The Distance To Nova Scotia

A Story by BKeveen

A very short story about a fisherman and his relationship with his son. A portrait of Howth Harbour in North Dublin, Ireland

The harbour mouth parted its lips as if for a kiss. Jock McFarlane used the reverse engine and some light touches on the rudder to bring his rugged little vessel to within inches of the mooring post. He watched his first mate and old friend, Michael Kelliher, jump to the quayside. Jock cut the engines, switched off the batteries and secured the oil lines before stepping from the wheelhouse. The Lenister Star was home.

The crew took to their final tasks without a word. They had been at sea for nearly three days and now was a time for finishing the job right. The faster the fish where unloaded, the more would be saved in the freezers. Jock stood for a while longer and listened to the oily water suckling at the side of his vessel. He murmured a few final instructions about the catch and sauntered away up the pier.

The Waterside Pub opened early bird hours for the benefit of the fishing fleet. Jock stepped sideways through the door, his enormous shoulders straining within his pinched tweet jacket. When he pulled his cap off, it left a thick mold of white hair bunched on his head.

Jerry, the barman, had noticed the running lights of the old ship turning like a clockwork ballerina in the harbour. A pint was settling beside the taps. He placed it before Jock as the old man slid with slow deliberate movements into his barstool, not unlike the way his command had slid into her mooring.

‘How’d it go?’ Jerry asked.

'Thick fog, Jerry. Never seen it so thick.'

Jerry left Jock alone. Jock was in a patient mood and spent a moment listening to his whispering pint. He lit a cigarette and examined his own face in the mirror. Tanned brown and battered from fifty years sailing into the spray and winds of The Irish Sea. A pair of green eyes twinkling from under a brow which reminded many women of chopped wood. He smoothed his hair flat and blew out the match.

His pint was now silent and black. He gouged a great chunk into the white collar. The bitter stink filled his nostrils. He let the harsh, wintery taste bite his throat. It sliced down his chest like a blade of ice and he felt a roaring sound in his ears. Swallowing twice, he opened his eyes to find Jerry standing before him.

After a moment, Jock could say, 'That’s a very fine pint, Jerry. I've been looking forward to that since we came around the Kish.'

Jerry nodded like a preist.

Micheal led the crew through the door. They were all laughing. Michael was teasing the youngest member of the crew, a lesser red-spotted grinning teenager named Ian. During their run up the Banks, he had not heeded verbal warnings before a giant bow wave had drenched him before sending him sliding towards the nets. The crew took a booth and Jock turned in his bar stool to look at the youngster.

'Now Ian, lad, next time you’ll bloody listen to Michael on the deck. Those waves can be big bloody things, raised by foreign tankers racing out of Dublin Port. In that fog, we could’ve been crushed in the blink of an eye. You have to keep your eyes and ears open. Listen to your first mate.'

The boy’s grin twisted and slid from his face. He nodded and took a gulp from his pint as the others let him ponder those big tankers and their enormous rising hulls of implacable steel.

The other boats where arriving in now. Jock noticed The Long Isle slipping alongside his own berth. Slowly the rest of the fleet followed and the assembly filled with early morning smoke, gruff, heavy voices and the thick layered stench of oil, fish and drink.

Michael leaned over to Jock. 'Where’s The Susan-Lee?'

Michael Kelliher was bent from years of hauling nets. Both his fingers and his teeth were yellow and twisted from smoking and age. One morning when he was just twenty one, as he sat peacefully in the sunshine on Malahide strand, he had suffered a stroke which left his face pinched into a permanent sneer. Strangers could never tell whether he was angry or laughing. People tended to leave him alone, but he had sailed with Jock all his life.

Jock looked through the window. 'She not in yet?'

'No sign yet.’

‘Where were they headed?’

‘Peter said they were heading out towards Tuskar.'

Michael turned to the crowd. 'Has anybody see The Susan-Lee?' Nobody had.

Jock checked his watch and considered the timings. 'Well. He’s overdue again. Probably over-loaded on shrimp and had to slow up.'

He wanted to finish his pint. He was enjoying himself. In the end, Jock stood and Michael joined him. They walked back to the Leinster Star.

Inside the cabin, Michael flicked the radio set on. 'Susan-Lee, Susan-Lee. This is Michael Kelliher here. Position please? Over.' There was no response. Michael tried a few more times. After waiting a long minute, he turned to Jock.

'Well, maybe their set is down. Maybe we’d better ring out the boat?'

Jock felt a hard stone drop into his belly. He thought of that pounding tanker wave and the heavy fog. Michael was dialing up the coast guard when Jock felt a sudden urge for fresh air.

Outside, the sun was rising over Balscadden Bay and the white glare stung his eyes. He turned towards the end of the pier while he tried to recall their last conversation. Peter had been planning to buy a bilge-pump from Liam Fahy; Jock had thought it was a waste of money.

He reached the corner of the west pier. Churning white waves wrestled with the rocks below. The water looked cold, green and somehow autumnal. Jock felt the sea-spray on his lips; it tasted like tears.

The Susan-Lee rose into view from behind a swell. There was heavy damage. Her bow was a mess of twisted steel and shattered wood and her starboard side had been ripped and gouged by some terrible force. The mast was hanging in tatters and the exhaust smoke was thicker than normal. She was listing.

Jock pictured the mood in the little wheel house. Peter - his son - would be steering the crippled boat towards the tiny, dark figure standing like a fool beside the harbour edge. His crew would be pale and laughing too hard, but his son would be cocksure and excited. Pints would line up as he told the whole bar all about their encounter in the fog with a giant tanker from Nova Scotia or some other distant place. The sudden rising wall of steel. The terrible squealing of metal. The wheel spinning like a snake out of his hands.

Jock turned away before he was recognised. He wanted a fresh pint to wash away the metallic taste that lay pasted in his mouth.