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

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.

‘You’ve got to do what feels right for you, not what your mum wants.’ Callie pauses. ‘What would Jackson have said?’

Without hesitating Eva says, ‘Go. He’d have told me to go.’

We talked about taking a trip out to Tasmania. You wanted to meet my family, go for drinks with my friends you’d heard stories about, see the shack on Wattleboon where I’d spent my summers.

People often think of Tassie as Australia’s poorer brother because the climate is cooler and the cities are smaller and less sophisticated. Its brutal history as Van Diemen’s Land is never forgotten. Yet I’ve always loved it for exactly those reasons – it’s wild and rugged, with a shadowy past, and enough raw wilderness to lose yourself in.

I’d love to have hiked with you in the eerie beauty of Cradle Mountain, where moss drips from the trees, or shown you the wombats that amble on the tracks around Wineglass Bay. We could have been tourists together and taken a boat out along the east coast to see the whales cruising by, or eaten soggy fries and gravy from Buggy’s Takeout in Hobart.

You used to ask me so many questions about Tasmania, as if by trying to understand the place you could piece me together. But there was a lot I didn’t tell you about my life there – whole chunks of time that I left out, people’s names I never mentioned, things I wanted to forget.

I’d’ve liked to have shown you every edge of Tasmania because I know you’d have fallen in love with that little island in the sea. But the truth is, Eva, I never planned to take you there. How could I?

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