A Single Breath. Lucy Clarke

pay.’

      ‘Love, this boat isn’t going anywhere …’

      ‘My husband was swept from the rocks this morning,’ she says.

      ‘Your husband? Christ! I heard about it over the radio.’

      She moves right past him, climbing into the boat as if she’s about to commandeer it.

      ‘Hey, listen –’

      ‘You understand currents? Tides?’ she says, trying to keep her voice level and focus only on the practical details.

      ‘Sure, but I can’t –’

      ‘Please,’ she says, swinging around to face him, her composure cracking. ‘You have to help me!’

      Once they reach the open water, the boat pitches and rolls with the waves. Eva grips the side, her fingers aching from the cold. She won’t let herself think about this because if she admits that her feet are numb and that the temperature has dropped so low that she can’t stop shivering, then she’ll also have to admit that Jackson could not survive this.

      The rocky outcrop looms like low-hanging fog. When they near it, the fisherman cuts the engine. He shouts above the wind, ‘We’ll drift with the current now.’

      He moves towards her holding a yellow oilskin. ‘Here. Wear this over the life jacket.’

      The material is rough and cold, the long sleeves scratching the chapped skin on the undersides of her wrists where her gloves end. She glances down and sees a thick smear of blood across the breast of the jacket.

      ‘Just fish blood,’ he says, following her gaze.

      Eva glances around the boat deck, where lobster pots and dark heavy nets laced with seaweed are stacked. There are lights on the boat, but they’re not nearly bright enough. ‘Have you got a torch?’

      ‘Yeah.’ He lifts the lid of the wooden bench and pulls out a torch with a glass face as big as a dinner plate.

      He passes it to Eva, who holds it in both hands to support the weight. She flicks the switch and points it at the black water. The beam is dazzling and she blinks several times until her eyes become accustomed to it.

      He fetches a second, smaller torch and begins searching the water beside her as they drift. Dark waves swim in and out of the beam like bodies rearing up, and then recede again.

      ‘Your husband fish a lot?’

      Husband. The word still sounded fresh and sweet. They had been married for just under ten months and the sight of his wedding band still made her catch her breath with happiness. ‘We live in London – so he doesn’t fish as much as he’d like. He used to as a boy. He’s from Tasmania.’

      ‘Where’s that?’

      She forgets that some people know little about Tasmania. ‘It’s an island off south-east Australia. Almost opposite Melbourne. It’s an Australian state.’

      As she looks down at the inky sea, Eva’s thoughts drift back through the day. She pictures Jackson trudging up the beach with his fishing gear. Would his head have been fuzzy from drinking the night before? Did he walk along the shore and think of her still snug in bed, or remember their lovemaking last night? Was there any point when he’d considered turning around and stealing back into the warmth next to her beneath the duvet?

      She imagines him on the rocks threading fishing lures onto the line with numb fingers, then setting out the catch bucket. She imagines that first cast, the smooth flick of the rod. The surf’s good for the fish, livens them up, he’d told her before.

      He knew his fish. His father had run a crayfish boat for a decade, and Jackson studied marine biology. Living in London as they did, there wasn’t much call for marine biologists, but he said he got his fix of the coast whenever they visited her mother. In Tasmania, he owned an old sea kayak and would paddle through empty bays and inlets with a fishing rod hooked at the back of the kayak. She loved his stories of cruising beneath mountains and alongside wild coastline, catching fish to cook on an open fire.

      There is a loud splash by the boat’s side and Eva gasps.

      The torch has slipped from her fingers, an eerie yellow glow falling through the dark water. ‘No! No …’

      She wants to reach down, scoop her hands through the sea and save it, but the light flickers as it sinks, and then goes out.

      ‘I’m sorry! I thought I had it,’ she says, grasping the sides of the boat, leaning right over. ‘I’ve lost it. I can’t see anything now. I’m sorry … I …’

      ‘No matter,’ the fisherman says gently.

      She hugs her arms tight to her chest. Her lips sting with the wind chill as she stares out into the endless darkness. ‘How cold is it?’ she asks quietly. ‘The sea?’

      He sucks in his breath. ‘I’d say it’s about eight or nine degrees at the moment.’

      ‘How long could someone survive in it for?’

      ‘Hard to say.’ He pauses. ‘But I’d think a couple of hours at best.’

      There’s silence save for the creak of the boat and the slap of waves against the hull.

      He’s dead, she thinks. My husband is dead.

       We only had two years together, Eva. It wasn’t long enough.

       There were still things I was only just beginning to discover about you; that your toes wriggle when you’re nervous; that your standards for cleanliness are bordering on slovenly; that smell is your strongest sense and you sniff everything you buy – books, a new dress, the cellophane wrap of a DVD.

       I only recently found the ticklish spot behind your knees that makes you crumple to the ground with gulps of laughter. And I love that my friends think you’re so level-headed and pragmatic – yet you cannot get ready for an evening out without hurtling around the flat performing a circus routine of cleaning your teeth while having a wee, or putting on your make-up in between mouthfuls of dinner.

       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