Herring Girl

by Debbie Taylor

  I stare at him – this lad who’s just promised to love and to cherish – and for a moment I hardly recognize the face that’s staring back. For there’s no love in it at all, just a sort of disgust, like he’s stepped in something minging in the lane.

  It’s the beer’s got to him, probably, and the worry of these past weeks, and the baby coming and all. So though my head’s ringing with pain, I take a breath and force a smile instead, and say howay, pet, let’s go back in for they’ll be missing us.

  Then what’s this? A hot trickle from my nose, that I dab at and find my hanky’s bright with blood, which makes me qualmy for a moment, so I lean against the wall. And I’m thinking, where can I rinse it out, for it’s a good lace hanky, brought new for the wedding, but I can’t let folk see the blood or they’ll know something’s amiss—

  When he hits me, it’s like when a coconut’s whacked by a wooden ball at the fair, and one falls and the other bounces away, and neither one cracks. Every time it happens, it takes me back to that first time, when I’m looking as bonny as I ever will, in the dress of a princess, with folk clapping and smiling.

  Then he drags me away to knock some sense into me – that’s what he always calls it, ‘knocking some sense into you’ – saying he could have had any lass in Shields, and he’s never loved me, and I’ve trapped him, and I deserve everything I get.

  Some mornings I can hardly bear to look, but just pull on my clothes quick as I can, then tie my hair back and wash my face. Then check in the mirror to see if anything shows, and fix my scarf and hair so it doesn’t.

  He’s canny with his fists, for all that he’s half stotting when he hits me. He knows folk’ll talk if they see any bruises. The bairns know, though – Kath and Winnie anyway, though I try to hide it from the littluns – and the big lasses help by keeping the littluns out of his road. So we’re all hiding and lying, and never at peace except when he’s off on a voyage.

  I’m in the nettie, staring at that splintered hole where he kicked the door in last winter, and broke the lock, then fixed a new bolt but never patched the place where he kicked it. And I’m sitting and sitting, and the blood just keeps coming, so I know I’m losing this baby. Which is just as well, I suppose.

  How long have I been here – two hours, three? The littluns came knocking but I sent them away to use the pail instead. Now here’s Kath, my brave lass, knocking again, gentle like, asking should she send for the doctor. But I can’t have the doctor here, for he’d see the bruises.

  So I say, howay, pet, it’s just a belly-ache, and not to worry, I’ll be right as rain soon, and can she bring more paper, and a pail of water and a cloth, for there’s blood all down my skirt and I need to wet it before it sets.

  If you get water on a blood stain before it dries, it will always come out. All those days running to the nettie before we were married – and pressing my belly and praying for blood on the paper. They say you should be careful what you wish for.

  ‌Chapter Thirty-Eight

  2007

  Next morning there’s still no sign of Ben. Paul puts his ear to the door, but there’s no sound. But at least he’s eating – he’s checked and the foil containers from the Indian are in the bin, and there’s a dirty spoon and fork in the dishwasher. While he was at it, he checked the knife rack too, then told himself off for being so daft.

  He bangs on the door with the flat of his hand. ‘Oy! Sleepy head! Fancy going out later? Maybe go to the travel agents, see if there’s any last-minute offers – what do you think?’

  Nothing. He tries the handle, but it’s locked of course.

  ‘I’m making a cup of tea if you fancy one,’ he says, wondering how long the lad’s going to keep this up.

  He wanders through to the kitchen and fills the kettle. If he doesn’t bring the lad any food, he’ll have to come out. Then maybes they can go down the Mission for breakfast and have a bit of a natter and that will get them back on a more even keel.

  The buzzer for the door goes just as he’s settling on the sofa with a cup of tea and reaching for the remote. It’ll be the postie, he guesses, buzzing whoever it is in and hearing the lift trundling down to the ground floor. He leaves the door open and goes back to turn the telly on.

  ‘Hello! Anyone home?’ A woman’s voice at the door.

  Paul turns round in surprise. But it’s not a woman’s voice. It’s that Laura creature. What the fuck is she – he, it. What the fuck is it doing here?

