Herring Girl

by Debbie Taylor

  So when we dock, it’s Da who calls the Harbourmaster. And later, when the police come, it’s Da they talk to first. But then they call us all in, one by one. And by now there’s a great crowd of bairns and old folk round the Harbourmaster’s office where they’ve set up, all jostling and giving it what’s happened and who’s died, like seagulls squabbling over a cod’s head.

  Tom goes in first and comes out pulling his cap on, so I can’t see his face. Then I go in, and there’s this burly policeman with a red-porridge nose sat behind the desk, and a younger lad with a notebook on a stool. And their helmets side by side on a cabinet like blue plum duffs.

  So I tell them about coming up for a piss and finding Sam gone, and how I searched for him and that. And they say, what was Tom doing when I came up? So I say, looking in the water – which is true, in a way. But I never said how long he was on deck before I came up; I never said I heard voices. If they’d asked, I would have said. But they never asked, did they?

  When I come out, and push through the crowd, Tom’s waiting for me, sucking on a tab.

  ‘What did you tell them?’ He’s picking bakkie off his lip, not looking at me.

  ‘Just that he was gone when I came up.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘That’s all I said – but, Tom, I was awake when you went up. I thought I heard voices.’

  ‘What?’ Now he’s looking straight at me, and he’s rattled.

  ‘I didn’t tell the poliss, because I wasn’t sure. And it would have looked bad.’

  ‘I told you, the deck was empty when I went up.’

  ‘So why didn’t you wake us straight off?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought he’d be somewhere. Then by the time I realized, it was too late.’ The tab’s only half smoked, but he drops it and grinds it out with his boot. ‘I never saw him, right? You couldn’t have heard us, because he wasn’t there when I went up. Anyway it was that blowy last night, you couldn’t have heard anything. It must have been the timbers creaking.’ He stops, like he knows he’s blethering, and takes out his tin to roll up again.

  Then after a bit, like he’s been mulling it over, he says: ‘It was raining, wasn’t it? Do you remember? He probably slipped on the deck.’ As if Sam was some green ’prentice who’d never been on a boat before. And I just wish he’d keep his mouth shut, because the more he goes on about it, the harder it is to believe him.

  And I feel qualmy, all of a sudden; like I’ve swallowed something rotten. So I move away a bit and retch into the gutter, but nowt comes; so I spit instead and the gob lands on a smashed crab’s claw.

  When I straighten up, there’s something different about him. He’s stopped blethering on, and there’s this hard look round his eyes. ‘It’s funny how some things make you qualmy, isn’t it, Jimmy?’ he says now. ‘Like that other night when I saw you coming out of that alley and you were wiping your mouth.’

  ‘I was throwing up,’ I say – and you know what they say about blood running cold? Well that’s what it feels like, seeing that look on his face.

  ‘First this big nonce comes out buttoning his kecks, then here comes our Jimmy wiping his mouth.’

  ‘I was scared. I thought he was going to rob me, but he was just having a piss.’

  ‘I believe you, Jimmy. But it’s not something you’d want your da hearing about, is it?’

  Then he walks away. Just like that.

  After he’s gone, Da’s come over for a word, but I can’t speak for shivering. Because the thought of Tom telling Da what I’m about – well, I might as well pack up and leave right now. He thinks I’m just upset about Sam, so he tells me to leave the making up for now and to go back to Nana’s for a lay down. ‘He was a grand lad,’ he says. ‘Would have made a good skipper.’

  Him saying that makes me want to blub, because I’ll never be the man he wants. I’ll always be ‘young Jimmy the cook’, sneaking round the alleys for some lad to wank off with. And now Tom’s on to me, I’ll have to watch my back even more. What sort of life’s that?

  I’ve wandered away from the quay and along towards the Tyne’s mouth, to the little pebble beach by the salt works where the cobles are pulled up. It looks so normal in daylight; you can hardly believe the goings on come nightfall: that long wall where Danny kissed me; that dip in the pebbles between the cobles where he give it me the first time, the feel of him edging it in, and the pebbles digging up through my coat, that knot of dry tangles by my head, the smell of sea salt and tangles.

