Pot Luck

by Nick Fisher

  Nick Fisher is a BAFTA-winning TV scriptwriter and series creator with a diverse range of writing credits in film, radio, stage, print journalism and non-fiction. He works as a core scriptwriter for two BBC primetime dramas. He’s a much-published expert in fishing and fish cookery, as well as being author of several highly-regarded teenage advice books.

  Nick has devised and presented a handful of factual fishing shows: Screaming Reels (Channel 4), Dirty Tackle (BBC), and the late night agony show Dear Nick (ITV). He also created the BBC comedy drama series Manchild.

  Nick admits to having owned more boats than he can possibly remember. Most of them leaky tubs. He is a qualified commercial fisherman, charter skipper, and failed international drug smuggler who now harbours a serious addiction to catching and eating crabs, whelks and squid.

  Pot Luck is his first novel.

  “Nick Fisher knows the Jurassic Coast inside out: his compelling, salty slice of Dorset noir is full of secrets and betrayals that will keep you reading all through the night.”

  Chris Chibnall, writer and creator of Broadchurch

  “Nick Fisher’s highly original crime caper delves into the deeply fishy underbelly of Weymouth Harbour. Among the stinky bait buckets, raggedy nets and battered lobster pots, drugs are being smuggled, old friendships stretched to breaking point, and someone’s clearly about to make a killing... There’s a nice whiff of Carl Hiaasen here, but with the unmistakable tang of the British seaside standing in for the Florida Everglades. Funny, dark, surprising and altogether highly entertaining.”

  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, author, broadcaster, chef

  “A brutal but brilliantly witty tale of life on the sea. One that illustrates with painful truthfulness the reality of how tough life can be for commercial fishermen these days. To the point that these two dysfunctional brothers are driven to do some very desperate stuff to survive. I loved it.”

  Mark Hix, chef, restaurateur

  First published in 2016 by

  Peridot Press

  12 Deben Mill Business Centre, Melton,

  Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 1BL

  Copyright © Nick Fisher 2016

  The right of Nick Fisher to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Set and designed by Theoria Design

  www.theoriadesign.com

  Author’s acknowledgements

  Thanks to the town of Weymouth and its charter skippers, commercial fishermen, anglers and divers who have been my inspiration. Thanks to Pat Carlin, who introduced me to this world. To David Huggins for reading an early draft and encouraging me to finish. To Adrian Cooper of Little Toller Books for telling me to keep going. And to James Rudge at Peridot for pouncing on my early draft like a big bass finding a peeler crab. To Jonathan Barnes and Alex Sharratt at Peridot for making it all happen from that moment forward.

  To my fish-eaters Rory, Rex, Patrick, Kitty.

  And to Helen who makes everything possible.

  Adrian looks down at the Kitty K and feels a familiar wave of nausea. Thirty-six feet of rusty steel and chipped blue paint. A fat herring gull sitting on the front of the wheelhouse shits a squirt of green-grey ooze down the portside screen. Adrian knows if he doesn’t wipe it off soon, it’ll harden and sit square in his vision, all day long, as he steers to the potting grounds, 20 miles south. Another day staring through a film of shit.

  The deck’s littered with tourist debris from the night before. Polystyrene chip trays in balls of paper that gulls have ripped apart in the early dawn, searching for cold chips and ragged chunks of batter. A crushed can of Stella and a smashed brown cider bottle lie on deck among the crab-stinking coils of rope, and half dozen pots that still need mending, two weeks after the last storm trashed them against Dogleg Reef.

  The mess depresses him. The smell bores him – for far too long he’s breathed the sweet-sour fumes of rotting pot bait and diesel. But what really fucks him off more than anything this morning is once again he’s alone. No sign of Matty.

  On every other crabber tied to the harbour wall, at least two men go through the morning ritual of tossing out the tourist crap, cranking up the engine, topping up the live well, untying ropes and stowing away spare pots to stop them skittering across the deck as they steam out through the chop on Weymouth Bay. Every other crabber has a skipper and a crewman, to perform the same daily rituals of preparing to cast off. Only Adrian, on the Kitty K, does everything single-handed. Waiting until his shithead little brother finally makes an appearance. Today is no exception.

  Every potter working out of Weymouth; Nicola B, Salsette, October Morning, Dawn Mist, and others who fish the grounds to the far south-east, want to be underway by five-thirty, at the latest. There’s a small spring tide flooding eastwards for another hour, and every skipper wants to use the last rush of tide – pushing up their boat’s heavy, gear-laden arse – to get to the grounds quicker and cheaper. The five knots of eastward-flowing flood tide will shave a chunk off the day’s fuel bill. Cost of diesel already squeezing everyone’s operating margins tighter than a mullet’s arsehole. So, getting the morning tide to help push the boats to the grounds will save skippers like ‘Damp’ Dougie, Pete The Worm and Leaky enough wedge to get half-pissed in The Sailors this afternoon.