  ‘You’re not seeing Ben, if that’s what you’re after,’ he says.

  ‘Actually it was you I wanted to see.’

  ‘Well I don’t want to see you, so you can just turn round and fuck off back where you came from. You’re lucky I don’t report you to the police – for corrupting a minor. In fact why don’t I just do that right now?’

  He opens the drawer and takes out the Yellow Pages and that DNA letter’s right there, underneath, grinning up at him.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Laura says. ‘There’s no need for that. I’m not stopping long.’

  ‘Too right.’

  ‘This isn’t about the film, by the way.’

  ‘I don’t care what it’s about.’

  ‘It’s about Ben’s therapy.’

  Paul snorts. ‘Funny sort of therapy, hypnotizing people and putting weird ideas in their heads.’

  ‘Ben needs help, whether you like it or not.’ Laura comes right into the room and sits down on the sofa. ‘How’s he coping?’

  Paul stands by the door, glaring at her. ‘Coping with what?’

  ‘With you kicking away all his supports, of course. Banning him from seeing his therapist slap bang in the middle of the healing process.’

  Healing process my arse, Paul thinks. Stirring up process more like. ‘He’ll be fine,’ he says. ‘I’ll take him on holiday and he’ll forget all about it.’

  She leans back and crosses her legs; she’s got ankle boots and shocking pink tights on for fuck’s sake. ‘Wanting a sex change isn’t something you can just switch off, Paul. I tried for years – even got married to a lass. But it was hopeless. “I yam what I yam,” as Popeye used to say.’

  ‘Well Ben’s not like you, thank God.’

  ‘How do you know? Have you asked him? Have you ever sat down with him and actually asked how he feels about being a lad?’ Paul crosses his arms and stares her down. If she’s expecting an answer, she’s not getting one. She sighs. ‘Children have been known to top themselves when they’ve been refused the operation, did you know that?

  ‘Yeah. The doc threatened me with that when she convinced me to go along with her so-called therapy in the first place. I should probably report her too, for blackmail or something. Threatening behaviour.’

  ‘Well,’ she says, getting up. ‘I’ve said my piece so I’ll be off. You mind you look after that lad of yours.’

  After he’s closed the door – well, there’s no way he can just sit calmly watching the telly waiting for Ben to show his face. So he grabs his jacket and heads down the Fish Quay for breakfast.

  Them marine biology students are in the Seamen’s Mission when he goes in, sat by themselves eating beans on toast, for fuck’s sake. Must be vegetarian, something pansy like that. Macrobiotic.

  Seeing them reminds him about dropping in on that Dove Marine Laboratory to find out what’s going on with the flatties. All that business with the filming’s put it right out of his head. So when he’s finished his fry up, he drives out along the coast road to Cullercoats.

  The Dove place is an old red-brick building, like an old-fashioned school-house, nestled under the cliff just above the beach; weird little building, been there for yonks. He presses an entryphone thingie and says he’s come about the research on the flat fish. Inside, once he’s buzzed in, a studenty-looking lass in jeans appears at the top of a wooden staircase and clatters down to meet him.

  ‘Have you got an appointment?’ she asks, all smiles and big teeth.

  ‘I’m a skipper from Shields h
arbour,’ says Paul brusquely – because there’s no way he’s going along with any appointment crap. ‘I want to know what this research is all about.’

  Her smile fades and you can see her shifting gears. ‘I’ll see if Dr Markham can see you,’ she says stiffly. ‘Only she’s a bit busy at the moment.’

  She’s expecting him to stay down in the hall, like a good doggie, but he follows her up the stairs to a lab room kitted out in white melamine. An old biddy in a white coat is sorting through a cool box full of plaice, sluicing them down in the sink then laying them out, overlapping, on the draining board like plates.

  ‘So what’s happening with them plaice?’ Paul asks when she looks up. ‘That’s my livelihood you’re poking into.’

  Credit where it’s due: once she’s found out who he is, she’s very civil; shakes his hand, offers him a seat, sends toothy off to make him a cuppa. Then she talks him through what she’s doing – which is basically looking at the bollocks of male flatfish to see if they’re turning into females.

