A Book of Death and Fish (19 page)

I told you I’d write this down. I didn’t know it would take so long. Well, the writing didn’t take long but it took time to be able to say what’s in it. I hope you’re doing well, Gabriele. The teaching and your family and the cycling and everything else. Sorry, I can’t write you a chatty letter right now. I need to stretch the legs. This is the story I promised you. I’ll post it tomorrow.

Hope we meet up again, before too long, Peter

• • •

We went angling, with a fair amount of technology. We all read the catalogues. Bought the gear, when we could afford it. We even had a portable echo-sounder to detect a
bo
– that’s an underwater reef which could foul a net and so couldn’t be trawled over.

One time, years back, our plans to round Tiumpan Head into Broad Bay met with the right conditions. The twenty-five footer,
Heron
, cut glass most of the way. She was air-cooled and made a thump you could hear for miles. We’d have been excommunicated from the Sea Angling Club and banned from competition fishing for life if any committee members had been up that early to take a look. We had three longlines aboard, coiled in wicker baskets. Angus, the skipper, directed me in keeping the sequence as I baited each one. One loose flying hook would be enough to make a bundle of bastards. That’s a technical term.

First, you threw out a float then paid out twenty-odd fathoms of cod-line to a weight. A fathom is a measure based on the widest span of the
arms of a man of about your own height. Then the sequence of a hundred baited hooks, nice and steady, to another weight. After that went over, you paid out a further twenty fathoms to the second float. That way you had two chances of recovering the line.

Muirneag agus Tiumpean. The hill on the point. That was the mark if we’d been out the North Minch. But in here, we’d just watch for a patch of rough that the trawl couldn’t bounce over. Judge it so our line would just lie on the edge of the soft ground. Too far away from the hard patch and the bottom would be trawled clean. Too near and we’d lose our gear on the rock.

The first line was heavy, rasping with dogfish that no-one wanted. My pal, Kenny F, and myself hauling. Our hands were rasped, tearing them off and throwing them back. Our second line had been on the nursery slopes, coming up with cleaned hooks and a few small fish, which we returned, save for a few reasonable whiting.

I won’t forget our last line. That was another heavy one but not sluggish like dogfish. Your finger could sense the tugging haddock. Looking down, where it was going green, to see the string of washing going where all colour was lost. The bellies coming up white and grey. A few blank areas as if the wind had blown the clothes off the line. A few slimy snoods, bitten off by something strange. But groupings of decent fish, the ones we’d come for. They came up over our gunnel as our bow was held, just off the light breeze.

A scallop, St Jacques’ fish, had been gripped on one hook. Angus took his knife to the shell and cut the gut off with one flick. Then he put the white muscle and the orange coral to his mouth. They eat oysters like that, he said. We shook our heads but both his crew had to try one when another pair came up. It wasn’t so bad, salt, sweet and soft.

When we brought the boat back to the mooring and I’d rowed us and the catch ashore, there was another ritual. Being the youngest, I had to turn my back and shout the names of the owners of the piles, as equal as they could be made. Your own. Kenny’s. Mine. The boat’s. The boat’s share was divided between anyone who appeared at the pier, wanting a fry. Just given away. That’s how it was done.

That’s it, Gabriele, as true as I can make it. I remember us standing where the long bus turns, looking out towards Tiumpan. That’s what I was remembering. I promised you I’d tell you.

‘But surely there must be some of those fish left?’ you said.

I said, ‘Only the stragglers.’

It all seemed long gone. That’s why you were surprised, a few days later, when I went down to help at the weigh-in. I was on the early shift so I couldn’t have gone out with the club. I didn’t do competitions any more, anyway. Neither did Kenny’s uncle Angus. He’d gone off everything to do with clubs as well as competitions. He’d fallen out with the committee and wasn’t too fussed because he’d lost his taste for weighing and photographing big dead fish that didn’t always get eaten. Kenny F was at another Klondyke at the time. Big money, making oil-rigs, at Nigg Bay. Gaining the skill that would get him back home when the Arnish yard started up, near the lighthouse. A mixed blessing.

When I went over to the west side of Number One pier, the boats, chartered for the day, were coming in. I had a full oilskin smock on, looking the part, as the rain came down thick. Not much wind behind it. I wore clogs, like the East Coast boys, working on the immense purse-seine nets, laid out on Number Two. Pelagic fishing. The last days of the herring industry when a couple of boats scooped up the whole quota.

I gripped the rope that someone threw and I supposed it looked all right. He thought I was ready. Made the nod. The man on deck below was not their skipper. That was maybe the thing. He should have shouted something up to me, from the boat to the pier, to keep me right.

I put weight on the rope but it was against the strain. Below me, hooks went into the cut-out handles of the bottom fish-box. There were three wooden boxes, all stacked together. This was one man’s catch. He caught my eye. Big Iain.

