Herring Girl

by Debbie Taylor

  It’s the shock of seeing the drowned body, I expect. God knows what sort of state it would have been in by then. It would be enough to upset anyone. Give her time and she’ll be right as rain.

  This waiting’s really getting to me. I thought things would be different, see? With Wellesley out of the way. I thought I’d get back in with the skipper, and walk out with Annie, and be right back on course – except it would be a better course because I’d know where I was heading.

  But the skipper’s been a right bastard since Wellesley’s gone, picking holes in everything. This sail’s reefed wrong. Why’s that halliard tied like that? Da says it must be preying on him, to lose a lad – but still. There’s no need to take it out on the rest of us. It’s like we can’t put a foot right. And when someone expects you to mess up, well that’s what you do, isn’t it?

  And it’s all landing on me, because that nightman he’s taken on is worse than useless. So I’ve to do half his work as well as mine. So the skip will give me an order, like slacken off the jib, and I’ll do it – and he’ll just sigh, like I’ve not done it properly, not tucked the fucking end in or something, God knows. Which would have been fine before Wellesley came along with his Navy training and that.

  By the end of the week, I’ve had a bellyful so I grab my sea-bag and head off home soon as the skipper’s gone ashore. Then later, when I’m sat all nice and cosy drinking cocoa round the Milburns’ place with Flo and Mrs M., I realize I’ve brought the boat’s padlock with me, so the lads can’t lock up. Which gets me riled all over again, so I rush off to do it before the skipper cottons on. And all the way there, I’ve got the key in my hand and I’m squeezing it so it really digs in, and I keep squeezing, digging it in, thinking stupid, stupid, stupid.

  By, but this fog’s so thick you could slice it with a knife and the cobbles are that slimy underfoot, I nearly go over a few times. The boats are all in, moored that tight you can’t see the water, just a long row of prows poking out of the mist, and mooring ropes criss-crossed like cats’ cradles.

  Now I’ve got to the end of the quay where we’re tied up, and what’s this? Brand new kist sitting by the mooring post – big green metal one – and no one around. So straight away I’m thinking, some scrote’s ransacking the boat and brought a kist along to stow the stuff in. So I look on the boat, and sure enough, there’s someone crouched over by the hatch.

  I swing on board quietly, gearing up for a scrap – but it’s Annie! She’s come to find me, hasn’t she? She’ll have been wandering around in the fog with that kist, and it’s got too heavy, so she’s come looking for me to walk her home.

  I can’t see her face clearly in the gloaming, but I can hear from her voice that she’s crying – and no wonder, for it’s a filthy night for a lass to be out on her own. Anyway, she says she was wanting to see inside the fo’c’sle, so I open the hatch and get the lamp lit, and help her down.

  Oh, but it’s so good to be close to her, so close I can smell her hair and hear her breathing—

  I’ve got my hands round her waist to lift her down the ladder and my fingers meet almost, she’s that slender. Like a flower, I’m thinking, and at that moment I just want her so much there’s an ache comes to my throat, so I pull her closer, to smell her some more, her neck, her ear—

  Now she’s pushing me away, the daftie, but there’s nowhere to push me. Still, she’s shoving at me anyway – and she’s that strong! I’d forgotten that about her. If you got in a scrap with Annie as a bairn, you’d soon know about it! So I’m thinking, right, if that’s how she wants to play it, that’s fine by me – and it makes a change from Flo, I can tell you.

  So we’re scrapping, and she’s panting, trying to wriggle away, and I’m hard as a bloody truncheon, and we’re kissing – and suddenly she’s bitten me on the tongue! And Jesus it hurts, and my mouth’s full of blood, so I’m spitting it out. And now she’s gone for my gipping knife and’s slashing at me – and gets me too, on the arm, before I catch on to what she’s about.

  So anyway, I get the knife off her no bother and cut her blouse open. And I’m even hotter for her now, aren’t I? Seeing her standing there with her boobies showing and her eyes flashing, her cami splattered with blood where the knife’s nicked her – and looking so bloomin’ gorgeous I have to laugh right out loud. And I know I’ve got to have her.

