174
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Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Something. Fourth hook down on the drop-line there was a dark shape. The boy stopped pulling and sat back on his heels. The swell was small that day and it was more than three metres from the platform down to the sea. The boy watched as the shape stretched and buckled beneath the grey water.
‘Strange fish,’ he said to no one.
The wind was blowing in from the west – consistent, ten or eleven metres per second by the feel of it – droning through the platform’s pipes and grilles and pushing the sea into hard ridges. The North Sea shifted from horizon to horizon, like a tarpaulin being dragged over rough ground. It looked sluggish but, under the surface, currents ripped and surged. It was hard to imagine the sheer tonnages hauling past every minute, every second.
The boy wound the line around the railing until it was secure, then took hold of the hanging length, lifted it a few inches and let it fall. He moved it from side to side, but the hook was lodged. He’d have to pull it up. He moved the line again. It was heavy, whatever it was. He hoped his line wouldn’t break. It had taken him a long time to get that length of cord. How long? Months? Years? He looked out at the horizon as if it would give him an answer, but couldn’t even pick out where the grey of the sea became the grey of the sky. It was good cord. That was all that mattered. And a hundred miles offshore it wasn’t easy to get hold of good cord.
Could you even get proper fishing line any more? The wind squalled and worked itself
