"Sweet God," Joe is saying in a shaky voice, "are you all right now? I thought you were going to jump overboard."
"Beach and bed in ten minutes flat," says Kerewin firmly, and reaches for the starter cord.
But incredibly the boy lifts his head and mouths No, shaking his head to emphasise it.
So she waits, swapping looks of bewilderment with Joe. A minute later, Simon spits a final time in the sea, and determinedly slides himself away from the side of the boat. He's still a sick bonewhite colour, and his teeth are clenched tightly, but he fingers OK to them, tapping his chest, OK.
"Himi, you deserve a medal," says Joe, his eyes shining.
"Or an anti-seasick tablet… they're in the bow, Joe, if he wants one. Mind you lad, that was a fine display of intestinal fortitude… ur, one way or the other," and she draws a muttered, "You bastard," from Joe, and a watery kind of grin from the boy.
"Speaking of bow lockers and that, would you pass me a cheroot Joe? And there's lime juice in one of the flasks — you want some, Sim? Nope? Hokay, if the smoke won't bother you, we'll have a quick one and then be on our way."
It's growing lighter all the time. She chatters, mainly to Simon, pointing out a circling mollymawk, a line of shags winging away from Maukiekie, a penguin that surfaces not far from the boat. The boy is relaxing, little by little. He kneels to watch the penguin, and doesn't appear to mind the gentle lift and sway of the dinghy under him. Joe broods in the bow, staring down into the clear green-blue water.
Like looking into his eyes… only nothing is moving down here at all….
"Right," she says, flicking the butt of her cheroot into the sea, "we all ready?"
"Ae." Joe leans forward. "You all right down there, Himi? You want me to hold you?"
The boy shakes his head, and Kerewin says,
"I'll take it very easy, just putter along. We've got as long as we like. Any wind won't be here till eleven."
She grins at the child, still crouched on the canvas, his back to the bow.
"And with any luck at all, fella, you'll shortly be catching your first fish here."
"First fish," Joe tells her, adding with a laugh that Simon has the luck of a proverbial dunny rat. "God knows what he'll catch."
She keeps the motor chugging along at half-throttle for minutes, covertly watching the boy. The colour is coming back into his face, and as the dinghy moves steadily on, he ventures to kneel up again, leaning his elbows on the seat behind him. Goodoh, she thinks, and discreetly winds the throttle to fullspeed.
It doesn't take long to reach her favourite patch. She lines the marks up, lighthouse centred on Puketapu, Rima lined with the distant pale dots that are the cribs on shore, and feels tears stinging her eyes as she does.
So long, o my heart, so very long-
She cuts the motor and the boat drifts a little way in a suddenly resounding silence.
"Theoretically, we are now over an enormous number of blue cod who never seem to have appreciated over the years that safety isn't in numbers."
"O?"
"This is the cod patch. Provided everyone else hasn't also discovered it, and fished it out, I guarantee you a blue cod within seconds of your line touching bottom."
She baits up the hooks on one rod.
"You want this, or I give it to Sim?"
"Well, he'll probably find it easier to haul things up with that than a line."
"Okay. Lines are made up ready in the basket there." She slings him a handful of chopped butterfish: she'd caught three off the reef yesterday evening. "Bait one for me too, eh."
She leans to Simon, "You going to do your fishing from there, or from the seat, o neopiscator?"
"Actually, he's been flyfishing with me before. He catches trees quite well."
"Make that neomarinepiscator then, oh" the boy's sat up on the seat and very swiftly flashed Up you at her. "Why you dear child," says Kerewin sweetly, passing him the rod wrong end on, "I hope you catch grand-daddy shark."
Joe blinks.
"Here," he says. "Hold it like this, that bit in that hand, and your right hand on the reel. Now push that knob down… you don't have to stick it up in the air like that, keep the tip down. Just let the sinker take the line down, you don't have to heave… hell's bloody bells, watch where you sling that lead!"
She is sitting well back, feet propped against the gunwales, humming to herself.
Her line is hitched round a rowlock, and the sinker of her rod is nearly on the bottom. The line twitches.
"What say I give you a race? My catch against both of yours?" She's grinning ear to ear as she tucks the butt of the rod under one thigh, and begins hauling up the handline.
"Ha bloody ha," growls Joe. "How did you manage to get this tangled round here?"
The boy says nothing.
"Two!"
Good-sized cod, glistening blue-green. They flop and struggle, but she unhooks them swiftly, stunning them with a small brass priest. She winds up the rod-line.
"Ahh, make that four… either of you down yet?"
"No," says Joe shortly, tugging at the snarl of nylon.
"Pity. They're biting well."
She stabs each fish through the backbone quickly, then slits the thin connecting flesh bellyside of the spine. The rose-coral gills spread one last time, convulsively. She puts all four, bloody and the bluegreen splendour dulling now, in the basket under a wetted sack.
"Ho hum," rebaiting her hooks, "How yer goin?"
Joe bares his teeth.
"Tell you what man, give us that mess over here, and you tend your line eh?"
"You asked for it."
"Oath, what a foul-up."
"Year-ess," much more cheerfully, as he drops his sinker over the bow.
Kerewin works on the snarl, muttering inaudibly. Simon stares at the sea, the sky, at the dead fish, everywhere but at her. And just as Joe yells "bite" she gets the hooks free of the filament.
"Carefully now," she says to the boy, and he swings it into the sea.
Joe is bringing up his handline, fist over fist, the cord sawing into the wood of the bow.
"Big one. Maybe a couple on each hook eh?"
The boy yelps, and hauls on the rod. It's a light fibreglass boat-rod, and the tip has bent nearly to the water.
"Hey, grand-daddy shark…" The reel of his rod has locked, and he isn't making any effort to wind in. It's taking all his strength just to hold on. "Just a minute, and I'll help you," says Kerewin. "It shouldn't catch you for a little while yet."
Joe looks over the side. His face twists.
"Haimona," he says in a strangled voice, "You've caught my fish."
She bends over for a look. "My goodness, and it's a big doggie too," and laughs all by herself for some time.
By the time Joe has chopped and carved and otherwise parted the ensnared dogfish and the two lines, Kerewin has caught a dozen more cod, three terakihi, and several sea perch. She throws most of the latter back.
"The way I figure it," leaning back comfortably against the motor, "anything that garish and spiny and above all, big mouthed, doesn't deserve hooking as well. I'm basically a charitable soul, y'see. Besides they're not very good eating."
Joe grunts.
Simon's skywatching again.
Five minutes later, the man rebaits his own hooks and sends his line down. With noticeable restraint, he checks the baits of the boy's line, takes the rod off him, watches the sinker slide through the green water, and waits till it touches bottom.
He gives the rod back.
"Just sit there and hold it," he says coolly. The boy looks sadly at him. With both hands full he can't say a thing properly, but he mouths to Joe.
"Fish? What do you mean fish? Kerewin's probably caught them all," smiling a bitter smile, "but if she hasn't, I intend catching at least one. If a fish gets on your line, get it up yourself. Without tangling up anything anywhere."