  So now I’ve pinned her arms and I’m on her, and I’ve got the knife at her throat, just to spice it up, like. And after a bit she stops fighting and goes quiet. And Jesus, it’s the sweetest feeling in the world, to know I’ve got her at last, soft and quiet in my arms.

  Then I’m pushing in with my cock, feeling it stopping, then forcing it through. And I’m thinking: that’s it! That’s her cherry gone! And then I’m laughing again and thinking: fuck you, Wellesley, I’ve had her first and now she’s mine, mine, mine.

  Let’s stop there for a moment, Tom. Good, you’re doing fine. Now I want you to keep your eyes closed and relax, and wait there until you hear me call your name and ask you to continue.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ Mary whispers, glaring at Ian, who’s been gesticulating wildly at her, completely ruining her concentration.

  ‘Find out what he did with the body!’ he hisses.

  ‘What? Look, if you must interrupt, let’s at least have this discussion in the hall.’

  As soon as she closes the door, Ian’s rounds on her. ‘It’s the perfect opportunity to prove your case!’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ She’s been so caught up with Tom’s drama, she’s finding it difficult to focus on what he’s saying.

  ‘If you get him to tell you where the body is, and we can find it – that’s the most powerful proof of reincarnation that I can think of.’

  ‘Assuming he’s the only person who knows where he dumped it.’

  ‘Why would he tell anyone? He’s raped and murdered the poor girl. He’s not going to go broadcasting that around now, is he?’

  ‘But it’s been in the sea for over a hundred years. There’ll be nothing left to find.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you? Remember the kist? The body was in a bloody steel box!’

  Mary stares at him as the logic sinks in. If Tom tells her where Annie’s body is, and it turns up exactly where he said it would – well, publishers would be falling over each other for her book.

  Hello, Tom? Are you still there? Good. Now listen very carefully. I want you to go back to that night in August 1898. You’re down in the fo’c’sle of the Osprey and Annie’s dead. What are you doing?

  I’m getting the kist down the ladder, thinking I’ll put her in that, and it will be like a sort of coffin. But when I try to put her in, she looks indecent somehow, folded up in her bloody clothes, with her knees to her chin – and I can’t bear to leave her like that. So I take her out again, and strip her down to her shift, trying not to look at the gashes, and wash the blood off her – and she’s so white underneath all them layers.

  Then I get out that new topsail from the locker, and unfold it, and curl her up on it like a wean sleeping, and wrap it round her and tie it with a length of rope. And it’s still not right, but it’s better, and at least I can’t see her face. So I put her into the kist again and close the lid.

  Think carefully now, Tom. What did you do with the kist?

  There’s a load of cobles pulled up on the pebbles over by Clifford’s Fort, just up from the Lifeboat House. The old lads use them for crabbing and that. So I haul the kist over, and hoy it into one, and open the lid and pack her round with pebbles, then wade into the water and push off. I don’t want it shifting, see? Once it’s dumped, it needs to be heavy enough to stay put. Because if someone opens it and sees she’s cut, and finds out I’m cut too – well, they could put two and two together.

  So I’m rowing out to the Tyne’s mouth in the mist, and I’ve not got a bell or a lamp, so I’m rowing blind almost, with just a grey blur where the moon should be and the fog pre
ssing in, and the smell of the sea to guide me, and the sound of the ’longshoremen clanging their bells.

  All the time I’m rowing, I’m trying not to think. I’m just leaning forward to hoy the oars into the water, and back to pull them through it, forward and back, forward and back, feeling my arm stinging where she’s cut me, and my kecks clinging from wading in to push off. But I don’t mind the wet and the cold, and the nip of the gashes, because they’re something to fix on, aren’t they? Like burning my matches, to stop me getting lost in what’s happened.

  And by and by I decide on a place to take her, a place all fishermen steer clear of, because it’ll foul every net and line within spitting distance.

