‘Have you heard of a phenomenon called déjà vu?’ she asks, wrapping up the uneaten half of her bap. A fresh hypothesis is taking shape in her mind, chasing away all possibility of eating.
Still chewing, he shakes his head.
‘The term means “already seen” and it refers to the sense one occasionally has of having experienced something before.’
‘Like sitting in Miss Turnbull’s chair.’
‘Exactly. Or in my case, gazing down at the Fish Quay from my bedroom window.’ She takes out her Gitanes and lighter and holds them on her lap, waiting until he’s finished his bap. ‘In the past, of course, the phenomenon was simply taken as evidence of reincarnation – that one had actually lived through the experience in question before. But these days people prefer to believe that it’s due to a temporary mismatch between perception and consciousness, whereby an event is perceived a fraction of a second before it’s consciously experienced, so that one experiences both the event and an apparent “memory” of the event at the same time.’
‘Is that what you think happened to me at Miss Turnbull’s place?’
‘I don’t know, Ben. Scientists have come up with many explanations for the phenomenon over the years, but have never been able to prove anything – mainly because it’s been so difficult to replicate such a rare and transient experience in the laboratory.’ Ben’s watching her intently. She wonders to what extent he’s understanding all this. She really should get out of the habit of voicing her theoretical musings aloud. ‘However, one team of researchers did have some success by using post-hypnotic amnesia – that’s when a hypnotized person is shown something then instructed to forget it. When their test subjects were brought out of their trances and presented with the, in quotes, “forgotten” material again, the majority did indeed insist that they had never seen it before. But around thirty percent reported a sensation of déjà vu.’
‘So they’d all seen it before, but only a few of them remembered it.’
‘Yes.’
‘So I really did sit in Miss Turnbull’s chair.’
‘Or you experienced a temporary glitch in your perceptual processing. There could be any number of explanations.’
Mary watches Ben picking the last of the bacon from his bap and eating it, then screwing up the ketchup-sodden bread in the paper bag. She’s waiting for him to put the information together.
‘There was a Radio Times from 1994 in her room, with Joanna Lumley on the cover,’ he says eventually. ‘That was just before she died.’
‘And when were you born?’
‘November the twenty-third, 1994.’
‘And when was she born, do you think?’ Mary asks.
He looks at her. ‘I don’t know. Skip says she was really old, like all doddery and sort of shrunken and bent like you get with old people. So there was this really little old walking stick on the bed, like something a midget would use.’
‘She was already pretty old in 1967, when she was looking after me. Though I suppose anyone over forty seems ancient to a ten-year-old schoolgirl.’
‘You know that old biddy with the spooky hands I got that time? The one who was talking to that man in the box?’
Mary nods and smiles.
‘That was Miss Turnbull, wasn’t it?
‘That would seem to be a distinct possibility.’
He mulls this over for a moment. ‘So we’ve met before, then. You and me, I mean. When you were a little girl.’
‘Again, that would appear to be a distinct possibility.’
He’s grinning at her. ‘She really really liked you.’
‘I really really liked her too.’ She finds herself grinning back, ridiculously pleased, then leans over and kisses him swiftly on the top of his warm, apple-scented, blond-streaked, glossy boy’s head.
‘I was thinking of getting a lodger,’ she remarks abruptly, changing the subject – she’s not used to managing affection; she’s out of the habit. ‘A student, perhaps,’ she adds. ‘Someone who can introduce me to the worldwide web, or whatever it’s called, and won’t mind a bit of damp in the kitchen.’
Ben eyes her sceptically. ‘You’d have to get broadband fitted first,’ he says. ‘And a proper telly. No one’ll put up with your gear unless the rent’s like ten quid or something.’
‘There must be some young people who aren’t addicted to technology. An anthropology postgraduate, perhaps. Someone who’s spent some time in the Third World.’
‘No offence, doc, but your place is sort of like being in the Stone Age.’
‘Laura’s always talking about broadband.’
‘Plus there’s no dishwasher or microwave. That kitchen needs a total makeover.’
