‘Brother?’ the woman repeats, eyebrows lifting. ‘Well, I’ll be damned. Never even knew Saul had one.’

*

The jetty is built on thick wooden stilts, and a few fishing boats are moored to its side. She sits in the car for several minutes, but even with the windows down, it’s too hot to stay in for long.

Climbing out, she crosses the car park onto a white sand beach that is peppered with dried shreds of seaweed. The afternoon is clear and still, the smell of fish hanging in the warm air. She slips off her flip-flops and wades into the water. It’s deliciously cool around her ankles and she stays there, lolling in the shallows for some time.

Looking down at the sea around her feet, she tries not to think about the body washed up in Plymouth that is now lying in an autopsy lab waiting to be identified.

Now and then boats drift up to the jetty and people get out to unload their catch, but none of the men seem young enough to be Saul.

She remembers lying beside Jackson one morning, tracing the weave of his chest hair with a fingertip as she’d asked, ‘Tell me about your brother.’

She’d caught the change in rhythm of Jackson’s breathing as he’d answered, ‘Nothing to tell.’

His eyes had darkened and he’d rolled away from her, climbing from the bed.

‘Jackson?’

He’d paused, his posture rigid. When he spoke there was a grave edge to his tone. ‘You can’t trust him. He’s a liar. That’s all you need to know.’

There were other conversations about Saul, including one where she finally managed to get him to tell her why they’d not spoken a word for four years. But after a time, she stopped mentioning Saul’s name, hating to see the way Jackson’s face clouded with hurt.

Feeling light headed from either the heat or the lingering residue of jet lag, Eva pads through the warm sand in search of shade. Her phone rings in her pocket and she slips it out, squinting at the screen in the sunlight. Seeing her mother’s name, Eva freezes. She’ll be calling with news of Jackson’s body.

She stands there, blinking at the phone, heart racing. Eva’s not sure that she wants this news, wants to live with the absolute finality of it.

Finally she answers, pressing the phone close to her ear. ‘Is it him?’

She hears her mother draw a breath. ‘Sorry, sweetheart. It wasn’t Jackson. It’s not his body.’

She blinks.

Her mother says something about the results coming in last night and that she only just saw the light flashing on the answering machine when she woke.

Eva remains silent, trying to absorb what she’s being told.

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything before we knew for certain. I just didn’t want you hearing about it on the news, or something dreadful like that.’

‘Whose was it?’

‘What?’

‘The body. Whose was it?’

‘Oh. Yes. It was a man from Worthing. A 45-year-old. Married. He jumped from a bridge six weeks ago.’

Eva swallows. She wonders how his wife must feel right now. Would there be some sense of closure now that there was a body to bury? Perhaps that’s how she herself might have felt. Or maybe what Dirk had said was right: Jackson’s body is better left in the sea.

‘Eva? Are you still there?’

The sun beats down on her head and she feels exhausted, buffeted by her emotions. Her mouth is dry and she can’t remember drinking anything today. She moistens her lips, tries to swallow.

‘Sweetheart? Talk to me, please.’

‘I’m here,’ she says weakly, a feeling of nausea rising up through her stomach. She lifts her gaze to try and focus on something. A blue boat is drifting towards the jetty.

She stares at it unblinking. Then a strangled sound escapes her lips.

There is a man on board who looks so much like Jackson that, for a moment, Eva lets herself believe it is him.

*

‘Eva? Eva?’ her mother repeats with rising panic.

But Eva isn’t listening. She is stepping forward, narrowing her gaze.

The way he stands, one hand slung in his pocket, his shoulders loose, is exactly like Jackson. Dark hair curls down over his ears and he wears a grey T-shirt with shorts, and sunglasses that hide his eyes.

Saul, she thinks. It must be.

There is a second man on the boat, bare-chested and wiry, who leaps onto the jetty and jogs along it towards the parked vehicles. He jumps into a truck and reverses the attached boat trailer down the ramp.

‘Eva? Are you still there?’ her mother is saying. ‘Please, Evie, you’re scaring me.’

‘I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.’

Once the boat is dragged from the water, Eva watches Saul push his sunglasses onto his head and shake hands with the other man. Then he hauls a large cool-box from the boat and walks down the beach in her direction. He stops at the fish-gutting station and sets down the box. He can only be 20 feet from her.

She doesn’t move; her legs feel weak and she tries to steady her breathing, which is coming too fast.

From the cool-box he grabs two silver fish by their tails and lays them on the bench. He takes a knife from his pocket and slices through their pale bellies, then scoops out their guts with his fingers. He works through three more fish and a couple of squid. Eva is used to the sight of blood, yet the dispassionate movement of his hands through the guts makes her uncomfortable.

She goes to turn away, but as she does, Saul looks up.

