DEEP BLUE.
by MARK MORRIS.
Part One
Seeing Stars
With a grinding of machinery and a clanking of chains the trawl was winched aboard. As the huge net broke the grey surface of the sea and rose into the air, it looked like a living thing itself. Beneath its thick mesh thousands of fish thrashed and writhed, their silver bodies flashing beneath the blazing summer sun. When the trawl was clear of the sea, Terry Robson operated the gantry arm and the net swung out over the deck, drooling water which splashed around the boots of the six-man crew.
The Papillon Papillon had been built in the thirties, a decade or so before Terry was born. It was rusted and patched up, its engine in need of constant attention, but Terry"s old grandad still referred to it as "the new boat". The Robsons had been fishermen for generations, perhaps even centuries, but in recent years Terry"s dad, Malcolm, skipper of the had been built in the thirties, a decade or so before Terry was born. It was rusted and patched up, its engine in need of constant attention, but Terry"s old grandad still referred to it as "the new boat". The Robsons had been fishermen for generations, perhaps even centuries, but in recent years Terry"s dad, Malcolm, skipper of the Papillon Papillon, had been muttering with no real humour about there being "a sea change" on the way.
The big factory trawlers, with crews of up to a hundred and no reason to come ash.o.r.e except for the occasional repair, were putting sole traders like the Robsons out of business.
For the moment they were still making ends meet - just - but Terry was realistic enough to realise that it wouldn"t be too long before they would have to diversify. Already many of their friends and neighbours were supplementing their income by taking groups of overfed businessmen for a day"s sea fishing. If it hadn"t been so depressing it would have been funny, making executive types pay for the privilege of freezing their nuts off and chucking their guts up all day.
As Joe Tye, Terry"s cousin by marriage, released the cod end, sending fish cascading in a slithering heap across the deck, the gulls circling above the wheel house began to shriek with frantic hunger. Terry moved forward to help sort through the catch. A lot of the stuff that the trawl ensnared would have to be thrown back - crabs, eels, pregnant females, fish smaller than regulation size - but there looked to be enough viable fish here, cod and haddock, herring, whiting and plaice, to make this a good haul.
Joe"s son, Barry, who at twenty was the youngest of the crew, and who wore his blond hair long like his pop-star heroes The Sweet, was bending towards the ma.s.s of fish slithering around his boots when suddenly he recoiled.
Terry"s Uncle Pete, his dad"s younger brother, glanced up.
Uncle Pete was a fearsome character, six-and-a-half feet tall, with a bushy black beard, piercing blue eyes, and hands like shovels. Barry was often the - mostly undeserving - b.u.t.t of Pete"s abrasive manner, which did little to sweeten the already volatile relationship between Pete and Joe. Terry didn"t know why his dad"s brother and his sister"s husband disliked each other so much. Maybe it was just one of those things, or maybe there was some history between them. The fishing community at Tayborough Sands was tight-knit, contained within such a small, neat block of the tourist town that it could almost be termed an enclave. In such communities favours were always returned in kind, and often with interest, but by the same token no grievance was ever forgotten. Grudges were worn like insignia and even pa.s.sed down through subsequent generations.
"Something frighten you, lad?" Pete growled. He had a knack of making every sentence he uttered sound as if he was accusing someone of spilling his pint in the pub.
Barry"s face creased in revulsion. "There"s another one of them b.l.o.o.d.y fish," he said.
John Bayc.o.c.k, Terry"s best mate and the only non-family member of the crew, piped up with his usual good humour, "Aye, you tend to get a lot of "em around here."
Barry looked at him as if he didn"t realise John was joking.
Barry was a good lad and a willing worker, but he was not over-endowed in the brains department.
"No, I mean... one of them them fish. Horrible it is. Ugliest one so far, I reckon." fish. Horrible it is. Ugliest one so far, I reckon."
"You sure you"ve not just come across a bit of broken mirror caught in the net?" John said, making Terry and his dad laugh.
Barry shook his head and shuffled backwards. "Horrible it is," he said again. "I"m "I"m not touching it." not touching it."
"Oh, for Christ"s sake, you big pansy," growled Uncle Pete and strode forward through the slimy carpet, beetle-brows knit together in a scowl.
Terry moved forward too. He wanted to get a closer look at the deformity. There had been a lot of them these past couple of weeks. Some said it was to do with the strange light that Bob Elkins had seen land in the sea, but Terry thought it was all down to pollution. These big chemical companies and what-have-you dumped G.o.d knows what into the water these days.
