Aussie salmon. I got out with the spear gun after work. I was lucky – they were just schooling right out front.’ He lays each fish on a large square of tinfoil, thinking of the shoal that had curled above him, their silver tails catching in the sunlight. He’d hovered there, just watching. Some days he didn’t even pull the trigger; he just liked seeing the way they moved through the water, scales glinting. ‘Do you prefer it to line fishing?’ she asks, drawing the knife through the tight red skin of a tomato.
‘Feels like a fairer fight,’ he tells her. ‘You only spear what you can eat, plus there’s no bait involved. If you come back with nothing, well, just means the fish were havin’ a better day than you.’
‘You were diving without a spear gun that first morning I was here.’
He nods. ‘Sometimes I just go out for a freedive. You know, breath-hold diving – no scuba gear.’
‘I’ve seen a TV programme about that. Isn’t it where people are diving down to crazy depths?’
‘Some people are. The record for freediving – and this is without weights or sleds, just literally swimming straight down and then back up on one breath – is one hundred and twenty-one metres.’
‘No? They must have incredible lungs. Do you measure how deep you go?’
He drizzles chilli oil over the fish and squeezes a couple of wedges of lime on top. A nick on his forefinger stings as the lime seeps into it. ‘No, I’m not interested in that side of it. I suppose I like it because there’s no tank involved or gear to mess around with. Plus, you see more. Fish can be put off by the bubbles when you’re breathing off the tank.’
Eva scoops the tomatoes she’s sliced into the salad bowl, then begins chopping the lettuce. ‘What do you see around here?’
‘Wattleboon’s cold-water diving, so it’s different from the tropics. You get rays, tiny handfish, gummy sharks, sea dragons.’
‘Sea dragons?’
‘They’re related to the sea horse family, but the dragons are bigger.’ Saul rinses and dries his hands, then pulls a sourdough loaf from the bread bin and saws hunks from it. ‘Wattleboon is one of the few places in the world where you find them. It’s a good place to freedive.’
‘Jackson said he loved coming out here as a boy.’
There he is. Jackson. Cutting straight back into the centre of Saul’s thoughts like a cool knife.
Saul had been at his father’s house when the news from the police came through. Dirk was watching the television, beer in hand, as he reached for the phone. Saul had felt a shift in the air, as if all the windows had suddenly been closed. He turned and saw his father sitting up rigidly. Dirk’s mouth opened, but he didn’t say a word. He simply held out the phone to Saul, who took it and listened to the distant English voice of a police officer talking about fishing, a wave, an accident. Saul asked where it’d happened, who’d been there, whether a body had been found.
Afterwards he realized that he’d asked more questions in those few minutes than he’d asked about his brother’s life in years.
‘Saul?’ Eva is saying.
He is standing stock-still, the bread knife in his hand.
‘I’m gonna light the barbecue,’ he says quickly. He swaps the knife for the tray of fish, then strides from the room with his eyes lowered.
*
They eat on the deck, watching the dusky pink clouds feather away into night. Saul says very little and Eva picks at the fish, a faint feeling of nausea hovering nearby.
When she’s eaten as much as she can manage, she sets down her knife and fork, then slides her sweater off the back of her chair and pulls it on.
‘We can go inside,’ Saul says.
‘No, it’s nice out.’ She looks up at the emerging stars; there are no clouds tonight and she thinks in another half-hour the night sky will be dazzling. Citronella candles burn at either end of the table, and the air swirls with a lemon scent.
In the quiet she hears the stirring of the bay and the chirp of crickets in the bush. ‘When I met your dad,’ she says, glancing across at Saul, ‘he mentioned he doesn’t come out to Wattleboon any more.’
He nods slowly.
‘Is that … because of your mother?’
Saul leans his elbows on the table and looks out towards the bay. ‘Her ashes were scattered up at the cape. I think he’s always felt guilty about not going there since.’
‘I wish I had Jackson’s ashes,’ Eva says, the admission surprising her.
Saul turns to look at her.
‘It’s just …’ she says, ‘maybe it would help.’ She draws a candle towards her and runs a fingertip around the warm, supple wax close to the wick. ‘A few weeks after Jackson drowned, I walked down to the beach where it happened. It was freezing. There was frost on the sand, but the sun was out and the water seemed peaceful. I remember just standing there, staring at the sea, thinking how impossibly serene it was – yet only weeks before …’ She pauses, swallowing hard. ‘One minute I was standing on the shore, and the next I found myself wading in.’
She feels Saul’s gaze move over her face as she continues.
‘I know it must sound crazy, but I needed to be in the sea to feel what Jackson would’ve felt.’ She’d wanted to feel the water soaking his clothes, the cold turning his muscles to lead, the waves pulling him under.
‘You needed it to feel real.’
She nods, pressing her fingernail into the candle. ‘It’s hard – there not being a body.’ She digs out a warm lump of wax that she rolls between her thumb and forefinger until it hardens. ‘But it’s good to be out here, seeing where Jackson grew up. There are so many things I never asked him – so much I want to find out.’
Two years. That’s all she’d shared of Jackson’s thirty years of life. A fragment. Her hand travels to her stomach and she realizes the need to build a connection with his past is even stronger now.
Inside, a phone rings. Saul looks relieved by the distraction and leaves the deck. She hears him answer, saying, ‘Dad?’
Eva leans back in her chair looking up at the stars, wishing Jackson was with her, wishing she could share the news of their baby with him. Over the past few weeks she’s learnt a lot about loneliness. It isn’t just about remote places or a lack of contact with people – it’s a sensation that something has been carved out of you.
When Saul doesn’t return, she begins clearing the plates from the table, scraping the fish bones back into the foil and then stacking the plates. She carries them into the house – but pauses when she catches her name.
Saul is talking in another room and Eva hovers, listening. ‘She came out here like you said … Yeah, Thursday.’
Saul exhales hard. Then there’s the sound of footsteps pacing back and forth. ‘No. Course I didn’t!’
Eva holds her breath, straining to hear.
The footsteps stop. ‘Just that one time … No, haven’t heard from her since.’
When she hears him finishing up the call, she backs out of the house onto the deck, and returns the plates to the table, pulse racing.
Saul comes outside with his hands dug into his pockets. He shifts his weight as he says, ‘I’ve got a bit of work I need to get done for tomorrow.’
‘Then I suppose I should be going,’ she says curtly.
‘I’ll see you down the steps.’
Before she can tell him that she’s fine on her own, he’s taking a slim flashlight from his pocket and leading the way. He shines