The Porthellis fleet put to sea in the early hours of Wednesday. The sky was empty with angry splashes of grey, as if the stormy weather had washed and boiled it but had failed to take out its sulky stains. The fishermen muttered every phrase they knew to ward off ill fortune as they headed south-west of the Dodman.
On the Misty, Mitch sharpened his knife until it was sharp enough to shave with and sliced pilchards into five or six pieces for bait. He threw salt over the bait while his father and Uncle Terence gazed anxiously at the sea and sky for signs of a gathering storm or a descending fog, knowing from years of experience that conditions could quickly worsen.
An hour and three-quarters out, Jeff called to Josh in the wheelhouse to bring the bows of the lugger due east and ventured a trial shoot over the churning waters, something that was always done after poor weather, to see if there were any dogfish about. Jeff shot a line of two hundred hooks in one dextrous movement, curving it through the salt-laden air, clearing a hook swiftly if it looked as if it would foul. It took a steady arm and wasn’t for the indecisive. They waited half an hour, watching and praying for the telltale grey-green shapes of spur-dogfish but saw nothing but oily rags thrown overboard by another boat. When they hauled in the line they found no fish. Jeff cursed and Josh opened up Misty’s engines. Mitch had thought it too early to try the line, all the other luggers had sailed on nearly out of sight, but he kept his counsel.
‘Keep her heading up into the tide,’ Jeff shouted at Josh. He took a cigarette from his nephew, Morley, and as he lit up he glared at the rest of the crew. ‘We’ll have to go out Saturday to catch up on lost time and money.’
Mitch nodded sombrely and where necessary rebaited the hooks on the line that had been shot. There had been no need for his father to make that statement, all the boats would go out at the weekend; Jeff Spargo was being quarrelsome owing to a splitting headache courtesy of a hangover. Mitch had known on Sunday night when the gale had breached the cove that his hopes of going down to Newlyn to see Viv the following Saturday were lost. He had taken meals at the boarding house, as she had offered, but the moment he paid his shilling she made it clear that she wanted him to leave.
The last time Mitch had seen Viv was two weeks ago at the end of the pilchard drive and she had been tired and angry. ‘Stop bleddy moaning to me,’ he’d heard her shrieking in the passage at one of the lodgers. ‘You ungrateful sodding swine. I do my best. You don’t pay the rent most weeks anyway. If you don’t like it, bugger off somewhere else!’
The lodger, a ferret-faced man, none too clean, had been about to shout back when Mitch had opened the kitchen door. The lodger took one look at him and slammed out of the front door.
‘Come and sit down, Viv,’ Mitch had said kindly. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she retorted irritably, pushing unceremoniously past him. ‘You pay for your meals and drink.’
‘I don’t mind, really.’
Viv flopped down on a chair, tears in her eyes.
‘Were you hoping to see Daniel?’ He had noticed her getting more and more grouchy at Daniel’s non-appearance. Mitch wished he could tell her that Daniel was with a tarty blonde who’d been waiting for him near the quay, but he didn’t want to sound like a telltale.
‘I don’t think Daniel cares for me,’ she said forlornly.
‘I care for you, Viv.’ He knelt beside her, taking her small rough hands in his. ‘Why not give me a chance instead?’
‘Oh, stop it, Mitch.’ She snatched her hands away. ‘Don’t be kind to me or you’ll make me cry.’
‘What’s the matter?’ He tried a different approach. ‘Are you feeling poorly? You look tired and pale.’
She looked into his eyes for a moment then raised her hands despairingly. ‘It’s everything, it’s this place, I hate it. It’s such a dump. No matter how hard I try I can’t keep it nice and no one appreciates all my work. I’m so tired, so fed up. I thought I had a future with Daniel, but he… he…’ She couldn’t finish and burst into tears.
Mitch put his hand gently on the back of her head and she leaned forward and sobbed on his shoulder. Mitch had thought he was in with a chance at last and had written four letters after they’d brought the boat home, but there had been no reply. He felt despondent and was on a short fuse today. He wished he could get far away from his father whom he was beginning to hate with all his heart.
Jeff had been watching him. ‘Look at un,’ he said scathingly to Morley. ‘Bloody lovesick now he can’t see that red-headed Hickey maid at Newlyn.’
Mitch gave his father a murderous look and Morley interjected hastily, ‘I don’t blame him, Uncle Jeff, she’s a sweet little thing.’
‘Yah,’ Jeff spat on the deck. ‘Was a sweet little thing, you mean. Daniel Kittow’s being getting his leg over that one.’ Mitch made to rear at his father but Terence grasped his arm. ‘Ignore him,’ he whispered harshly. ‘There’s more important things at stake than your love life.’
Mitch felt like tossing his father into the cold, surging sea but he clamped his mouth tight and moved to the other end of the boat.
Josh steered slowly back to the first dan and the rest of the crew went for their crib.