They’d found a mark, the first for years. A murmur was going round the pierhead. I didn’t have to ask where they’d come from. A last single fish was placed on the top box, the thumb-mark prominent. I was about to haul. Paused. Was about to say, wouldn’t it be better to take them one at a time?

There was a lot of fish to move. I didn’t say anything. I should have called to someone else, someone in the crowd forming at the point of Number One, trying to get a glimpse of the draft of haddock.

The boxes were coming up, bridled together and swaying. The block on the gantry was running fine so far. It was working after all. You could see at a glance that these fish had never been in a net. A haul from out the blue.

It was becoming jerky. I remember it was awkward suddenly, come through an arc so I was now pulling from the wrong angle. I wanted to shout again but nothing came out. The three boxes glanced against the concrete rim of the pier.

That guy on deck didn’t even stir in his boots when the last of the Broad Bay shoals came tumbling on him from above. The boxes hit the gunnel just as the swell was taking the boat a yard or so out from the greenheart piles. The cluttered decks were strewn with grey haddock. But the matt black harbour water, between the smudged black gloss of the boat and the pier, now bulged with dead forms. These fish were dead before they fell. But I only saw them as dead now when they were floating, bellies up.

If I’d moved quickly, I could have recovered some of the catch. I just looked down. There had to be a gaff aboard. The booted figure kept his stance. He knew that there wasn’t any gaff or long-handled net so there wasn’t much point in rushing about. So he was calm. The few other people who saw what happened – they gasped. Big Iain’s prize-winning catch. The fish would be wasted. The fat harbour seals would get them.

Maybe these watching people stopped me from trying something. Maybe it was just the thought of clambering down a weeded ladder, in clogs or bare feet, to try to recover the fish by hand. All this rational stuff comes only now, after it’s all in the past.

We couldn’t bring these fish back to the pier. So there was no point in stumbling around. That would have felt wrong, like the jerking tensions on the rope, working against the swing of the gantry. So I didn’t make a big thing of saying sorry, looking down to the angler I knew.

Someone showed me then, to bring my end of the rope round to the other side of the post, so the angle was correct. Hooks went into handles again and this time boxes came up, smoothly enough, one by one. This time, hands were waiting, to take the handles in the boxes.

So, Gabriele, that’s the full story of the ‘Schellfisch’. I didn’t tell it all, at the time. So you just saw it as a miracle, me arriving back at the house with a large Broad Bay haddie.

It was my mother’s bridge night. We had the house to ourselves. I just pointed to the bundle of newspapers by the sink. We unwrapped them together and, even now it was faded, it was still a very fine, line-caught fish. It was you who said it then. This could be St Peter’s fish.

All I said was yes, you’d been right, there was still some haddocks came in to that bay. Some people I knew had taken their share. No lies but not the whole story.

I took the knife to it and you shuddered. I left the head on and I took the white liver to mix with the oatmeal, seasoning and a touch of chopped onion. The stuffing went back through the mouth, down to the gills. You were horrified. But this was the most traditional Lewis dish. The whole thing poached in milk. Pale green rings of leeks. The milk thickened to a sauce. The stuffing eaten with the fish and our dry potatoes. I’d grown up on it.

After sharing all that, neither of us were bothering to move hands or feet out of the way. So we came close together over a gift of a dead fish. I could have told you a bit more of my own part in the waste of some of the catch. But that was too much. Maybe I was being kind, leaving the angst out of it.

That’s what people do when they tell their stories. Leave bits out. It’s all history once it’s happened. The match is over and here are the selected highlights.

My dear Peter,

I hope you are well and in good spirits. Do you still cycle to work in winter? There were storms all over Europe. We had snowploughs but I think you had the strongest winds. I read that in the newspaper but I know you can't think in metres-per-second so I have not copied the
recorded speeds for you. Perhaps my contact with British culture is now too strong (even if you are Scottish) because I now realise I have begun my letter with a discussion of the weather in Europe.

But I really wanted to tell you I've completely stopped smoking now. I know it was not fair on you, when you were trying so hard and I would arrive with my allowance of duty-free Shag. And all your friends saying of course, it was time for another shag and looking at me. British humour – it's really not improved since I was a student. Is it all still about farts and arses and suggestions about sex? We don't rate toilet humour so high in Germany.

You know what was difficult? I could remember my father – every time I smoked. That's something you do not want to lose. I think I know why. It was after sailing. I know you are more into engines but we share a love of wooden boats. My father had the boat built for him. I would visit the boatbuilder in the Netherlands with him and see how the shape grew on the frames. From some angles it looked quite fat, like a goose and from others it was streamlined. Also like a goose. We did the lacquer work ourselves. The wood is very light yellow, like a German woman's hair was supposed to be like. The timber grew a little darker after twelve coats of lacquer but it still shone.

My father would always hoist the sails. It was very funny, the day he realised I was now taller than him. He kept trying to reach a rope that was loose on the mast. The wind was blowing it away from him and he kept trying to reach it. I stretched out, by instinct, and he looked so surprised when I handed the end to him.

