Trawler (29 page)

“Well done, Jerry! Good on ya!” said Allan Besant, without the trace of a smile.

Half happy that I still existed, even in this cold and receding emptiness, in the fug, I stood at a loss between the two bolted-down tables and their screwed-tight benches: with Dougie and Robbie, Allan and Bryan to my left; with Jason and Luke, at my own table, to my right. And then I remembered that I had a genuine dog-bouncy, an all-four-feet prancing throw-me-a-ball Labrador question to ask Robbie, so I sat down.

“Hey Robbie! You’ve said it twice now—and each time it gave me this moment of happiness, you know? But what does it mean? Exactly? What does it mean—when you’re annoyed with someone—why do you shout: ‘You big girl’s blouse you?’”

“Aye!” shouted Robbie. He looked interested, almost happy himself. He elbowed Dougie backwards into the bench-rest, he took possession of his side of the table. “Aye—that’s for us, on the
Norlantean,
so what d’ye call it, friendship? Ach!
Comradeship!
That’s it, among the boys. Because we love it, it’s our latest saying. So it’s no an insult like. Except that mebbe it is—because it’s no a compliment.”

“Ah come on,” said Jerry, reappearing through the wraparound steam and stale fat-fried air, “what you talking about?” And—full of enthusiasm for the mere thoughts of such an image, he forgot his manners, by-passed Jason, and brought Robbie the first giant castle of treacle sponge in a moat of cream. “It’s obvious!” he shouted. “Tight round—stuck fast on the big nipples! There you are” (he set the big bowl down, decisively, in front of Robbie), “you’re clinging! You’re clinging tight all over! You’re clinging tight to the big breasts!”

Dougie, moving his upper body slightly forward away from the back-rest, down towards the table, said, slow and mournful, “Aye, that’s right enough…” (Jerry stood still for a moment, because Dougie—Dougie was
talking…)
Dougie stared at the table-top. “And it’s no a bad idea… Not at all… No when you come to think of it…”

“But Redmond, Old Worzel,” said Jerry, returning with two more steaming gold-and-white castles of pleasure, “take a tip from Jerry. If you want to pick up a
really
big girl—or any kind of girl for that matter
—never
say you work on a trawler! They dinna like it, they hate it, too wild, dangerous, whatever, I dunno, but they dinna like it—so say you’re away at the oil-rigs. Steady money. A job for life. That works—every time!”

“Aye,” said Bryan, in his big bass voice, shifting in his seat, looking at his huge wack of treacle pudding as if he’d been shortchanged, “but suppose it’s a Norwegian girl, or a Dutch girl—then tell them the truth. Because the only thing they canna stand is a lie. And that’s obvious too, isn’t it?” Big Bryan, First Mate, held his spoon poised in his right hand, but he’d yet to touch his treacle mountain; Big Bryan was becoming passionate, carried away: “Because the Norwegians, they’re our people,
seafarers!
No just
sailors or seamen, they’re
seafarers.
And the Dutch? Why do we like the Dutch? Up here in Orkney and Shetland?”

I said, my mouth full of treacle and sponge and fluffy cream, “Nosh idea.”

Bryan raised his head and looked straight at me. “Because they beat the shit out of you English! They sailed right up the Thames!”

Dougie, concerned, said, “But he’s Irish!”

“Irish? Of course he’s not Irish! And even if he was, forgive me, Dougie, but all that
religion.
Ireland, it’s almost as bad as Lewis and Harris—a
total
bullshit zone. No truth at all! Not anywhere!”

Jason, opposite me, said suddenly: “Redmond, that’s your eating done for now, you’re fat enough already. Go on—it’s your turn. Sean’s on the bridge, and we don’t want him doing a Davy… I’ve got a nasty feeling he’s on to his second forty-hour stretch … And even if he
is crazy,
and the youngest, we shouldn’t treat him like that, should we?”

“No of course not,” I said, chastened, dropping my spoon, jumping up. And I made my way to the bridge.

AS I REACHED THE FLOOR
of the wheelhouse, Sean scrabbled out of his harness, out of the skipper’s chair. He looked manic, wide-eyed, certifiable from lack of sleep. He bolted past me, like a young rabbit breaking from cover, as if the dog of his own terrors was right behind him, all the way back down the stairs.