‘Hope we don’t hit hitchy ground,’ Terence said conversationally in the cabin as he opened his crib tin.
‘Not bloody heavy cake again,’ Jeff scowled as he unpacked his allowance. ‘Stupid cow, can’t she get anything right? I told her to put in yeast or seed cake for a sodding change. What have I got to do? Bake it myself?’
Terence Spargo had never had the guts to stand up to his elder brother. If he didn’t agree with one of Jeff’s heated statements he scarpered quickly, doing so now by taking his food and a mug of tea up to Josh in the wheelhouse. Like a puppy, Morley followed him, not wanting to hear the ranting and raving his uncle subjected them to when he was in one of his foul moods.
‘Don’t talk about Mother like that,’ Mitch growled angrily the moment he and his father were alone.
‘Mind your bleddy lip,’ Jeff hurled at him, then clutched his pounding head; he cursed Maggie Curnow for refilling his tankard too many times last night then complaining because he couldn’t ‘perform’. He’d have to sort her out. ‘Bleddy women, they’re all useless bitches. Your sister’s just as bad, always mooning about the house with her head in the clouds. Going off her bleddy head, if you ask me.’
‘But Leah’s beginning to come out of herself,’ Mitch protested. He hated the fact that his father never had a good word for any woman in the family except his cantankerous grandmother. ‘She quite often goes to Sarah’s, Naomi’s or Aunty Janet’s these days.’
‘Don’t mention that cow to me.’ Jeff tore off a chunk of cheese, stuffed it in his mouth, spitting out crumbs as he continued his abuse. ‘Pity I couldn’t turn her out of the village along with the bitch who lived with her.’
Suddenly Mitch could stand it no longer. ‘For goodness sake!’ He slammed his fist on the table between them. ‘Stop going on and on about Hannah. She’s your daughter, how can you go on treating her like this? She’s your own flesh and blood. It’s evil, you’ve got no bloody right to say those things about her. You’re a cruel and rotten bloody swine!’
Jeff rushed round the table and grasping Mitch by the throat thrust him back against the bunks. ‘How dare you speak to me like that, you young bastard! She killed your little brother, or have you forgotten that?’
Hearing the furious voices, Terence and Morley darted back into the cabin, closely followed by Josh. Alarmed by the violent rage on his brother’s face, Terence shouted at him, ‘Let him go, Jeff, you’re choking him.’
‘Choking him? I gave him life and I’ll bleddy well kill him for what he just said to me.’
Finding strength in his anger, Mitch threw his father off him. Jeff’s back hit the table with a sickening thump and he crumpled to the cabin floor.
‘It wasn’t Hannah!’ Mitch screamed at the top of his voice, shaking from head to foot, totally out of control. ‘We all could have been to blame that day, we all wanted to go out in the Wynne. But it was me! It was my fault the boat turned over and Edwin was drowned. I did it. It wasn’t Hannah! It wasn’t her fault and you had no right to blame her all these years.’
Jeff had clambered to his feet and with his hands outstretched, his face as dark as thunder, he went again for Mitch’s throat. Terence and Morley pounced on him and with Josh’s help the three men managed to hold Jeff off.
Glaring into his father’s black eyes, Mitch went on, ‘We were in the boat and me and Fred Jose were larking around, pulling Eileen and Hannah’s hair. Then I suggested we put itching powder down their backs. It made the girls jump up in pain and that’s when the boat became unsteady and turned over. It was my fault entirely. If I hadn’t started the prank we would all have got safely to Hidden Beach and then Daniel was going to make the girls and Edwin walk home, there would have been no accident and Edwin and Eileen would be alive today.’
‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ Jeff accused him, still struggling to get out of the others’ combined grasp. ‘Are you a coward, boy?’
‘No, I’m not a coward but I’m afraid of you, Father. All your children are, even Josh. You’ve brought us up by bullying and threatening us. As a twelve-year-old boy I was afraid that if you could beat Hannah and throw her out of the house, what would you have done to me?’ Mitch’s eyes narrowed to slits and he raised his chin and pointed at Jeff. ‘But now I wish I’d spoken up all those years ago and laid the guilt of the accident at my own door and your dreadful behaviour to Hannah at yours. You had no reason to blame her, you just picked on her as you have done all her life. You’re a totally evil man and I hate you and Grandmother both. If you don’t mend your wicked ways you’ll both deserve to burn in Hell for your cruelty. And before you throw me out of the house, I’ve made up my mind I’m going. The minute I step off this boat I’m packing my bags and I’ll be out of Porthellis for good.’
Jeff Spargo looked as if a tornado had hit him. For a moment his body sagged as if all his strength had left him, then his face contorted in pain and began to turn blue. He clutched his chest. ‘C-can’t breathe…’
‘Quick, cut the lines free and head back for shore,’ Terence shouted fearfully. ‘He’s having a heart attack.’