‘Perhaps I’ll just give up on that idea, then.’
‘Wouldn’t it be annoying having someone around all the time?’ he asks.
‘Undoubtedly, but I’m not sure living on one’s own is an entirely healthy state for a human being either. We are quintessentially social animals, with the most highly developed communication skills of any species.’
‘Do you get lonely, then?’
‘Not lonely, as such, no. Lazy is probably a better term for it. When one lives alone, there are certain spheres of interpersonal endeavour that one doesn’t have to bother with any more.’ Like love, she adds to herself; like jealousy and insecurity; like hurt, pain, bereavement.
‘I wonder why Miss Turnbull never got married.’
‘After Annie’s experience of losing Sam, perhaps she never quite dared to commit herself.’
‘Like a scar, you mean? Like your fear of the sea?’
‘Yes. Or perhaps she simply never found the right man.’
‘What about me? If Annie and Miss Turnbull never got married, maybe I won’t either.’
‘Well, that’s why we’re doing this therapy, Ben. To help you make conscious choices in your life, as opposed to being driven by past agendas.’
‘I wonder why it’s always Annie I remember, and not Miss Turnbull.’
‘I can’t answer that definitively. But from what we know, it seems your Miss Turnbull lived a relatively uneventful life, rather on the outskirts of other people’s dramas. So perhaps there’s not very much there to, as it were, catch the attention of your subconscious.’
‘Maybe her soul just needed a rest after Annie.’
Mary smiles. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised.’
The sound of a car tooting its horn and drawing up outside the house interrupts them.
‘Guess who I’ve brought to see you,’ says Ian, shoving the gate open.
‘Dad!’ cries Ben, beaming. ‘Are you going to be hypnotized again?’
‘Can’t let you have all the fun, can I?’
‘Is this true, Mr Dixon?’ asks Mary in surprise. ‘I’m delighted, of course, but after last time, I assumed—’
‘Blame your friend Ian,’ says Paul, winking at Ian. ‘He twisted my arm. Said it would make all the difference to the film. So here I am, raring to go.’
Chapter Fifty-One
…Think back to the summer of 1898. It’s the start of the herring season. Where are you? What are you doing?
1898
I’m down in the rope room coiling the warp. It’s dark and there’s a swell, so the boat’s heaving and creaking. The lads are hauling, up on deck above me. I can hear them giving it, one, two, three, shake; and the herring thudding out of the net. Now here comes another length of dripping warp through the hatch for me to stow.
And I’m thinking: Sam’s gone overboard, but we’re carrying on like nothing’s happened. I mean, he could be out there right now, hanging on to a buff in the dark, with his gansey wet through, freezing to death. But we can’t even start searching properly till we’ve got the nets out of the water.
Da’s face when he gave the order – well, I never thought I’d see him like that; he was in tears almost. He said there’s no point in us shouting and waving the lamps; if we’re to look for him, we have
to haul the nets first. Because there’s a chance Sam’s got caught in them, isn’t there? And even if he’s not, we can’t search with nigh on two miles of driftnet tugging at us, and we can’t cut them free or we’d get caught foul of them ourselves. So we have to haul, even though it’s eating up time when we could be looking.
So here I am below deck, blind to what’s happening up top, reaching up to grab another length of wet warp, that’s thick as my arm and rough as shark-skin, and my palms burning, and freezing water running down to my oxters. The floor’s sloshing with water and the lamp’s smoking and lurching side to side, so the place is black with paraffin grease and spattered with spits of seaweed and herring scales.
How could he have gone over? I mean it does happen, it’s something you hear about. But not in the summer, not in the middle of a drift. Tom was on about the deck being slippy – but it’s always slippy; that’s part of the job.
When we’re done hauling, I climb back up on deck, and part of me’s expecting Sam to be there as usual, scraping gildeds over the side for our breakfast. But it’s dark still, just a glimmer of grey on the horizon, and there’s no sign of him; just the lamps swinging and the lads clearing up, mucking the nets and shooting the last of the herring in the hold. And the way they are, quiet and grim, brings it home to me again that he’s gone.
