by roger smith
When I drive the Laguna into the Yacht club car park it’s still pretty early and it’s the only car in the whole place. I’m not used to having so much parking space to choose from, so I drive around the car park a couple of times in big sweeping circles, Mariah Carey blasting from the stereo, window down, arm sticking out, then park right in the middle, across two spaces. God, you never get this much room in the city, I’m used to having to squeeze the Lag into a space the size of a Mini, so this in itself is like a day off for me, a whole ocean of concrete to choose from. I put the handbrake on, stretch out and just sit back for a bit, wait till the end of the song. It’s still that time of morning when everything’s just waking up, the sun coming up in a pink haze, a million gulls cawing, dew just settling, the splash of the waves, the smell of the fresh salt air off the water…
I roll the window up, then slip on my Ray-Bans and the new deck shoes I got last week, making sure all the little labels are peeled off first, the price tag and the size and those other fiddly ones they put on just to annoy you. Then I check my hair in the rear-view mirror, get out, lock the car and head across the empty car park to meet Tony. He’s always late though, if there’s one thing you can rely on Tony for, it’s to be late. It's his only real talent, that and corporate schmoozing. You say to meet to Tony at 5:00 and he’ll be there exact, spot on 5:10. It’s a gift. I’ve started trying to second guess him, saying a time five, ten minutes before I actually want to meet him, but he’s caught on now, and ends up being another five minutes late on top of that. I think he does it deliberately. Bastard. Likes to keep people waiting for him. I check the time on my diving watch. 7:45. And he said to meet here at 7:30. I try giving him another call on the mobile, but it’s engaged, so there's nothing else I can do but stand outside the Fisherman’s Mission and wait.
There’s no one else around just now, only me and some one armed old man walking along past the Marina, looking out across the bay. Think of every cliché of an old sailor you’ve ever heard, every over used stereotype. Well, that’s what this guy looks like. As he hobbles along past the sea wall he reminds me of nothing so much as Captain Birdseye - nothing but the best for the Captain's table - or rather Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses. The kind of person it's impossible to caricature, because he's a caricature already. His gnarly beard, his little peaked cap. I don't really pay much attention to him until I realise he's coming straight for me, coming over to talk to me. Expecting what? A conversation? Money?
‘You looking for fish?’ He doesn’t so much say it as growl it - it’s an accusation not a question. I don’t say anything, not wanting to get involved. I try to look distracted and otherwise involved, staring with a furrowed brow at the little wooden boats in the harbour, then at the dirt underneath my fingernails. However much I try though, it's pretty obvious that I’m just standing here.
‘Fish market’s closed today.’
‘Oh,’ I mutter eventually, ‘nevermind.’
I wasn’t looking for fish anyway, so I suppose this isn’t too much of an inconvenience. I’ll survive.
'Do you know what the price of fish is?' He comes right across and leans his face into mine. From the look in his eyes, I can be pretty sure this is a trick question. I like to think of myself as a bit of a smart-Alec, after all, I didn’t get to be area manager for nothing, and not wanting to be out-smart-Alec-ed by some ancient and bedraggled mariner, I pause and try and think of a witty putdown. Something funny. Something clever. Some cutting bon-mot that'll teach him not to ask stupid questions to the likes of me.
'No.' I say eventually.
'This.' He says, waving his stump of an arm at me threateningly. 'This is the price of fish.'
I look at his empty sleeve and can’t help imagining some twisted fishmonger's where a pound of halibut costs an arm and a leg and a couple of fish fingers cost, well, a couple of fingers. I go to say something about how I think they're cheaper at Safeways actually, but think better of it.
‘It’s no fish ye’re buying. It’s men’s lives.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Sir Walter Scott.’ He says.
‘Hi! Mark Sutherland!’ I hold out my hand, but he just turns away.
‘Ach.’ He says.
'I lost this fifteen years ago, fishing for herring off of Iceland. A rope took it clean off, cut straight through the bone. Like a knife through butter, the rope just whipped across and my arm was gone.' He rolls up his dirty sleeve and shows me the fleshy stump. God, I don’t want to see that. Put it away.
'Oh.' I say.
‘I lost the pinkie on my left hand too.’
He holds up his left hand to confirm that, yes, there is indeed a missing digit. He sighs and inhales deeply on his pipe, breathing in dry air. It takes him a couple of seconds to realise that it's gone out.
‘That’s terrible,’ I say, looking at his time and weather-beaten claw, the thumb and the three fingers.
‘Had to sell the boat after that. Been at sea for forty years. Since I was a boy.’
Normally I'd ignore someone like this, but there's something about this guy that affects me and I find myself moved enough to ask:
‘Did you get any compensation for it?’
‘Compensation? Who from?’
‘I don’t know. The government?’
‘The government!’ He snorts, then breaks into a throaty laugh which turns into a dry, painful, hacking cough. I think this is a ‘no.’
And as he stands there hacking up years of tobacco and seawater I take another look at him. Just from his face you can tell he’s had an interesting life. A hard life. Which is more than can be said for me. I look at him and try to imagine what his life must have been like. All the days at sea, following the herring, living off of nature, clawing a living from the elements. Then all the days after that, the empty soul-destroying days of watching the other boats go out, unable to do the only thing you know how. Watching the fleet dwindling, the decaying hulks increasing, a way of life vanishing. Of a sudden, I feel an unaccountable sense of empathy and goodwill towards him.
'That's terrible.' I say again.
