He surfed three more giants before the first jet-ski team arrived. As he cut across its bow, its stunned driver and tow surfer stared at him in disbelief.

A SUP all the way out here? Man, this guy is fucking insane!

Nash made it back to the Margaret River mouth by 10.30, caught a long blue peeler into the river, and fifteen minutes later was paddling up to his home on the riverbank.

Once a 1960s brick box, his architect brother-in-law’s design had extended it to maximise the river views, best enjoyed from a large, cantilevered deck, which sat among a canopy of mature peppermint gum trees. He hadn’t spoken to Jonathan in months – not since the edition of The World Tonight which had hastened Nash’s descent into the abyss.

After sluicing himself and the board under the outdoor shower, Nash made his way up the boat ramp to the expansive basement under the house.

Here, the concrete floor was thick with dead gum leaves, blown in on the prevailing westerlies. They crunched underfoot as Nash replaced the SUP on its rack. Threading his way through the rows of underwater equipment – tanks, scooters, sleds, light arrays and a portable decompression chamber – he was all too conscious that this gear gathering dust, once so integral to his identity, now made him feel like a fraud. Despite all the emblazoned sponsors’ logos, it had the aura of a self-indulgent hobby, long forgotten. He wasn’t yet at the point of being able to make a decision on selling it. He wasn’t at the point of being able to decide on anything.

At the top of the stairs, he paused before opening the living room door. It was his practice to inhale deeply here and, for a brief moment, open an olfactory portal to the past. But Natalie’s smell had faded. Recently he’d moved most of her things to the spare bedroom. He wasn’t trying to forget, far from it. But every knick-knack, every book, every article of clothing generated myriad associations, and the memories kept flooding in and drowning him. One day he would work out what to keep.

In the kitchen, he threw oats, salt, raisins and water into a saucepan and flicked on the gas. After nine hours on the board, Nash was both dehydrated and ravenous, and he downed a litre of water and three bananas while he stirred. He was spooning the steaming porridge into a bowl when there was an all too familiar brusque triple knock on the front door.

‘Unbelievable,’ he muttered. Wasn’t she supposed to be coming tomorrow?

Padding across the jarrah floorboards, Nash went to let his sister in.

Only it wasn’t Jacquie on the doorstep.