Barry was right about one thing this particular specimen was was the ugliest one so far. Terry saw it immediately amongst its suffocating brethren, and recognised it as a cod despite its hideous abnormalities. Oddly it was not flapping frantically as the other fish were, but was lying still on its stomach, its sides moving slowly in and out, almost as if it had adapted to breathe the air. Its flesh was discoloured and bulging with lumps that seemed to shift sluggishly beneath the skin, its mouth hung open, revealing small but razor-sharp teeth, and its eyes bulged as if it was glaring at its captors. Most grotesque of all, though, were the black, porcupine-like quills which had sprouted all over its body. Looking at it, Terry felt not just repulsed but uneasy. Perhaps it was the creature"s huge eyes, but it felt as though the thing was watching them broodily, as if there was a nasty little intelligence working away in there somewhere. the ugliest one so far. Terry saw it immediately amongst its suffocating brethren, and recognised it as a cod despite its hideous abnormalities. Oddly it was not flapping frantically as the other fish were, but was lying still on its stomach, its sides moving slowly in and out, almost as if it had adapted to breathe the air. Its flesh was discoloured and bulging with lumps that seemed to shift sluggishly beneath the skin, its mouth hung open, revealing small but razor-sharp teeth, and its eyes bulged as if it was glaring at its captors. Most grotesque of all, though, were the black, porcupine-like quills which had sprouted all over its body. Looking at it, Terry felt not just repulsed but uneasy. Perhaps it was the creature"s huge eyes, but it felt as though the thing was watching them broodily, as if there was a nasty little intelligence working away in there somewhere.
Although he had never been deep-sea diving, Terry knew a couple of lads who had. They came into the Mutton for a pint or two most Friday nights. The words of one of the drunken conversations he had had with them came back to him now.
He remembered them telling him that divers were more worried about cod than they were about sharks, because whereas sharks would ignore you most of the time, cod were vicious little b.u.g.g.e.rs. They would latch on to your face with their teeth if they could, then spin themselves round and round until they"d torn off a circular chunk of flesh. Terry remembered making a joke about it, telling the lads that the cod were only getting their own back for all the fish and chip suppers eaten over the years. Now, though, the recollection filled him not with amus.e.m.e.nt but alarm, and as Pete bent forward, extending a hand towards the fish, he couldn"t help blurting, "Don"t touch it!"
Pete paused and half-turned, his blue eyes drilling into Terry"s own. "What"s up wi" you? Don"t tell me you"re as much of a la.s.s as Shirley Temple here."
"No, it"s just that... you might catch summat, that"s all. We don"t know what"s wrong with it."
"Terry"s right," said Joe. "At least get yourself some gloves. I don"t like the way that b.l.o.o.d.y thing"s looking at you."
Pete shook his head, an incredulous look on his face. "I don"t believe you lot. You"re like a bunch of frightened kids.
It"s only a -"
"Look out!" Barry screeched.
Moving so swiftly that it was almost a blur, the fish launched itself at Pete. He span in surprise, hand raising instinctively to protect his face. The cod opened its mouth wide and clamped its teeth around his upraised fingers. Pete yelled in pain and fury and swung round in an arc, the fish clinging to him like some grotesque silvery glove that he was unable to shake off. It would have been funny if it hadn"t been so alarming, if the fish hadn"t then dropped some ten yards away to the deck with a squishy thud, and if Terry had not looked at Pete"s hand and seen only ragged stumps gushing blood where three of his fingers should have been.
Pete held his hand up in front of his face, his mouth wide open, and the furious roar died in his throat like a wave spending its strength on the sh.o.r.e. For a moment the sea was reflected, a dense grey, in his wide, astonished eyes before they glazed over, his eyelids flickering.
"Catch him, lads, he"s going down," Malcolm shouted, breaking the stunned silence.
Perhaps it was his skipper"s words that revived Pete, perhaps just sheer b.l.o.o.d.y-mindedness. For even as his fellow crew members moved forward, stretching out their arms to keep him upright, giving the spiny, malformed cod a wide berth as they did so, Pete roared like a battle-charged warrior and thundered towards the fish still some ten yards away.
Terry wasn"t sure what his uncle planned to do - perhaps mash the fish to pulp beneath his boots and retrieve his bitten-off fingers from its gullet. But whatever his intentions, Pete never got the chance to realise them.
