The House at Tyneford (15 page)

At the word “Balak” all the men ran toward the door. I flattened myself against the wall as they sprinted past me, my heart beating wildly, terrified that I would be carried away in the throng and trampled. The noise of fifty pairs of hobnail boots clattering on the flagstones reverberated around the small church. Suddenly I felt fingers entwined in mine, as Kit hissed in my ear, “Come on!”

He tugged me outside into the river of sprinting men. I saw he also clutched the hand of the redheaded girl. I narrowed my eyes and started to run.

We rushed down toward the sea, the stony path echoing with the sound of a hundred pounding feet. As we reached the beach, I saw two fishing boats already bobbing frantically on the waves, while men gathered beside half a dozen more, heaving against them with broad shoulders and staggering forward to the surf.

“Mr. Kit, come!” called a voice.

I turned to see Burt hollering from outside his hut, where a small blue-and-white-painted boat rested on a wooden platform.

“Help me push ’er down,” commanded Burt.

We scrambled back up the rocks and Kit, the girl and I heaved at the small boat. She was cripplingly heavy, and I nearly crumpled under her weight. The next moment I felt the load lighten and saw a broad young man with sandy hair pushing at the bow of the boat.

“Git away, Poppy, yer’ll hurt yerself,” he said to the girl. “Yoos too,” he added with a nod in my direction.

We stepped back and watched the three men dash down to the surf, dragging the small fishing boat, feet sinking into the pebbles like mud. They waded out into the water, trousers instantly black wet, the boat tossing in the breakers.

“Well, are you coming?” Kit yelled.

The redhead grabbed my hand and hauled me along the beach to the boat. She hitched her skirt up high and tucked it into her knickers, then pulled off her shoes and tossed them onto the deck. I raised my dress up over my thighs, but drew the line at tucking it into my underwear. She leaped in, shaking her head as the tall man offered her a hand. I tried to do the same, but crashed into the wooden side, bruising my shins. The next moment, I felt hands around my waist and found myself being thrown into the boat headfirst, like a catch of fish. Kit jumped in beside me.

“Sorry about that. No time for grace.”

He grabbed an oar and pushed off the beach, as the other men hoisted a battered brown sail.

“See? Aren’t you glad you came?” Kit demanded.

I sat in a puddle on the bottom of the boat, my shin trickling with blood, and did not answer.

“Oh, and this is Poppy,” he said, gesturing to the girl with scarlet hair. “And that’s Will.”

The young man gave a lopsided smile and raised a hand, before continuing to adjust the rigging.

“Didn’t yer forget summat?” asked Burt, his voice holding a note of reproach.

“Ah, yes. This great old gal”—Kit tapped the wooden mast—“is the
Lugger.”

Poppy sidled up beside me. “Did he even tell you what today is?” she asked with a dark glance in Kit’s direction.

I shook my head dumbly.

“He’s such a beast. You must think us all barbarians.”

“It’s to do with fish?”

“Yes. This is the first day of mackerel season. We go out looking for mackerel as soon as the vicar tells the story of Balaam and Balak.”

“We could be startin’ anytime in June, mind,” said Burt, appearing from behind the sail. “Jist isn’t so much fun.”

“Yes. Running out of church really upsets the vicar,” said Kit. “And it adds a certain sense of occasion.”

“Sawed a shoal this mornin’. Far out in Worbarrow. We’ll head for there,” said Burt.

The
Lugger
was the last boat to launch, and all around us small fishing vessels joggled up and down on the waves. Some were already so far out that they appeared to be toy sized, their white sails like folded pocket handkerchiefs. Above us the sky was streaked with herringbone clouds, while the green-blue sea stretched away into the horizon, curving around the earth. Salt spray battered my cheeks, and the wind lifted my head scarf and made Poppy’s hair writhe, Medusa-like.

“Durst yer worry,” said Burt, pointing to the other boats. “They doesn’t know nothin’. I don’t git much but I does git fish. Ready about.”

Everyone ducked instinctively. Everyone except me. I was whacked cleanly on the back of the head as the boom whipped across the
Lugger
. I crumpled into the bottom of the boat, pain exploding at the base of my skull.

“You idiots!” Poppy screamed. “She doesn’t know what to do.”

