Spring 1987
‘You’d do a lot worse than to marry that girl,’ Edward Behenna told his son.
‘Shuttup, Dad.’ Jesse Behenna ducked out of reach of his father’s hand as he tried to ruffle his son’s hair.
‘It would be a dream come true for your granddad,’ continued Edward as he pulled out an ancient wooden chair, scraping its legs across the worn red tiles before seating himself at the kitchen table opposite his younger son.
‘If he were still alive,’ murmured Jesse.
Jesse’s mother, Jan, slid the tray of pasties she’d been making into the top oven of the Aga; she banged the door shut and swung round. ‘Edward, don’t start all this again,’ she warned him, irritated.
But Edward hardly seemed to hear her. ‘I promised my dad, as he promised ’is father afore ’im, that I’d do all I could to build the business and make Behenna’s Boats the biggest fleet in Trevay.’
‘And you have, Dad,’ Jesse assured him. ‘Behenna’s is the biggest fishing fleet on the north coast of Cornwall.’
Edward nodded, but a frown marred his lined face. The pressures of running the business were very different from those of his father’s day. This year, the European Union had really become involved and laws were being passed governing fishing quotas for member states. Cornwall and Devon MPs had tabled questions in the Commons about their impact on their fishing industry. How could they all hope to keep going in this climate, when the government was impounding vessels and fining their owners? This interference, along with upstarts like Bryn Clovelly screwing them for every penny down at the fish market, were driving some fishermen to the wall.
The old ways were dying. Small fleets were struggling to remain at sea and Edward knew that it was the likes of Clovelly who represented the future. Edward’s father had fished these waters for fifty years, man and boy. Sometimes his fish would be bought by a fishmonger from somewhere as exotic as Plymouth, but Clovelly saw the swollen wallets of the flash London City boys as rich pickings; he was buying monkfish for restaurants in Chelsea and exporting scallops to New York.
‘Aye, it is. I’ve been working the boats since I was fourteen and left school. I didn’t have your education.’
Edward knew he was a good fisherman, one of the best, but being an entrepreneur, like Bryn Clovelly, was beyond him. Behenna’s Boats had provided a good living for many families up to now, but carrying on as a lone operation was looking like an increasingly risky option. Clovelly would love nothing more than to add a big share in the Behenna fleet to his portfolio and Edward was finding his offer harder and harder to resist. He knew there were men with fewer scruples than he who would bite Clovelly’s hand off for a deal such as the one he was offering.
‘I’m only staying on to do O levels,’ Jesse reminded Edward. ‘Then I’m full time working at sea on the fleet. But when I’m a bit older and I’ve saved up a bit, I’m off travelling.’
His father looked at him as if he’d just said he was off to buy a Ferrari. ‘Go travelling? Travelling? There’s more to find in your own home town than you’d ever find travelling.’
‘Oh, that’s right. I’d forgotten. There’re the Hanging Gardens of Bodmin, The Pyramids of Porthleven, The Colossus of St Columb … Cleopatra’s Needle up Wadebridge. Silly me.’
Edward scowled at his son. ‘That’s enough of yorn lip, boy. You’re the next generation. Greer Clovelly is a lovely girl and the only child Bryn and his lah-di-dah wife ever managed. Poor sod, never ’ad a son. Poor me, I got two and neither of them any bleddy good.’
‘Leave off mithering the poor lad. He’s only sixteen. He’s got ideas of his own,’ Jan said.
‘I knew by his age that you were the one for me,’ Edward told her, and Jan groaned inwardly as Edward played his familiar riff. ‘As soon as I saw you, twelve and lookin’ like an angel, I said to my mate, “There’s the girl I’m gonna marry”.’
‘Yeah and, more fool me, I did marry you.’
Edward caught Jan’s hand as she walked from the Aga to the sink. ‘No regrets though, maid? No regrets?’
Jan felt the warmth of her husband’s rough and calloused hand on hers and wondered. She’d had plans to travel to the Greek Islands and sleep on the beach under the stars, like the character she’d read about in a book once. The last book she’d read. Must be more than twenty years ago. But Edward had wooed her into submission and she never did send off the passport application form that had sat on her mother’s dresser for two years after she’d married. For their honeymoon, Edward had taken her to Exeter and they’d seen a rep production of The Mousetrap. Edward had promised her that the next show they’d see would be in Paris. Almost twenty years on and they still hadn’t made that trip.
