Michael Crummey - Sweetland

There were still a few cod around and he came in with three or four fresh fish the first couple of mornings that week. Two days in a row then he caught nothing more than dogfish, which he brought in to feed to the animal. Decided he would row toward the north-end light to try his luck elsewhere.

It was remarkably still for the time of year, the ocean like a mirror beneath him even after he cleared the breakwater. A fact that afterwards he thought should have been a warning to him. He had an easy job pulling toward the nearest bit of shoal ground to the east, though it was twice as far from the cove as Wester Shoals.

He put out his line and struck the fish right away. He couldn’t even get the jigger to touch bottom before the weight of a cod took the line and had to be hauled in. They seemed to be in a race to get out of the water and he filled the small pound at his feet in the space of forty-five minutes’ work. The last fish he hooked came up heavy, the weight on the line growing as it came closer to the surface, and it was a job getting the creature aboard without swamping the dory. A big fish, near the size of a small goat, he hadn’t seen anything the like of it since he was a child. Sweetland stood to manoeuvre the thing aft, where it kicked and flipped a few minutes before lying still. The dog jumping off its bed to avoid the slap of the tail’s massive fan, moving cautiously up to the bow.

Sweetland was still winded with the effort of bringing it aboard when he rolled up the line and set the jigger away. Jesus, it was a fish. He sat a few minutes just looking at the thing. Glanced to starboard then to see how far he might have drifted offshore and there was nothing out there but the white muffle of fog that had closed in without his noticing. He turned where he sat, as if he might see something more substantial to the horizon behind him. Fog snug as a blindfold in all directions.

“Well fuck,” he said, and the dog lifted its head to look at him. “Never you mind,” Sweetland said. He tried to place the sun but the light was so faint and diffuse he couldn’t say. The island lay to the starboard side when he first put out his line, but it was anyone’s guess whether he’d turned about as he worked. He shouted first to his left and then to his right, hoping to hear some answering echo off the cliffs, but the fog swallowed his voice. They were close enough to the north-end light he expected to hear some hint of the foghorn, which would help with fixing his location, and he sat still a long time, waiting for it to register. But it never did.

He put the line out to see if he might guess the way the current was running by its drift, but it sat plumb from the gunwale. It occurred to him the jigger hadn’t touched bottom when he was fishing and he might have drifted off the shoal ground altogether. He let it out to the full of its length without bringing up. Deep water. But he couldn’t be more than half an hour off the land and he started rowing in the direction he was pointed until he guessed half an hour had passed. He shouted over his shoulder a few minutes before turning and rowing in the opposite direction. He carried on an hour or so, to allow for the time he’d travelled the other way, then shouted uselessly into the wall of white.

He sat with the oars across his lap awhile, feeling like an idiot. He glanced over his shoulder to see the dog staring at him. He turned away and talked with his back to the animal. “We’re going to have to wait it out, Mr. Fox,” he said. “Might mean a night on the water, if we’re unlucky enough.”

He had no sense of time passing as he sat there. The fog settled closer and he sang aloud for the company of his own voice, the same dreadful children’s songs he’d sung to Jesse. The massive fish lying aft flickered occasionally. Sweetland drank a mouthful of fresh water from the Javex bottle and poured a drop into the bailer for the dog. He ate one of the cakes of hardtack he’d packed as a lunch, chewing the dry bread to a paste that he washed down with more water. He opened the one tin of peaches he’d carried with him, sharing the slices with the dog before he drank off the juice. He gutted a fish over the side of the boat, flicked the liver into his palm, and held it under the dog’s nose. It sniffed warily at the cold lump of flesh. “Go on, Mr. Fox,” Sweetland said, “it’s good for what ails you.” He cleaned three more fish and fed the raw livers to the dog, then rinsed his hands in the ocean. He sat up straight and turned slowly side to side. His arse was numb from sitting hours on the wooden thwart, his back like a strip of leather being twisted from both ends. He shipped the oars to settle into the bow, lifting the dog out of his way and setting it on his chest where it curled up and slept again.

Still light when he came to himself, but dusky enough he could tell it was late afternoon. He raised himself above the gunwale, scanning around, trying to pinpoint the sun before he lost it altogether. A glim over his right shoulder and he rowed in that general direction, toward what he hoped was the west, stopping now and then to call out and listen to the nothing beyond them. He carried on longer than it made any sense, just to have something to do with himself, for the warmth of the work, rowing until the night had settled full on the sea. He set the oars under the gunwales then and stood to piss into the salt water. He looked down at the spot where he knew the dog was lying. “What kind of a fucken bladder have you got?” he said.

He shook out the tarp in the stern to use as a blanket. Then he lay back on the bare wood to wait for daylight.

He woke to the dog growling, the ridiculous toy rumble of it on his chest. Still dark and the fog thick around them.

“What is it now?” he said.

The dog carried on awhile, as though it heard someone creeping outside a closed door, and Sweetland shushed him. He lay still, trying to identify what it might be. Picked out a shapeless sound in the distance, a low murmur so vague he thought he might be imagining it. The dog barked once into the darkness and Sweetland sat up out of the bow, his head cocked to place it. Could be the foghorn at the north-end light wailing out there, though he couldn’t explain why he’d missed it before now. A vessel in the shipping lanes maybe, warning others away. It was a fool’s game to chase after it, but he couldn’t help himself. He set the oars and started pulling in the direction it was whispering from. The dog standing in the bow when he glanced over his shoulder, staring into the fog and the black.

The sound grew steadier as he approached it, a hum underneath the blind night he was travelling through. What in Christ’s name was it? There wasn’t the distinct rise and fall he’d expect from a foghorn, just a muffled drone that suggested the outline of something solid when it wasn’t being listened to carefully.

He came back on the oars in a steady draw and he started singing to match the rhythm, an old-time hymn he was surprised to have called up. His voice clinging to the old rugged cross, like he was belting it out at a revival meeting. He paused now and then to listen, feeling each time on the verge of naming the drone as it grew more distinct, falling back to the hymn as he rowed. Stopped suddenly in the middle of a verse, the oars dripping water.

It was Tennessee Ernie Ford he was hearing, that southern baritone cutting clear through the fog. “The Old Rugged Cross.” He’d been singing along even before he could say what it was he’d been hearing. The dog barked behind him, impatient to get moving.

“Shut up, Mr. Fox,” Sweetland said. He reached over the gunwale for a handful of the icy water, splashed it across his face. He didn’t think he would credit his senses if he was alone, if the dog wasn’t hearing the impossible song as well. It barked again while the music rolled over them. “All right,” he said. “Fuck. All right.”