The lumps that had been moving sluggishly beneath the cod"s scaly skin suddenly seemed to coalesce into a single bulbous ma.s.s at the apex of its spine. The cod opened its blood-smeared mouth and let loose a shrill and raucous cry, almost like the caw of a crow, which made Terry"s skin crawl.
Almost simultaneously the fishy lump swelled and the skin ripped open from the pressure like cheap cloth. Barry let out a squeal of horror and Terry felt a surge of fear as several long, spiny, crablike legs quickly unfurled from the rent in the creature"s back.
Pete might still have caught and crushed the thing beneath his size twelve boots if he had not stumbled to a faltering halt at the sight. The newly hatched legs stretched out, four on each side, clicking like knitting needles as they found the deck. Gaining strength, they flexed, grotesquely lifting the body a few inches upwards. They quivered for a moment, then, moving with astonishing speed, scuttled the creature away towards the prow of the boat.
"Hey!" Pete yelled, as if to a purse-s.n.a.t.c.her, and gave chase once more. It was too late. The mutant halted a few feet from the prow, bent its spiny legs in a crouch, and sprang over the side. It hit the grey water with a splash and was gone.
For a few moments n.o.body moved. They stared at the patch of churning, foamy water that briefly marked the creature"s pa.s.sing, transfixed with mouths agape and eyes wide, until the sea smoothed itself over as if to deny the existence of such a monstrosity. His voice clotted with awe and dread, Malcolm said slowly, "Twenty-eight years on the sea, and I"ve never seen anything -"
Pete interrupted him with a rattling groan. Then he keeled over face-first, crashing to the drenched, slippery deck like a felled oak.
Terry realised with a guilty start that for the past moments he had forgotten about the terrible damage to his uncle"s hand. For the first time he saw the blood pooled and spattered around Pete"s p.r.o.ne body. There was an alarming amount of it, and the wound was still pouring with blood.
Terry rushed forward, skidding to his knees beside his uncle at the same time as John Bayc.o.c.k and Joe Tye. A few moments later they were joined by Malcolm, who thrust the first aid box from the wheel house into his son"s hands. Only Barry hung back, his face ashen.
Terry had to will his hands to stop trembling in order to open the box. He took out a bottle of antiseptic, oily with fingerprints from previous mishaps, and a roll of bandage in a cellophane sheath. He tore the sheath open with his teeth and began to tug at the bandage inside, dismayed to see his own grubby fingerprints instantly soiling the pristine white gauze. He was about to pour some of the antiseptic on to the bandage when Joe Tye muttered, "What"s that stuff on his hand?"
For a guilty moment Terry thought Joe was accusing him of being unclean, but then realised he meant Pete. The big, bearded man"s breath was a rattle in his throat, his eyelids flickered, his body shook as though with fever. Perhaps it was shock or loss of blood. In a daze, Terry looked down at his uncle"s mutilated hand.
It was the blood that had swamped his attention before, but Terry now saw the "stuff" that Joe had pointed out.
Through the blood he saw that Pete"s wound was coated with a glutinous, jelly-like ooze. Terry swallowed and shuddered.
He imagined the creature disgorging the gluey substance like poison from its diseased body on to his uncle"s. Frantic to prevent the stuff from penetrating the wound, Terry yanked at a length of bandage, but it refused to tear, merely stretching instead.
John Bayc.o.c.k delved into the first aid box, grabbed a swab and began to wipe the gel away from the wound. Terry flashed him a glance of grat.i.tude, unscrewed the lid of the bottle and poured antiseptic directly on to Pete"s hand.
Semiconscious, the bearded man hissed and muttered, his body tensing momentarily.
"Easy there, big man," Joe Tye soothed with a tenderness that surprised Terry despite the circ.u.mstances.
When he was satisfied that the wound was entirely clean, John Bayc.o.c.k applied a lint dressing, holding it in place as Terry wound the bandage tightly around his uncle"s hand. He worked swiftly and carefully, trying to outpace the blood that continued to soak through the lint and the gauze and threatened to reduce his good work to a sodden red mess. As more and more bandage was applied, an almost palpable relief coursed through the men, as if hiding the terrible injury from view could somehow quell the horror of the incident that had caused it. When Terry was finished it looked as though his uncle was wearing a single white boxing glove.
"Will he be all right?" Barry murmured, stepping hesitantly forward now.
Terry shrugged and felt his dad"s hand pat him twice on the shoulder.
"Good work, son," Malcolm said in a low voice as if his words were meant for Terry alone. Then raising his voice, the skipper added, "All right, lads, keep him as comfortable as you can. I"m taking us home."
