he often saw grain boats unloading into lorries with a hopper.
Meanwhile fishing boats unloaded their silvery spoils and the gulls were there, hovering, fighting the wind, ready to clash and kill for the pickings they could get from what bloody morsels fell before the trucks loaded up and shipped it out. Old families tended to work the trawlers. Generations. Fathers, sons, grandfathers.
A sheen of blood and seawater striped the concrete. His wellingtons crossed the mirror of it in the direction of the ugly store shed on South Quay, corrugated asbestos on a breezeblock frame, both its barn doors open to the wide ‘U’ of the Harbour, the air punctuated by the tinkling of pulley metal and puttering slaps of wet ropes and lapping water.
It wasn’t hard to find out the time of the tides and discover when exactly the boats came in, and he wasn’t the only one who gravitated to the Harbour to get the pick of the ‘stalker’—as they called the odds and sods, small fry not sorted with the prime fish already boxed up and ready on its way to London. If they were regulars, they’d know when a certain boat would berth and they’d be there waiting for the bargains when it returned on the flood tide.
He watched as fishermen in sou’westers and oilskins hurried up and down the ladder on and off the vessel. They weren’t hanging around, even with a small crowd present. Business took precedence. A small truck waited, taking the stacked plastic boxes—the catch already sorted during the two-hour steam back from fishing off Margate in Queen’s Channel—straight to market.
Les Gledhill was one of them, strands of long wet hair hanging from his hood, cheekbones shiny and doll-like over his damp beard. The stalker was bagged up and marked at the quayside beyond the parked cars, some of it wrapped in newspaper. No airs and graces. “5 Dover sole’s £1.” The misappropriated apostrophe was almost obligatory. Others who’d arrived first were helping themselves, and Gledhill was taking their cash in a wet, outstretched palm, skin peeled pink from the scouring weather.
Seeing Cushing out of the corner of his eye, Gledhill at first attempted to ignore him. A transistor radio set on an empty oil drum was playing the recent Christmas hit, ‘Grandad’ by Clive Dunn. Unable to avoid doing so any longer, Gledhill stared at him as he rinsed his hands under a cold water tap on the quayside and wiped them in a towel. The DJ on the radio switched to the current single at the top of the charts, George Harrison singing ‘My Sweet Lord’.
“What do you have today?” Cushing presented himself as bright-eyed and bushy tailed.
“Depends what you’re after.”
“Oh, I think I’m open to suggestions.” Cushing smiled broadly.
“Well. Got a load of dabs,” Gledhill said, forcing a retaliatory smile to match. “Sprats. Herrings. Good winter fish. Dover sole. Skate. Nice skate backbone, if you know what to do with it.” His hands looked frozen and painful to the older man as he watched him turn to serve an elderly woman who had the right change. A great deal of nattering was going on between the other customers and the other fisherman—quite sprightly, good-natured banter—and to an onlooker, this conversation would seem no different.
Cushing adjusted his scarf, scratched the side of his chin and pointed at one of the packages lined up before him. “That one will do perfectly.”
“Pound.”
“Thank you.” Cushing happily delved into his purse.
Gledhill picked up the fish in newspaper and handed it to him, and as he did so Cushing saw the blue blur of an old tattoo on the back of his wrist, together with blue dots on his finger joints.
“You know, I was reading the other day…” He placed a pound note in the other man’s palm. “The fish, it’s the old symbol of Christianity. Older even than the cross.”
“Fascinating,” Gledhill said.
“Yes, it is, rather. Some people say religion has lost its way, but we
Meanwhile fishing boats unloaded their silvery spoils and the gulls were there, hovering, fighting the wind, ready to clash and kill for the pickings they could get from what bloody morsels fell before the trucks loaded up and shipped it out. Old families tended to work the trawlers. Generations. Fathers, sons, grandfathers.
A sheen of blood and seawater striped the concrete. His wellingtons crossed the mirror of it in the direction of the ugly store shed on South Quay, corrugated asbestos on a breezeblock frame, both its barn doors open to the wide ‘U’ of the Harbour, the air punctuated by the tinkling of pulley metal and puttering slaps of wet ropes and lapping water.
It wasn’t hard to find out the time of the tides and discover when exactly the boats came in, and he wasn’t the only one who gravitated to the Harbour to get the pick of the ‘stalker’—as they called the odds and sods, small fry not sorted with the prime fish already boxed up and ready on its way to London. If they were regulars, they’d know when a certain boat would berth and they’d be there waiting for the bargains when it returned on the flood tide.
He watched as fishermen in sou’westers and oilskins hurried up and down the ladder on and off the vessel. They weren’t hanging around, even with a small crowd present. Business took precedence. A small truck waited, taking the stacked plastic boxes—the catch already sorted during the two-hour steam back from fishing off Margate in Queen’s Channel—straight to market.
Les Gledhill was one of them, strands of long wet hair hanging from his hood, cheekbones shiny and doll-like over his damp beard. The stalker was bagged up and marked at the quayside beyond the parked cars, some of it wrapped in newspaper. No airs and graces. “5 Dover sole’s £1.” The misappropriated apostrophe was almost obligatory. Others who’d arrived first were helping themselves, and Gledhill was taking their cash in a wet, outstretched palm, skin peeled pink from the scouring weather.
Seeing Cushing out of the corner of his eye, Gledhill at first attempted to ignore him. A transistor radio set on an empty oil drum was playing the recent Christmas hit, ‘Grandad’ by Clive Dunn. Unable to avoid doing so any longer, Gledhill stared at him as he rinsed his hands under a cold water tap on the quayside and wiped them in a towel. The DJ on the radio switched to the current single at the top of the charts, George Harrison singing ‘My Sweet Lord’.
“What do you have today?” Cushing presented himself as bright-eyed and bushy tailed.
“Depends what you’re after.”
“Oh, I think I’m open to suggestions.” Cushing smiled broadly.
“Well. Got a load of dabs,” Gledhill said, forcing a retaliatory smile to match. “Sprats. Herrings. Good winter fish. Dover sole. Skate. Nice skate backbone, if you know what to do with it.” His hands looked frozen and painful to the older man as he watched him turn to serve an elderly woman who had the right change. A great deal of nattering was going on between the other customers and the other fisherman—quite sprightly, good-natured banter—and to an onlooker, this conversation would seem no different.
Cushing adjusted his scarf, scratched the side of his chin and pointed at one of the packages lined up before him. “That one will do perfectly.”
“Pound.”
“Thank you.” Cushing happily delved into his purse.
Gledhill picked up the fish in newspaper and handed it to him, and as he did so Cushing saw the blue blur of an old tattoo on the back of his wrist, together with blue dots on his finger joints.
“You know, I was reading the other day…” He placed a pound note in the other man’s palm. “The fish, it’s the old symbol of Christianity. Older even than the cross.”
“Fascinating,” Gledhill said.
“Yes, it is, rather. Some people say religion has lost its way, but we
Similar Books
