Fen (18 page)

Lionel sighed and twitched before her, jerking the back of his truck down to pull the bag forward. Sloppy work. Sloppy work, he said.

There were faces in both trucks looking out at her. She didn't take the time to count them. A dog came skittering down and barked at her. Lionel kicked it away with the toe of a boot.

I've got everything I need now, she said. I've got everything.

OK. He moved from foot to foot, tongue against the bridge of his lip. OK, OK. You going out in that boat? You going out in that boat there?

She shrugged.

Lionel walked away, sidling, kicking sand. He climbed in and the trucks jerked away. One of them leant on their horn until they were out of sight.

She stayed up top that afternoon. The sky was changing colour and looked, she thought, like something yawning up out of a place it had been stuck.

When she came out onto the stone ridge it was night and the beach was empty. The tide was out. She went to the boat and took a hold of the side and pressed her knee beneath its base to push it forward and then there was the sound, murmuring behind her, of a truck riding the beach.

She turned and watched it. It was pulling a dead weight behind it: a fishing boat, a hulking carriage wrecked and stained.

She saw easily, awfully, how this was only the first, that there were other vans, other boats behind. Yes, she could hear their rumble too now. They would catch the fish: most of them drunk, looping the net round twice to hold it firm, beating it once on the gunwale though this did little good, and that man sweating by the time the fish is
dead. There would be a measure of superstition after that: leaving it on the deck rather than putting it on ice, keeping their distance or going gamely close, while the others watched, to prod or kick it. They would take it to the pub. That would be the best place to show it to the rest, bringing it in above their heads, getting drinks for their troubles, taking it out to the kitchen and scoring the sides to let in the heat. Barely enough for a bite each and with the taste of marshes and fen earth, but more of a ritual than anything else, as potent as taking church bread onto your tongue.

Back inside she saw headlights pass through the windows, angling over the white walls. There were matches in one of the cupboard drawers, but she collated everything in her head before she struck one: leaning book towers and shards of material and everything else collected and ordered and known over the years. She could hear the rough breath of rutted wheels catching on damp sand; the sound of doors opening and closing. She scraped the match hard over the bridge of the box and turned it loose against the curtains. She did not stay to eye the burning of it or even think much on it as she humped the shallow edge of the boat across the last of the uncovered sand and then jerked a leg over. Behind her, in the dark, their echoing curses boomed like waves.

There was no way to know direction, a blind driving-off with only lights behind to tell her she was at least heading away: the beam of the lighthouse, and – soon –
the lesser, changing light of the flames through the windows.

She trailed the motor out to the right spot, let the anchor spool away, looked towards the shore, looked for the shape of the boats coming with intent towards her, but nothing there.

She pulled her socks off, stood somehow serenely balanced to remove trousers and T-shirt. She swam down, breath potent between her ribs. She lost light all the way down until it was dark enough only to feel the motion of something brushing at her leg.

THANK YOU TO
:

Everyone at Eve White, particularly Jack Ramm.

Everyone at Jonathan Cape, most especially Alex Bowler.

All the readers: Sarvat Hasin, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Tom de Freston, Susie Campbell, Gabby Penfold, Jess Oliver, Matt Bradshaw, Sam Thompson, Christine Lane and Becky Riddell.

All the Johnsons.

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Copyright © Daisy Johnson 2016

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First published by Jonathan Cape in 2016

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