In the two weeks since he had been given his new job t.i.tle, Jack Perry had been practising the term in his head and in front of the mirror in his bedroom. "I"m an environment coordinator," he would say, qualifying the statement with a slight raising of the left eyebrow and a smug little smile. In his mind he would be at a party, sipping Pina Colada and speaking to a woman who looked like a cross between Sally Thomsett from Man About the House and that girl from the Hai Karate Hai Karate ads. The woman would gasp in admiration and her eyes would brighten with interest. Perhaps she might even lick her glossy red lips in lascivious antic.i.p.ation. ads. The woman would gasp in admiration and her eyes would brighten with interest. Perhaps she might even lick her glossy red lips in lascivious antic.i.p.ation.
It was at this point that the fantasy would begin to dissolve. If the woman enquired further, Jack would have to admit that he drove a truck for the council and that the only authority he wielded was over a bunch of moaning, long-haired students who were simply out for a bit of holiday money. Not only that but every morning at 5 a.m. he and the students - most of them hungover, or soporific from the pot they had been smoking the night before - pulled up on to the promenade, got out clad in overalls, boots and thick rubber gloves, and tramped down to the beach, laden with shovels and industrial-sized refuse sacks.
Sometimes, lying in his bed at night and hearing his widowed mother in the bedroom next door tossing restlessly in hers, Jack would wonder where it had all gone wrong.
There were no parties in his life, no Pina Coladas, no Sally Thomsett lookalikes. There were not even any friends to speak of - not real ones at any rate. Just casual acquaintances, people he knew on a superficial level: people at work; people he b.u.mped in to now and then who had been to school with him, and who, like him, had never moved away; fellow enthusiasts at the steam railway where he did voluntary work every Sunday.
If it wasn"t for his trains - his weekly pilgrimage to the railway itself, the books he spent hours poring over, the beautifully complex model rail network he had set up in the attic and which he added to constantly - he didn"t know what he"d do. Oh, he had dreams of going to parties and meeting beautiful women, of being the pivot of an uproarious circle of friends, but when it came down to it he was only ever happy in the company of his trains. His trains were a constant, his trains never let him down. The only thing that ever blighted the time he spent with them was the knowledge that sooner or later reality would impinge again, highlighting his inadequacies, crushing his spirit with its casual cruelty.
h.e.l.l is other people, he thought on this particular morning as he crunched the truck down through the gears and brought it to a shuddering halt on the seafront. Even if by some miracle he did one day meet Sally Thomsett or the Hai Hai Karate Karate girl and she did, by some far greater miracle, turn out to fancy him, he honestly doubted whether he would be able to cope. Part of him desperately wanted to be loved and accepted, but the more dominant part balked at the prospect of what that would really involve. People - girl and she did, by some far greater miracle, turn out to fancy him, he honestly doubted whether he would be able to cope. Part of him desperately wanted to be loved and accepted, but the more dominant part balked at the prospect of what that would really involve. People - real real people - were different to fantasies. They were too unpredictable, they wanted to enter into relationships that needed to be worked at, partnerships in which compromises had to be reached, sacrifices made. people - were different to fantasies. They were too unpredictable, they wanted to enter into relationships that needed to be worked at, partnerships in which compromises had to be reached, sacrifices made.
"What"s this? Offering a silent prayer to Neptune?" said a voice from the back of the truck, and Jack realised he had been daydreaming again. It had been happening with increasing regularity this past week or so, an inability to concentrate on what was happening around him, a tendency for his thoughts to drift inward. By now he was finding it difficult to keep track of conversations without his mind slipping away. It was almost impossible to settle down to read or watch TV for any length of time. Perhaps it was all to do with the fact that he"d been sleeping badly of late. His dreams had been full of dark, unsettling images that caused him to wake several times a night, sweating and gasping for breath.
The frustrating thing was, he could not recall the specifics of any of these nightmares. If something beyond his usual anxieties was bothering him, he had no idea what it was.
"Sorry, just... erm... just collecting my thoughts," he mumbled in reply and, twisting round, attempted a grin that he couldn"t help but feel sat awkwardly on his face.
The group in the back, his eight-strong workforce, four lining each interior wall of the truck, stared back at him sullenly. Jack felt sweat trickle down his forehead, moisten his armpits. At forty-four he was a good quarter-century older than every one of these boys. They made him feel dull, fat, ugly and unaccountably nervous. They made him feel like a teacher in dubious control of a cla.s.s of students who felt nothing for him but contempt, or perhaps, even worse, pity "Right," he said with hollow bonhomie, "let"s get to it then,"
and he rubbed absently at the rash that had sprung up on his arms in the past week, and which in the muggy, sweaty heat was itching more than ever.
