Читать книгу A Single Breath - Lucy Clarke - Страница 16

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.

Finally she finds the light. A glass has smashed, water pooling over wooden floorboards. She can’t place the room she’s in. Her gaze darts around, then halts on a large driftwood mirror at the end of the bed. The image reflected back is of a woman with ghostly white skin, her eyes sunken in shadow, her face gaunt.

Then Eva remembers: she’s in Tasmania.

Jackson is dead.

She is carrying his child.

She leans against the bedroom door, feeling the coolness of the wood through her T-shirt. Her head bows into her hands and she closes her eyes, battling against tears.

The quiet in the shack rolls over her, only the low murmuring of the bay audible. Somehow the near silence feels wrong, smothering. Her jaw tightens as she strains to catch some sound. Anything.

Panic spikes over her skin as she realizes what it is she’s listening for: Jackson’s breathing.

She is expecting to hear the soft draw of air in and out of his lungs, which was the rhythm she fell asleep to every night. The absence of it fills her with a crushing loneliness. She wraps her arms tightly around herself, feeling the rapid thud of her own heartbeat. But there’s no comfort in it, so she crosses the room and digs in her suitcase, pulling out a red-checked shirt.

It was Jackson’s favourite, the one he’d change into when he got home from work, pushing the sleeves up and leaving the collar wide open. It was a shirt so loved that he didn’t mind that it was missing two buttons or that the collar was starting to fray.

She pulls it on now, her fingers drawing the fabric tight to her body, and picks up her phone.

She is contemplating calling her mother. She’d like to hear her familiar voice right now; it’d be mid-morning in England and her mother would be at home, perhaps ironing with the radio on, or putting something in the slow cooker for dinner. But then Eva pictures herself saying, I’m pregnant – and realizes she’s not ready to make that call. Not yet.

She fetches a blanket and walks out onto the deck. The air is cool, scented with salt and a faint tang of wood. There are no lights apart from the stars, and the darkness 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?’

‘Hobart, I suppose. Maybe I’ll try and get in touch with some of Jackson’s old friends. I’ll work it out,’ she says with a brave smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Saul thinks about her drifting around Hobart, asking questions about Jackson – and he knows that’s not a good idea. All the tension that his dive had eased now begins to creep back into his body, tightening in his temples and the base of his jaw.

He looks towards the shack, turning an idea through his head. Out here on Wattleboon barely anyone will remember Jackson, as he hasn’t been on the island since he was 15. But in Hobart there are people who know.

After a moment Saul says, ‘The shack’s free for a while. You’re welcome to stay on, if you want?’