The circle of firelight had drawn Adair Smith from out of the shadows, from obscurity, across the abandoned boatyard, to the 44-gallon drum, where, warming himself there by the flickering flames with the others, he considered his existence.
In that contemplative state of mind, lips pursed, he gazed up at the starry night skies in search of enlightenment, or purpose (both, even), but, as always, he found nothing but heartache and despair. It suddenly dawned on him, although not with any great surprise, that life had dealt him a bad hand of cards.
Adair wondered if, given his time over again, he might’ve done things differently; might’ve tried, against all the odds, at being a better listener, a better husband to his then-wife, Verity.
Verity never really saw or, if she had, understood how his alcoholism had driven a wedge through their already fragile marriage until it was too late, until it became all too clear that she no longer loved him.
The void left by her leaving had led him on a downward spiral of anxiety and poverty, exacerbated only by his drinking. It helped him, to some extent, to grapple with the sobering reality of things, the desolation.
He saw, as he had in himself, the same desolation imprinted in the facial expressions and mannerisms of those huddled around the fire. Their nervous tics, downcast eyes, which, at first, seemed reluctant to acknowledge his presence there, until one woman in particular caught his attention.
It might’ve been any one of her many beautiful features (her long black hair, her smile, wide hips) that drew close comparison to his ex-wife, although he couldn’t exactly pinpoint the one defining difference. Not until, after sidling up beside him, gently brushing her arm against his did he feel an undeniable connection with her, deeper, he oddly thought, than the one he initially had with Verity, before things spectacularly soured between them.
“I can’t quite put my finger on it,” she said, “but you remind me of someone I know.”
“You do?”
“Have we met before?”
“I don’t think so,” Adair said. “Have we?”
“Do you have a name?”
“Adair.”
“Diane.”
They shook hands. “Nice to meet you, Diane,” he said.
“It’s a pleasure.” She smiled, adjusted the shawl draped over her bare shoulders, cinching it beneath her chin, and stood back for the smoke, shooing it away (the smoke and drifts of fine white ash that settled over her) with her free hand. “Adair’s an unusual name for a man, don’t you think?”
“A name’s a name.”
“I suppose it is. What happened to your eye? Looks kind of painful.”
“I got in a scuffle, that’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah. It was nothing, really. Just a misunderstanding, you could say. My fault. I have a little drinking problem.”
“You’re an odd one, aren’t you?”
Adair, a little sleep deprived, shrugged his shoulders, almost sheepishly. “Maybe. I get that all the time. I have to be.” He chuckled. “I’m on the bones of my arse.”
“I know what you mean. I used to stay in Zonta House accommodation, where vulnerable women like me usually go,” Diane said, “but not anymore. I have my dignity, too, you know. It’s becoming more important to me than ever, I think. How about you?”
Adair rubbed his hands together, blew into them. “Aren’t you cold?”
“A bit. The fire’s nice, though.”
“Where do you stay now, then?”
“Over there,” she said, pointing across the boatyard, where now the bonfire, somehow, amazingly, threw the faintest illumination of firelight, here and there, on a dry-docked boat, held aloft over the parking lot with concrete blocks, timber stands and steel Acrow Props.
He hadn’t seen it upon his arrival on foot, from the Tranby Jetty, in Maylands, while he’d been waiting for the sun to set beside the Swan River, taking note of the available moorings there, the pen boats, too, although he supposed he should’ve seen it, on account of its size, of it clearly being in disrepair.
On its rusty hull, on starboard, Adair could read the words Rock Bottom, and beneath that, right of the nearest porthole, in similar but smaller font, Bottoms Up, printed there in white.
At closer inspection, with Diane accompanying him, stepping over broken beer bottle glass, used condoms, Adair saw a thick blanket of barnacles had covered most of the bow, tagged with indecipherable graffiti, vulgar caricatures, and scorched by recent fire, where the flames had undeniably licked the underside of the boat at some stage.
Diane told him it was a 1922 Scheepswerf van Duivendijk Schooner, and, despite its masts (both of them) missing, in need of splicing, because of wood rot, and its rudder needing new bearings, it was still, unbelievably, sailable. “Provided,” she said, “the right kind of helmsman can course through the toughest of seas, come hell or high water.”
“I’m a landlubber myself,” Adair told her. “I don’t know the foggiest thing about boats.”
“I was like that, too.”
“And now?”
“Now I need a little companionship, a cruising partner.”
Adair felt Diane take his clammy hand into hers, in the near dark, and led him to the stern, away from the firelight, where a Jacob’s ladder — a rope ladder, of which the rungs were wooden — hung down from the deck above, over the gunnel.
She ascended first, disappearing from view, and then Adair began his precarious climb up. He peered over his shoulder halfway up, swinging there against the hull, catching glimpses of the sawtooth roof of the derelict warehouse by Hardey Road, pigeons in silhouette against the furthest streetlamp light, where those whom had stood by the bonfire for warmth now retreated, back into obscurity, to ponder once more about their existence.
“Will everything be all right, Diane?”
“What?”
“I said will everything be all right?”
“Let’s hope so, Adair,” she said, helping him up onto the deck, where they embraced one another over torn sails, frayed forestays and fishing tackle. “Let’s hope so.”
Ben F. Blitzer is a Western Australian writer. His story, ‘Little Hero,’ was shortlisted for the Stuart Hadow Short Story Award, 2020. In 2021, he became a quarter finalist in the Driftwood Press In-House Contest for ‘Carry Him Home.’