Initially days slowly migrated into weeks and his identity started to fade, the lines get blurry. Bill’s were paid and letters addressed to him became fewer. He wasn’t on the electoral role and his name doesn’t appear as a by-line in the newspaper anymore. He’s not here. His departure was as dramatic and unexpected as his way of being was constant and dependable. The way he left changed the way he was, how he is remembered.

I was cold for a long time after he left and imagine the river waters left him cold too. April and May were cool and autumnal, I remember a lot of shivering.

If it were possible to hold to his hand, and I longed to do that, I was unsure who would be warming who. Who would be consoled? Would reconciliation be possible? If one extended a cold hand could the other grasp it and find warmth again?

There is so little left of him…

There was scant evidence of his presence, his gym bag, a few photos some CDs, music that I didn’t have an ear for. His bench top coffee maker, his toothbrush, his stopped watch, his tax receipts, added up to so little without Mottsu’s presence they were artefacts without significance. They were all I had. If his socks and clothes were added to the collection and his desk, which is one the few things that was his rather than ‘ours’, there was still be nothing that embodied him.

I didn’t see him, or feel his presence, or hear him. I confided the emptiness to Hardt, my psychologist. Hardt was kind and suggested I wear his watch, ‘Wouldn’t it be good to wear his watch?’ she gently prodded. My tear-stained chin quivered, and I nodded, hesitantly. A bargain was struck, and although more reluctance stole in later I thought the gesture an homage.

His watch, it was a gift from me. I bought it from a QANTAS catalogue, on a trip home one day, it was a good watch. The band was broken and it was not ticking. The police returned it, along with the few things he had with him when he drowned. I replaced the battery, incredibly the watch worked, after four days under water with him, the watch worked. That finding was as dismaying as it is improbable, there was no real reason not to replace the band and wear the watch.

I wore Mottsu’s watch. Hardt smiled when she noticed. I wore it as if it were a ticking penance. I had such mixed feelings about the watch; its resuscitation served to remind me of his sinking. I found his watch sort of haunting and irksome, and wore it more like a manacle rather than a treasure.

It is a good watch and it faithfully ticked for about 3 years. Stops and is revived with another battery, only to stop again a few weeks later. Relieved, I make no further effort to restore it and stash it in a bathroom drawer. Hardt doesn’t know, I don’t see her now, and nobody else enquires.

“It is true. We have a beautiful time
As long as time is time at all.” A Mistake —Czeslaw Milosz