They climbed out of the truck, carrying the paraphernalia they would need to clear the beach of rubbish left by both holidaymakers and the outgoing tide. Jack had been doing this job for a long time and had seen enough stuff washed up on the beach to put him off swimming for life. As well as the usual rubbish - bits of old fishermen"s netting, plastic bottles, rusty tins - there had been dead animals (dogs and cats mainly, and once half a horse, trailing bluish-white guts bleached of blood), syringes, surgical dressings, raw sewage and chemical drums rusted and punctured. He had never found a person, or bits of a person, but he knew one or two workers who had. Mike Salters and Craig Branch had once found the body of an old woman floating in on the tide, her face black and eyeless, shrimps and baby crabs spilling from her mouth as the waves dragged her up on to the beach. And there was talk that Tony Carver had once found a man"s decomposed head in a Sainsbury"s bag, the victim of a gangland killing whose dismembered body - minus the hands - had apparently been recovered later from a skip behind one of Tayborough Sands"s plusher hotels.
Jack adjusted his spectacles and looked out over the clay-coloured expanse of beach. Although it was already muggy, the day was still struggling to open its eyes. Dark clouds smeared the sky like old mascara. On the horizon, the rising sun was a blur of lipstick-red. As they trudged down the uneven stone steps on to the beach, a sea-breeze ruffled over them, which, while bringing welcome relief from the humidity, carried with it a stench of rotting seaweed and dead fish.
Vaguely Jack waved his troops off to cover different sections of the beach, noting that their grunts of acknowledgement were becoming surlier by the day. He ought to do something about it, he supposed, a.s.sert his authority, but he felt both too intimidated and too lethargic.
As he moved down the beach armed with his shovel and his roll of refuse sacks he noticed that one of his workers, Simon, a thin seventeen-year-old with straight blond hair cut in a pageboy style, was scratching feverishly at the crook of his elbow through his overalls, his teeth clenched in a grimace.
If it had been anyone else, Jack might not have said anything, but Simon was quiet, softly-spoken, generally polite.
"You all right?" Jack asked.
Simon looked momentarily dazed, as though Jack had sprung up from nowhere, then he blinked and nodded.
"I"ve got this rash. On my arms and across my chest. Itches like mad."
"Me too," said Jack, and felt compelled to rub at his own arms. "Must be the heat. These overalls. Make you sweat a bit, don"t they?"
He offered an uncertain smile, which wavered when Simon shook his head. "I don"t think it"s the overalls."
"Don"t you?"
"No. I think it"s this this stuff." stuff."
Simon jabbed at the sand with the toe of one booted foot.
Jack looked down and saw a few stringy clots of the strange deposit that the tide had been leaving behind for the past week or two. It was like half-set jelly, though colourless and transparent. It had been everywhere recently, each rolling wave bringing more of it up on to the sand. Jack and his team did their best to clear it from the beach, but they were fighting a losing battle. Jack held up his gloved hands and announced, "It can"t be that. If we"re careful it shouldn"t get on our skin, whatever it is."
"I know that," continued Simon, his brows crinkling in a frown, "but what if it"s giving out fumes or something and we"re breathing it in? I mean, what is this stuff? It might be some killer chemical; it could be nuclear waste for all we know. I mean, there was that thing in the paper a couple of weeks ago, wasn"t there, about that lighthouse keeper who saw some weird light come down in the sea? Why hasn"t anyone come out to investigate that? Why isn"t the government doing anything? I mean, it might have been some Russian secret weapon, mightn"t it? Maybe they"re planning to poison us all by contaminating our water. I"ve read all about that sort of stuff, chemical warfare and that." He came to a sudden breathless stop, his cheeks red, eyes wildly searching Jack"s face. Then, as though embarra.s.sed, his gaze flickered away, he turned his head and re-focused on the sea.
They stood in silence for a moment, then Jack murmured, "Maybe I ought to report it. Just to be on the safe side. I could even save some in a jar and take it to a laboratory or something."
For a moment Simon didn"t respond, then he nodded.
Dreamily he said, "The sea"s such a big place, isn"t it? I bet there"s stuff out there that no one"s ever seen."
Jack followed his gaze. His arms were itching. He shivered.
The sun was tearing itself from the water now, leaving blood on the ocean.