16
NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA MIGRATION SEASON
I walk over grass wet with dew and through a blanket of dawn fog. After a mostly sleepless night I should be at my lowest, but instead I find myself bolstered this morning, determined to continue on our way. I never expected this journey to be easy, so what right do I have to give up at the first hurdle?
Despite the early hour, when I push through the back door and into the warm kitchen the lighthouse is already flush with agitation.
They’re watching the news, crew members and children alike crowded into the living room. The coals of the fire have been forgotten and are just about out, I see, and it’s this that makes me think something must be wrong.
Daeshim glances at me—all other eyes are glued to the screen—and murmurs, “Commercial fishing vessels recalled.”
It doesn’t register. “What? What does that mean?”
“They’ve made it illegal to fish for money.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“Hang on—all fishing vessels?”
“Every damn one,” Basil says. “Shackled to land for the foreseeable future, and if you don’t do as you’re told they seize ownership of the boat. Cunts.”
“Language,” Gammy snaps. None of her children laugh this time.
“So we’re stuck here,” Léa says.
I look at Ennis. He hasn’t said a word, but there’s no color in his face.
This has been a long time coming. It’s terrible for the economy and the people whose livelihoods come from the ocean. It’s disastrous for my plan, and for poor Ennis’s ability to get his kids back. But even so, I can’t help smiling inside. Because it’s not bad at all, not really—it’s wonderful. It’s an enormous turning point, a step forward, at long last, by those in power, and as I stand here what feels a million miles from him, I know exactly what Niall’s smile will look like.
* * *
The St. John’s hotel room is claustrophobic with four men and two women crammed inside it. I’m sitting with my head poked out the open window, smoking a cigarette. Basil, to whom the cigarette belonged, sits opposite me; I’ve gone through three in the time it’s taken him to smoke one. Ennis didn’t want to impose on Gammy, so we’re back in town, waiting to hear how Samuel is, and trying, listlessly, to figure out what to do with ourselves. Our captain hasn’t appeared all afternoon. Anik said Ennis had taken himself off to mourn the Saghani privately.
A trip to the coast guard yielded an information packet about the new laws that are coming into effect and what to do with our vessel. If we’re not docked in our home port then the vessel is to be frozen for thirty days before being released, and Ennis can then take it straight to his Alaskan mooring, without detour and under the supervision of a maritime police officer.
I’m the only one who has nowhere to go. If I go back to Ireland the garda will grab me for breaking my parole.
So my only option is to find another way to follow the two remaining tracked terns.
“Are you okay?” Basil asks, voice low.
I ignore him, my mind busy turning the problem over. “Can I have another?”
He passes it to me, groping at my fingers before I pull them away.
“What’s with you?”
“Nothing.” I just don’t want to be touched, especially by you.
Basil frowns, leering at me in a way that is so over the top I want to shove his face away. “Franny. I’m into you. You don’t have to worry.”
My mouth opens and I nearly laugh. “That’s what you think I’m worried about?”
“Well, then what?”
His presumption and arrogance are hardly fathomable; I actually do laugh this time, and see him blush. We sit in silence and smoke, the cigarette leaving a foul taste in my mouth and not making me feel relaxed at all.
“I’m going for a walk,” I announce.
“Do you want any company?” Mal asks, but I shake my head.
“I have some stuff to figure out.”
I go down to the docks and share a few ciggies with some of the beached sailors. There’d been rumors circling that this could happen, but none of them thought it’d be so soon, in that way that nobody ever thinks the things they love will end. I ask them what their plans are and most say they’ll head home, sell their boats to be repurposed, find some other way to make a living. Some of them already have backup plans in place. One of them, an older man with deep wind grooves lining his face, sheds a few tears, but when I try to console him he shakes his head and says, “It’s not for the job. It’s for the violence we brought to the earth.”
I walk past a couple of tourist charter businesses and wonder if I could ever afford to charter a private boat to take me the distance. Doubtful. How the hell do you make a huge amount of cash in a hurry, without resorting to theft?
There’s a pub on the corner that I saw when we came in—I head for it and order a Guinness and a whiskey. They have the fireplace raging so I sit in front of it, next to a young man with a beagle called Daisy. Daisy sniffs my hands and then parks herself at my feet to let me pat her. The owner, whose name I’ve already forgotten, tries to talk to me but when I don’t have much to say he grows bored and finds new conversationalists.
Léa sits and hands me another Guinness.
“I don’t need a minder,” I say.
“Sure you do. You walk into oceans when you’re not being minded.”
I finish my whiskey and move on to the stout. Daisy’s ears are silky soft to touch. Her bottomless chocolate eyes gaze lovingly up at me, and then drift shut as I stroke her ears.
“Do you think we could de-commercialize the Saghani?” I ask her.
“How?”
“I don’t know. Remove the power block? The netting, the freezer … all the fishing gear.”
She looks at me with pity, and it’s irritating. “You really are desperate, huh? Why?”
“I have a job to do.”
“Why does it matter where they die, those birds? Because they’ll die one way or another, no? And what does it even matter if they do? Makes no difference to us.”
The question leaves me breathless. I don’t have any response to it, to the apathy.
It occurs to me that Léa is so tense I can almost see the grinding of her teeth through her jaw. She’s dealing with her own crisis.
“There’ll still be boats for you to work on,” I tell her softly. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“Why’d you fuck Basil?” Léa asks abruptly. “He’s such an asshole.”
I stare at her. “I didn’t fuck Basil.”
“Not what he said.”
My mouth falls open. But really, why am I even surprised?
“What are you punishing yourself for?” Léa asks.
“What does it matter?”
“It matters to me. I’d say it probably matters to your husband, too.”
“My husband left me.”
It’s her turn to be speechless a moment. “Oh. Sorry. Why?”
I shake my head slowly. “I’m bad for him.”
“You’re in a dark place,” she says impatiently. “I get it. I’ve been there. But you have to keep your shit together. It’s dangerous at sea and I can’t be looking out for you all the time.”