  Adrian doesn’t want to get drunk this afternoon. Nor does he want to throw away fuel money, just because his fucking brother’s incapable of getting out of whoever’s bed he’s in, in time to make the flood tide.

  All the ten-metre-plus crabbers are tied up, side-by-side, gunwale-to-gunwale, sitting two-deep out from the harbour’s west wall. Kitty K on the outside of her pair, furthest from the wall, because she was last to unload last night. Not last because she’d such a huge catch of crab to unload at the fish dock. Nope. Last because the brothers were late getting back to port, because they pushed against the tide coming home. They pushed nose down against the outgoing tide, burning extra diesel, because they’d been late heading out in the first place. Just like today.

  Ruby J is tied on the inside of Kitty K. Ruby J’s motor’s already running. She’s ready to swing her stern out to catch the flow of the out-pouring River Wey and head south out the harbour. Cuttle, the skipper on Ruby J, looking over at Adrian, with a roll-up sticking to his lips, eyebrows raised – expectantly. Ruby ready to go. But she can’t cast off until Kitty K drops back to give her room. One of the deck crew on Ruby J, a ginger-haired, pimply lad is already untying the stern line that’ll set Kitty adrift. Adrian has no choice but to start her engine. The pre-heater light on the dashboard blinks off to tell him the engine’s ready to fire. Adrian turns the key, and the huge ancient Cummings chugs and coughs into life.

  Witnessing Kitty K come to life is like watching a lung cancer victim fight off death. A rattle of hollow bones is followed by a gritty cloud of black smoke, erupting from her exhaust. Kitty K is sick. Somewhere in her confused oil-guzzling heart is a problem that is terminal, yet remains untreated. Adrian can hear Kitty’s engine is slowly dying. So can Cuttle. And as Ruby J pulls away from the harbour wall, leaving Kitty still waiting to head for sea, Adrian recognises pity in Cuttle’s eyes.

  The pity might be for the chronic state of Adrian’s boat, but more likely the pity’s because Adrian, once again, is left in the harbour, holding water, engine running, burning over-priced diesel, waiting for his p
isshead, waster brother, Matty.

  Adrian holds Kitty K’s nose upstream into the current that pushes down through the harbour from the river. He slips her in and out of gear, holding water. Waiting. He could tie her up to the harbour wall again, there’s more than enough room now every other crabber and whelker has left. He doesn’t; because he hopes against hope that Matty is about to arrive, stumble down the harbour steps and slide, groaning, onto the stern of their boat.

  He stares through the film of seagull shit that the worn screen wiper is smearing from side to side, weakly lubricated by a thin drizzle. The oil pressure light flickers on, then off again. A blink. A warning. A sign of the sickness eating away at Kitty’s innards. Adrian ignores it. His shitty morning is shitty enough without accepting the boat his father bought brand new in 1982 – when Adrian was five and Matty was three – and fitted out himself, over the winter, working 18 hours a day, cracking ice off the tarpaulin every morning, is dying in his sons’ hands.

  The tragedy of Kitty K’s slow, painful mechanical demise was preceded three years ago by her financial death. Adrian and Matty failed to keep Kitty K afloat financially and were forced to sell her to Paulie West, the landlord of The Sailors. Paulie gradually buying up all manner of property, boats and businesses in Weymouth, over the last few years. He’s well placed – like a pint-pulling parasite – to cash in on every scrap of bad luck that hits his customers. So, when Adrian and Matty sank into debt, Paulie bought the mortgaged boat out from under them. Now they work for Paulie. The brothers on a third share of the daily catch. They don’t catch, they don’t earn. All running costs and pot repairs split between the shares. The more diesel they burn, the more pots they lose, the less they earn. Today so far, it’s costing Adrian to go to work.

  Matty might appear from one of three directions. From the east, through Museum Lane, from the north over Harbour Square, or from the west, down Helen Street. East is best. East usually means Matty’s climbed out his own pit and walked to the quayside from his raggedy bedsit. North, the route that leads from the biggest portion of town, means that Matty’s slept in another bed, either Megan, Dom, Lisa, Talia or another new addition to his ever-evolving list of girlfriends. For a little while Matty liked to use the term ‘fuck buddies’ to describe the various and varied women in his life.

  He’d heard the phrase on some American TV show and adopted it. Thinking it sounded funny and cool. Even Matty eventually dropped it, realising with a very rare glimmer of self-awareness, that it made him sound like a prick.

  West is the worst direction Matty can appear from – west is the seafront. West means Matty hasn’t been to bed at all. West means he’s stayed up all night, drinking, snorting, pilling or huffing in the clubs and pubs along the prom. West means Matty will still be off his face. Stinking. Wild-eyed. Hyperactive. A danger to himself, to the running of the boat and to his brother. West means Matty will be asleep on a coil of rope on the wheelhouse floor by two o’clock, leaving Adrian to haul the last ten or more shanks alone. West means Adrian will have to use every ounce of self-control to stop himself picking up the scallop-shucking knife and sticking it up to the handle into his lazy, selfish, fucked up brother’s snoring face.

