loud drone of the coastguard helicopter cuts through Eva’s thoughts. The sea beneath quivers and trembles. The white and red colours look bright, optimistic almost, against the darkening clouds, and a ripple of anticipation spreads through the growing crowd.
The policeman stands alone, rubbing his palms together to keep warm. Sometimes his radio crackles and he lifts it to his mouth. Eva glances over occasionally, studying him, watching for a sign to tell her how this day will end.
Mostly they wait in silence, listening to the waves crashing at sea, frothing white water bowling into the rocks. Her mother keeps hold of her hand and every now and then she says beneath her breath, ‘Come on, Jackson. Come on.’
*
When the last bit of daylight is fading, Eva hears crackling from the policeman’s radio. She turns and watches as he lifts it towards his mouth and speaks into it. He looks out over the water and nods once, solemnly. Then the radio is lowered.
He begins moving towards Eva. She shakes her head, thinking, Do not say it!
‘I’m afraid the coastguard’s calling off the search.’
Her gloved fingers clutch her scarf. ‘They can’t!’
‘The boat’s almost out of fuel and the helicopter’s lost the light. I’m sorry.’
‘He’s still out there!’
‘The coastguard has made the decision.’
‘But he won’t survive the night.’
The policeman’s gaze leaves her and settles on the sand at their feet.
She feels her mother’s hand around her waist, holding onto her, squeezing so tightly it’s as if she’s trying to absorb Eva’s pain.
‘He’s out there,’ Eva says finally. She pulls away and staggers down the beach, where the faint lights of the quay glow in the distance. She hears her mother calling after her, but she will not look back. She knows exactly where she needs to go.
Jackson is her husband and she will not give up on him.
*
The fisherman is just stepping onto the quay when Eva approaches him. ‘Is this your boat?’
‘Yeah,’ he says suspiciously.
She snatches a breath. ‘I need you to take me out in it. I’ll 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
