Wyl Menmuir - The Many

It is the early hours of the next morning when Ethan first catches sight of the shoal, lit by the moon in a cloudless sky. The fish appear at first as a lightening of the sea beneath the boat as of a cloud scudding beneath the waves, their scales catching the moonlight. Ethan is leaning on the gunwale smoking and he nudges Timothy with the toe of his boot, to raise him from where he has fallen asleep leant against the wall of the cabin. The shoal is broad and moving fast, close to the surface, and Ethan works quickly to bring the boat round to face it as the fish pass beneath the boat.

The net, when they raise it, comes up heavy with pale bodies and both men work hard at getting the catch onto the deck. The fish they pull are colourless and long, and their scales, when Ethan lifts some of them with his knife, are translucent. Ethan holds one of the fish up and he sees its eyes are pale too, as though it does not see and has never seen, and it is dull and lifeless, though it has been less than a minute since they raised the net. Beneath the skin, the outlines of organs are visible, shadows in the pale flesh. As he picks up more of the fish, he sees, in some of them, that thick bunches of roe show through the distended skin of their underbellies.

The two men process the fish into crates, handling each one gently. When they are finished, they stand at the open hatch, looking down into the hold at the catch.

Ethan drops the net a second time and again it comes up full, and of the same fish, and the two men work until the hold is heavy with bodies. When they have finished, Ethan stares down again through the hatch. The fish in boxes laid one on top of the other remind him of the silver fish of his dream, though these are calm and still in the bottom of the boat.

Ethan does not call it in immediately. But when he does, the radio lights up.

‘You’ve been in for more luck then? Dogfish again?’

The sound of Clem’s voice across the radio sounds harsh in the confines of the small cabin.

‘No. They’re… well, I don’t know for sure. None like I’ve seen before,’ Ethan replies. ‘There’s plenty of them though. More of any fish than I’ve seen before.’

As Ethan describes the fish to Clem, he watches Timothy walking back out onto the deck and opening up the hatch door to look down on the catch. Ethan finds he is willing the man to cover up the hold and to step away from the hatch. He is only half-listening to Clem on the radio as he watches Timothy through the scratched window, and he lets the wheel go while he rolls a cigarette on the dashboard in front of him.

‘There’s rumours you’ve been fishing off grid,’ Clem is saying over the radio. ‘If you have, I don’t care and, moreover, I don’t want to know about it. Just get yourself back in and get that catch in with you. I’ll have buyers here by the time you’re back.’

Clem signs off the radio and Ethan calls out from the cabin for Timothy to take the wheel. Timothy looks bewildered and Ethan points towards the shore.

‘See that marker on the hill, point her at that and we won’t go wrong.’

He knows it is not a fair thing to say. There’s no way Timothy can see the marker on the distant land, which is a uniformity of greens in the distance, but Timothy nods uncertainly and looks towards the line Ethan has indicated. In the early morning light, as they draw close to them, the ships loom large again, and Timothy steers a course that keeps the container ships an equal distance on either side this time. Even so, as the boat passes between them, Ethan hears the sound of the gulls rise in a great crescendo, and he sees them take flight from the ship they had passed close to earlier. The noise of the birds starts to cover even that of the engine and a huge flock follows the Great Hope in towards the shore.

For much of the return journey Ethan wedges himself in the wheelhouse doorway, talking on the radio and taking more questions from Clem and the other skippers, though none of them makes any further mention of the Great Hope ’s excursion beyond the ships. Between bursts of activity on the radio he looks over towards Timothy at the wheel and feels a new sensation, one he can’t explain to himself.

By the time they make the shore, there is a line of vans along the sea road and a crowd is waiting for them on the beach. Ethan finds he is scanning the figures gathered on the shore and even before he sees the woman in the grey coat, standing on the outskirts, he knows she is going to be there. As the boat nears the shore her eyes burn holes in the bow, or perhaps, he thinks, she is looking towards him, and he lowers his eyes to avoid her gaze.

FROM WHERE HE stands on the deck of the Great Hope , Timothy can see a small crowd standing on the beach, disturbing the uniformity of the grey stones, as the boat turns into the mouth of the cove. He looks back to see whether Ethan has noticed, but the sun, which has just crested the horizon, sits low on the line and reflects off the windows of the cabin and he can see nothing of the other man. Timothy returns his gaze to the shore. The coast road, usually as empty as the beach, is crowded too, with cars and vans, and it looks as though a travelling market has made camp in the village.

The noise from the people gathered on the beach takes over from the retch of the boat as Ethan cuts the engine and they drift the final few feet to the shore. He can hear raised voices, aggressive and demanding, and as the noise resolves itself into individual voices, he understands several men and women on the shore are shouting each other down, arguing over the catch they are bringing back in. As they draw in, the large bulk of Clem pushes through the crowd and the people on the beach fall back. The arguments continue behind him, though in lowered tones.

Clem waits for him to come forward on the deck, winch cable in hand, and he throws it up for Timothy to secure to the thick loop of rope. The metal block catches awkwardly on Timothy’s hand and he drops it and fumbles with the heavy chain, unsure of what to do, and Ethan comes forward too and takes it from him. Ethan looks nervous of the attention they are receiving and keeps his eyes lowered from the crowd on the beach, going through familiar actions to arrange the gear on the boat. Timothy finds again that he has no useful role to perform and he stands back while Ethan works on. Since they made their catch, neither man has spoken of it to the other, nor of anything else, and aside from the chatter from the radio, they have returned to the beach in a silence that seems to Timothy somehow less aggressive than the silence in which they left the beach.

After Clem pulls the Great Hope clear of the tide line, Timothy hears the winchman warn some of the men and women gathered on the beach to stand clear, and he brings a ladder to the side of the boat. Timothy lets himself down and then wonders whether he ought to return to help Ethan with whatever he is doing. After standing a moment at the foot of the ladder, Timothy decides to leave Ethan be. The other man is probably glad to have the space to himself again.

A group of men he recognises as crew from the other boats has gathered by the Great Hope , waiting to receive the boxes of fish as Ethan lowers them down. They push their way through the crowd and create a barrier between the boat and the men from the vans, who are moving in too, forming a semicircle around the vessel. The buyers remind Timothy of wolves in a pack, vying for the best position, closest to the kill. He wonders where they all came from and whether they are going to start pushing and shoving to get to the fish first as the pile of crates grows, but the fishermen’s warning glances seem enough to hold them back, and they ignore the barrage of questions about the fish and their condition. A few of the men gathered fire questions at Timothy, though he is too dazed by the scene and the clamour to answer. When he does not answer immediately, they return to arguing among themselves and Timothy can hear money being discussed and the prices being pushed back and forward, and he sees Clem at the centre of it all, looking calmly on as the price rises.