So I’m on watch, I thought, but for what? Enemy submarines? And what do I do if we hit one? And if there is something out there I won’t see it until it’s in the arc of the searchlight, and the swell, it seems gigantic … and the radar-screen with that wiper-thing that leaves dots and blobs behind it instead of scraping them off… But look here, I’m sure I could handle the wheel and keep her on a compass bearing, any fool can do that, but this brass-and-mahogany wheel, this ancient compass, I
think
they’re decorations, because real life seems to happen only on all these alien screens, and with these little levers, squat gear-sticks … And
anyway I don’t know the compass-bearing, Jason says I can write anything I like, but if I give away the positions of his hauls he’ll push my head in a bucket of water and drown me dead as a Black butt…

And hey, it’s lonely, I’m really lonely; this is the only place you can find loneliness on the entire ship … And please, I don’t like it…

I was thrown (but this time without undue aggression; the tail-end of the baby hurricane seemed to have lost its murderous one-on-one intent)—and I fetched up facing aft: in front of a comforting, a friendly machine. He introduced himself, in plain English, as I clung to the wood surround: “Smith Maritime,” he said, at eye-level (well, perhaps my knees were bent a little). He was an Enlightenment, a reasonable machine, and he clearly expected me to participate in his interests in life: in five neat rectangles, outlined in white on his black fascia, he offered, to anyone who could read, two big buttons apiece, one below the other, in each section, headed, in series (and
such
an orderly series):
MAIN CLUTCH; AUTO CLUTCH; WINCH SPEED; AUTO PUMP; CRANE
. So how’s about, just to please him, to honour this new friendship extended in words that even I can understand, how’s about I press one or two? Or maybe all together?

There was a pounding of feet up the stairs, two lots of desperate feet, it seemed to me—and Jason appeared, moving almost as fast into the wheelhouse as Sean had gone out of it: and looking almost as crazed.

Close behind him—so that’s all right!—there came the reassuring Robbie.

“Jesus!” said Jason, grabbing me, one hard hand to each shoulder, pushing me towards the Mate’s chair. “To think I sent
you
up here! On watch—Jesus! I forgot—I’ve grown used to it, having you around, and you’re not much good, but it’s true you gut your arse off, and you’re getting better, and you haven’t bunked off since the beginning, you haven’t taken to your fucking bunk, not at all, so how was I to remember? How the fuck was I to remember that you’re just an idiot?”

“Ah, thanks …”

“Jesus wept!” said Jason, thrusting me into the high-back chair, buckling me in with a decisive snap; and his own long limbs bent into the skipper’s chair, easy as a curling snake, no harness needed.

“Aye!” said Robbie, standing lightly beside me (Robbie seemed to be able to perch anywhere with dignity, like a bird, a Pictish bird). “Jason forgot!” He put his arm round the back of my child’s high-chair, in which I was strapped, and brought his head forward, level with mine. “Jason forgot!” he said, with a tremendous grin on his bird-alert and beaky face. “We couldna believe it. Bryan was laughing inside like and he winked at me, you know, and he held up his right hand—five fingers up. So we waited, to see what would happen, five minutes like, and that’s a long time—and then
boom!
We shouted, all together, and Allan joined in, ‘Worzel’s on the bridge! Old Worzel—he’s on watch!’; And Allan shouted, ‘Go it, Gummidge!’; And Jerry shouted, ‘I’m away to ma bed! I’ll die in ma bed!’ And Dougie, you know, he just
stared
at Jason, and he looked
terrible…
And Jason here? He was out of his seat like a focking ghost!”

“I’m sorry,” said Jason, with an eerie change of voice, re-slotted back into his familiar place of calm, of command, of contemplation. “So where, at this time of year, this week in fact—where on the continental slope, the great shelf-edge toward the abyss, where would I want to be if I were a redfish? Above which canyon? Hanging out, yes, but in which current?” He laid his right hand gently on one of the stubby gear-sticks. He glanced at the radar-screen on which the freed windscreen-wiper went round and round and, far from pitching into panic, he seemed to grow further into his alpha-male equilibrium. “I’m sorry, Redmond, forgive me, but you must understand, it’s a terrible thing at sea—it’s
the
one big sin, it’s a crime really, among sailors, it’s not right, to leave your bridge unmanned. I know, I know, your poncy round-the-world yachtsmen and-women do it! But then that’s who they are, what they’re like, all alone, showing off, and if we run them down we get the blame! But the fact is they’re not the only ones, because sodding great tankers do it too! Can you imagine that? You’re registered in Liberia or whatever, there’s no
law out at sea, so you stick it on autopilot, just like a round-the-world-twice yachtswoman, and you go to sleep! Can you imagine that? Can you?”