She stooped and dropped a kiss on her husband’s weatherbeaten forehead, feeling the spikes of his overgrown eyebrows tickling her chin. Edward Behenna would now be more likely to see the surface of the moon than the insides of the Folies Bergère. She smiled. ‘No regrets my ’andsome.’ She straightened up. ‘But that don’t mean to say you can dictate what Jesse’s future is going to be.’
Edward let go of her hand and turned his attention back to Jesse. ‘Greer is a lovely girl. Clever, beautiful, and comes from a good family.’
Jesse gave his father a glare. ‘I’m not marrying someone so that you can do a business deal.’
‘What are you talking about? Business deal? Who said anything about business? I’m just saying she’s a lovely girl.’ Edward looked at his son with a patient, innocent smile. Bryn Clovelly was a sharp operator. For all of his talk about a merger, Edward knew that selling a share of the business to him was a risk. However, Bryn had no boys of his own. Like Edward himself, and most vain men, Bryn was desperate for his business not to die with him. If Jesse and Greer were married, it would ensure that Behenna’s Boats was safe and Bryn would have himself a son-in-law from one of Trevay’s oldest fishing families. They were building a dynasty. But Jesse seemed to have other ideas. Edward got a hot itch on the back of his thinning scalp when he thought about selling his son’s future off to the highest bidder.
‘She may be, but I’m not marrying her. If you want to do business with old man Clovelly, do it yourself, but leave me out of it.’
‘An’ what’s the matter with lookin’ to the future?’ Edward spread his hands, fingers splayed, on the old table, his extraordinary eyebrows raised in innocence.
‘Plenty.’ Jesse dropped his head and stared at his lap.
‘Oh, now,’ cajoled his father. ‘You’re not bleating about that other girl, whatshername …’
Jesse’s mother took her hands out of the sink and wiped the suds on her apron.
‘Edward, leave him alone. Loveday Carter is a really nice girl. Jesse would be happy with her. Let the boy fall in love with whoever he wants.’
‘Her mother hasn’t got a pot to piss in, and anyway, what’s love got to do with it? He doesn’t know what love is.’ Edward was exasperated.
‘But you did, or so you say,’ Jan threw back. ‘And stopped me from having a bit of life in the bargain.’
‘Oh, you and your life.’ Jesse recognised the brewing of a row and his father didn’t disappoint him. ‘You didn’t have a life till I took you on. You’ve wanted for nothing since we married. I’m a good man. I’m not a drinker or a womaniser.’
‘And I’m supposed to be grateful for the fact that life now starts and ends at Trevay harbour sheds, am I?’
Edward stood up. ‘There’s no talking to you when you get in one of your moods like this. You sound like your mother, and she was a miserable old cow. I’m going back to work.’
‘But the pasties’ll be ready in a minute.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
In the simmering silence that remained after Edward had stomped out of the door and into the spring sunshine of Fish Lane, Jan stood for a moment in powerless frustration. Edward had set his mind on securing the future of the fishing fleet, and if that meant arranging a marriage between Jesse and Greer Clovelly, heiress to the Clovelly Fisheries Company, then that would be it, no matter what Jesse wanted.
She ran her thin hands through her short hair and bent to get the pasties out of the oven.
‘They’re hot,’ she said needlessly, serving one to Jesse.
‘Thanks, Mum.’
She put one onto a plate for herself and, wiping her hands on the tea towel that was perpetually tucked into her apron, sat opposite her son.
‘Eat,’ she told him. Jesse did so. After a couple of mouthfuls, she asked. ‘So … is it Loveday?’
Jesse shuffled a bit in his seat. With a full mouth he said, ‘I dunno.’
‘But it’s not Greer?’
‘How do I know? I’m sixteen. I want to see the world before I decide on anything. I’ve got my own mind and my own life.’
Jan nodded in understanding. It was one thing encouraging Jesse in a particular direction, but quite another thing to put all this pressure on the poor lad.
‘I’ll ask your dad to back off.’
