A Single Breath. Lucy Clarke

      He leads her into a small living room where a timeworn green sofa faces the window. A whisky bottle and glass stand on a side table and a television plays on silent, some daytime game show with an overdressed host. A pile of videos is stacked at the bottom of the unit, and somehow the sight of these relaxes her: Dirk is a man who still hasn’t made the switch from VHS to DVD, despite having had more than a decade to do so.

      ‘Sit yourself down,’ Dirk says, pointing towards the sofa.

      ‘Thank you.’

      He switches off the television and stands in front of it, wiping a hand over the sides of his thinning steel hair. He rolls his shoulders back and stretches his chin away from his neck. He’s a big man, tall and broad. She imagines that once he’d have had a muscular build, but now it seems as if all the muscles have sighed, slumping comfortably into old age.

      ‘So. You’re Eva.’

      ‘Yes.’

      He digs his hands into his pockets. ‘Wanna drink?’

      ‘Water would be great.’

      He trudges out of the living room and she releases the breath she’s been holding. From the kitchen she hears a cupboard being opened, the clink of glass, the whir of a tap.

      While she’s alone, she takes in the room. There are no paintings on the off-white walls, and the carpet is thin underfoot. A brass barometer stands on the windowsill next to a model boat with a broken mast. On the dust-filmed coffee table a bunch of dead lilies stands in an empty glass, and she wonders whether they’ve been there since Jackson’s death.

      Dirk brings in two glasses of water on a tray. He sets them down beside the flowers and his hands shake as he passes Eva her glass. He looks older than she’d imagined, more weather-beaten and tired around the eyes.

      He remains standing, saying, ‘Bit of a shock, this.’

      ‘Yes, sorry. I did call, but there was never any answer. I couldn’t even leave a message. I thought about writing … but I wasn’t sure a letter would reach you in time.’

      ‘You’d be better off sending a pigeon,’ he mocks. ‘What is it you’re doin’ here?’

      ‘I …’ She falters, the abruptness of the question throwing her off her stride. She moves her thumb back and forth across the cool curve of the glass. ‘Jackson and I had planned to come out here together in the autumn, so I thought … well, I thought I’d come anyway …’

      Eva shifts on the sofa, unsure what else to say. Her eyes dart around the room and fall on a photo that’s tacked to the wall. ‘Jackson,’ she says, her head swimming with the pleasure of seeing his image here.

      Dirk turns to look at the photo. ‘Australia Day that was taken – 19 he was.’

      In the photo Jackson looks fresh-faced and tanned, free of the creases that were beginning to branch out from the corners of his eyes and mouth. He is half smiling, his lips turned up towards the left. He’s standing on a sun-scorched lawn wearing a blue vest that swamps him. His hair is chin length, longer than she’s ever seen.

      Eva leans closer, noticing something else. In his right hand he’s holding a half-smoked cigarette, his easy grip suggesting a comfortableness that comes from habit. She had no idea he used to smoke. She feels oddly exposed by this lack of knowledge. She wants to ask Dirk how long Jackson smoked for, yet knows there would be something humiliating in the question.

      She pulls her gaze away from the cigarette and focuses on Dirk, who is saying, ‘I miss him like hell.’ He carefully lowers himself into the chair opposite her, asking, ‘What happened that day? Can you tell me about it?’

      ‘Yes. Of course.’ Eva puts down her water and locks her hands together in her lap. ‘We were visiting my mother for the weekend. She lives on the south coast, in Dorset. Jackson had got up early to go fishing.’

      ‘For what?’

      ‘Bass or pollock,’ she answers, pleased by the question. Dirk was a fisherman once. ‘He was casting off some rocks – but it was a rough day. Strong winds, big swell. He got knocked in by a wave.’ She twists her wedding ring around her finger. ‘A lifeboat came out and the coastguard helicopter. They searched all day …’

      ‘He was always a strong swimmer.’

      ‘The water temperature – it was only about eight or nine degrees. He was in winter clothes. It would’ve been hard for anyone to swim.’

      Dirk shakes his head, saying, ‘After all these years running boats, I never lost anyone. And then Jackson –’ he sighs heavily – ‘he’s just line-fishing and goes down.’

      ‘His body,’ Eva begins, then hesitates. She is still waiting for confirmation that the body washed up near Plymouth has been positively identified as Jackson. In a matter of days she will know. Finally know. And then what? If it is him, will she fly home – have some sort of funeral service so the body, or its remains, can be buried? She realizes there’s no point telling Dirk about it yet, not until she has the facts. ‘I’m still hoping his body will be recovered.’

      ‘Don’t matter to me,’ he says with a shrug. ‘The ocean’s a good place. I’d rather him be in it, not buried in some bloody awful coffin stuffed in the ground for the maggots to get.’

      Eva thinks about this for a moment and wonders if maybe he’s right. Perhaps Jackson would’ve preferred that. She finishes her water and says, ‘The memorial service for Jackson was beautiful. A lot of people came.’

      Dirk nods.

      ‘There was a guest book. I haven’t brought it with me – but if you’d like to read it, I could send it to you?’

      ‘Nice of ya to suggest it.’ He reaches for the whisky bottle and pours himself a glass. She can smell the pungent vapour as he lifts it to his mouth. ‘We had a memorial here.’

      ‘Did you?’ she says, surprised. ‘Where?’

      ‘Top of Mount Wellington. Just a few of us.’ He takes another drink, emptying the glass.

      She’s hurt that she didn’t know about this, wasn’t invited. She would like to know who came to mourn him, what was said, whether there was a burial of any personal items, but Dirk is up on his feet, saying, ‘I think we should have a drink to Jackson.’

      He leaves the room and returns a moment later with a spare tumbler. He grabs the whisky bottle and Eva tries to tell him that she’s driving, but already he’s splashed whisky into her glass and is refilling his own. ‘To Jackson!’ he toasts.

      Eva takes a small sip. She’s always hated whisky and the taste turns her stomach. She breathes steadily through her nose until the nauseous sensation passes, then discreetly slips the glass aside.

      As they continue to talk, Eva watches the alcohol working through Dirk. He becomes more expansive, sip by sip. ‘I remember Jackson diving for his first abalone,’ Dirk says, resting the whisky glass on his knee. ‘He can’t have been more than 8 or 9, and he dived right down to this shallow ledge. There they were – all the abs just lined up – so he found himself a sharp stone and he prised the biggest one of them all right off the rocks. Came up grinning, holding it in the air like a trophy. He was too excited to stop diving, so he slipped it in the pocket of his swimming trunks and kept on going.’

      Dirk asks, ‘You ever seen an abalone?’

      She shakes her head.

      ‘They’re as big as your hand, shell on one side, and a dark tough mollusc on the other. When Jackson was done, he ran up the beach to show Saul and me, trying to pull this ab from his pocket. But it had suckered onto his thigh so hard that he had no chance of getting the thing off. I yanked his chain for a while, telling him that it’d take a month of being out of salt water for the ab to loosen its grip. Should’ve seen his little face! Course, in the end it came off. But it left a big old bruise