“Yes, I can,” I said, despite myself. “Sleep …”

“Oh come on,” said Jason, leaning forward, tapping computer keys. “Stop it. Be a man. This’ll cheer you up—like I promised, remember?—Davy’s tow! Now don’t get me wrong-Davy’s a great guy, he really is, tall and blond and fit, you know, the girls love him, but the real point is—well, it’s this: he’s a lifeboatman. So there’s no way round it, however you look at it, you can say they’re mad maybe, but that won’t do, not at all, because consider this: Is a lifeboatman selfish? Thinking of himself, like everybody else? No, he’s not! He’s ready to die, week in, week out, for the rest of us! So yes, Redmond, let’s be honest, that’s one reason why I had to let
you
on board my
Norlantean,
because you came with Luke, a
lifeboatman.
And I’ll tell you this for nothing, he’s a damn fine trawlerman too, believe me, and I’d give him a job tomorrow, whereas you …”

“Davy—Davy’s tow,” said Robbie. “Eh? Jason? And you should be telling Redmond here—aye! Davy—Davy was pinged!”

I said: “Pinged?”

“Aye,” said Robbie, excited. “He was pinged right enough. He was knackered like, he didna mind it was there, he stood on a slack cable, flat on the deck, aye, one of the warps—and
ping!
they go as they tighten,
ping!
And Davy—he’s shot 20 feet in the air, Bryan says 30, and
bosh!
Right over the side! Man overboard! But Davy kept his head, he’s a lifeboatman, they’re
trained
for it. And we all panicked, but Bryan yells: ‘To the ramp!’ So we all run aft and fall down the ladders and Davy swims to the ramp and Bryan throws a rope and we haul him in—and he’s alive!”

“Great!” I yelled. “Well done!”

“He was sick right enough. Really sick. Sick with the shock of it. But then? Can you guess? What’d Davy do next?”

“No idea!”

“No? You can’t? Well—he went straight back to work. Not a word said. Cold. Wet through and through.
Straight back to work.”

“Ah.”

Jason, peering at the screen second to his left, said: “Hey! Here we are—look at this!” The shaftless white arrowhead pricked its point at a red-traced, irregular ellipse on the chart, set over a criss-cross of different-coloured straightish lines, all with attendant numbers stuck on to them like ectoparasites, all equally incomprehensible. “Davy’s tow! He fell asleep, you see, right here in this chair. And the whole lot, the trawler, the miles of cable, the otter-boards, the net—they all went round in a circle! Davy’s dream! Davy’s tow!”

“Redmond,” said Robbie sharply, unbuckling me with his left hand and, with his right at the small of my back, pushing me to my feet. “I almost forgot too. You’re wanted—right now, or before now. In the fish-room! Luke wants you, he’s going through his baskets, through all his specimens like, the ones he’s saved—and you’re to help him measure, the whole ching-bang. And that’s the point of you, aye? To help Luke?”

L
UKE HAD SET UP
his scales in the usual place, on the steel shelf beside the main conveyor to the hold.

“Just in time!” he said, as I got into my oilskins. “Right on time!”

There was an ominously long line of yellow, red and blue plastic baskets to his left. Noticing, I suppose, the hang-dog look which I could feel on my face, Luke, offensively happy, said, “That’s for the last three hauls! I waited—just for your sake—until the Force 12 had gone. What’s it now? Force 8? 7? So you
won’t fly!
Not even you could fly in a Force 7! But don’t worry, it’s OK, I’ve numbered my hauls and they’re sorted by the colour of the baskets. That really pleases me, you know, big time, like my biscuit boxes. My red one …”

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m sorry.” I pulled on my sea-boots. “Don’t let’s
go
through that again.”