Da’s for’ard sounding the bell again, to tell the other luggers there’s a lad gone over. I can see them in the distance, the few crews that’s out tonight, their lamps moving as they check in the water.
And I’m looking at Tom now, unhooking one of our lamps and leaning over the side – and I’m wondering, why didn’t he wake us when he found the deck empty and Sam gone? Why was he just standing there smoking when I came up? Why wasn’t he unhooking the lamp then and searching overboard?
And I keep thinking, and I keep pushing the thought away – but it keeps coming back at me, like another length of warp through the hatch: that maybes they’ve had a barny, the two of them, and Tom’s shoved Sam and that’s how he’s gone over the side.
Can you remember what happened earlier that night? What did you see? Let’s start when the boat set out that evening.
It’s right blowy and we’re on the boat getting ready, and Mickey’s mythering on because he thinks it’s too hickety to go out. The port’s full of flotsam the river’s brought down after the rain, twigs and branches and that, like a solid raft, with rats scampering all over. And the wind’s making the water heave under its coat of rubbish, and the rigging’s clattering against the masts, and there’s scuts of white out in the river.
Now here comes Da walking down the quayside with Sam, and they’re keeping time with their feet and walking slow, so you can tell they’re having a word. And I’m thinking it’ll be something about the fishing, for Sam’s dead keen and Da can talk fishing till the cows come home. Then I see him clap Sam on the back, and the lad’s grinning fit to split his face apart. I mean, you should’ve seen him – like he’d been handed a thousand gold sovereigns. And he swings up on board while Da stops off to howay the skipper from the Sanderling.
Then I see Sam’s putting on that gansey our Annie’s been knitting; least I think it must be the one, for she was on to the cuff last time I looked and it’s the same pattern Mam uses.
So Sam’s walking out with our Annie, and I never knew! Never even suspected, though there was bound to be somebody someday, wasn’t there? It gives me a jolt, mind. For it shows how far I’ve slipped away from my folk. Not so long ago I’d have known what Annie was about before she even knew it herself. But since I’ve been stopping at Nana’s, and off out every evening – well, I’ve not been taking heed of hardly anything else.
‘Howay, Wellesley,’ says a voice behind me, and it’s Tom and Big John climbing on board. ‘Stow this, will you,’ says Tom, and hoys over his sea-bag so it dunts Sam on the shoulder – which is typical Tom, to keep a stew on the stir. See, there’s nowt wrong with asking a lad to stow your sea-bag, specially if he’s new. But Tom has to take it that bit further, doesn’t he? And chuck it so Sam’s no chance of catching it before it dunts him.
Tom can go too far sometimes, see? Always poking at something with a stick to see what will happen. Like with that poor nancy lad, on the beach by the Priory. One of the old ’longshoremen had to row out to untie him in the end and they’d to take him to the hospital. Down the Seven Stars after, Tom was boasting how him and the others had trussed him up and tied him to a mooring post for the tide to finish off, saying that’ll teach him, dirty little nonce – so I nipped outside: I didn’t want to hear, did I? But maybes I should have stayed, because now I keep wondering what they did to him first. If I’d stayed at least I’d have known.
The poliss came and lifted Tom later and done him for aggravated or grievous bodily or something, and that’s not the first time he’s been hoyed into them cells for being free with his fists.
So anyway, now Tom’s spotted Sam’s new gansey and he’s saying, ‘Hey, Wellesley, who’s knitted that for you?’ So Sam’s saying just a lass he knows, and Tom’s saying, ‘What lass is that then?’ And, ‘Let’s take a look.’ But Sam just smiles and pays no heed, and drops down into the fo’c’sle with the bags.
Tom must have seen the pattern on the gansey, though, for it’s like mine and Da’s: runs of herringbones between rows of cables and net-mesh diamonds; the same pattern Nana knitted for Granda, the same one Mam makes for us now without thinking, year on year, natural as the bones in her fingers.
