Andrea gets up with a sense of purpose. It is early, so early that the moon is the only thing that reflects on the calm waves. But Andrea’s mind is already active with thoughts of the harbour, the concrete bareness of it. The harbour with the dolosse that look like giant hammers, stacked on top of each other to barricade the sea from pushing forward. Those bloody seagulls that shit everywhere. The revolting smell of sea guts that she loves. How here in Gansbaai the sea is not blue as in the pictures. It is grey and when the sea is moody with cramps she builds up foam that looks like someone threw a box of OMO washing powder in the sea, so that it might push the soap suds forwards to the shore.
Andrea has to get ready for work. She puts on her three pairs of socks first, followed by sweatpants. Then she puts on a T-shirt and a polo-neck jersey over it and finally her green oilskin dungarees and the black balaclava she knitted for today’s occasion. When she is finished, she goes to the kitchen and takes her lunchbox which used to be an ice-cream tub that read Country Fresh Vanilla Ice Cream on it. But the sticky label is now withered. Four slices of bread with margarine is all she needs. That is what her Pappa used to have in his lunch box.
When Andrea gets to the harbour she knows she is two hours early. The boats usually come in the harbour round about eight, but she doesn’t want to miss the skipper. She is only here for one reason. She has come to ask for her father’s work and she won’t leave until he says yes. Although the smell of fish maize stings in your nose, it is a blessed smell for the men and women working at the factory and for her. Every day they wait for the early morning hoeter to sing through the streets of Blompark to wake them up to catch the can-bus so that they can go work at the fish factory. But Andrea has never wanted to work at the can factory or by the label store. Since she was very young she wanted to be a fisherman, like Pappa.
Every day when Pappa came from the sea she waited for him on the stoep to help pull off his toboots and oil skin. He would always let her check his pockets for loose change or, if he was in a good mood, he would bring home bokkoms to be enjoyed with dry bread and a cup of coffee.
Andrea notices a boat coming into to the harbour. She notices how the seagulls are becoming restless, swarming like fleas towards the boat. She gets up quickly. She thinks she needs to get to the skipper before those bleddie seagulls. She hurries along the pier, careful not to slip as a member of the crew jumps off the boat to tie the boat. It must have been a bad day at sea, she thinks. She can see the skipper is particularly moody today. He and his manne are busy offloading equipment and some of their personal belongings, not fish like other days. But she walks over and taps him on his shoulder.
‘Ja meisiekint, what do you want? I don’t want to buy fish.’
‘Oh no, Skipper, I am not here to sell fish. I am here to ask for my father’s job.’
‘Look, I don’t think there is place for you here.’
Andrea wants to tell the skipper that she wants to be a fisherman just like her Pappa. How she has dreamt of all the sea stories Pappa told her and the people he met when they went to Mosselbaai to catch pilchards for the fish factory. When she dreamt Pappa’s stories she was one of the men at sea. She was all grown up with a beard just like Pappa’s and she had on a balaclava for the cold and toboots to match with her green oilskin just like she is wearing today. She can be like Pappa pulling in the nets through the wind and storm. She knows what a boat feels like when it is grinding through the waves. She can smoke her BB tobacco pipe and she has a strong stomach, she is used to the smell of the salt air and fish guts.
Her Pappa took her with him every Saturday to the harbour when the fishing boats lay on their sides at anchor. She and Pappa sat on the jetty with the tyres around it and listened to the seagulls’ terrible singing. They sat there with their fishing string and their rooi aas and hoped for a haarder to bite or if they were lucky a red roman fish. Pappa taught her everything about fish and water. He gave her first Okapi knife and fisher’s needle to sew up the holes in the fishing nets. She was only twelve, but by then she was just as good as Pappa. She can do this job better than any of these manne still wet behind the ears calling themselves fishermen. ‘I know the sea, Skipper,’ she wants to say. ‘I know the sea, even though you are not even looking at me and acting restless, ready to leave the harbour as soon as possible.’
