Chapter Eight
In the morning, Elle emerged from her cabin to find Lucas drinking coffee in the saloon.
‘Sorry to run out on you last night.’ He watched as she paused at the galley to take down a coffee mug and instant coffee.
The deck heaved beneath her feet and she put both coffee and mug back again. She would wait until she was on dry land to put something that strong in her stomach. ‘No problem.’ She reached down to the fridge for cold water.
‘Kayleigh’s coming tomorrow.’
Her stomach rolled and she put the water back again, too. ‘Oh? Great.’ She climbed the steps and forced a smile. ‘That will be fantastic for you.’
His gaze sharpened. ‘Feeling sick? Pick a point on the horizon and stare at it for a while.’
‘I have to go, anyway. Dry land will do the trick.’ She didn’t bother denying that she felt rough. She’d seen her pallor in the shower room mirror.
He rose as she made to pass by. ‘Elle—’ He pushed his hands into the pockets of his cut-offs.
She waited politely. When he seemed uncertain how to continue, she said, ‘If Kayleigh’s coming here, will you be staying with her at a hotel as you said, so your cabin will be empty? I might as well take my turn in it, hadn’t I? No point me slumming it and the master cabin standing doing nothing.’
He looked surprised. Then discomfited. ‘She’s booked a room at the Sea Creek up the road but the boat will still be my base. Kayleigh likes her own space. But I’ll swap cabins with you, if you like.’
Contrarily, she shrugged. ‘In that case, no, it’s OK. I just assumed you’d be moving in with Kayleigh.’ Then the boat lurched. ‘Excuse me. The shore looks quite attractive this morning.’
* * *
Polly, one of the dive instructors at Dive Meddi, had just lucked into a flat share in Msida and, as a custodian of one of Vern’s double-cab pick-up trucks, had offered to give Lucas a lift in whenever their work days coincided. Lucas liked Polly. She was almost as tall as him, untidy and permanently smiling. He crossed to the far side of the road and took up station outside a wedding dress shop, ready to hop in when the dark blue truck arrived.
‘Good day off?’ As soon as Lucas had shut the passenger door Polly nosed the pick-up back into the stream of traffic. ‘You’re with me, today. We’ve got some Open Water Divers who want a guided tour so I thought we’d take them down to the statue of Madonna at seventeen metres at Cirkewwa. The sea’s a bit calmer up at the north end. Vern says it’s pretty choppy at StJulian’s.’
Lucas relaxed into his seat. He knew he’d need to contribute little to the conversation.
When Polly finally steered the truck under the bright blue sign to Dive Meddi and inched her way down the pitted incline to the dive school and parked, Vern appeared briefly to tell Polly which students were hers as Lucas listened in, ready to prepare equipment.
The divers all had their own wetsuits, fins and masks but would need buoyancy control devices — BCDs — tanks and instruments. Lucas began by filling the tanks at the compressor in an outbuilding to the main team room, swinging the heavy, unwieldy cylinders one in each hand over to the area where he and Polly would go over the kit with the divers. Polly took the lead. She was the instructor. For now he was happy not to advance to instructor, with all the studying that involved, but to remain well within his capabilities and simply enjoy his job.
As he went in and out from shade to beating sun, he breathed in the familiar smell of neoprene and saltwater. The choppy sea bounced the sun into his eyes as it worried restlessly at the rocks, sometimes bursting a wave or two hard enough to run over into the swimming pool, cut into the rock nearby.
Lars was taking out another dive over at Ghar Lapsi and Brett was already packing the other pick-up. Those diving with Lars had been booked to arrive before those diving with Polly to keep things nice and calm. Lars was already going through the usual routines with his dive: allotting equipment, examining dive logs, discussing weights and checking instrument consoles.
Dive Meddi was a great place to work. During one of Malta’s frequent redevelopments a small hotel had been swallowed up and developed by a big concern that wanted a dive school in its grounds. Vern had been swift to rent the sloping rock area with sea access, a pool, and a building with flaking blue paint for the team room, changing room and office, and now a constant clientele came via the website, the brand new hotel and from discount deals with others nearby.
Lucas put his own kit together methodically, turning the instrument console over so the gauges faced the floor as he switched on the air. After checking the hoses he added slates that could be written on underwater and knives in case someone got tangled on fishing line. He took the safety aspect of his job seriously. He even kept an old CD in the top left pocket of his BCD. It would reflect the sun if he needed to surface and signal for help.
He checked it was there, a Nickelback album that had become damaged through frequent playing. Elle had bought it for him the last Christmas that they were together. He knew the playlist by heart.
Once his kit was together and checked he stowed it in the pick-up.
‘How are you doing, Lucas?’ called Polly, the signal that he should join the group for the usual friendly pre-dive chat, bringing out experience and expectations, checking over dive logs and medicals.
Then they moved onto selecting BCDs and Lucas produced his usual calm flow of ‘This BCD has releases here, here and here. Want to try them? Shoulder dump, pull here. Inflate . . . deflate . . . Want to try that?’ And all the time the words of Nickelback’s ‘Trying Not to Love You’ were going around in his head.