Over by the capstan, Big John’s joined Mickey in whingeing to Da about going out tonight; for the wind’s never letten up all day. But Da says it’s a full moon, so the herring’ll be on the rise, even in this swell. He reckons it’s worth a trip, for we’ll get there in no time on this wind, and shoot and haul quickly and get twice the price for the haul – because most the boats will be stopping home. He’s got it all worked out, see? Where to go where the swell will be softer, how to ride the wind, how long to drift. If I tried for ten year I’d never get to be the way Da is with his fishing.
Da asked me once where I was headed. He was hoping I’d take on the boat, see? But he knows I’m not up to it. I mean, you’ve only to hear him shouting to the deckies, telling them to reef up, and come about and that. I’m never doing that in a million years.
So anyway, we’ve gone out, and shot the nets, and now we’re on the drift – except there’s no sitting out on the deck tonight, for it’s blowy and spitting rain. Sam’s taking the watch and I’m in my berth, listening to Tom settling down. See, the way the berths are made, mine goes across the way, and the others run for’ard to aft either side. So Tom’s head’s right next to mine, just the other side of the partition. I like to think of him lying there in the dark, with his hand on his dick maybes, having a quiet pull.
Tonight, though, he can’t settle. Over the groaning of the timbers and Mickey and Big John’s snoring, I can hear his straw crunch as he rolls over, then back again. Now he’s found a bite to scratch at, sounds like. Now he’s sighing and rolling over again, and though I can’t see him I can tell there’s not a morsel of sleep in him, even though it’s hard graft sailing the boat in a swell, pulling on the ropes, reefing and unreefing, going about, so he must be weary.
I’m just dozing off, when I hear him roll over sudden like and clamber out of his berth. Off up to the deck for a piss, I suppose, so I lie awake for a while with that picture in my head: of Tom getting his dick out and pissing into the black waves. It makes me hard, so I turn to my side and start on a bit of a wank, but then I think I’ll wait till he’s back for a proper go.
So I’m waiting for him – but he’s never come back. And I think I can hear voices up on deck, but it’s hard to tell for the creaking of the boat. Is he spelling Sam, maybes? Or having a barny? But I’m wide awake now, and I need a piss too. So I climb down out of my berth and go up the ladder.
The wind hits me as soon as I put my head up, and a hiss of spray whips me across t
he face. The sails are reefed and the boat’s leaning to starboard, bucking on the waves, with the water slapping at her side. I check around and there’s Tom by the port lamp having a smoke, so I have my piss, then go over.
What with the slapping of the water and the wind, and the chattering of the rigging, he doesn’t hear me coming – then jumps out of his skin when he sees me and flicks his tab into the sea.
‘Where’s Sam?’ I ask, looking around.
‘God knows. Down the fish room? Deck was empty when I came up.’
‘Why’d he go down there?’ The hatch is battened down, but I open it to take a look anyway. Because there’s something about the way Tom’s talking, sort of shifty like, that’s got me worried. It’s pitch black in the fish room, of course, so I light the lamp and crouch down and sort of swing it around inside. Then I try in the rope room, though Lord knows why he’d be in there.
‘Did you see him?’ I ask.
‘I told you, no. I came up for a piss and found it like this.’
‘Do you think he’s gone overboard?’
‘Don’t be daft. He’ll be somewhere.’
‘I’ve checked everywhere.’
‘So, try the berths. Maybes he’s having a kip.’
I know he’s not there, for I’d have heard him coming down the ladder – but I look anyway. And now I’m thinking he must have gone overboard, but at the same time I can’t quite believe it.
So I check the deck again – though there’s nowhere there he could be – and Tom’s unhooked the starboard lamp and is leaning over the side to check the water. Because that’s the only place we haven’t looked, though there’s nowt to see in this weather, except black waves rearing up, on and on, slope-slap-and-gully, slope-slap-and-gully.
Come daybreak, one of the other crews hooked Sam’s oily jacket out the water. There’s something cold and terrible about hauling fish when there’s a lad overboard – even though it’s the right thing, the only thing, to do. Sailing home later, you can see the pain of it on Da’s face. That’s a skipper’s burden for you, summed up right there.
Herring Girl Page 42