‘Look,’ says Andrea, ‘don’t tell me that the sea is no place for me. I was born here. I am made from this salt I taste on my chapped lips, and my hands have caught fish for as long as I can remember. You won’t be sorry. Pappa said I must get my sea legs that you will understand our situation. Skipper mos know about Pappa? The sugar took him pretty bad and ate his leg. The sugar took him from us last year. We are eight children. I have to wear the pants in the house now. I wouldn’t ask you for a job if my grasmasjien didn’t die on me last week. I can work for myself, no problem, but I am running out of options.’
The skipper looks at Andrea. She can see she has his attention now. He waves away one of his men and looks uncomfortable. He begins to scratch his beard like he wants to say something but he doesn’t know how. He is going to tell me to go away. Even after everything I have told him, Andrea thinks. Better pull up your pants, girlie. This may be your last chance.
‘I know it is not your business. But I cannot catch enough fish to make it till the end of the week. You know with the permits and laws. Five fishes a day is not going to pay for everything,’ Andrea says, cool and calm. She is looking the skipper right in the eye now. Man to man. She will not let him ignore her or dismiss her, the way he would chase away a thieving seagull.
‘Yes but… child but–’ the skipper stutters.
‘Yes, I understand that you have never appointed someone like me. Is it my hair? I will cut it if necessary. I wouldn’t ask you if I wasn’t in the red. I know about trying to hit blood out of a rock. I have been a deckman for Oubaas Tollie when Pappa worked for him. Pappa said you and your father are good people.’
‘Why don’t you work by the fish factory? This is no place for someone like you.’
‘Skipper, I can’t work at the fish factory. I wasn’t born to be a fish packer. You should know what it is like being called to catch fish.’
‘Yes but–’
‘I know you think that I am crazy, but just give me a chance. You will see. Didn’t you buy fish from me last week? You yourself told me that you haven’t seen such good gevlekte fish since Oom Day last vlekked fish. Well, Skipper, I am his daughter and fishing is the oldest story I know. So can I start tomorrow?’
‘Look, if you interrupt me one more time I swear your ears will burn. I don’t mind you working for me.’ The skipper dropped his voice now so that only Andrea could hear, ‘But you have come at the wrong time. When last have you seen my boat on the water?’ Skipper was looking in the direction of his men busy talking to each other. To the skipper they seemed cheerful, but he knew that once he had spoken to this girl he was going to tell them the same thing he was about to tell her.
‘Runtu, my boat, is broken like your father’s leg. There is nothing I can do anymore. I am selling the boat to the owner of the fish factory and then I’m going to live with my children in Cape Town. I can’t help you, kuintjie. We are both in the same boat here. It is by God’s grace that I was out at sea today. I hoped we would be able to catch something so that I could give the men a little something as pay. But the motor cut out and we barely made it back to port. She needs a new engine, a new rudder. Wood in the stern is rotten. Her GPS doesn’t work anymore. Truth is, I can’t afford to keep her. Not with the government quotas on how much we can catch and when and what. This was Runtu’s last day at sea. I’m sorry.’
Andrea has nothing to say. She feels like a giant wave has smashed all the oxygen from her body and now all she can do is sink sink sink. Will she drown? She watches the skipper walk over to his bakkie where his men are all inside waiting for him. They drive off and Andrea still can’t move. Those men, she thinks as the bakkie disappears past the boom and car park, like her they will have to scavenge with the seagulls tomorrow. These seagulls at this harbour have no shame, shitting everywhere like they do. They never do an honest day’s work or know what it is to have hope taken from you when there is so little hope left.
Will I drown? Andrea thinks again, looking at the skipper’s boat. Soon to be firewood or used to take tourists out. Andrea puts down her rucksack and unzips it. She takes out some fishing line and a hook and some rooi aas that was left from yesterday and walks over to the jetty. No, she will not drown. Not today. She sits herself down and throws her line into the water.