The Old Man The Boat

On the beach the morning after no one really says a word to me, and it feels like a long march down the jetty even though I’ve done it thousands of times before. Anders is waiting as he promised. He doesn’t say anything. We step on board and I loosen the ropes and cast off, push the boat out, and then he talks — but not to me, Come on then Martha he says, let’s be off, and Martha cranks and spits into life.

Fishermen spend a lot of their lives talking to their boats, and as much time again talking about them, often rather more than they talk about their wives. You rely on them, fight with them, rejoice with them, you win and lose with them. It’s no wonder they have women’s names. They’ll tell you boats last longer, and then laugh. Many by my age have had three or four of each — I had only one, but the comparison is sound in either case.

Mine was called Elizabeth, though I always called her Betty.

*

I spend the early morning with my head bowed forward in the spray, looking out at the horizon. Tears have no place on a man’s face. Anders can sense it though, if he can’t see it — he slows us, time to drop the first lines, and comes out and puts a hand on my shoulder, tells me perhaps I should have waited. Perhaps I shouldn’t be back out here yet. Look at you, I reply, you have the oldest boat in the fleet, and you’re even rustier and…