Bodies and Sole by Hilary MacLeod Page A

Moira was going to wear to her wedding – and where it would take place. Not on the beach. The first attempt there had been a disaster.
    Helluva mess. Moira had been furious. This time, Moira had chosen the conventional safety of the hall.
    â€œWhere she shoulda done it in the first place,” said Gladys Fraser, President of the Women’s Institute.
    â€œThe never-ending bridesmaid.” Hy sighed as she checked another e-mail from Moira, who’d been issuing online instructions of various kinds since before the aborted wedding last summer. Most of them lately revolved around the dress. Moira still didn’t have one, and she was panicking. Her original dress, her mother’s, had, like the wedding, been ruined. The Sears catalogue had failed to produce anything suitable.
    So had her reluctant bridesmaid.
    Hy had no idea what to suggest.
    Marlene showed up before Hy for their lunch meeting, and was gratified to see that a couple of the shacks had been painted, and that one appeared to have been leased.
    Hy rolled in on her bicycle, as Marlene was squinting through nearsighted eyes at a rather strange sign overhanging the door: Do Tell a Sole. Fish Skin Clothing. On a sandwich board beside the door, it read: Wear a trout when you go out. A sign in the window invited potential customers to Slip into some sole.
    What the…?
    This was not the crafty kind of store she’d had in mind. It was weird, definitely weird.
    Hy had a big grin on her face as Marlene marched along the wharf, heading straight for the offending storefront. She followed at a discreet distance, waving at a few fishermen who were loafing around, the day’s catch taken in and taken care of.
    They smiled and winked. No one liked the tourism woman.
    At the door of the fish skin clothing store stood a strange little man with bowed legs and dark, slicked-back hair.
    â€œMornin’, ma’am.” He held out a hand as Marlene strode up to him. She ignored it. Instead she looked with distaste at his sign – and him. She ventured a peek inside the store, full of what appeared to be leather jackets.
    â€œSalmon,” he said. “You won’t find finer. I sell to a couture house in Paris.” He motioned her inside the store, and, in spite of herself, she entered. She kept her distance from the merchandise.
    â€œBut who…who would buy these?”
    â€œNot everyone. I agree with you there, ma’am. You gotta have money. They don’t come cheap.”
    â€œWhat are you doing here?”
    â€œFree country, I guess. Save on supply and delivery bills. A bit of PR…advertising, connecting myself to this here village celebrating two hundred years.”
    Hy slipped into the shack. It was dark and a bit damp inside. It smelled fishy, and…something else…
    Up front was a rack of jackets. They looked like the skin on the salmon filet she’d had last night.
    â€œMade out of salmon? For real?”
    â€œYup. Go ahead. Touch one. It won’t fall apart.”
    It felt just like leather.
    â€œTry it on.”
    Hy slipped into it. It felt like any leather jacket. It looked like fish.
    Marlene entered the shop and looked around with disapproval, resisting holding her nose. The jackets looked like fish. Smelled like fish.
    â€œI’m Catfish Cloutier. Friends call me Cat. Funny, when I’m in the fish business. Used to be for real, you know. Then I got looking at them skins. Well, here, let me show you.”
    He scurried, ungainly, to a counter at the back of the shack, and returned with a tray of fish skins, all neatly labeled.
    He set it down on a display counter at the front of the store. Hy leaned forward to have a look. Marlene stepped back.
    â€œNow this’d be your tuna.” He pointed to a thick, dark grey slab of skin.
    â€œCall it the denim of fish skin. Rough. Tough. Gotta be, to hold in five hundred pounds of fish.”
    He jabbed a finger at a salmon skin