Next morning there’s still no sign of Ben. Paul puts his ear to the door, but there’s no sound. But at least he’s eating – he’s checked and the foil containers from the Indian are in the bin, and there’s a dirty spoon and fork in the dishwasher. While he was at it, he checked the knife rack too, then told himself off for being so daft.
He bangs on the door with the flat of his hand. ‘Oy! Sleepy head! Fancy going out later? Maybe go to the travel agents, see if there’s any last-minute offers – what do you think?’
Nothing. He tries the handle, but it’s locked of course.
‘I’m making a cup of tea if you fancy one,’ he says, wondering how long the lad’s going to keep this up.
He wanders through to the kitchen and fills the kettle. If he doesn’t bring the lad any food, he’ll have to come out. Then maybes they can go down the Mission for breakfast and have a bit of a natter and that will get them back on a more even keel.
The buzzer for the door goes just as he’s settling on the sofa with a cup of tea and reaching for the remote. It’ll be the postie, he guesses, buzzing whoever it is in and hearing the lift trundling down to the ground floor. He leaves the door open and goes back to turn the telly on.
‘Hello! Anyone home?’ A woman’s voice at the door.
Paul turns round in surprise. But it’s not a woman’s voice. It’s that Laura creature. What the fuck is she – he, it. What the fuck is it doing here?
‘You’re not seeing Ben, if that’s what you’re after,’ he says.
‘Actually it was you I wanted to see.’
‘Well I don’t want to see you, so you can just turn round and fuck off back where you came from. You’re lucky I don’t report you to the police – for corrupting a minor. In fact why don’t I just do that right now?’
He opens the drawer and takes out the Yellow Pages and that DNA letter’s right there, underneath, grinning up at him.
‘Don’t be daft,’ Laura says. ‘There’s no need for that. I’m not stopping long.’
‘Too right.’
‘This isn’t about the film, by the way.’
‘I don’t care what it’s about.’
‘It’s about Ben’s therapy.’
Paul snorts. ‘Funny sort of therapy, hypnotizing people and putting weird ideas in their heads.’
‘Ben needs help, whether you like it or not.’ Laura comes right into the room and sits down on the sofa. ‘How’s he coping?’
Paul stands by the door, glaring at her. ‘Coping with what?’
‘With you kicking away all his supports, of course. Banning him from seeing his therapist slap bang in the middle of the healing process.’
Healing process my arse, Paul thinks. Stirring up process more like. ‘He’ll be fine,’ he says. ‘I’ll take him on holiday and he’ll forget all about it.’
She leans back and crosses her legs; she’s got ankle boots and shocking pink tights on for fuck’s sake. ‘Wanting a sex change isn’t something you can just switch off, Paul. I tried for years – even got married to a lass. But it was hopeless. “I yam what I yam,” as Popeye used to say.’
‘Well Ben’s not like you, thank God.’
‘How do you know? Have you asked him? Have you ever sat down with him and actually asked how he feels about being a lad?’ Paul crosses his arms and stares her down. If she’s expecting an answer, she’s not getting one. She sighs. ‘Children have been known to top themselves when they’ve been refused the operation, did you know that?
‘Yeah. The doc threatened me with that when she convinced me to go along with her so-called therapy in the first place. I should probably report her too, for blackmail or something. Threatening behaviour.’
‘Well,’ she says, getting up. ‘I’ve said my piece so I’ll be off. You mind you look after that lad of yours.’
After he’s closed the door – well, there’s no way he can just sit calmly watching the telly waiting for Ben to show his face. So he grabs his jacket and heads down the Fish Quay for breakfast.
Them marine biology students are in the Seamen’s Mission when he goes in, sat by themselves eating beans on toast, for fuck’s sake. Must be vegetarian, something pansy like that. Macrobiotic.
Seeing them reminds him about dropping in on that Dove Marine Laboratory to find out what’s going on with the flatties. All that business with the filming’s put it right out of his head. So when he’s finished his fry up, he drives out along the coast road to Cullercoats.
