On Board The Silver Herring

NO KERRY ON THE SILVER HERRING AGAIN

It is busier on The Silver Herring today. Visitors to Port Brokeferry taking advantage of the good weather. Some have been before. In other years. Still they pay their money and file on board. There’s a rush to fill up the seats in the wheelhouse. Then people spill out onto the deck seats. Edwin has a cloth to dry the water from the benches and is busy making sure everything is right.

Mad Martin is dancing beneath the statue of the three fishermen, and laughing and calling to Edwin, calling him Finn. There is not time for a story today. Mad Martin does not seem to notice.

Bran helps women and children onto the boat, taking the hands of the less sure as they move from the solid surface of the harbour steps onto the shifting deck of The Silver Herring. ‘It is like dancing,’ he tells them, and he means it kindly. ‘You’ll get the hang of it,’ he says, not letting their hands go until they are fully aboard.

Edwin runs through the safety talk in a calm and almost disinterested voice. Lifejackets are under the seats and the life rafts are towards the back of the boat. There is no need to inflate these jackets. They act as buoyancy aids really. They fit over the head and there are straps to fasten them around the middle. Then he tells them not to worry. That he can count the number of people he’s lost on one hand. He adds that they still have two minutes to change their minds and can step ashore again if they wish. It is by way of a joke and he quickly reassures them that the weather forecast for today is good and that the trip should be on flat water.

Bran watches him closely. He knows something of the truth behind what Edwin says. No one lost in the days since they started trips for holidaymakers round The Snag and back. But some lost to the sea when The Silver Herring was a fishing boat. Edwin never forgets them. Bran can see that. Just behind Edwin’s eyes there is a flicker of pain beneath his joking. There a second, and then gone again as he takes care of business.

Edwin checks his watch and it is past two o’clock. Kerry is not there. Two days in a row now. Something is up, he thinks. He must have a word with her. Or maybe she and Helen could share a pot of tea and Helen could check that everything is alright.

Edwin explains how long the trip will last and the route that they will take. He tells them that they will see seals, though he cannot today promise dolphins or basking sharks. It is early in the season for them. At the last minute he offers them hope: ‘But you can never be sure,’ he says.

He looks to the harbour and the shore once more. Kerry is not there. He instructs young Bran to cast off fore and aft. Then Edwin, still with one eye looking out for Kerry, uses a long pole to push off from the side. Bran jumps aboard and begins coiling the rope into neat shell-like structures.