Everything I Found on the Beach by Cynan Jones Page B

tines of therake, then he gathered them into the bucket. He could do this work well, but it was sporadic and not reliable. It was a good extra, but that was it. It was off the books, undeclared income and he knew there was a risk if he was caught that they would send him back. But he needed the money. And by now, he had grown a defiant little seed against things.
    He stopped for a drink and watched the gulls off on the sandbank away from them. There was the sound all round him of the work, the workers dotted about the beach, and there was the feeling of practical calmness that is in very old types of work.
    â€œI could do this. I could do this thing,” he thought.
    The man came up and took Grzegorz’s bucket and put down an empty. He checked the weight of the bucket.
    â€œYou do this work well,” said the man. It was all in Polish.
    â€œIt’s just like soil,” Grzegorz said.
    The man hefted the bucket again and assessed Grzegorz.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” he asked. Grzegorz told him, and he told him where he was from out of the now automatic habit of saying it.
    â€œYou’re a farmer, Grzegorz Przybylski,” said the man.
    â€œI was,” Grzegorz said.
    â€œAnd now?”
    â€œSlaughterhouse,” Grzegorz said. He could feel his body cementing up from the uneasy half-bent position of the raking and wanted to get on with the work beforehe got cold. They were paid by their weights, he didn’t have time to talk.
    The man nodded. “Family?”
    â€œYes,” said Grzegorz. “I have a wife, two boys.” He was suspicious of the man, knowing the danger of the undeclared work.
    â€œAnd where are you living?”
    â€œIn one of the agency houses.” He bent to work again.
    â€œStill?” said the man. “How many?”
    â€œThere’s twenty-eight of us there,” Grzegorz said.
    The man nodded. Then he looked over Grzegorz and walked away.
    â€œThis could be the thing,” thought Grzegorz. “You wouldn’t need much. You’d just need a rake, a bucket, some transport, and someone to buy the shells off you. A man on his own probably couldn’t do much, but if there was a group of us. Four or five people, two carloads maybe.” He’d heard of the cockle beds farther north. They were public land. He’d heard that up there, they reckoned there was half a million pounds worth of cockles in the bay at any one time. “Half a million pounds. Even Ana could work. We could be together. She could go back and forth with the buckets. The kids when they are old enough, when they’re not in school. How much would it cost, really?” he thought. “To set that up. Not much.”
    â€œDid the man talk to you?” Harry said on the bus.
    â€œNo,” said Grzegorz. “Which man?”
    â€œThe bucket man.”
    â€œMaybe I had a different bucket man from you,” he said.
    â€œWell, he asked if I knew you.”
    â€œWhat did he want?” The bus smelled of the muddy saltness. There was a group of Asians in the back and they made a strange, alien noise in their talk.
    â€œHe said he was going to talk to you. He said if he didn’t get a chance I should talk to you.”
    Grzegorz could feel the tiredness from the work growing in him. He was trying to hold on to the sense of the long space of the beach. He thought of the idea of his own business, the little money he’d need for that.
    â€œThey’re looking for some men to do a job.”

    He plugged in the mobile and switched on the socket and put it down on the unit and saw the bars appear on it, pulsing like something medical as if it registered his pulse. He switched it on.
    He scanned awkwardly through the missed calls and dialed numbers and the message alert flashed and vibrated. The text said the voicemail box was filled with voicemails. He pressed okay but that didn’t take him to them.
    He flicked through until he