The Interpretations

  I said nothing and made to pass him. He grabbed me by the lapels. ‘Just a wee word, that’s all,’ he said, his face so close to mine that I could feel his breath on my face. I could smell it, too – the sour smell of cigarettes.

  ‘Just fuckin’ watch it, that’s all.’

  I turned my head to one side so that I wasn’t looking at him. I was determined to continue to ignore him, to put up with whatever he did to me. I still believed that my will was stronger than his, that he would be worn down before I was. But I also knew that ignoring him only provoked him to greater anger and violence. I heard him say, ‘How’s the stomach?’ He released me and I braced myself for the blow which duly arrived. He hit me so hard that I was flung backwards, folded up like paper. I wound up sitting on the cold black and white floor tiles. I turned round to spew up the egg sandwich I’d just eaten and found myself on my hands and knees like a sick dog, back arching as I continued to vomit up my food.

  When I’d finished retching I sat on the floor again, leaning back against the wall with my knees up close to my chest. Gilfedder had gone and I hadn’t noticed his going nor even what his parting comment might have been. I managed to pull a handkerchief from my pocket and wipe my mouth. I sat there for some minutes and I knew I was completely beaten. The idea that I could somehow wear Gilfedder down seemed laughable. What was I trying to do? – allow myself to be punched so often that eventually he broke his knuckles? My plan was ridiculous, farcical. My stomach ached. I stayed sitting on the floor inhaling from my clothes the smell of herring and puked-up egg sandwiches. I decided that I would get up, clean up the mess in the corridor and go home. After all, what did it matter? I was placing Gilfedder at the centre of my life, moulding my life round my fixation with him. Why continue to do this? I could just walk away. There were other jobs; there were lots of other jobs. I got to my feet. It was difficult to straighten up properly and I leaned against the wall for support. My stomach would hurt for a couple of days, maybe more, but then it would wear off and I wouldn’t be here anyway. I would be somewhere else, no longer interested in Gilfedder or herring or working twelve hour shifts in a huge shed full of cold smelly air.

  I found a mop and bucket and was just finishing cleaning up the mess when the Mule arrived. ‘What’s up wi’ you then?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘Nothing?’ He looked at me. ‘Morgan sent me.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Aye. It was Gilfedder said something to him.’

  ‘Did he now. And what did he say?’

  ‘Said you were sick or something.’

  ‘Well, I was.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Something in the sandwich.’

  ‘Your piece?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Mule took hold of the mop and stopped me from finishing my task. ‘Gilfedder thumped you, didn’t he?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘he didn’t.’

  The Mule took the mop and bucket from me. ‘I’ll put these away,’ he said. ‘And don’t think you’re the only one Gilfedder’s thumped in the gut.’

  ‘He’s never hit you, has he?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye, once, the bastard. But he’ll no do it again. Reckons I’m too old, I imagine.’

  I stepped up to the Mule and took hold of the handle of the mop, partly to steady myself, partly to get close. ‘You’re kidding,’ I said. ‘He hit you? He actually hit you?’

  ‘Just the once. As I say, a while ago now.’

  ‘God almighty,’ I said. ‘And you’re apologising for him, too. Jesus Christ, I don’t believe it.’

  ‘He’s a sly one,’ the Mule went on. ‘Aye, he’s thumped one or two of us but there’s never any witnesses, like. If he gets you on your own there’s no much you can do . . . I mean, either to prevent it or to do anything about it later.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  I stepped away, leaned against the wall. I looked at the Mule and wondered if that would be me in thirty years’ time.

  The Mule said, ‘Are you going home then?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not.’

  ‘It’ll likely get worse.’

  ‘Likely it will,’ I said.

  We went back to the loading bay. The men were nearly half-way through the next lorry. The first full pallet was being driven off to the freezing room. A thin fog, made up of the men’s breath and the vapour rising from the ice packed in the fish boxes, enclosed the men. It spread from the loading bay itself out over the open back of the lorry where Bob and Morrison were still working, shifting crates to the lorry’s edge.

  Morgan looked at me as I approached. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Fucking sandwich came back on me.’ I looked inside the nearest fish box. ‘What’s this? Mackerel?’

  ‘Aye, mackerel,’ Morgan said. ‘We get them occasionally. Fat little buggers. Have to push them down hard between the slats.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Don’t know why we bother.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’d better get on. I’ll take a turn with Gilfedder.’

  ‘You’ll what?’

  But I was already away, walking over to where Gilfedder was working, as usual, alone. He didn’t notice me as I came up to him.

  ‘Come on, Gilfedder, let me give you a hand there,’ I said.

  He turned to look at me. For a moment he was surprised, then he laughed. ‘You?’ he said. ‘You give me a hand? You’re joking.’

  ‘No,’ I said, sounding as breezy as I could manage. ‘I’d like to give you a hand tonight.’

  ‘Well you can just fuck off.’ He grabbed another crate from the lorry and swung it down onto the pallet.

  ‘No, no. Look,’ I said. ‘You’ve just come back after cracking a rib. I mean, you should take it easy, that’s all.’

  He already had the next crate in his hands, the heavy red gloves tight round the wet wooden handles. He stopped in mid-swing and looked hard at me. Instead of putting the crate onto the pallet he threw it down at his feet on the stone floor of the loading bay. The impact made the contents recoil upwards. Some of the ice spilled out and one mackerel slipped from the box and fell down between the lorry and the edge of the loading bay.

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  Everybody stopped work and watched us. I spoke confidently, loudly, so that they could all hear. ‘I’m just saying,’ I said, ‘that you should let someone help you when you’re maybe not quite up to it.’

  ‘Not up to it?’ He looked at me first in bewilderment and then in anger. ‘Not up to it?’ He stepped over the fish box he had just flung down and screamed ‘Fuck off!’ at me. He lunged forward and pushed me back, the heels of his hands thumping into my chest. I lost my balance and fell down, clattering into the half-built pallet behind me. But I scrambled back up again as quickly as I could. Morgan, hovering somewhere to my right, was saying, ‘Now hold on, Donnie, just hold on . . .’ But neither he nor anyone else came near us.

  I stepped back up to Gilfedder and said, ‘But you don’t understand, do you. You’re a sick man, Gilfedder. You need help. You can’t manage on your own.’

  I turned away just enough to reduce the full power of the punch. I wanted a bruise, not a broken jaw. But nothing could have prepared me for the explosion of force on the side of my head. It was as if someone had hit me with a fence post. Perhaps only a few seconds passed before I became aware that I was lying on my right side on the floor. My right arm was flung out above my head along the cold wet stone. I could feel dampness seeping through my clothes and reaching my skin. There was a great deal of noise, lots of shouting and running around, it seemed. I could see, before my face, some ice and a couple of mackerel, the deep blue-green sheen on their backs, the thin points of their tails, and I found myself thinking about how big they were, huge in fact, and Morgan was right when he said they wouldn’t fit between the freezing plates in the vats. I lay there for some time or p
erhaps only a few seconds. My face slowly tilted to the floor and my nose became wet. Then I tasted stone and water and fishblood and the oil from the mackerel that scummed the surface of the shallow puddles and invaded the crushed ice that had been scattered across the floor of the loading bay.