  I knew that young lad Tom battered and tied up. He was in the class below me at school: skinny fair lad with blue eyes, bonny as a lass; lives over by Ropery Bank. Thing is, I really liked him. He was quiet, just got on with things. I like that. Since then I’ve been looking out for him. I don’t know why – to say sorry, something like that, give him a smile to say I understand – but I’ve never seen him. He’s run away, I suppose, with that story nipping at his heels like a dog, off to somewhere nobody knows him.

  After Sam went overboard, I couldn’t face going back to our house. I know, I should have been there for Annie’s sake. But I felt dirty, like I’d rolled in something and didn’t want her to smell it on me. I even tried keeping away from Nana’s – because the bairns are there, aren’t they? Little Emma and Rickie. And our Frank in the loft with me, for God’s sake, waiting up and wanting a blether about what’s happened.

  See, it’s got all mixed up – Sam and Tom and Danny, all them other lads I’ve been with – into a big mucky tangle. And if any bit of it comes unravelled, if I say about Tom, the whole lot will get dragged into the open. I keep thinking, what if Da finds out?

  So I’m not stopping home, and I daresn’t go down the lanes any more, and everywhere I turn, there’s Tom scowling at me like I’m something the cat’s sicked up.

  Mam’s come to find me. I’ve been half expecting her for days now – because Nana must have said, mustn’t she? About me not eating, and being out all hours? So here she is, sat on a mounting block with her fish plank propped against a wall, waiting for me. How she guessed this is the way I’d come, Lord knows. But that’s Mam for you, isn’t it?

  When I see her, by Jesus it’s a shock. She looks that shattered, her face sagging like a candle that’s melted in the sun – and the size of her now! Annie’d said there was a baby on the way, but the way she’s swelled up these past few weeks it looks like it could come any minute. Her eyes are closed and she’s swaying a bit, so I think she’s maybes dropped off – and I’m just thinking of sneaking away when she opens her eyes.

  ‘Jimmy?’ she says with a soft smile, like she’s coming out of a dream. ‘Is that you? Thank God. I was just about to give up.’ And the way she says it, that load of weariness in her voice, I know she’s meaning more than just waiting for me today.

  I think she’s come to have a word about me stopping out, but it’s Annie she’s worried about; how hard she’s taken it since they found the body. ‘Before, see, she could tell herself he’d swum ashore. Now she’s seen him with her own eyes, it’s like a light’s gone out in her, Jimmy. And she can’t settle. Every night she’s out walking, and I haven’t the heart to keep her in. But I’m that feared for her, wandering all hours. You know how rough it gets, this town, this time of year. So look out for her, will you? And tell the other lads, if they see her, to please bring her home to her mam.’

  So I say, of course I’ll keep an eye out. Fact I’ll go out tonight specially. And all the time she’s talking I’m fizzing with it, aren’t I? Thinking it’s an excuse to go round the alleys again, and down the lifeboat shed, and the salt works, and if Tom sees me I can tell him I’m looking for Annie. That’s how I am, see? No better than a horny dog humping a sea-bag.

  That night I go round the pubs by the Bullring, and a Grimsby lad buys me a top-up and wanks me off, quick, quick, down the side of a cutch tank. Then I do him, and by the end of that I’m hard again, and wanting to shove it up. I’ve never done that, see, it’s always been the othe
r way round. But this lad seems like he’s up for it, but not here – there’s too many folk. With a wank, see, you can leave off any second and face the wall like you’re having a piss.

  So I say to follow me to the Lifeboat House, and he says not now, for he’s to get back to his boat. So I say, tomorrow, then – it’s Saturday, we’ll have more time. And he says, right you are – so that’s sorted.

  After, I go looking for Annie – along the quayside, then back along Bell Street and Liddell Street, where folk are stotting out of the pubs into the fog, like bairns playing blind-man’s-buff. And I’m thinking, maybe she’s safer walking in the fog, for it’s easier to slip away if someone starts on at you. But then it strikes me that maybe that’s worse, because if someone does want to try it on, you’d never know you were being followed till it was too late.