*
‘Bloody ungrateful kids.’ Edward was on his boat, The Lobster Pot, checking the trawl nets with his old friend and ship’s mechanic, Spencer. ‘He doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. Does he think I wanted to take on the fleet from my dad? No I bloody didn’t. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me.’ He looked up from his work and surveyed the harbour around him. ‘Look at this place.’ He swept an arm dramatically across the view. ‘Trevay is the most beautiful place on earth. What’s he think he’s going to find anywhere else? Answer me that.’
Spencer moved his stained and smouldering hand-rolled cigarette from one corner of his gnarled mouth to another and made a noise that sounded as if he was in agreement. Edward continued: ‘Fifteen boats we’ve got in the fleet now. Fifteen! If my dad hadn’t been so canny after the war and bought them first few cheap from those poor fishing widows whose husbands had never come home from the Navy, we’d still have the arses hanging out of our trousers.’
Spencer gave another grunt.
‘You and me, Spencer, you and me, we know how the world works. Hard work brings good things. Not nancying around doing yer O levels and packing yer spotted handkerchief to go travelling. What’s that about?’
As inscrutable as ever, Spencer peeled the damp cigarette from his lips and revealed a handful of tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Want a brew, Skip?’
Edward stopped what he was doing and looked at his old friend as if for the first time.
‘See. You’ve seen it all, haven’t you, Spence? I’ll have a cup of tea with you and then, when we’ve finished here, I’ll take you for a pint. How does that sound?’
Spencer went below decks to the galley and Edward could hear the comforting sounds of the pop as the gas was lit and the rattle of the old kettle as Spencer banged it on the hob. Edward took another look at the fishing village that had been his home from birth. The gulls were cackling above him and the May sunshine made mirrors of the water on the mudflats. ‘Bloody kids,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Bloody women.’ He rubbed the thick gold wedding band on his finger. ‘Bloody Jan.’
He took a deep breath of the salty Cornish air and thought about his boys. Grant a bloody liability, and Jesse a dreamer. What had he done to deserve them? He loved them. Of course he did, but why didn’t they do what he told them? When his dad had told him to jump, he’d asked how high. When his dad got ill and Edward had had to take on the fleet aged only eighteen, he’d had no choice. Sink or swim. He’d chosen to swim. He’d shut the door on the dreams he’d had to go to America. He’d taken on his responsibilities. He’d swallowed his resentment and done the right thing. Why the hell wouldn’t Jesse?
*
Jesse knew he should be in his room revising for the imminent O levels, but he couldn’t see the point. He’d be leaving school in June and joining his dad at sea. He knew how lucky he was to have a job, and he loved the sea but … oh, there were so many buts. He took his Levi denim jacket off one of the pegs by the back door and kissed his mum, who was now setting up the ironing board.
‘You going out, son?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Up the sheds.’
‘Shouldn’t you be doing some school work?’
‘What’s the point, Mum?’ He bent and kissed her cheek to stop her from asking any more. ‘See ya.’
He was out of the back door leaving his mother to watch him, shrugging on his beloved denim jacket, slipping his Sony Walkman headphones on his ears and retreating down the short front garden path. She heard the little gate click shut for the nth time in her life; on her own, again. She worried about her boys and their future. Grant was in the Royal Marines now, stationed in Plymouth. Last time he called he said he was going for Commando Training at Lympstone. Ever since he was 16, fuelled by the nightly bulletins reporting the Falklands War, he’d wanted to wear the Green Beret of a commando. Now, at 21, this was his chance to earn it. Grant had been a handful from the off. His unpredictable mood swings had always marked him out. It could be like treading on eggshells living under the same roof as him, and school had been one long round of visits to successive heads. He’d left school with only one exam pass to his name, in metalwork. He was lucky that the army recruiting officer had seen something in him beyond the defensive, edgy character that he conveyed.
‘We’ll smooth the rough edges off him, Mrs Behenna,’ he told her.
