My progress back through what little was left of the old dockyard was interrupted. Clim was scavenging.
“Humility.” He nodded at me.
I gestured at the sack he carried. “Clim. Picked up all the useful stuff?”
“Still a few bits lying around.”
“The contractors are a messy lot.”
As I looked I could see what he’d been poking around in: heaps of discarded metal, broken tools, off-cuts, the unwanted ends of rolls of material The waste-recycler wouldn’t be here until the contractors were gone, no point calling it in before the mess was complete. Which gave people like Clim enough time to sort out the useful stuff. People like me, too. Under normal circumstances I’d have been through this waste heap once already.
Clim bent to pick up a half-used spool of tape, straightened, looked at me.
“Contractors have been messy since before even I was born. It’s what gives people like you and me a head start.”
“Meaning?”
My voice must have been sharper than I’d intended. His eyes narrowed.
“Only that their leavings cost us no credit. What you think I meant?”
I wasn’t sure. I was just remembering that he knew more about boats and dockyards than most people I knew. I shook my head. I was being paranoid.
“Nothing. Guess I’m just pissed that the boatyard’s finished and that there won’t be pickings like this left much longer.”
A good part of the Pig was fitted out with what Jack or I had found discarded around old workshops and places like this.
Clim chuckled. “Don’t you believe it. Those overdressed bits of plascrete may not look like any boat you or I would be seen dead on, but that doesn’t mean they won’t need maintenance. Give it a year and there’ll be all the gear you could want lying around. More, perhaps: folk who own boats like them don’t bother much with repairs – they just throw things out and order new.”
“And you’ll be standing around ready to catch what’s thrown?”
“Why not? If Gus knew what was good for him he’d get himself an easy cut. As it is…”
As it was, Clim enjoyed running rings round the Harbour Master and didn’t have to pay anyone for what he salvaged. Then the mischief left his face and I was reminded how old he must be, remembered that a moment ago he hadn’t straightened quite as fast as he’d used to.
“Course, way things are, we’re not likely to get much chance to profit.”
It wasn’t quite a question. I didn’t have any easy answers.
“I’m seeing Daisy this evening, when she’s off-site.”
It wasn’t much but he nodded, his face brightening as though I’d offered something of real value. “Good idea. That way it’s unofficial.”
“I can’t promise she’ll help.”
I had to add it. He was hoping for too much, expecting too much from me. I hadn’t wanted to get involved in the first place; now I felt the drag of his expectations, and Em’s and all the others’, and wanted to struggle free. If I could have taken the Pig out that moment, I would have gone.
“Something’ll work itself out, you’ll see. You just talk to that woman. She’s Company but she’s always been fair in the past, no reason for things to be different now.”
I couldn’t tell if it was himself he was reassuring or me. I didn’t believe in miracles any more. But still I hoped that Daisy’s rigid honesty could survive the pressures of a threatened job and Sheba’s pregnancy. Hoped that Daisy still had influence here.
“No reason at all.”
“Smile when you say that, girl. Here, take this. Your boat’s looking a mess.”
He handed me an almost unused can of paint. I took it. No point in asking him where he found it when none of the new boats used oil-based paints. Besides, my own stocks were low and I’d been wondering where I’d get more. And he was right about the Pig.
“Thanks. I’ll do my best with Daisy.”
“Know you will.”
He stumped off, the sack on his shoulder making him list like a ship in a gale. I knew better than to offer help.