‘I’ve got a lot…’ Timothy lets the words trail off as he sees Ethan’s expression.
‘You’re coming then,’ Ethan says.
Timothy nods and retreats upstairs to get dressed into warmer clothes.
Ethan’s is the last of the boats left on the beach. Once they have climbed aboard they settle into silence, and Timothy sits on the gunwales as Ethan prepares the boat. Clem, sitting in the tractor, is impatient for them to launch. He does not acknowledge either man, and when he has dragged the boat down to the water, he unhooks it without a word, and heads back up the beach.
It is a calm morning, and the lack of clarity in the horizon does not resolve itself in the weak sunlight. Timothy looks back up towards the house and hopes Tracey will return and take the hint from the locked doors, or that she will have decided already to leave him be. The other boats in the small fleet are spread out as far as they can be within the boundaries of the container ships today, not bunched up as they are when the sea is rough.
They have been out maybe four hours, working at setting, shooting and pulling up the empty nets, before Ethan speaks, as though to reward Timothy for obeying his rules. Sensing Ethan standing close by, Timothy looks up from where he is kneeling on the deck, stands, and pushes his frozen hands into his coat pockets.
‘Clem says you’ve been asking about Perran again.’
Timothy and Lauren walk beneath autumn trees ablaze with colour. The trees are mostly beeches, acre upon acre of them run through with a criss-cross of paths for walkers and joggers. They follow a path that leads them past a series of sculptures carved from fallen trees. The sculptures are mostly hidden, or obscured beneath the piles of leaves that have drifted around them. They walk slowly. Lauren is heavily pregnant and they stop at each bench they come to and watch leaves spiral down from the trees. The autumn sun still has some strength in it and it lights the wood in a way that makes it feel like the wood is creating its own light. Each leaf that falls seems illuminated as it passes through a thick band of light. Timothy and Lauren do not speak much as they walk, though occasionally she takes his hand, or he hers, just briefly as they walk along the path. Sometimes it is little more than the backs of their fingers that touch, like the leaves of two trees brushing against each other in the breeze — small reminders they are sharing this experience. Above the tree canopy, the wind is blowing, but though they can hear it overhead, all they feel of it are its effects, the leaves falling around them.
The path they follow eventually leads out and away from the woods and they stand for a while at the point where the trees are replaced by more open woodland, and where the path leads off between lower bushes and younger trees. Lauren turns back to return along the path into the woods again and Timothy follows.
As they walk back along the path, the sight of a young family beneath one of the trees causes Timothy and Lauren to stop a short way off and they watch as they play. The parents are sitting next to one another with their backs against a broad tree trunk, their hands joined and partially buried in the leaves that surround the tree. A child of three or four is running around the trunk in ever decreasing circles, dipping to the ground every few seconds to scoop up handfuls of leaves which she then throws into the air. The girl laughs loudly as the leaves cascade around her. As her circles tighten towards the tree trunk, she gathers up larger handfuls of leaves and saves them for the point at which she passes her parents, throwing them high into the air above them and racing around the tree as the leaves fall, blanketing the young couple. Her parents join her laughter and Timothy and Lauren walk on back towards the car park. As they leave the scene, Timothy feels Lauren’s fingers intertwine with his own and she squeezes his hand.
17. Timothy
TIMOTHY DOES NOT see the crowd on the beach until he feels the stones crunch under the boat’s keel. The gathering is of a similar size to the one he saw when they brought in their catch, only this one waits silently in the dark, hanging back against the concrete beach wall. The Great Hope grounds and Clem comes forward with the winch cable. Both Timothy and Ethan are silent too, and Timothy wonders how much of this Ethan knows about, how much he was expecting, how much he has been involved in, and whether he is aware of what is to happen next.
The winch cable takes the strain and the boat judders forward up onto the stones. There is no one guiding the boat and it tips over to one side, and both Timothy and Ethan hold onto the gunwale, to avoid being pitched over the side. Once the boat clears the waterline, the machinery halts, and the crowd, until now held in shadow by the lights from the houses on shore, starts to push forward. Other than the stones underfoot and a soft murmuring where the sea laps at the shore behind them, there is no other sound.
Timothy thinks he recognises the outlines of some of the other fishermen among the crowd of twenty or so. Clem has joined them again now, and as Timothy looks over the edge, he walks forward a couple of steps, a boat hook on a pole in his hand.
‘We’d like you to come down.’
He says it softly, as though he is talking to an animal that needs to be reassured, placated, to a dog that may bite. As though it is Timothy who is the threat rather than the threatened. When Timothy makes no move, Clem taps the side of the boat with the pole gently.
Timothy looks behind him to Ethan, and Ethan shrugs and nods his agreement to Clem’s words.
Timothy releases his grip on the boat and stumbles down to the rail that is closest to the beach. The crowd backs up a little to let him down, though Clem remains where he is, watching Timothy carefully, and when he finds his feet on the beach, Timothy is close enough to hear the other man’s breath.
‘What’s this about then?’ Timothy asks. ‘A welcome home party for tired fishermen?’
‘Just time to talk is all,’ says Clem. His voice retains the same calm, quiet quality as before and he starts to walk up the beach, pausing only to let Timothy catch up with him. There is a moon behind the thin cover of clouds above and, as they walk through the gathering, Timothy can see a few faces he recognises — Rab, Tomas, Jory, Santo, Tracey, the girl from the café — though as he looks around none of them will meet his eye. Towards the back of the crowd, standing aside from the others, he sees another figure he recognises, that of the woman in grey, who is looking in on the scene, though it seems to Timothy that she is an observer and not part of the mob.
The crowd parts for Timothy and Clem. Timothy wonders whether the gathered men and women are all going to fall in behind them and follow, but they stay where they are, as the two men climb up off the beach.
They walk up through the village, and what light spills out from the houses illuminates Clem’s face. He looks troubled. They walk up past Perran’s and through a gap between two of the houses at the end of the row, and over a stile into a field. A rut around the edge of the field leads them further away from the houses and up onto the beacon and they slow down to pick their way up a path that is littered with loose stones. At one point, Timothy trips and pitches forward, but Clem is close enough to him to stop him falling. He waits while Timothy regains his balance and helps him find his feet again. When they reach the summit, by the stubby white marker stone, Clem comes to a stop and leans heavily on the boat hook, while he gets his breath back. Timothy turns towards Clem and is about to speak, and as he does so Clem swings round towards him and puts a hand square on Timothy’s chest.
The wind is strong at the top of the hill and brings with it a dull roar of white noise, and when Clem talks he has to raise his voice as the wind blows around them and down through the village.