He looked even smaller because he was so thin. They say a lot of people who survived the war were small, thin types. They could stay alive on less food than people with bigger frames. You know I have inherited his build but perhaps not for very much longer. I thought it was propaganda from tobacco companies, the gain of weight when you stopped but it has started to happen. I remember you saying Lewis-men like their vessels a bit on the wide side. You might get tested, on that, next visit.

You said I was like Popeye with the round muscle popping up from a long bony arm. You might not win at an arm wrestle now, Mr Peter MacAulay, so you had better watch what you say in future.

And I must warn you I have let my hair grow a bit, just to my shoulder. It's cut straight there. It makes me feel good. I think you call it a bob. I know a shilling used to be a bob too. Five new pence, I remember.

Writing this, I am thinking back to being on the boat with my father. I became good on deck. There are two ropes to pull as the sail goes up. It's a lot of sailcloth for quite a slim boat. But when the mainsail is nearly up, you tie one rope and pull the other till the top of the sail – the gaff – stretches up higher. Here is a little drawing for you.

I learned to watch the sails and slacken this or tighten that to get the boat moving better. I read books and did training on a dinghy. I had to bully my father a bit to make him move his weight out to the side, or forward or back. When the boat is light, your weight makes a big difference.

Sometimes we argued. Some days he said he just wanted to get away from being the man in charge. Difficult phone calls with anxious clients. He didn't want to have to give his best performance on the water. But I did. I could not be happy if I saw a chance to make the boat go better. She would lean over a bit but there would be very little splashing. She could carry a lot of sail because she had a heavy, iron centreboard that dropped to make a keel.

The club became crowded. More pontoons were installed on the wide river. We could sail into a lake. It was a day-boat – no berths for sleeping but it was worth the long drive. Soon there were Saturday races. I persuaded him to enter. Our boat was new and still light. We would get her back on the trailer when were finished. I scrubbed and scrubbed till my father said I'd wear the wood away. A boat goes faster when it's smooth.

We were usually second or third. The day we won, the wind was behind us on the last section of the course. There was a big wave on the lake. I got the pole on the big foresail but I tied it to the shroud so I didn't have to hold it. Then I took my weight back, right beside my father and we crouched close so there was less of us to catch the wind. The boat made a hiss that told us we were fast. We were across the line first and all the boats were the same type. We hugged and then I said, ‘God, I could do with a smoke now.'

My father looked a bit shocked because he had not guessed his little daughter (taller than him now) could possibly smoke. He just made a shrug and passed me his packet. Just this once. He had been trying to hide it too, to set an example. It was about the time people were starting to talk about lung cancer and warnings on packets.

Once or twice we had a smoke at the door of the house. It was not yet finished. You know about the shoes on the children of the cobbler? Well this was the architect's house. But my mother had her kitchen organised now. She was making
Sauerbraten
– like a marinated pot-roast, with vinegar. Mutti still believes in pot-roast. It keeps in the juices. It's her religion now. There was a lot of moving things from a bowl to a pan and Mutti got angry when I wasn't there to help.

‘What are you two finding to talk about?' she asked. We were smoking at the door and talking about this and that. I knew she was apart – left out – but I just knew there would not be many conversations like this with my father. Before the weight came back on him.

Then my mother was banging pans and I had to go back in. He stayed out, looking at the unfinished walls, the piles of sand and stones. It was his dream house and he looked lost.

He asked for my help later, with the cough mixture. I was to tell him if I found bottles in cupboards. Hidden away anywhere. I think I knew already my mother was always having flu and had sore heads and had to go to lie down. But it was after my father was reported missing that my brother and myself got Mutti to go for help. There were clinics. It was a common problem. People who could not cope with life, day after day, they would swallow spoons and spoons of this cough medicine.

Now, dear Peter, you know another family secret. I want you to know all about me. But I do not want to be always like a German full of angst, so now for happier matters.

Michel has a new camera. It is an SLR with three lenses. Our father's Leica rangefinder is old-fashioned now. I love it but I don't want to use it. Michel doesn't want it either because it is like something from a shrine. We still use his dark-room. The house was not completely finished until after he was gone.

Here are Michel's pictures. You can see the boat. You will get on well with my brother. He is mainly interested in engines. All kinds of engines, not sailing. That is why my father asked me to sail with him. Here is Michel's photo of the new me. Where's your Popeye now? I remember you saying how I was the nearest you'd come to having a boyfriend. You can see I don't have my hair cut short any more. You need to be thin for that. I hope you like my new look, all the same. I'm happy in my self.

Love, Gabriele      

PS. Did you find out if we could take out the dinghy of your friends? I can teach you everything in two or three days. We could go to that island you talk about, the one with the stone arch. I will send my dates. Write back soon. Thank you for the sad story about the haddock. I think it was good for you to write your story. It was good for me to read it. It made me close to you again.