within the hour.
'Blue skies and sunglasses 'fore we get to the fishing grounds or I'll buy y'a pint and y'supper when we get back.'
'I saw a child,' I said. 'A baby.'
He gazed back over my shoulder and nodded. 'Yes. We have babies here. They grows up into reg'lar folks an' all, just like you 'n' me. Well, me anyways.'
'I just thought, in light of what happened...' My words tailed off.
'So,' he said. 'Fishin'.'
He wore a happy, expectant look. I'd been putting him off ever since returning from the hospital, citing my weakness, injuries, seasickness, fear of drowning... He was hungry for company, perhaps even seeing me as a surrogate for Gordon, who no doubt would have followed his dad into the fishing business.
'I really have no clue about boats, or fish,' I said, pathetically, as he led the way to the Gratitude . 'I'm not even dressed for it.'
He handed me a thick jumper, which he helped me put on, and a pair of boots. 'Now y'are,' he said.
He started the engine and cast off the moorings. I strapped on a lifejacket and sat on a bench to watch him steer the boat out of the harbour. He told me of the Viking rudders that had been dredged up in the fishing nets over the years. He mentioned how the fishing had changed over the fifty years he had lived here. There had been shrimp in abundance once, available the whole summer, but then the beamers would come and hoover the whole lot up in one day. Reduced stocks and punitive EU restrictions meant that the fishing industry was all but dead here; a terrible brake applied to a tradition that had lasted a thousand years. Trawlers were illicitly selling over-quota fish.
Charlie could remember the good times. Fish gold: cod, monkfish and hake, and also dogfish, lemon sole, turbot and lobster. Scallops dredged up from the bed. Exotics such as red mullet and uglies: angler fish, conger eel. Now you could spend a day out on a boat and you'd be lucky to recoup your fuel costs.
There were some still making a living in this line, but not many. Those that did were either escaping from something or had no choice. He'd met a couple of Eastern Europeans who worked on crabbing boats. They were making between thirty and forty thousand pounds a year, but it was breakback work. You lived on board and worked three months before you had a month off. Accommodation and meals were taken out of your pay packet.
Charlie had considered moving on many times - the crabbing boats had attracted him for a short time - but he could never leave the place where he had been born. 'I get headache if I'm away too long,' he said.
He owned a small fish shed from which he sold herring and sprat during the winter ('But only to the older ladies and gents... they're not a fish the young like much'), cod, Dover sole and turbot in the summer. He especially liked selling turbot to Londoners who came out to the village. He could put whatever price he liked on them and they paid without question. And he could still make more money charging the best part of a thousand pounds to groups of fishing buddies that wanted to charter a boat to the wrecks.
'How long before we get to where we're going?' I asked him. The wind was charging the boat, rocking us from side to side. The sea had decided to take up the challenge thrown by the sky and had turned moody. Plenty of chop now. I received an occasional slap of cold spray across the face.
'Just thirty miles or so. We'll drop a net or two and then move on, maybe shoot some lines over a wreck. Bigger fish there. Can't dredge so the bigger boats don't bother.'
I felt as if I was an understudy drafted in to take the place of the lead actor who has suddenly fallen ill. Everything felt unreal, staged. Even our dialogue seemed scripted. It was too mannered, too polite. This wasn't my normal life, and yet it was, now. I had been present, yet absent, and routines had been prescribed without my involvement, and it was all for my benefit, supposedly. I felt as if I were being
'Blue skies and sunglasses 'fore we get to the fishing grounds or I'll buy y'a pint and y'supper when we get back.'
'I saw a child,' I said. 'A baby.'
He gazed back over my shoulder and nodded. 'Yes. We have babies here. They grows up into reg'lar folks an' all, just like you 'n' me. Well, me anyways.'
'I just thought, in light of what happened...' My words tailed off.
'So,' he said. 'Fishin'.'
He wore a happy, expectant look. I'd been putting him off ever since returning from the hospital, citing my weakness, injuries, seasickness, fear of drowning... He was hungry for company, perhaps even seeing me as a surrogate for Gordon, who no doubt would have followed his dad into the fishing business.
'I really have no clue about boats, or fish,' I said, pathetically, as he led the way to the Gratitude . 'I'm not even dressed for it.'
He handed me a thick jumper, which he helped me put on, and a pair of boots. 'Now y'are,' he said.
He started the engine and cast off the moorings. I strapped on a lifejacket and sat on a bench to watch him steer the boat out of the harbour. He told me of the Viking rudders that had been dredged up in the fishing nets over the years. He mentioned how the fishing had changed over the fifty years he had lived here. There had been shrimp in abundance once, available the whole summer, but then the beamers would come and hoover the whole lot up in one day. Reduced stocks and punitive EU restrictions meant that the fishing industry was all but dead here; a terrible brake applied to a tradition that had lasted a thousand years. Trawlers were illicitly selling over-quota fish.
Charlie could remember the good times. Fish gold: cod, monkfish and hake, and also dogfish, lemon sole, turbot and lobster. Scallops dredged up from the bed. Exotics such as red mullet and uglies: angler fish, conger eel. Now you could spend a day out on a boat and you'd be lucky to recoup your fuel costs.
There were some still making a living in this line, but not many. Those that did were either escaping from something or had no choice. He'd met a couple of Eastern Europeans who worked on crabbing boats. They were making between thirty and forty thousand pounds a year, but it was breakback work. You lived on board and worked three months before you had a month off. Accommodation and meals were taken out of your pay packet.
Charlie had considered moving on many times - the crabbing boats had attracted him for a short time - but he could never leave the place where he had been born. 'I get headache if I'm away too long,' he said.
He owned a small fish shed from which he sold herring and sprat during the winter ('But only to the older ladies and gents... they're not a fish the young like much'), cod, Dover sole and turbot in the summer. He especially liked selling turbot to Londoners who came out to the village. He could put whatever price he liked on them and they paid without question. And he could still make more money charging the best part of a thousand pounds to groups of fishing buddies that wanted to charter a boat to the wrecks.
'How long before we get to where we're going?' I asked him. The wind was charging the boat, rocking us from side to side. The sea had decided to take up the challenge thrown by the sky and had turned moody. Plenty of chop now. I received an occasional slap of cold spray across the face.
'Just thirty miles or so. We'll drop a net or two and then move on, maybe shoot some lines over a wreck. Bigger fish there. Can't dredge so the bigger boats don't bother.'
I felt as if I was an understudy drafted in to take the place of the lead actor who has suddenly fallen ill. Everything felt unreal, staged. Even our dialogue seemed scripted. It was too mannered, too polite. This wasn't my normal life, and yet it was, now. I had been present, yet absent, and routines had been prescribed without my involvement, and it was all for my benefit, supposedly. I felt as if I were being
Similar Books