  Does it have a name, this place?

  They call it White Lady Reef, God knows why. The Devil’s Reef, the skipper calls it. A ridge of rocky ledges and gulleys stretching right out into the bay round by where they’re building that new lighthouse in Whitley. The skipper says there’s gulleys there that are more than a furlong deep and more.

  So anyway, that’s where I’m taking her, rowing close in to be sure I’ve got the right place. It’s a clever job to hoy it over the side, mind, with all them stones weighing it down. So I upend it and sort of grapple it overboard, and end up going over with it, and capsizing the coble, and thrashing round for ages righting it and finding the oars then climbing back in.

  Are you absolutely sure of the place? White Lady Reef?

  Sure as I can be. The fog had lifted a bit by the time I got there, and it was getting light. And the skipper’s had the landmarks drummed well into me, so all I’d to do was get a fix on St George’s church, and that new lighthouse and row a course between them.

  ‌Chapter Fifty-Seven

  2007

  ‘Three, two, one,’ goes the doc, and Laura collapses back against the cushions, because she’s been all tense, leaning forwards, like she was actually in that boat, soaking wet, rowing off into the night.

  Ben feels like collapsing back too, except he’s on the pouffe, so there’s nothing to collapse back on to. He feels sick, and a bit faint, like it was him being hypnotized instead of Laura. Because he could see it all, like he was really there – and he was, in a way, some of the time, except he can’t remember it. But he can almost see Tom’s face, all the hurt and hate and sex on it, sort of showing through Laura’s make-up and wrinkles. And it’s really freaking him out, because this is Laura.

  So anyway, there she is on the sofa, opening her eyes and blinking; and she’s trying to smile, but it’s coming out a bit crooked because she’s sort of crying too, and holding out her hand towards him. And part of him wants to take it, and let her pull him into a cuddle, but another part is thinking, ‘That was rape! And you didn’t even fucking realize’. Because that’s what gets him, that Tom was so caught up in his own twisted little macho world, he really thought Annie would want to go with him.

  And now here’s Laura with her mascara running and her arm reaching out, with its charm bracelet quivering – and even though he knows it’s her really, and not Tom, he just can’t bring himself to touch her. And his arms are crossing and folding by themselves, and sort of pressing tight into his chest – he can’t help it – and he’s staring down at the carpet, at what looks like a tab burn on the patterned rug and the grey cord carpet showing through.

  He’s shivering, he realizes, but the doc’s wrapping her Indian rug round Laura instead of him, and is sitting next to her on the sofa, trying to comfort her. Which is understandable, but it wasn’t Laura who was murdered, was it? It wasn’t her who was raped and knifed and probably bled to death on that boat.

  And all the time that Ian bloke’s jabbering away on his Blackberry, walking up and down with an unlit tab in his hand, like he wants to smoke but can’t even spare the time to light up.

  After a bit, Ben realizes Ian’s talking to Dad – he must have called him on the satellite phone – asking how soon he can get back, because he wants to use the boat to go looking for Annie’s body and film the whole thing. Then Dad must be asking what’s happened, because the Ian bloke’s telling him that it’s turned out that Laura was Tom, and he killed Annie and put the body in that kist Jimmy was talking about, and they’ve just found out where he’s dumped it.

  Then Dad must be asking about diving gear, because the Ian bloke’s saying he’s going to try and get this ace wildlife photographer to do the filming, with underwater cameras and that. And they go into a great long macho discussion about sound recording and metal detectors and that – which sort of freaks Ben out, because it’s Annie’s body they’re talking about searching for. In fact the whole situation is totally doing his head in: Laura snivelling on the sofa with the doc, and Tom slashing at Annie with that gipping knife and bundling her into that kist thing, and her body mouldering away inside it for over a hundred years.

  ‘Are you OK about that?’ asks the doc, and Ben realizes she’s talking to him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you OK about them going to look for the body? I mean, it’s all rather sudden, isn’t it? It would be understandable if you felt you needed a bit of time to get used to the idea.’