  She cuts one open to show him: decent male plaice, good colour, nice and plump. ‘These are the testes,’ she says, spreading out the contents of the gut cavity and separating out a pair of palish pink blobs. ‘See how swollen and lumpy they are? They should be elongated and smooth, a quarter that size. It’s one manifestation of a process called “feminization”,’ she explains. ‘When we examine the blood of these creatures, we find traces of a substance known as vitellogenin, which is a yolk protein that’s normally only found in female fish.’

  Paul suppresses a shudder. ‘So what’s causing it?’ he asks.

  ‘People used to blame the contraceptive pill – women excrete the oestrogens and they end up in the sea. But we now know that pollution from paint and plastics manufacture is far more damaging. You probably remember when TBT was banned a few years ago – that was why.’

  Paul nods. TBT was the paint they used to keep barnacles off the hull. Bloody brilliant stuff. He and the lads stockpiled it for months when they heard it was going to be banned.

  ‘This feminization,’ he says, ‘does it stop the fish breeding?’ He’s staring at the pink blobs and even he can see they’re not right.

  ‘They still produce some milt, but we’re seeing a lot of abnormal sperm – as you might expect – with huge misshapen heads, two tails instead of one, that sort of thing. And cell growth around the tails that prevents them swimming.’

  Which freaks Paul out a bit, actually. Because he’s heard the odd rumour on the news, but this is a bit too close to home. Is it the stuff they’ve been painting on the boats that’s caused the problem with his sperm?

  When Paul gets back to the flat, there’s still no sign of Ben, but his wetsuit’s gone from the spare room, so it looks like he’s gone for a swim. More of that freediving nonsense, most likely. But he can’t get into much trouble just holding his breath, can he? It’s not like being twenty metres down with a tank and your air line getting blocked.

  He changes into his tracksuit, thinking he might go for a jog to clear his head, but after that breakfast he’s not sure he can face it. Might be better to sort out a proper exercise routine, he thinks, lacing up his trainers: every morning first thing, maybe, whenever he’s not on the boat. Start like you mean to go on.

  Truth is, that plaice business is really getting to him – like it’s a curse or a punishment or something. Least that’s what the old lads down the Mission would say. Though what it’s a punishment for, he’s no idea. But that’s typical of some of the old blokes. Now they’re out of it, it’s easy to myther on about what everyone else is up to.

  God, the fuss they made when the twin-rigs started coming in! Well they were right, in a way, considering what happened with the prawn grounds last year – those Scots and Irish twin-riggers hammered them to death. Still, the old lads are stuck in the Dark Ages, with all their superstitions. Can’t set off if a woman says goodbye; can’t carry your boots with the toes pointing up; can’t wear anything green. It’s a wonder they ever got to sea at all. Can’t even mention the word ‘pig’, for fuck’s sake. What’s that about?

  Still, when you look at those plaice with their weird innards, it gives you the fucking heebie-jeebies.

  ‌Chapter Thirty-Nine

  2007

  Mary lies in bed. She doesn’t often lie in bed in the morning; she’s one of those people whose eyes pop open as if the lids are fixed to a spring, already seeking out the window to see what the weather has in store. But this morning she’s rather achy, with that peppery feeling at the back of the throat that presages a cold. Damn.

  She rolls over and hunches the duvet around her shoulders. Caffeine, nicotine, Lemsip, in that order, she prescribes for herself. Slice of wholemeal toast, maybe.

  Then telephone Ian to tell him about her fascinating session with Mr Skipper. Except she doesn’t have his number; he’s always been the one to contact her. In fact it’s rather odd that she didn’t hear from him yesterday, considering he’s been practically camping in her consulting room for the past week.

  She could telephone the hotel, she supposes, and ask to speak to him. Or leave a message. Saying what? ‘Please call Mary’? It just seems rather undignified. She’s never called him before and she doesn’t see why she should start now.

  Damn. She smiles ruefully. Is this what a single kiss has reduced her to? Waiting powerless by a silent telephone for some man to call? Surely this can’t be why she’s a bit under the weather?

