Fern Britton - A Good Catch

Greer was in her uniform of grey pleated skirt and navy-blue blazer, with dazzling long white socks and shiny buckled shoes. She walked between her parents as they covered the five-minute stretch from home to school. She was nervous. She had never been left anywhere on her own before. As they got closer to the school, more and more children filled the narrow pavements around her. Some of them she recognised but barely knew. Her mother had few friends herself, having always put them off with an extreme shyness which was often interpreted as an unwarranted air of superiority.

In the playground, Bryn bent to kiss Greer. She might not be the son he had wanted, but she was everything to him. His sun and his moon. He would – and did – give her everything. ‘You be a good girl, mind.’

‘I will, Daddy.’ She put her arms round his neck and hugged him tight. ‘Will you come and get me when I’m finished?’

‘Aye.’

Her mother kissed her too. ‘Have a good day, darling. See you later.’

Greer watched as her parents walked out of the playground. Her father striding out and nodding at acquaintances, her mother trotting to keep up with him and turning to give one last wave to her only child.

Greer’s legs started to move towards the school gate and her parents and away from the school building. She was picking up her pace and tears were pricking her eyes. I don’t want to be at school. I want Mummy, she was saying to herself.

She was getting closer to the gate. She took a breath, ready to call out to her mother. She could see her father chatting to man in a fishing smock. Her mother was surreptitiously wiping her eyes while her father was laughing at something the man was telling him.

Greer’s lungs were now full and ready to shout to them. She opened her mouth but, before she could get any sound out, a small but firm hand caught her round the waist.

‘Where you going?’

The air in her lungs escaped soundlessly at the surprise pressure on her diaphragm. She struggled but was held even more tightly.

‘Hey. You’re going to get into trouble if you go through the school gates.’

Something in the voice made her stop and turn to see who her captor was. It was the crab fishing boy from the quay.

A woman carrying a handbell was walking through the playground. She began ringing it loudly.

‘Come on,’ Jesse said.

He took Greer’s hand and ran with her into the school.

*

A male teacher was standing inside the building, at the door to the school hall, identifying the new children. ‘New boys and girls, walk to the front of the hall, don’t run, and sit on the floor, cross-legged, facing the stage, please.’

Greer was feeling anxious but grateful to have Jesse’s hand in hers. Once they got to the front he let go of her and sat on the floor.

‘Are you a new boy too?’ she asked him, settling down next to him.

‘Yeah, but I know everybody ’ere. My brother comes ’ere too.’ He was looking over her head and smiling at someone. Greer followed his gaze and saw a fat, plain girl with her flame-red hair in pigtails, also sitting cross-legged, showing her knickers and waving at him.

‘Who’s that?’ Greer asked, feeling sorry for this unattractive-looking girl.

‘That’s Loveday.’

The fat girl bum-shuffled her way towards them.

‘All right, Jesse?’ she smiled.

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s your name?’ the girl asked Greer.

‘Greer. I am named after a famous film star who was very beautiful.’ Greer couldn’t help herself.

‘Oh,’ said Loveday, her smile pushing her fat freckled cheeks up towards her eyes. ‘That’s nice. I’m called Loveday after my dad’s granny.’

Jesse’s eyes were darting around the gathering faces. ‘Seen Mickey?’ he asked Loveday.

‘He’s there.’ Loveday pointed at an open-faced, tall and very skinny boy standing on the other side of the hall.

‘Mickey,’ Jesse called. ‘Mickey, come ’ere, you beggar.’

‘Who’s he?’ Greer asked Loveday.

‘Jesse’s best friend. Do you want to be my best friend?’

Greer had never had a friend and thought that she might as well start with this poor fat girl. ‘Yes.’

‘Can I tell you a secret then?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m goin’ to marry Jesse.’

Greer frowned. ‘Has he asked you?’

‘No. But I am going to marry him.’ Loveday smiled, then had a thought. ‘You can marry Mickey! That way we’ll all be best friends for ever.’ Greer looked at Mickey, who winked at her. She frowned back. Loveday was tugging at her sleeve and saying something. ‘Do you like Abba?’

It was a long day. The new children were introduced to their teacher, Mrs Bond, who took them to their classroom. Loveday grabbed two desks next to each other for her and Greer. Jesse and Mickey were a row in front. Mrs Bond called the register, explained a few school rules – spitting and swearing were not to be tolerated, hard work was to be rewarded – and lessons began.

Greer already knew her numbers and most of her letters. She wrote her name quite clearly on her new exercise book.

Loveday was impressed. ‘What you written there?’

‘My name.’

‘Really?’ She leant forward and poked Jesse in the back.

‘Ow.’ He turned round. ‘What did you do that for?’

‘Greer can write. Look.’ She showed him Greer’s book.

He looked at Greer, ‘Did you write that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Clever.’

With that one word, Jesse’s fate was sealed. Greer decided it was she who was going to marry Jesse. Not Loveday.

‘You’d do a lot worse than to marry that girl,’ Edward Behenna told his son.

‘Shuttup, Dad.’ Jesse Behenna ducked out of reach of his father’s hand as he tried to ruffle his son’s hair.

‘It would be a dream come true for your granddad,’ continued Edward as he pulled out an ancient wooden chair, scraping its legs across the worn red tiles before seating himself at the kitchen table opposite his younger son.

‘If he were still alive,’ murmured Jesse.

Jesse’s mother, Jan, slid the tray of pasties she’d been making into the top oven of the Aga; she banged the door shut and swung round. ‘Edward, don’t start all this again,’ she warned him, irritated.

But Edward hardly seemed to hear her. ‘I promised my dad, as he promised ’is father afore ’im, that I’d do all I could to build the business and make Behenna’s Boats the biggest fleet in Trevay.’

‘And you have, Dad,’ Jesse assured him. ‘Behenna’s is the biggest fishing fleet on the north coast of Cornwall.’

Edward nodded, but a frown marred his lined face. The pressures of running the business were very different from those of his father’s day. This year, the European Union had really become involved and laws were being passed governing fishing quotas for member states. Cornwall and Devon MPs had tabled questions in the Commons about their impact on their fishing industry. How could they all hope to keep going in this climate, when the government was impounding vessels and fining their owners? This interference, along with upstarts like Bryn Clovelly screwing them for every penny down at the fish market, were driving some fishermen to the wall.

The old ways were dying. Small fleets were struggling to remain at sea and Edward knew that it was the likes of Clovelly who represented the future. Edward’s father had fished these waters for fifty years, man and boy. Sometimes his fish would be bought by a fishmonger from somewhere as exotic as Plymouth, but Clovelly saw the swollen wallets of the flash London City boys as rich pickings; he was buying monkfish for restaurants in Chelsea and exporting scallops to New York.