The Offering by Grace McCleen

her head. My mother looked around. We approached a man with a stick who waved us away with a scowl. ‘Go ’way with ya!’ he said, and spat on the ground. He seemed to think we were someone else.
    My mother laughed. She said: ‘Let’s try up here.’
    We walked towards the boats. Their masts towered into louring clouds that rolled away over the glittering water. We walked to the edge of the quay and my mother held onto my jumper, though I asked her not to. The rusty boats stank, their bellies rising and falling with the lazy swell. The hulls were deep throated and hollow, the boards sodden, teeming with lobster pots, buckets and slime-streaked slabs. On board men were killing eels. Their hands were covered in blood and appeared swollen. I watched the bulging fingers straighten the eels, saw the flash of the knife, the skirmish, then the sudden stillness. Heads went below, guts to the side. The split eels, suddenly motionless, showed pink as babies’ gums. There was a perfection to the movement; one eel replaced another, which was itself split in two, different yet the same; the board cleared, the board bloody; the eel one, the eel two. When the men and the eels didn’t change positions at all, the action seemed to replay itself. When they did, when an eel was awkward or the men raised their hands higher, the action seemed infinite.
    I felt dazed, my thoughts heavy and slow. I turned to my mother – and that is when I saw the group of children watching from the quayside. They were my own age, twelve perhaps or thirteen, three girls and a boy. One of the girls had pale skin and black hair, and she was watching me, not my mother nor the fishermen. I asked my mother again, in a low voice, not to hold onto my jumper, but she wasn’t listening. She hailed one of the fishermen.
    ‘Hello! Could we share a verse with you from the bible?’ The man flicked a glance at us but didn’t answer. My mother repeated her question. She looked round to see if there was an easier way to communicate and decided there was not. ‘Did you know,’ she called, ‘that Jesus died for you?’
    From the corner of my eye I could see the girl with black hair whispering to another. They weren’t smiling but there was a light in their faces, an avidity, as if they were pleased with themselves. As if they had found something good.
    The fisherman said: ‘Sorry, lady.’
    My mother called back: ‘Couldn’t I share this passage with you?’ She beamed as she held the bible aloft. One of the men shook his head very slightly. ‘Well, have a good day,’ she called. They didn’t reply.
    As we walked away from the boats she was flushed and still smiling, though the smile was a little fixed. She said: ‘Would you like an ice cream?’
    I glanced at the children. ‘Won’t he mind?’ I said, meaning my father.
    ‘Oh, don’t worry about him,’ she said. Her eyes were very bright. It was unlike her.
    We passed right by the children and went into a peppermint-green building with darker green squares on the end of it called Sheila’s.
    My mother seemed happier. She said: ‘What do you fancy, my love?’ She looked at me. ‘Madeline?’
    The door had tinkled. A surge of blood passed through me, first hot, then cold. The children had followed us. They were sitting at a table by the door.
    I stared hard at the ice creams. ‘Vanilla,’ I said.
    My mother said: ‘Don’t you want something else?’
    ‘No.’
    She looked at me in surprise, as if I had hurt her.
    ‘Thank you,’ I said in a low voice.
    She said: ‘One strawberry and one vanilla, please.’
    In the reflection of the ice-cream cabinet I could see the girl with black hair, her gaze fixed on me. Her eyes were blue and her skin was pale. She was pretty, and she was smiling as if I was amusing or a novelty of some kind. My chest felt tight.
    My mother handed the cornet to me and I immediately became aware of the way I held it. ‘Thank you’ suddenly seemed a foolish thing to say. I