She was proud of him, of course, but fearful about the dangers he would face in any war, and of those dark moods which had got him into trouble with the police already. He was such a contrast to Jesse, who was calm and steady, but still waters ran deep with Jesse – Jan knew that there was much more to him than his father gave him credit for. At least Jesse would be safe at home, working with his dad and groomed to take over the business. But what if Edward’s plans to marry him off to Greer Clovelly came about? Jesse would be stuck in a loveless marriage, burdened with the responsibility of a very big business and no chance to see the world and enjoy his freedom. Just like she’d been.
‘Stop it, Jan,’ she said into the silence. ‘Just stop it.’ She plugged in the old iron, turning on the radio for her daily infusion of The Archers as she waited for it to warm up.
Jesse was still just a boy. Let him have his dreams; there was time enough to be a man.
*
Jesse left the cool of the narrow lane of terraced fisherman’s cottages, and was walking up the hill away from Trevay and towards St Peter’s, the fishermen’s church. The graveyard slumbered in the warm sun and delicate white cow parsley heads shuddered in the light breeze, making shadow patterns over the cushions of forget-me-nots growing beneath them. He always glanced at his grandfather’s grave as he passed. Today its granite headstone glittered like a smile. Jesse touched his brow and saluted his grandfather before carrying on up the hill towards the sheds.
The sheds were a series of around thirty to forty home-built wooden structures, owned by the people of the town who had no garages attached to their houses, which, since most of the houses were built long before the motor car was invented, was the majority. The sheds had started as makeshift stables and boat-houses but now contained all the detritus of modern living. It was a kind of shanty town sited on a two-acre plot of flattened mud and sand. Opposite the sheds, some of which were now two storeys, stood a long line of boats of all kinds. Dinghies, clinker boats, fishing boats, rotting hulks, along with trailers of varying sizes on which the boats could be towed down the hill, through the town and down the harbour slipway into the water. At the entrance to the sheds was the second of only two public phone boxes in Trevay. The other box was down on the quay. Every resident knew the number of these boxes and regular calls were made between the two to give a shout to the lifeboat crew or call a man home for his tea.
Jesse walked past the phone box, kicking up a little sandy dust as he did so. He looked over to his father’s shed, which had expanded over the years and was now a run of four sheds linked together. On the upper floor were the words Behenna Boat Yard est. 1936, painted in fading blue and white letters.
He saw Mickey before Mickey saw him. His best friend since nursery school, Mickey Chandler was the person Jesse shared everything with. Mickey was standing outside his own family’s smaller shed, unlocked now with its doors wide open to the sun, and was polishing the chrome of his pride and joy: a two-year-old Honda moped, a present from his family and friends for his recent sixteenth birthday.
Jesse lengthened his stride, taking the headphones from his ears and calling, ‘Hey.’ Mickey stood up and shielded his eyes with the hand holding the stockinet duster; Jesse could smell the metal cleaner on it.
‘Hey,’ he replied.
Jesse was now close enough to give his best mate a punch on the arm, which was returned with equal force and affection.
‘I thought you were revising,’ Mickey said, returning to his polishing.
‘I thought you were too.’
‘Waste of fuckin’ time, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. Want a snout?’
‘Please.’
Jesse pulled a crumpled packet of Player’s No. 6 out of his pocket and offered one to Mickey.
‘Ta.’
‘You got a light?’
‘No. Have you?’
‘No.’
‘Shit.’
Both boys pondered on the dilemma of having cigarettes but no means of smoking them. Mickey laughed first. ‘You’re bloody useless, Behenna.’
Jesse grabbed his friend in a headlock and they scuffled contentedly for several minutes.
Eventually they stopped
‘Bike’s looking good,’ Jesse told him.
‘Got my test next week.’
‘Gonna pass?’
‘Of course.’
‘Can I come out with you?’
‘Sure. I’m gonna ask Loveday out when I’ve got me licence.’
Jesse’s heart flipped at the sound of Loveday’s name. Mickey was in love with Loveday and had never made any secret of it. Jesse had never admitted to Mickey that the mention of her name, let alone the sight of her, was enough to shoot a flame of desire and longing coursing through his body.
‘Her arse is too big for the seat,’ he observed.
Mickey smiled. ‘Yeah. And what an arse. Imagine having her arms around you, holding tight, pressing those big boobs against your shoulder blades.’
Jesse could imagine all too clearly, but said only, ‘Fill your boots, boy.’