The Dove place is an old red-brick building, like an old-fashioned school-house, nestled under the cliff just above the beach; weird little building, been there for yonks. He presses an entryphone thingie and says he’s come about the research on the flat fish. Inside, once he’s buzzed in, a studenty-looking lass in jeans appears at the top of a wooden staircase and clatters down to meet him.
‘Have you got an appointment?’ she asks, all smiles and big teeth.
‘I’m a skipper from Shields harbour,’ says Paul brusquely – because there’s no way he’s going along with any appointment crap. ‘I want to know what this research is all about.’
Her smile fades and you can see her shifting gears. ‘I’ll see if Dr Markham can see you,’ she says stiffly. ‘Only she’s a bit busy at the moment.’
She’s expecting him to stay down in the hall, like a good doggie, but he follows her up the stairs to a lab room kitted out in white melamine. An old biddy in a white coat is sorting through a cool box full of plaice, sluicing them down in the sink then laying them out, overlapping, on the draining board like plates.
‘So what’s happening with them plaice?’ Paul asks when she looks up. ‘That’s my livelihood you’re poking into.’
Credit where it’s due: once she’s found out who he is, she’s very civil; shakes his hand, offers him a seat, sends toothy off to make him a cuppa. Then she talks him through what she’s doing – which is basically looking at the bollocks of male flatfish to see if they’re turning into females.
She cuts one open to show him: decent male plaice, good colour, nice and plump. ‘These are the testes,’ she says, spreading out the contents of the gut cavity and separating out a pair of palish pink blobs. ‘See how swollen and lumpy they are? They should be elongated and smooth, a quarter that size. It’s one manifestation of a process called “feminization”,’ she explains. ‘When we examine the blood of these creatures, we find traces of a substance known as vitellogenin, which is a yolk protein that’s normally only found in female fish.’
Paul suppresses a shudder. ‘So what’s causing it?’ he asks.
‘People used to blame the contraceptive pill – women excrete the oestrogens and they end up in the sea. But we now know that pollution from paint and plastics manufacture is far more damaging. You probably remember when TBT was banned a few years ago – that was why.’
Paul nods. TBT was the paint they used to keep barnacles off the hull. Bloody brilliant stuff. He and the lads stockpiled it for months when they heard it was going to be banned.
‘This feminization,’ he says, ‘does it stop the fish breeding?’ He’s staring at the pink blobs and even he can see they’re not right.
‘They still produce some milt, but we’re seeing a lot of abnormal sperm – as you might expect – with huge misshapen heads, two tails instead of one, that sort of thing. And cell growth around the tails that prevents them swimming.’
Which freaks Paul out a bit, actually. Because he’s heard the odd rumour on the news, but this is a bit too close to home. Is it the stuff they’ve been painting on the boats that’s caused the problem with his sperm?
When Paul gets back to the flat, there’s still no sign of Ben, but his wetsuit’s gone from the spare room, so it looks like he’s gone for a swim. More of that freediving nonsense, most likely. But he can’t get into much trouble just holding his breath, can he? It’s not like being twenty metres down with a tank and your air line getting blocked.
He changes into his tracksuit, thinking he might go for a jog to clear his head, but after that breakfast he’s not sure he can face it. Might be better to sort out a proper exercise routine, he thinks, lacing up his trainers: every morning first thing, maybe, whenever he’s not on the boat. Start like you mean to go on.
Truth is, that plaice business is really getting to him – like it’s a curse or a punishment or something. Least that’s what the old lads down the Mission would say. Though what it’s a punishment for, he’s no idea. But that’s typical of some of the old blokes. Now they’re out of it, it’s easy to myther on about what everyone else is up to.
God, the fuss they made when the twin-rigs started coming in! Well they were right, in a way, considering what happened with the prawn grounds last year – those Scots and Irish twin-riggers hammered them to death. Still, the old lads are stuck in the Dark Ages, with all their superstitions. Can’t set off if a woman says goodbye; can’t carry your boots with the toes pointing up; can’t wear anything green. It’s a wonder they ever got to sea at all. Can’t even mention the word ‘pig’, for fuck’s sake. What’s that about?
Still, when you look at those plaice with their weird innards, it gives you the fucking heebie-jeebies.