The Slipway

The relief crew member put the spare line where Arden would never have put it, and Veda had to stop herself correcting a preference as though it were a danger.

They were alongside before the first trial trip. He was experienced, his training and paperwork checked, his day rate agreed. She had worked with him before, though not recently. Today she went through Morrow’s arrangements again, including the things six years with Arden had taught her to leave unsaid.

“That position keeps it clear,” he said when he caught her looking.

“It does.”

“Do you want it moved?”

“No.”

A small victory over herself, before breakfast. She hoped it counted towards the day.

Arden was taking agreed leave while Veda tested the smaller pattern. There were still two weeks of her notice to run; nobody had vanished overnight. Veda had rearranged a reduced amount of gear on lawful grounds outside the proposed boundary, checked the trial plan and made no promise that a few trips could predict a year.

They left on time. The boat moved well. The work was slower because different people used different words, and because Veda explained rather than assuming. There was nothing wrong with the relief crew member. That almost made missing Arden worse.

At the outer turn, Morrow settled under her hand in the way she had described to Roscoe. Veda felt the familiar pleasure, then a second one: she would be able to tell him about it tonight without defending why it mattered.

The first trial day brought in less than her old average. The second was better, but the longer run used more fuel. By the third, the figures had begun to form a shape she could dislike accurately.

After landing, she entered the receipts, paid the agreed crew rate and recorded the hours. She did not improve the results by forgetting the extra journey to collect bait.

An owner from the café stopped beside the office door.

“Heard your man’s left the campaign.”

“He hasn’t.”

“Stopped speaking for them, though.”

“Yes.”

“Could be useful to say what changed his mind. People listen to one of their own.”

Veda looked up from the fuel book.

“He corrected a claim in a leaflet. He still supports the proposal.”

“Come on. He’s seen sense about you.”

“He’s in love with me. That isn’t a policy position.”

The man blinked, then gave an embarrassed laugh. “Didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know. I’m telling you before we use it like that.”

He leaned against the frame, less easy now. “You’re making things difficult.”

“Yes.”

She let the word stand. He asked about the trial catch, and she gave him the practical answer. They could still discuss work. She did not have to purchase that conversation by selling Roscoe’s change of conduct as a defection.

When he left, Veda realised she had said love aloud on the quay. Not as an announcement, not to win anything. It felt good and costly in proportions she could live with.

· · ·Scene break

The accountant’s room had a small fan and no romantic view. Veda sat opposite her with the revised annual projection and three actual trial days attached.

The accountant went through the figures twice, asking where each assumption came from. Veda liked her for it. Optimism was easier to resist when somebody charged by the hour to identify its location.

Eighty-eight projected fishing days, lower volume, four hundred and fifty pounds average sales per day. Thirty-nine thousand six hundred in receipts if weather, catch and prices allowed it. Seven thousand and forty in trip costs. Eleven thousand four hundred and forty for relief crew at the agreed rate. Ten thousand five hundred in fixed costs after giving up the separate shed and van.

The boat left ten thousand six hundred and twenty before personal tax. The cold-store job added eleven thousand and forty gross on the conservative annual paid-hours assumption. She had allowed for tax and National Insurance provision, extra contingency, and the actual sixteen thousand two hundred she spent each year living in the rented house she already had.

The remaining margin was small.

“Not impossible,” the accountant said. “Not comfortable. And not a guarantee.”

“I wasn’t shopping for one.”

“You’d be surprised how often people are.”

They checked seasonal cash flow, dates of large bills, the effect of one repair arriving early. The new job had a written offer; shared storage and transport had real quotes. Veda had not reduced the insurance figure because she planned to worry less often.

Then the accountant reduced projected fishing sales by a fifth.

The margin disappeared. The new gap was six thousand two hundred and sixty pounds.

Veda stared at it. Her designated working savings were six and a half thousand. She had a separate personal emergency cushion, which she had promised herself she would not quietly feed to the boat.

“You cannot call that a sustainable second year,” the accountant said.

“I know.”

“So what will you do if the trial pattern falls short?”

“Review at twelve weeks. Stop committing to trips that don’t cover their direct costs. Cost laying up, or selling, before the working savings run down.”

“Write the thresholds. Don’t leave future you to negotiate with present you.”

Veda wrote them. She did not enjoy the exercise. It gave her a way to proceed that did not rely on becoming a woman immune to arithmetic.

· · ·Scene break

Roscoe was closing the workshop when she arrived. He looked at her face, put down the cloth in his hand and came to the doorway.

“Tea or walk?”

“Hold me first.”

He took her in his arms. She leaned into him, boots on the yard’s uneven paving, cheek against his shirt. He smelled of the workshop and the soap he used before finishing. She loved the ordinariness of it.

“Was it bad?” he asked after a while.

“It was real.”

She told him about the trial in broad terms, the smaller income, the shore hours that would have to become part of her week. She kept the detailed accounts with the people whose job it was to check them. He did not ask to see them.

“I might still have to sell one day,” she said.

His hand moved slowly over her back. “I know.”

“Not because I’m being noble. Because if the numbers fail, I can’t make somebody else carry them.”

He nodded.

“I wanted you to tell me I wouldn’t have to.”

“I wish I could.”

She pulled back and looked at him. “That’s the answer I can bear.”

They went into his kitchen. He made tea; she took the chair nearest the window and watched him move through the small domestic tasks. He had put her preferred mug where she could reach it. Nobody else would have understood that as an event. She did.

“The other owner wanted to use you as proof you’d changed sides,” she told him.

“What did you say?”

“That you hadn’t. And that you were in love with me, which wasn’t a policy position.”

He turned from the kettle.

“Was that all right?” she asked.

“Yes.” His smile grew. “Very much.”

She stood and went to him. He put the kettle safely down before kissing her, which made her laugh against his mouth.

“Practical man.”

“I’m trying to remain available.”

She kissed him again, wanting the evening without asking it to erase the day. Later they ate in the yard, each with a plate balanced on a knee, and she told him about the relief crew member’s perfectly reasonable place for the spare line.

“Did you move it?”

“No.”

“Remarkable.”

“I expect recognition.”

He leaned across and kissed her cheek. “I saw the effort.”

She laughed. He had, somehow. She could change a working method, lose some income, let another person stand in Arden’s place, and still be recognisable to herself. It would take longer to believe that on the quay. Here, with Roscoe’s knee against hers and a modest plan she had made herself, she could begin.