In the dark, I sat on the cliffs, looking out toward the reefs I could only hear as the breakers crashed unceasingly. Will she be back next season? Will I come back next season?
I looked down at my phone again. Skipper had sent me a message from Geraldton, asking me to come back next year as his deckie, not anyone else’s. Apparently some of the other fishers had been talking about hiring me. Because I was lucky. Of course I’d agree, just for the chance to see Vanessa again.
I heard a splash nearby and saw a flash of reflected moonlight on wet skin, a tail breaking the water before going under. It looked too big to be a sea lion. Again, I heard the sound like dolphins. I couldn’t see, but pressed the button for my phone camera, pointing it at the noise. I could look at it on a computer later, to see if I could lighten the picture up enough to make out what the dolphins were doing.
Goodbye.
I heard the word in her voice, as if it were drifting in the wind and not just an echo in my own head.
Another splash and the dolphin sounds finished. I switched the camera off and trudged back to camp for a beer.
I sat down at my wonky kitchen table. I had a beer and chased it with another. I’m going to look her up as soon as I get to Perth. I’ll look in the phone book, Google her…Oh fuck. I don’t even know her last name. What if I never see her again? A big black pit opened up under my ribs.
I stumbled to the fridge for another beer. How many beers does it take to fill a gaping black hole of despair?
By dawn, I’d finished all the beer in the fridge and my head wasn’t getting any brighter. I put a case of warm beer from the veranda in the fridge and passed out while I was waiting for it to chill.
Skipper woke me up to help him pull the pots in a dim haze. I moved like a zombie on autopilot, winching them up, unloading the catch, baiting the pots and setting them again. When we were done, I stumbled back to my shack and found I had a fridge full of cold beer. I cracked one open.
I sat on my veranda with a six-pack, looking out over the anchorage, like the night I’d first met Vanessa, and drank. When the beer was gone, I went back in for more. I sat in the kitchen, not wanting to look at the empty jetty where the Siren wasn’t. I looked out the back window instead.
I saw her generator shed, where she’d threatened me with a rusty hammer. I reached for another beer and didn’t stop drinking until it was too dark to see the shed. At some point, I passed out again. In a soggy dream, Skipper dragged me out of my shack to go pull the pots. Maybe it really happened, I don’t know. This time we kept them on deck, not baiting them up again. He said something about meeting his quota, time to go home.
When I got home to my shack, I loaded up every last beer from the veranda into the fridge. Then I started drinking again.
Some time after dark, I woke up with a warm beer still half full in my hand. I could smell fish.
“Oi,” said Skipper.
I mumbled some sort of reply. I meant to say Fuck off and leave me alone, but even in my beer haze I remembered this bloke was my boss.
“Brought you some dinner. You haven’t eaten in days. We’re done – we’ll pack up and head out, day after tomorrow. I’ve booked your flights back to Perth. You can go back and sober up. I’ll see you again next season.”
A plate of fish was put in front of me on the table. I looked at it blearily. Was there one plate or two? Or was it three?
“Baldchin groper, tastiest fish in the sea,” Skipper said. “Enjoy, mate.”
That’s what Vanessa said.
I grabbed for the warm beer and took a big mouthful. It had to be the worst beer I’d ever tasted. I turned the can to look at the label. Fuck, that’s the Swan Gold that looked like it was older than me. It tastes like cat’s piss.
I made it to the kitchen sink before I threw up.
I opened the fridge, wiping my mouth, looking for something to chase the taste away. The fridge was empty.
I staggered out to the veranda, looking for more beer, but I only found empty boxes. Fuck, I drank it all.
The next two days I had the hangover from hell and vomited it all back up again. The last thing on my mind was dolphins as I hawked my guts up. I even managed not to think of Vanessa.
Skipper threatened to take me to the plane in the wheelbarrow if I didn’t walk, so I staggered out to the airstrip myself on the last day, one bag in each hand.
I threw up one last time in the airsick bag on the plane, just after we took off. The pilot didn’t say anything.
When I got home to Perth, I slept. I didn’t want to do anything else.