Fern Britton - A Good Catch

Jesse gladly did; he was in need of one himself to wake him up. The next two hours went quietly and they saw no more foreign boats.

On the horizon he watched the occasional tanker as it headed off for who-knew-where with its lights shining in the gloom. The hypnotic throb of the engine and the rhythmic slosh of the sea water brought on an almost meditative state. He sipped his tea and thought about his future. The places he would go, the people he would meet, the money he would earn. Once he’d done all that, if Loveday were still free, he’d come back to her and marry her. Maybe Mickey would meet someone else; marry the first girl he got up the duff, like the soft bugger he was. Yes, that’s what he’d do. He smiled, contented with his plan.

Gradually he grew aware of the engine note changing and the boat slowing. Edward leant out of the wheelhouse window and said, ‘Get the lads up and prepare the trawl.’

*

Edward looked down from his vantage point in the wheelhouse and watched as the two derricks holding the beam trawls on either side of the boat swung out from the deck and over the water. He could hear the shackles and chain links of the trawl nets rattle as they went into the water. The rubber wheels at the bottom of the nets would allow the trawl to travel smoothly on the sea bed and gather their precious haul. He’d set the engine to a gentle towing pace of around two knots. He watched Jesse, in his yellow oilskin trousers and boots, working alongside the rest of the crew. He was a good lad. A born fisherman. He wished there was another way he could ensure the survival of Behenna’s Boats, but these were dangerous times for the fishing industry – in Cornwall in particular – and no one could predict what was going to happen. The mood in the harbour was one of doom and gloom, and every week it seemed as if more boats were being decommissioned after desperate fishermen had taken the EU grant and allowed their boats to be broken up in the name of keeping the UK’s quotas. It defied belief, and he knew that his own father would be turning in his grave to see the parlous state that things had reached.

But, if Behenna’s Boats and Clovelly’s Fisheries merged, his father’s legacy would be secured, for now at least, and Jesse would have a future. But was he condemning Jesse to a life with that skinny Greer? He shook his head – it was the 1980s, for God’s sake, not the 1580s and he had no power to make Jesse do anything. He felt a flash of anger at his own indecision. Damn it – why did all of this make him feel like he was selling Jesse to the bloody Clovellys?

‘You’m a bleddy old fool,’ he told himself. The envelope of cash was also preying on his mind. He could still give it back, couldn’t he?

He’d get this haul home and tell Bryn Clovelly to get stuffed, that’s what he’d do. Relieved to have made a decision at last, he turned his concentration to the job in hand.

It was a good night. Each haul on both boats was teeming with good fish. Sole and Dover sole, mostly. These would sell like hot cakes to London chefs, who fed them to their overstuffed clients for a fortune.

Down in the hold, in the fish room, the crew were working in well-drilled harmony. The fish were sorted, gutted, washed and placed in boxes of ice ready to be landed for the market. The smell of fish guts was usurped by the gleam in every man’s eye. This was a good haul, and they knew they would be well rewarded when they got it back to Trevay.

*

Bryn Clovelly caught the mooring rope that Edward threw over to him. ‘I hear you had a good trip,’ Bryn called, tying the rope to an ancient metal ring set into the harbour wall.

‘Aye.’

‘What have you got for me?’

‘Some good Dover sole and plaice.’

‘Not so much call for either at the moment,’ shrugged Bryn, giving a hand to Edward as he stepped off the boat and onto the first dry land he’d seen for seven long days. Edward was not in the mood for haggling.

‘Don’t give me any of that old shit, Bryn. There’s always call for Dover sole from those lah-di-bleddy-dah London types.’

Bryn shrugged again. ‘I’ll make my mind up when I see the catch.’

The crews of The Lobster Pot and Our Mermaid hoisted the fish boxes out of the hold and onto the quayside. There were plenty of them, and Edward could see Bryn’s eyes darting over them and making calculations. He held out his hand to Edward and gave him a figure. ‘Shake on it. You’ll not get a better price.’

Bryn had not mentioned the sweetener and neither had Edward, but it hung there between the two men.

Edward was no fool and he held his nerve; he’d agreed to nothing as yet. Keeping his hands in his pockets, he started the negotiations.

At last a figure was agreed on and they shook hands, each man regarding the other steadily. ‘I’d have given you more,’ said Bryn wryly, ‘if I knew that Clovelly and Behenna were destined to be one company.’

Edward pursed his lips and thought for a moment. ‘If I knew that the deal was only between you and me and that it had nothing to do with your Greer and my Jesse, I might just say yes. Jesse is his own man, Bryn. He’ll do as he likes.’

‘You’re a good negotiator, Edward, with strong powers of persuasion. You’ll sway him.’

Edward said nothing, but he saw a glint in Bryn Clovelly’s eyes – and it looked worryingly like victory.

‘I need to know that Clovelly’s has a future,’ said Bryn. ‘I need to know that I am passing it onto the next generation of my bloodline. I want my grandchildren to carry on the name of Clovelly. If Greer and Jesse were to marry, that would happen. But if you can’t see your way to giving your son a helping hand in the world, then there are plenty of boat owners – with unmarried sons – on this coast who will.’

The postman, never knowingly uninterested in people’s business, was enjoying his morning. It was that day in August when, around the country, exam results were dropping through letterboxes, anxious pupils waiting on the other side, braced for what news they might bring. The postman always took it upon himself to hand-deliver the envelopes in Trevay – whether he was conveying good news or bad, he wanted to pass it to the addressee personally.

Today he’d witnessed four people in tears (three of them mothers) and received two hugs of joy. No one had yet offered him a brew, and he could do with one. He was driving from the small modern housing estate at the top of Trevay, down the hill towards the old town and the sea. He pulled on the plastic sun visor to shield his eyes from the glare of the early morning light glinting off the water in the estuary. He turned right onto the posh road where the white stucco executive bungalows sat with their unfettered view of the river, the harbour and the open sea beyond. Each home was surrounded by a generous plot of land, either planted with palm trees, china-blue hydrangeas, large mounds of pampas grass or a selection of all three.

He stopped his van at Bryn and Elizabeth Clovelly’s conspicuously expensive bungalow, unimaginatively named Brybeth. He sorted through the bundles of post. He was looking for one with Greer Clovelly’s name on it. He found an electricity bill, a Cellophaned edition of Golfer’s Monthly and a letter from the DVLA (all addressed to Mr B. Clovelly), a postcard from Scotland (addressed to Mrs E. Clovelly) and finally a plain envelope addressed to Miss Greer Clovelly with a Truro postmark. He got out of his van and walked with dignified purpose towards their front door.

Greer was lying in bed listening to the radio. Kim Wilde was singing ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’. As usual Greer was thinking about Jesse. She didn’t hear the doorbell ring or the bustle of her mother coming from the rear kitchen to the front door. But she did hear her mother calling her name.