  Da’s said we’ve to go out to the herring grounds tonight, even though the water’s flat as a mirror. He’s booked a tug to pull us out to where he thinks there’ll be a breath of wind. That’s Da all over: always planning how to get a haul to market at a good price, whatever the weather, and beat the other crews to it. So once I’ve checked the alleys and lanes by the Scarp where Sam lived, I nip along to Nana’s to pick up my oilies and head off back to the boat.

  Da says Annie was still out when he left, and Mam’s fretting. So I tell him I’ve been looking, and he says, good lad. Then he rubs his face with his dry hands, which is something he does sometimes, like trying to wash away what’s worrying him. And all the time I’m tipping tea in the gorger, I’m thinking of tomorrow night, and meeting that Grimsby lad, and if he’ll still be up for it.

  It was one of those trips you’re glad when it’s over. We found a breeze, if you can call it that, and the haul was goodish. But coming back was a nightmare – we even had the oars out at one point. And Tom got in a barny with Da again about getting an engine fitted, so Da’s back at him straight away asking how many times we’re becalmed in a year – for he knows you can count them on the fingers of one hand – and is that reason enough to pay out for a total refit and new engine? And coal to fire it, and the extra fireman to tend it?

  He would have left it at that, except Tom’s turned away, hasn’t he? And started mythering on under his breath. So now Da’s riled, saying if Tom paid more mind, they could have made more use of what wind there was, and if he’s not careful he’ll be stuck as a deckie the rest of his life. And though he’s never said, I can tell that he’s comparing Tom with Sam – and Tom knows it too.

  Anyway, we get home eventually, and moor up and cran out – though the fog’s so thick the lumpers seem like they’re barrowing into a white wall. And Tom slopes off early, with a face like thunder, straight after Da, leaving me to swill down. And he’s taken the padlock with him, hasn’t he? So I have to wedge the main hatch closed best I can and hope no one notices the hasp hanging. Day like this, it would be easy for some toe-rag to slip aboard and help themselves.

  What with the fog, I’m worried the Grimsby lad will stop in. But he’s waiting round the side of the Lifeboat House when I get there later, looming out of the gloaming in a big coat with the collar up. I’ve got my coat on too, so we’re well set. There’s a couple of lads about, so we walk along the beach, chatting a bit and chucking pebbles into the fog, with the moon a faint blur on the horizon.

  He says he’s working as a nightman, but was down the Seamen’s Waiting Room today about a berth on a cargo ship. So I say, what’s the pay like? And he says fair, but not as good as a share with a decent skipper – but it’s a way to get away from folk that know you.

  Now we’ve reached the place where the cobles are pulled up, and I scout around a bit to check if we’re on our own, and take my coat off and lay it down on the pebbles, and he takes his off and sits beside us. And I don’t know who’s started it, but now we’re kissing, and wriggling down with his coat over us, and the bells of ’longshoremen tolling out over the river.

  Then – oh God, oh God – we’re doing it, aren’t we? Side by side like spoons in a drawer. And he’s whispering to take it easy, and I’m trying – but he’s so hot, and so tight, I can hardly bear it.

  ‘Stop moving,’ he whispers, ‘and breathe slowly.’ So I do, and relax against him, and he sighs, then I sigh, and then we laugh a bit. But that makes him clench even tighter, so I’m on the brink of spurting again. So I have to try and relax again, but this time it’s easier and I can reach round and hold his dick, and lick his neck, and wank him slowly till I can tell he’s ready to spurt too. And that’s how we are, moving and not moving, waiting to spurt, under the fog, under his greatcoat, the two of us, right there—

  Now here’s footsteps on the pebbles and the sound of someone panting, like his chest’s fit to burst, like he’s been running, or carrying something heavy.

  I try to stop and pull out, but it’s too late, for he’s started clenching me tight, in a rhythm, again and again, clamping his hand over mine on his dick, and pumping it, until I can’t stand it and we spurt together.

  The footsteps are nearer now, and there’s a thud, then something big being dragged over the pebbles right past our heads – just some old ’longshoreman off on his coble, most likely. We’re panting away, but I’ve pulled the coat right up over us, so we’re hidden. So I’m thinking, if he spots us he’ll think we’re just a normal couple of sweethearts.

