could not think of what it was that he wanted to say.
CHAPTER 12
J ack Sweeney stood half-in and half-out of the wheelhouse. It was midday. The long-line was out. The sea lay still all around them and a few pale-edged clouds drifted across the sun. Croyden was asleep. Harry was playing the harmonica in the bows.
During May the
Maria V
had spent more time at sea than in harbour. They left the bay on countless rain-washed mornings, on sultry windless mornings, on mornings when the low cloud was still pierced by moon-shards. They returned at dusk, in the early morning, at midday. Sometimes they would be gone for thirty-six hours. The ling and conger were plentiful, the prices good. Around the quays word spread again that Jack Sweeney was lucky and that the
Maria V
was a lucky boat.
He himself barely noticed anything that month but the sea. The rhythms of his days were sea rhythms. He had no land life; his gaze was filled with the waves and their rise and fall, with gannets travelling against grey skies; he watchedcloud-ranges swell on the horizon and the rain on the boat’s fresh paint form into droplets and vibrate with the engine. He heard the water sliding beneath the boat, the slosh of beam seas against it, the creak of the mizzen and the
chug-chug
of the Kelvin. He knew the slow dozing afternoons and the hot noons and the coming ashore late, after midnight, knowing they would be leaving again early the next day. He knew his own concentrations at hauling and at shooting, the precision when the spring tides ran at their quickest, and he watched the line in Croyden’s hand tighten and was ready to throttle back as soon as it snagged.
Two or three times that month the weather came in. The wind went round to the east. It freshened and the white-topped seas ran long and high past Pendhu Point and it was not possible to go out. On these days Jack Sweeney was overwhelmed by a frustration that he could no longer keep at bay with the intricacies of his knotwork, nor with the more pressing tasks of the net loft, nor with the hours sitting with Whaler Cuffe outside his wooden shed but only with long walks that had no direction when they began but invariably led either to St Pinnock’s holy well at Pennance, or across the Glaze River to Priory Creek and up over the top to Pendhu Point. There above Williams’s coastguard hut he sat in the sheep-cropped grass and watched the motionless shapes of the Main Cages.
When they fished, the land was always to the north. Sometimes it dissolved in the haze and at night it was marked only by the loom of the Lizard light sweeping the sky and sometimes by the light of St Anthony Head. At other times they motored down to the Ray Pits and for half a day or more saw nothing but the wide circle of sea and then it came back into view, that thin, dust-grey coast. Jack preferred the mornings when they were setting out, with the open sea before them, pushing south.
That was May.
In early June, the bait became harder to find. They preparedto go to Plymouth. They brought the
Maria V
in through the Gaps and gathered supplies on the East Quay: four drums of fuel, several maunds of spare line, two new dans, a mass of cobles, four bags of Croyden’s new potatoes, three pounds of butter and a box of unlabelled Charbon tins which Hammels said he had learned to identify: ‘Put ’em in a bucket of water and if one sink quick, he’s salmon, sink slow he’s peach. He sink very quick and he’s no good.’
On the last evening, Jack closed up the net loft and came out onto the front with a canvas bag of tools over his shoulder. The bay was quiet; patches of wind drifted across its surface. They would have a clear run to Plymouth. As he passed Monk’s Tea Rooms, he spotted a familiar-looking couple coming towards him. It was the Abrahams.
‘Look – it’s Jack Sweeney!’ called Maurice, and came over and shook Jack by the hand.
Anna was two steps behind him. ‘Hello,’ she said with a half smile.
CHAPTER 12
J ack Sweeney stood half-in and half-out of the wheelhouse. It was midday. The long-line was out. The sea lay still all around them and a few pale-edged clouds drifted across the sun. Croyden was asleep. Harry was playing the harmonica in the bows.
During May the
Maria V
had spent more time at sea than in harbour. They left the bay on countless rain-washed mornings, on sultry windless mornings, on mornings when the low cloud was still pierced by moon-shards. They returned at dusk, in the early morning, at midday. Sometimes they would be gone for thirty-six hours. The ling and conger were plentiful, the prices good. Around the quays word spread again that Jack Sweeney was lucky and that the
Maria V
was a lucky boat.
He himself barely noticed anything that month but the sea. The rhythms of his days were sea rhythms. He had no land life; his gaze was filled with the waves and their rise and fall, with gannets travelling against grey skies; he watchedcloud-ranges swell on the horizon and the rain on the boat’s fresh paint form into droplets and vibrate with the engine. He heard the water sliding beneath the boat, the slosh of beam seas against it, the creak of the mizzen and the
chug-chug
of the Kelvin. He knew the slow dozing afternoons and the hot noons and the coming ashore late, after midnight, knowing they would be leaving again early the next day. He knew his own concentrations at hauling and at shooting, the precision when the spring tides ran at their quickest, and he watched the line in Croyden’s hand tighten and was ready to throttle back as soon as it snagged.
Two or three times that month the weather came in. The wind went round to the east. It freshened and the white-topped seas ran long and high past Pendhu Point and it was not possible to go out. On these days Jack Sweeney was overwhelmed by a frustration that he could no longer keep at bay with the intricacies of his knotwork, nor with the more pressing tasks of the net loft, nor with the hours sitting with Whaler Cuffe outside his wooden shed but only with long walks that had no direction when they began but invariably led either to St Pinnock’s holy well at Pennance, or across the Glaze River to Priory Creek and up over the top to Pendhu Point. There above Williams’s coastguard hut he sat in the sheep-cropped grass and watched the motionless shapes of the Main Cages.
When they fished, the land was always to the north. Sometimes it dissolved in the haze and at night it was marked only by the loom of the Lizard light sweeping the sky and sometimes by the light of St Anthony Head. At other times they motored down to the Ray Pits and for half a day or more saw nothing but the wide circle of sea and then it came back into view, that thin, dust-grey coast. Jack preferred the mornings when they were setting out, with the open sea before them, pushing south.
That was May.
In early June, the bait became harder to find. They preparedto go to Plymouth. They brought the
Maria V
in through the Gaps and gathered supplies on the East Quay: four drums of fuel, several maunds of spare line, two new dans, a mass of cobles, four bags of Croyden’s new potatoes, three pounds of butter and a box of unlabelled Charbon tins which Hammels said he had learned to identify: ‘Put ’em in a bucket of water and if one sink quick, he’s salmon, sink slow he’s peach. He sink very quick and he’s no good.’
On the last evening, Jack closed up the net loft and came out onto the front with a canvas bag of tools over his shoulder. The bay was quiet; patches of wind drifted across its surface. They would have a clear run to Plymouth. As he passed Monk’s Tea Rooms, he spotted a familiar-looking couple coming towards him. It was the Abrahams.
‘Look – it’s Jack Sweeney!’ called Maurice, and came over and shook Jack by the hand.
Anna was two steps behind him. ‘Hello,’ she said with a half smile.
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