She crouched beside me, wrapping her skinny arms around my shoulders. I felt dazed and a little sick and wished she’d let go.

“Leave her be, Poppy. Give her a minute, she’ll be fine,” said Kit, coming closer. “You will be fine, won’t you?” he said, eyeing me cautiously.

“If the girl is goin’ ter upchuck, over the side, please, an’ I thank yer,” said Burt.

I lay down in the bottom of the hull, feeling the throbbing pain subside.

“Yes. She’s all right,” said Kit. “Her colour’s coming back.”

He helped me sit up and ushered me to the bow, giving me a pile of sail covers and coiled lines to settle on.

“If someone says ‘ready about’—you duck. ‘Jive oh.’ Duck. ‘Bugger it.’ Duck. Understand?” asked Kit.

I nodded and then instantly regretted it, as my head started to pound. But despite the pain, I smiled. I had never been out on a boat before. The crossing on the ship from France did not count. I had sat hunched on my trunk in the belly of the liner, unable to see out, retching quietly into a paper bag. This was different. Grey-backed gulls and black cormorants circled us, hurling their whooping cries into the wind. I found that I rather liked the rocking sensation as the boat dipped up and down across the waves. The rushing air and pounding salt water made me forget everything but the sound of the sea and the call of the gulls. I shrieked as a wave crashed over the bow, soaking me, and, thinking it was a game, Poppy, Will and Kit joined in, shouting for joy.

“Look,” said Burt, pointing to a dark shadow beneath the surface of the water. Above, a flock of gulls circled and swooped. “Ready about.”

I squatted down, covering my head with my hands as the boom clattered across. The small boat hurtled toward the dark patch of sea, signalling wildly to the other fishing vessels. I hadn’t realised, but we’d turned around and were heading back into shore, racing alongside the shadow in the sea. Will and Kit ladled stinking bait over the side, and the water writhed with glittering fish.

“Take the tiller,” said Burt, and Poppy took over the helm while he began to unfurl a net heaped at the stern. Another fishing boat was now only twenty yards away, sailing parallel to us. Burt whistled, and a shrill echo came back.

“Yup.
Brandy Queen
is a comin’.”

The other boat tacked and sailed right toward us, and as it reached us, almost brushing the side, Burt tossed one end of the net to a bearded fisherman. He caught it effortlessly and, as
Brandy Queen
turned again, Burt spooled his end of the net into the water, trapping the fish.
Brandy Queen
and the
Lugger
hovered where the bay began to shelve, waiting. Then the other boats swarmed us in a rush, oars thrashing, men shouting, all driving the mackerel into the shallows and the great stretched net and away from the safety of the deep. The vast net now encircled the black shoal of fish, but they lay motionless in the water as
Brandy Queen
and the
Lugger
dragged them closer and closer to the shore. Waiting on the beach stood the rest of the village, dozens of women and children, all changed from their Sunday best into work clothes and now poised to help gather in the catch. Along the narrow path leading to the shore, a caravan of wagons trundled down to the sea.

“Coastguard telegraphed the mackerel dealers,” said Kit.

“Won’t be too happy ter be dragged away from Sunday lunch,” said Burt. “But ’s goin’ ’ter be a good ’un; I got a tingle in my toes.”

The
Lugger
was almost on the beach when the sea exploded. Rainbow fish leaped out of the water, breaking the surface in a thousand places, turning the shallows into a swirl of white foam. The sunlight caught the shining backs of the mackerel and they glittered red and brown and green and black. The gulls shrieked and dove, catching wriggling fish in their beaks as the women and children beat them away with brooms and sticks. Women surged forward, splashing into the sea in their clothes and grabbing the nets, as men bounded from the boats to help. The sea was alive with dancing, flapping fish, and they soared into the air in high curves before crashing back into the waves. Fifty people lined the shore, clutching the heavy net and heaving it inch by inch up the pebbles and onto the shelving beach.

The fish sprawled on the strand, twitching in the sunlight, while bare-legged children raced up and down, hurling stones to keep away the gulls and greedy cormorants. Everyone was there: Mr. Wrexham and Mrs. Ellsworth lobbed pebbles at the birds; May chattered to a fisherman while tugging halfheartedly at the net. Mr. Rivers helped haul it into the breakers so that the seawater washed over the fish, keeping them fresh until the dealers could load them into their ice carts. He had removed his tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves and stood barefoot in the shallows, trousers soaked to the knees. Seeing Burt’s boat, he waded deeper and grabbed the painter.

