Putting reflections on spare shoes out of his mind, he tried to remember what he had heard about rip tides. They took you out to sea, of course – he knew that; but there was something else, some bit of ancient knowledge that now he tried to bring to mind. Swim diagonally – across the tide – not against it. That was it. Then, when the power of the current was reduced, one could go in again. But now, far away from the beach, he found that the waves were confusing him. Where was the beach? In the direction of the lights, of course, but the lights seemed to come round again on both right and left. Perhaps the beach curved.

It was while he was puzzling over this that Matthew suddenly remembered the sharks. Coming from Scotland, where nature was, on the whole, benevolent, and where the most dangerous of creatures was the reclusive adder, or perhaps an aggressive Highland cow protecting her calf, he did not think of what might reasonably be expected to have an interest in stinging, biting or even eating him. And yet Australia was full of such creatures. The western taipan was the most dangerous of land-based snakes – and Australia had it. Then there were all those spiders, and the box jellyfish up in Queensland. Even the duck-billed platypus, so ostensibly lovable, had a poisonous spike concealed on its back legs and could cause a lot of damage. And then there were the Great White sharks, and this very beach was one on which attacks had occurred.

Matthew now remembered that one should never swim at night. Even the locals, braver than most, would never enter the water at night. And here he was, in the sharks’ element, utterly at their mercy – although mercy was not a concept one associated with sharks. I am simply prey, he thought; a floating meal. Involuntarily, he drew his legs up to his chest in an attempt to make himself less of a target, but this served only to make him less buoyant and he had to kick downwards again to stay afloat. And with each kick, he thought, I’m sending a signal down through the water into the depths: here I am; this way.

Terror was now replaced – even if only for a short time – by relative calm. Matthew realised that he was going to die, and the thought, curiously, made him worry less about what he imagined to be in the water below him. He wondered now how quickly the end would come; would it be, as he imagined, like being hit by an express train, pushed through the water; or would it be painless, almost analgesic, as the system shut down after the first large bite? Perhaps it would not be analgesic so much as analeptic: perhaps consciousness of what was happening would be heightened. Time, they said, slowed down when one fell a great distance. Perhaps that happened too in the course of a shark attack.

He stopped struggling against the current and began to allow it to move him where it would. He was feeling a little bit colder now, although the water was still comfortably warm. At least I didn’t fall into the North Sea, he thought. Had that happened, I would have had very little time before succumbing to the cold – about four minutes, was it not?

He looked up at the sky. Against the deep velvet blue, half way to the horizon, was the Southern Cross, as if suspended in the sky like a decoration; a symbol of this country that he had hardly yet got to know, which had welcomed him so warmly and was now dispatching him. At least I’ve seen the Southern Cross before I die, thought Matthew. At least there’s that.

And then he felt something brush against him, against his shoulder. He let out a groan, a sound of anguish that was quickly swallowed by the waves and the empty air. Phosphorescence glistened on the surface, and then disappeared. A black shape. A fin.

Provided that they survive the experience – which unfortunately many do not – those attacked by sharks provide us with a rather surprising account of what it is to face imminent annihilation in the jaws of a predator. Some describe feeling anger at the creature attacking them – understandable, perhaps, in the circumstances; others describe a feeling of calm verging on acceptance; yet others speak of an overwhelming determination to survive at all costs. This last reaction is perhaps the best response, as it can spur people on to heroic efforts to repel the shark with blows and kicks. And if these are directed at the sensitive part of the shark – the nose, which contains the shark’s navigation and sensory organs – then such blows can be successful in persuading the shark to desist. After all, it is thought that we do not taste all that agreeable to sharks, and while they might go to more effort with a succulent seal, a surfer in a wet suit may be a less attractive proposition.

Not that Matthew was wearing a wet suit. He was clad only in the clothes in which he had gone for dinner at the restaurant on Cottesloe Beach, minus one shoe, of course, which he had kicked off in his struggle to get back to the shore. When he felt the shark brush against him, though, he felt the sleeve of his shirt rip, exposing more flesh to the sea. He was calm enough to know that this was not a good development: an exposed arm was a more tempting target than one that was clothed.

He thought that at least. Beyond that, his reaction was neither to fight off his attacker nor to spend his remaining seconds on this earth in the contemplation of the life that he had led; in thoughts of his new bride, his gallery, his family, Edinburgh, his flat in India Street, and so on. He thought of none of these, because he lost consciousness. The human mind, faced with its end, can simply blot out the unacceptable; refuse to believe what seems to be the inevitable. Matthew’s mind did that. But just before that happened, he opened his eyes wide to the sight of the creature approaching him in the water; to its fin, which was rather floppy, he noticed, and to its curious beak-like nose. Beak. Dolphins have beaks.

He became briefly unconscious, possibly through relief, possibly through shock, possibly through a combination of both. But his unconsciousness did not last long, as he was partly aware of being in the water and being propelled by this creature. He felt waves break over him; he felt the tug of water; and then he felt sand beneath his feet, just under his toes. And with one final tumble, he felt himself pushed into the line of surf right at the edge of the beach. There was foam; there was water in his mouth; there was sand in his nostrils. He spluttered; he dragged himself up onto the dry sand, which stuck to his wet skin like a layer of icing on a cake. Never had the feel of the earth, of its sand, been more welcome.

He lay down on the beach, gasping. Then he rolled over, and with his head cushioned by the sand he stared up at the sky, the star-studded sky that he had looked at from the water and which he had decided, then and there, he loved so much. It was so precious, as was this smell of sea-weed, this sand all over him, this sound of surf. Everything, everything was precious beyond price.

He remained there for several minutes, gradually taking in what had happened to him. I almost drowned, he thought. I was almost attacked by a shark that was not there. It was a dolphin, and it pushed me… He paused. It could not have happened. He simply could not have been saved by a dolphin. It was ridiculous; the sort of thing that happened in Greek myths, not in real life, here on this beach in Western Australia, in a world of aeroplanes and electricity. This was a miracle – a sheer miracle – and miracles simply did not happen.

Rising to his feet, he brushed the sand off his face and hands. Relief at still being alive had obscured any thought of Elspeth. She would think him drowned; he would have to get back to her as soon as possible. He glanced at his watch; the manufacturer’s claim of waterproofing had proved to be well-founded, and it had survived the ocean. He remembered that they had left the restaurant at nine-thirty, and they could have walked for only about ten minutes or so before he had started his ill-fated paddle. That meant that he had been caught in the rip tide at about twenty to ten; it was now ten-thirty. He had been in the water for almost an hour.