  I can hear him dragging whatever it is over to one of the cobles and hoying it in, least that’s what it sounds like. Now he’s fixing the oars and setting off, towing the coble down to the water. I pull out, and wait a bit to give him time to wade in and push off, then I put on my coat on and stand up.

  He’s still there over by the water, and I was wrong – he’s a young lad, not an old codger. And he’s got a box or something open on the boat, and’s hoying stones inside. What’s he up to? The stones are clanging in, like into a tin bath, so I’m thinking it must be a metal box.

  ‘Looks like he’s going to dump something,’ says the Grimsby lad, buttoning up his kecks.

  And I’m just thinking there’s something familiar about the lad hoying the stones when he straightens up and looks straight at me. And even in the fog, in the dark, I can see that it’s Tom – and he can see that it’s me. We stare at each other for a long moment, then he pushes the coble into the water and wades in after it – and he’s gone, rowing off into the fog.

  ‌Chapter Fifty-Two

  2007

  Paul lies still for a while with his eyes closed. He can hear Ian’s camera running, the seagulls mewing and chuckling outside. The doctor’s saying something, but he pretends he’s still under, or whatever it’s called. He doesn’t want to look at her, at that do-goody therapy face she’ll have pasted on, the face that says she knows how he’s feeling, that she understands. When he’s just been having it off with some nonce, for fuck’s sake.

  Was he hypnotized? It didn’t feel like it. It was more like just thinking about something, like watching a film – except you’re in the frigging film and some of it’s hard porn. It was the same last time. He was expecting to feel woozy and disoriented afterwards, like waking up from a dream, but it was actually sort of normal – apart from it being so fucking traumatic, obviously, what with the obesity and the amputations and that. But the process itself felt normal, like his mind had been wandering and just sort of noticing things, and then getting caught up; like when he thinks about Nessa and her new bloke, then starts imagining what they’re doing, and it sort of escalates until he feels like smashing their smug faces in.

  That’s what makes it so fucking creepy – the idea that all this pansy stuff is just under the surface, like a part of him, just waiting to come out. Even if the doc’s put it there, it’s still fucking creepy. Seeing inside the mind of that twitchy little nonce, sneaking around, bundle of horny nerves. Talk about pathetic.

  Mind you, that Tom would put the fear of God into anyone. You wouldn’t want to get on his wrong side. Because it’s obvious it was Anni
e’s body he was lugging down to that coble.

  That’s what Paul can’t understand: how Jimmy could have seen all those things and not said a fucking word. She was his sister, for Chrissake. Didn’t he owe her that much? Being a nonce is bad enough, but being a coward’s even worse in Paul’s book.

  Was he hoping Tom would be grateful? Is that it? And whisk him down one of them alleys for a spot of fishy rumpy-pumpy? Paul shudders, remembering: the stink of that other lad – his tabs, his piss, the sharp smell of his sweat – the rough hand yanking at his trouser buttons.

  Then his eyes fly open. Ben! Was he listening to all that?

  He stares round the room, blinking in the light, trying to focus. And there’s Ben, crouched down on the pouffe just like last time – and grinning like a frigging Cheshire cat.

  ‘Howay, Dad,’ he goes. ‘You all right?’

  ‘What’s he doing here still?’ Paul asks angrily, sitting up. ‘That was way past the watershed stuff.’

  ‘I’m twelve, Dad. I know what gays get up to.’

  He’s still grinning, like it’s the best thing since sliced bread, to have his dad getting it on with some lad on TV.

  ‘That was bloody brilliant, mate,’ says Ian. ‘Fascinating. Just what the doctor ordered.’ Then, to the doc: ‘Looks like we’ve located the villain of the piece.’

  ‘We still have to establish that it was a body in the box he was carrying. But I agree it does seem likely. It’s intriguing that Tom’s implicated in Sam’s death too.’ She turns to Paul. ‘Thank you. I know how difficult it must have been to subject yourself to this disturbing process a second time. But I hope you can see now how very valuable your contribution has been to unravelling the mystery. If it wasn’t for you, we’d never have suspected that Sam was murdered.’