“Shall I pull you to shore?” he asked.

“Aye,” said Burt. “Them ladies durst want a soakin’.”

Kit climbed out to help his father, and the two men towed the
Lugger
through the water away from the mackerel, before dragging her a few yards up the beach. Poppy hopped out with ease and raced back along the beach to the netted fish. Mr. Rivers offered me his hand and helped me clamber onto the pebbled shore.

“Well, I expect this is something you don’t see every day in Vienna.”

“No, sir.”

“And, Elise, I shall inform Wrexham that you have permission to read my newspaper.”

Before I could thank him, shouts boomed behind us as the mackerel dealers swarmed the beach.

“Excuse me,” said Mr. Rivers. He turned away and jogged along the strand to the cluster of dealers, gesturing to the catch with a broad smile. A moment later Kit joined him. The two men shook hands with each dealer in turn and appeared to listen patiently, before shaking their heads and pointing back to the haul.

“Gooduns, them,” said Burt. “Squire Rivers and Master Kit will make sure as a spring tide that we gits a good price. Dealers haggle us ter hell, won’t dare wi’ Squire.”

An agreement appeared to be reached, hands were shaken once more and, when Kit whistled, men, women and children rushed to the mackerel and began piling them onto stretchers and into buckets and barrels and ferrying them onto the dealers’ carts. The sound of the gulls was deafening. I soon lost count of the number of loads I helped to carry. Poppy and Will sprinted up and down with endless hauls, never seeming to tire. Among the dozens of bobbing heads, Poppy stood out like a single holly berry in a basket of hazelnuts. I felt brown and dull with my cropped hair. Some of the carts were able to edge down onto the pebbles, and as the net became emptier, the fish could be deposited directly from the net into the wagons and trucks. The process took several hours, and it was nearly three o’clock before the last cart rolled away up the stone road. Stray fish lay scattered along the beach and Mrs. Ellsworth directed the children in a final clear-up, plopping the fish into a vast steel saucepan. I lay down on the strand and closed my eyes, exhausted. Kit collapsed beside me.

“I hope you like mackerel,” he said.

His arm brushed mine, but I was too tired to obey decent etiquette and did not push him away. His skin felt so warm, and I wondered that in all her lectures upon proper behaviour, Anna had failed to mention that behaving improperly was much more fun.

Later that evening the village held a feast upon the beach. The air grew cool, but the dappled stones retained the heat of the day, and even as the light dimmed we walked barefoot across the warm pebbles. Small boys pelted to and fro gathering armfuls of wood and piles of dry sea grass and, under Kit’s direction, built a vast bonfire on the shore. In the darkling light, he lit the fire, pushing a discarded cigarette into a cocoon of dead leaves. Within a few minutes, orange flames licked the sky and sparks flew into the waves, like vermillion fireflies.

“Don’t dawdle, Elise; come and help,” called Mrs. Ellsworth.

I padded across the stones to the edge of the dunes, where she and a small army of women had set up a field kitchen. Red coals glowed in the rocks, and resting directly on top of them were dozens of cast-iron pans filled with mackerel. The fish had been scaled and gutted, but that was all. They squeezed together, eyes unseeing, sizzling in spoonfuls of butter, handfuls of dark green samphire and hunks of peppered fennel. I knelt down between Poppy and Mrs. Ellsworth and took over a frying pan, turning the gleaming fish as the sun sank into the sea. A crowd gathered around the bonfire, several of the children clutching bunches of flowers: ragged robin, honeysuckle, lavender, rosemary, ladies’ bedstraw and burnet rose. Burt and Art helped them decorate the
Lugger
with the flowers, until the battered fishing boat was transformed into a fairy-tale craft, more suited to Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott than a stubbled fisherman with mismatched boots. Art, Will and Kit bore the
Lugger
down to the shore and out into the shallows. Burt picked up a small girl, not older than seven or eight, and carried her in his arms, placing her tenderly on the sail covers in the bow. As we all watched, they sailed toward the mouth of the bay.