Eva’s lips part in surprise. His eyes are nothing like Jackson’s. They are dark and intense, not the pale blue of Jackson’s irises, which she’d always loved.

‘You’re Saul,’ she finds herself saying. She steps forward. ‘I’m Eva, Jackson’s wife.’

He stares, his dark gaze pinned to her face. She reads no warmth in his expression. Then he bends down and scoops another fish from the cool-box, slaps it on the bench, and continues gutting.

‘You’ve been fishing?’ she asks ludicrously.

‘Yeah.’

‘Catch much?’

‘Enough.’

She can feel herself sweating beneath her dress. She takes a deep breath. ‘I hoped we could talk.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘About Jackson.’

He glances at her through the corners of his eyes. Doesn’t say anything.

‘I’ve come a long way.’

He sighs, putting down the knife. ‘Look, I don’t wanna be rude, but Jackson and I hadn’t spoken in a while.’

‘I know that,’ she says, failing to hide the anger in her voice. ‘I just wanted to meet you. You’re his brother.’

He looks directly at her, but doesn’t speak.

‘I thought you might want to hear about his life in England. Know what he’s been doing since you last saw him.’

‘Then you thought wrong.’

She shakes her head, astounded. The heat of the sun pounds down and her entire body feels too hot. She should leave now, return to the car, and blast out the air conditioning. But she’s too angry to stop herself from saying, ‘He was your brother. And he’s dead. Is this conversation all he’s worth to you?’

She wants him to have to witness the horror of Jackson’s drowning, make him stand on that wind-stormed shoreline as she had, watching the lifeboat turn empty circles in the water, see the helicopter slicing the freezing sky.

When Saul says nothing, tears begin to sting beneath her eyelids. She will not cry in front of this man, so she turns and begins striding away. Her heart is racing and she finds herself struggling to catch her breath. Clouds seem to gather at the corners of her vision and her legs feel unsteady.

She hears a voice and it is so like Jackson’s that she wants to turn and see him on the beach calling to her. But the voice is so far away, and as she swivels to follow it, she finds her body is suddenly light and loose, but she isn’t turning, she’s fainting.

*

Saul sits with his hands spread over his bare knees. Smears of fish blood stain his fingers, and the undersides of his nails are dark with squid ink. He taps the heel of his boot against the linoleum floor as he waits.

The medical centre is sterile and white, and he feels conspicuous in his outdoor gear. He is sure the smell of fish clings to him. He takes his sunglasses from his head, cleans the salt from the lenses with the corner of his T-shirt, and then holds them on his lap, worrying the arms open and shut.

There is a poster on the wall ahead about alcoholism with a picture of a liver made to look like a ticking bomb. He shifts in the plastic seat, angling himself to face the clock.

Eva’s been in with the doctor for twenty-five minutes. He thinks about the fish he’s left on the gutting station in the early-evening sun. Gulls would’ve had them by now. There’s more in the cool-box and he can’t remember if he left the lid off. If he has, it won’t be long till they’re ruined. He hates to waste fish. He wishes the doctor would hurry the hell up.

He tries to hold onto his anger at the interruption to his day, but his thoughts keep getting back to Eva: the way she lifted her chin when she spoke to him, the clipped English accent, the flare of her nostrils before she strode away with her arms swinging at her sides. And then she had faltered. He saw her hand lifting as if searching for something to grab onto.

He had just stood there, watching as she fainted.

He feels bad about that. Bad for upsetting her. But what else could he say? He doesn’t want her here. Doesn’t want to be involved. Saul is barely holding himself together. Now she’s here wearing her heartbreak on her sleeve and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

The door opens and suddenly Eva is walking out. She looks so small, a fleck of a woman with her pixie-short hair and wide hazel eyes. She goes straight to the desk and pays.

He follows her outside. In her silence he asks, ‘So, what did the doc say?’

Immediately he regrets the casualness of the question.

Eva’s face is pale and her arms hang loose at her sides. She looks shell-shocked.

Her voice is a whisper. ‘I’m pregnant.’

7

She is ten weeks pregnant. Ten weeks a widow.

Her mind spins back through all the clues she had missed: the nausea she’d thought was a reaction to grief; the exhaustion she’d attributed to jet lag; the missed periods she hadn’t even registered in the blur of her loss. She thinks of the evening before Jackson’s death, when he’d turned to her in the narrow bed of her childhood room. He’d pressed his body against the curve of hers and they’d made love with a quiet intensity.

Eva feels the divots and juts of the road jarring through her spine as Saul drives her back to her car. Neither of them speaks. She grips the sides of the truck seat, careful not to put her hands anywhere near her stomach.

Saul cuts the engine.

She looks up, surprised to see they are back at the jetty already. The sun is sinking towards the sea, the heat fallen from the day.