  Going down the stairs, she’s aware of something else nagging at the back of her mind. And there, just inside the open door to her consulting room, is that box of old tapes and transcripts she dumped there yesterday. Aha, she thinks, as the penny drops. So that’s why she’s woken with a cold. It’s because she doesn’t want to open that box and investigate the evidence it may contain about the identity of T.H. Double damn.

  She measures out coffee for a double espresso and switches on the Gaggia. Mary is of the opinion that disease rarely strikes at random in the developed world; it is usually invited in, as it were, by a body whose immune system has been weakened by stress or depression or – in this case – by a reluctance to perform a potentially upsetting task.

  The rattle of the letterbox signals the arrival of the postperson – she uses the politically correct term with affectionate irony, even in her thoughts – and she wanders back out into the hall, to find a single hand-addressed envelope lying on the mat. Feeling in her pocket for her Gitanes, she unlocks the front door and takes the letter outside to her bench.

  It’s from an old client, someone she worked with quite intensively shortly after moving to North Shields. He’d been impotent, she recalls, and afraid of the dark, conditions she’d traced to a previous incarnation as a young girl who had been abused nightly by an uncle who’d moved into the family home when her father died. Lighting up and taking her first delicious drag of the day, she reads:

  Dear Dr Charlton,

  I have been meaning to write for ages to express my gratitude for the help you gave me all those years ago. I’ve been a different man, and it’s all thanks to you. You might be interested to know that I did ask that lady out eventually, and we were married six months later! The reason I’m writing now is to tell you that a nice girl from the BBC got in touch this morning, to tell me about the film they are making about you. I gave her as much information as I could, including some research I did a few years back trying to trace little Helen’s details. I meant to contact you then, but it slipped my mind. I can’t tell you what a thrill it was to find her family in 1930, living above that butcher’s shop in Hexham, exactly where I remembered! The BBC girl couldn’t say when they would be showing the film, so I’ll have to make sure to look out for it. I am so glad your work is at last getting the recognition it deserves.

  Yours sincerely,

  Geoffrey Johnstone

  Mary rereads the letter, then folds it and slides it back in its envelope. She sucks strongly on her cigarette a
nd exhales, sucks in and exhales, four times in quick succession, until she fancies she can actually feel the nicotine fizzing in her blood. She always chain-smokes her first two Gitanes of the day; she needs the double dose to top up the drug to its usual circulating level and combat her night-time withdrawal. Three minutes later, having stubbed out the second, she leans back to consider the implications of the letter.

  What does Ian think he’s playing at, contacting her past clients without her permission? He only had to mention it and she’d have written to Mr Johnstone herself. Typical Ian, she thinks crossly: too gung-ho to bother with the niceties; too impatient to wait for – what is it they call it? – snail mail.

  She comes inside and heaves the Yellow Pages onto the hall table, fully intending to call the hotel and give him a piece of her mind, but she stops herself mid-dial – calm down, Mary – and telephones Laura’s mobile instead.

  ‘Bongiorno ducky!’ trills her friend’s voice in her ear. ‘I’m just turning into Beacon Street on my way to see you.’

  ‘Are you? How perfectly delightful.’ Mary feels her eyes prick with tears. A dose of Laura is exactly what she needs. ‘Shall I put the kettle on, or would you like a latte?’

  ‘Have you got any milk?’

  ‘Damn. I am sorry—’

  ‘Just as well I’ve brought some with me then, isn’t it? And some fresh bread, so break out the Lurpak, lassie.’

  Mary walks out into the street to watch Laura clip-clopping towards her in mauve culottes and high-heeled ankle boots.

  ‘I’ve just been round to see that Paul,’ Laura reports once they’re settled at the kitchen table with butter melting into hunks of warm bread. ‘I tried to reason with him, but he’s still spitting feathers.’

  ‘Was Ben there?’

  ‘No sign, but Paul seemed to think he was OK.’

  Mary sighs. ‘What a mess. I’ll go round myself in a few days.’