  Ben stares at her and his eyes fill with tears. Because that is exactly what he needs. Because he hasn’t had a chance to talk to her about it properly yet, like on his own; but there’s Dad and Ian going on about magnetometers and what you can pick up on a sonar scanner. And it’s too late to stop them now, because he can hear Ian talking to this whizzy wildlife bloke and getting the film crew all organized, so there doesn’t seem much point in making a fuss.

  ‘No—’ he begins, ‘I mean, yes, I’m all right.’

  And because he just can’t stand it any more – looking at Laura, and trying not to cry, and wanting a cuddle off the doc, and hearing that Ian bloke really in his element bossing people about – he gets up and charges out of the house.

  As soon as he’s outside he stops running, and just walks very fast along the top bank with his head bent, butting into the wind, and his hands stuffed in his pockets. And after a bit the tears sort of sink back into his chest and he slows down; and when he looks up, there’s Skip up ahead, painting away at his easel, so he slows down even more and wanders over to take a look.

  There’s not much to see yet, just a sort of wet brownish sketch of a woman leaning in the doorway of a pub in an alley at the top of some steps.

  ‘Howay, Paul’s lad,’ says old Skip, like he always does – it’s a sort of joke with them now, to pretend he’s forgotten Ben’s name. ‘How’s that TV thing going? You had any more of them talking sessions with the doctor?’

  Ben shakes his head. ‘They’ve been filming Laura,’ he says. ‘It turns out she was that Tom in her past life. So the doc hypnotized her and she told them where Annie’s body is. Dad’s taking them out on Wanderer to look for it.’

  ‘Where is it then? I knew he’d got rid of it like, but he never said where.’

  Ben repeats what Tom said, as though it’s tattooed on his brain: ‘You’ve to get a fix on the big church – St George’s, I think – and St Mary’s Lighthouse and row a course in between. White Lady Reef, the place is called.’

  ‘White Lady, eh? They’ll never get a great bugger like Wanderer in there. She’ll foul up in two seconds.’

  ‘They’re going to use the sonar. Dad seemed to think it would be all right.’

  ‘Then he’s dafter than I thought. Them rocks are evil round there and the currents are all over the shop, specially this close to full moon. With a dinghy, you’d stand a chance, if you tilted up the outboard and took the oars with you. Even then, I wouldn’t like to try it.’

  ‘I’d better tell them,’ says Ben. ‘They should probably anchor further out.’

  Old Skip shrugs and turns back to his painting. ‘That Ian won’t be happy with that,’ he says. ‘So let’s hope Paul’s still got the sense he was born with.’

  Then, remembering something else: ‘When you see the doctor next, can you tell
her I was wanting a word – only I don’t like to disturb her now, not if she’s still with that Ian.’

  Ben always gets a shock these days when he opens the door to his room. He keeps expecting the Newcastle black-and-white on the wall, and his bed in its usual place, but instead there’s all this brilliant cream paint everywhere, and the new stripy rug that almost completely covers his old blue carpet, and the new cork boards just waiting for him to start pinning things up.

  He lies down on his back on the rug and stretches his arms and legs out sideways like a starfish. It’s very quiet. The room smells of fresh paint and warm wool and sunshine; and it’s as though his whole life’s been stripped away, like the old wallpaper, and he doesn’t know how it’s going to turn out. His mobile beeps in his pocket but he ignores it; it’ll just be Laura again with another message and he’s not ready to deal with her yet.

  The doorbell goes and he gets up, thinking it’ll be Nana forgotten her key. He’s just about to buzz her up when he hears the lift opening and men’s voices.

  ‘Look who I found outside,’ says Dad, shoving open the front door.

  ‘Thought you’d got rid of me, eh?’ says the Ian bloke, shrugging off his natty black nylon backpack.

  Dad’s still in his big boots and gansey; sea-bag on his shoulder, load of creaky yellow oilskins under his arm. Next to the Ian bloke he looks really massive and rough: stubble, sunburnt face, oil-stained hands.