‘Show me what you’re looking for. I will help you.’
Rory groaned. ‘I just want to get the work done and go home. Is that too much to ask?’
‘I’m a fast learner,’ Fionn argued. ‘I can help you get it done thrice as fast.’
Rory’s expression told Fionn that he was very doubtful. But he took the creel from Fionn’s hand and opened the latch anyway.
‘This one’s good, mature, healthy. That one’s too small…’
In a somewhat gruff, halting manner, Rory talked Fionn through the logic behind what went into his catch and what got thrown back in the sea. ‘Bycatch’ was the word he used for creatures caught in the trap that he wasn’t fishing for, and they got released straight away.
They moved onto the next creel and this time Rory stood aside for Fionn to haul it up.
‘Go on then, if you’re so keen,’ he muttered, handing Fionn the rope.
Fionn did so with pride. He took the opportunity to show off his superior strength, dragging up the line far faster than Rory had. To his chagrin, Rory gave a shout when the creel pot flew out of the water and bounced against the hull.
‘Bloody careful!’ Rory snatched the rope back off him.
Reluctantly, Rory allowed Fionn to have a go at sorting the catch from this pot. But he grabbed Fionn’s wrist just as he was about to put a fat female lobster into the tub.
‘What’s wrong now?’ Fionn all but whined, fed up with being derailed.
Rory gently prised the lobster from his fingers and lifted her tail. ‘She’s berried, see?’ Thousands of black, pinhead-sized eggs covered her abdomen.
Fionn’s brow creased. Didn’t Rory know what they were? ‘Those are her eggs, not berries. They are her spawn. She carries them until—’
Rory burst out laughing. ‘You’re not trying to teachme,are you? I know what they are, you feckin’ idiot. Jesus.’
With care, Rory dropped the female lobster back into the Minch. ‘We don’t pick the berried ones.’
‘Why not? The eggs are very nutritious. I’ve recently learned about some good recipes—’
Rory cut him off with a Look. ‘You eat them, do you? Good for you. And what are you and all the other mermen doing for the sustainability of lobster populations in these parts?’
‘The what?’ The clay tablets hadn’t mentioned anything about that, and Fionnhatedto admit when he didn’t know something. So he didn’t. ‘Actually, we do a great deal.’
‘Oh, yeah? Like what?’
Suddenly on the spot, Fionn grasped for anything substantial from the cloud of trivia he’d learned the day before. ‘We farm them.’
‘Great. So what you’re saying is that us lot fishing up here are competing with you lot for supply? How many years before we’ve wiped them out then, d’you reckon?’ Rory’s tone was sardonic, but some underlying bitterness shone through.
Fionn cast around the deck of this tiny fishing vessel and tried his very hardest to put himself in Rory’s human shoes. ‘Do you worry that one day you will be unable to make a living this way?’
‘Ha.’ It wasn’t really a laugh. More like Rory was reacting to a snide remark. ‘Sure. But that’s the way of it. Business is shit. Humans, too.’
He moved to the rope and began hauling the next creel.
Fionn sidled round to peer at him more closely. He wished Rory had tattoos that he could read. It would be so much simpler if humans detailed their experiences on their skin like Minchmen. So much easier to strike up a conversation if he knew from the outset they had something in common—like with Neacel and his victory over the kelpie. How tiresome to have to pay so muchattentionall the time.
Rory stopped in the middle of tugging the rope. He’d spotted something on the waves.
‘What are you staring at?’ Fionn asked.
The closest thing Fionn had seen to a smile curved Rory’s mouth. ‘We have a visitor.’
Fionn squinted, his eyes not so sharp in the bright sunlight. A soft grey head bobbed a few metres away.