‘I’m a midwife,’ she says quietly. ‘I didn’t even know I was pregnant and I’m a midwife.’

Saul doesn’t say anything.

Her hand moves to her forehead as she says, ‘I … I just can’t believe it.’

‘It’ll all work out,’ Saul says, and she hears the uncertainty in his voice.

They do not know each other, yet he is the only person apart from the doctor who knows she is pregnant.

After a moment, Saul asks, ‘Where are you staying?’

‘I’ll find a hotel.’

‘On Wattleboon? There aren’t any.’

‘Then I’ll go back to the mainland.’

He glances at the clock on the dashboard and sighs. ‘Last boat ran quarter of an hour ago.’

She’s unable to think about this problem; the one inside her is absorbing all her thought.

He grabs his mobile phone from the dashboard and climbs out of the truck, swinging the door shut. She watches through the windscreen as he calls someone, pacing up and down as he speaks into the phone.

Eva doesn’t move. She’s remembering the night she and Jackson spent at a B&B in Wales. They’d been showering, steam curling from their wet bodies. Jackson had run the bar of soap over Eva’s middle, telling her how much he wanted to have children with her. Two, he’d said. Two girls.

There is a strange, incredible irony that, as Jackson was being dragged down towards his death by freezing waves, a new life was being made inside her.

She muses on this idea until the truck door opens and Saul says, ‘You’ve got a place to stay. There’s a shack down my way you can have tonight. The owner’s outta town. We’ll get your car in the morning.’

‘Right.’ She doesn’t know if this is what she wants, but she doesn’t have any other option.

She fetches her bag from the hire car while Saul strides down the beach to collect the cool-box he’d left out.

The truck shifts as he clanks it in the back. Then he climbs in and guns the engine.

*

Saul knocks the truck into a lower gear as he turns onto the track leading to the bay. He sees Eva grab hold of the handhold as they bounce along, evening sun slanting through the thick branches of the gums. He’s supposed to be up at Duneback Point meeting a couple of friends for a barbecue. Saul was bringing the fish. He’ll have to call them, tell them he’s not going to make it.

‘This is it,’ he says, yanking up the handbrake at the track’s end. He climbs out and leads the way through a clearing in the trees onto the beach.

The shack is nestled into the sand, a stone’s throw from the water. It’s been here since he was a boy and he tries not to think about who used to live here. The current owner, Joe, did a bit of work on it a couple of years ago after a big winter gale half buried the place in sand. Joe dug it out, replaced the windows, and made a deck at the front that’s perfect for sinking a few beers on a summer’s evening.

He climbs onto the deck and hooks the key out from under a cluster of pebbles. He unlocks the place and walks in, the smell of mildew and damp salt hitting him. He pulls up the blinds and cranks open both windows to let the breeze in. He hopes Eva isn’t too prissy as the shack isn’t in the sharpest condition. But when he glances around, he sees she’s just standing on the deck, staring out to sea.

He pulls out some of the junk cluttering the living area: canvas chairs, a grill, a fraying windbreak, and puts it all on the deck to make some space. ‘It’s basic,’ he tells her, ‘but there’s a bed in the back room and the sofa folds into a bed, too. There’s a shower – an outdoor one – but the water runs hot. I’m just gonna check the gas is on.’

He goes around the back to the gas locker and is pleased to find it is all connected. He checks the shower, too, and finds a big huntsman spider sitting in the shower tray along with a collection of leaves and sand. ‘Sorry, mate,’ Saul says as he scoops up the spider and chucks it onto the beach.

Back in the shack, he runs the tap and the water tank seems to be working just fine. He offers to bring some food from his place, but Eva says she’ll be okay, and he gets the impression that she just wants to be on her own.

‘I’ll come back in the morning. Run you to your car.’

‘Thanks.’

‘If you need anything, my place is just up there,’ he says, pointing to the other end of the bay.

He says goodbye and climbs down from the deck, relieved to be on his way. Then he remembers he hasn’t checked whether there was any bedding. When he turns back, he sees Eva has already sunk down onto the sofa, her head cradled in her hands.

When Dirk had told Saul what he knew on the bleak afternoon of Jackson’s memorial service, Saul had slumped back in his seat, stunned. He’d said right then that he didn’t want anything to do with it, didn’t even want to meet Eva.

Yet here she is.

He sees her shoulders begin to shake as the tears come. He takes a step towards the shack, then hesitates. Something tells him it’s cleaner not to get involved. So Saul ducks his head and walks on.

*

Later that evening Eva manages to fall asleep, but she wakes hours later gasping into the pitch black. Disorientated, she struggles free of the covers, her skin damp with sweat. She flails for a light switch, but her wrist bone connects with something hard and the crash of broken glass fills her ears.