  As he lays his forehead against the wheel of Kitty K and closes his eyes, Adrian can feel the uneven hunting vibrations of her ailing engine, pulsing against the tight muscle around his temples and jaw. His life wasn’t meant to be like this. Adrian was the clever one. Head Boy at Podimore Comprehensive. A Levels. Technical college. Qualifications. Once, he made his dad proud. Now, he’s reduced to hauling pots for Paulie West – a man his father hated. All the while standing by, rubber-necking, as his fuckwit younger brother drives his own life at full throttle straight towards a concrete wall.

  The saddest thing of all is that his brother’s slow motion train wreck of a life looks, from the outside, to be way more fun than Adrian’s married, mortgaged, dad-of-two-toddlers existence. Which, for all its security and convention, seems to make the muscles around his temples pull tighter each and every day.

  A loud crack against the screen a few inches away from Adrian’s bowed head makes him jump. His heart jolts with a shot of adrenalin as he snaps up to see an empty can of Stella roll off the anchor hatch, where it bounced after hitting the screen.

  Adrian now sees Matty on the edge of the quay. Grinning like a turbot. Swaying. Two full cans of Scrumpy Jack hanging from the plastic rings of a four-pack in one hand. A spliff, half-smoked, hangs from his lips. His right arm slung around the shoulders of Lila, a South Korean girl, whose father owns the Chinese takeaway on Preston Road.

  Even by Matty’s standards Lila is one of his wildest and weirdest. Wears biker boots, snagged ripped tights, hair shaved at both sides and two chrome barbells piercing one eyebrow.

  “Nipples and clit,” Matty told Adrian one day – as if making small talk on their steam home from the Hurds. “Pierced,” he said with a leer. “Clit’s like a little cockle, stuck with a kebab skewer.”

  Matty did this thing. Like some ritual, designed to induce envy and humiliation in Adrian. He’d turn up late for the tide, at the dock, parading his conquest of the night before. Get her to walk him to the harbour where Matty’d climb on the stern of Kitty K, under the watchful, angry eye of his brother. Always, just before he’d get on board, Matty would snog the girl one last time, in front of Adrian. Pulling up a skirt. Cupping a buttock. Or squeezing a breast. Performing some moderately sexual act in front of him, as if to say, “See bro… See what I’m getting, and you’re not.” Then Matty’d bounce on the boat with a shit-eating grin, enjoying every morsel of his brother’s squirm.

  True to form, Matty was pressing his face hard against Lila’s lips, arching her back and slipping his fingers into one of the ragged holes in the tights, just beneath her tiny round arse.

  Adrian looks away. His eyes settle on the other figure with them on the quayside. The teenage boy, staring hard at their mouths as they slurp against each other, then looking down to Matty’s hand, fingers reaching inside the ripped tights, feeling, fondling… The boy practically starting to drool.

  Adrian feels the heat of raw anger, about to burn a hole in his brain, as he now stares full on at teenage Tim, with unveiled contempt. Adrian can’t help it. He fucking hates Tim.

  “Today’s a ‘Tim day’,” Matty would always say when he turned up at the dock with the lad. “My apprentice,” he’d say, turning to Tim pointing his outstretched finger and saying, “Be good or... You’re fired.” Matty laughing like a drain at his own joke. Like it’s the first time he’s said it. Like it’s the funniest thing. And inside, another crumb of Adrian’s soul would die.

  Tim is the son of a woman Matty used to fuck, but doesn’t any more – on account of the fact that her ex-bloke, Rich, is currently out of Portland Prison on an early release scheme. And they’re back together. Sort of. And also because Rich is as mean as a shite-snake, so Matty in turn is currently giving Carole a wide berth. But Matty still likes to hire Tim to help on the Kitty. In fact, Matty thinks Adrian and him should hire Tim, full-time, like a proper apprentice deckhand. Split Tim’s wages between them, and get Tim to do all the shit jobs, while they get their feet up in the wheelhouse.

  Adrian says no. They can’t afford to run the boat as it is. Season’s earnings are crap. So why would they increase their overhead? Matty wants a deck hand because Matty is lazy and would rather shave a few quid off of his take, to pay Tim, than have to bust his own balls day in, day out. Especially on the days when he’s hungover or still pissed. Which is most days.

  Adrian wants no part of Tim. He needs every penny he can make out of Kitty K and more. He’s even looking for other jobs, for evenings and on days when the blow’s too rough to get out to sea. Plus there’s another issue, in that Tim is a retard. A lippy-mouthed prick who drives Adrian mad. Having him on board is so not what Adrian needs.

  Adrian’s made it clear: if Matty wants to employ Tim to help out on deck, it’s his
shout. No way is Adrian sharing that wage bill. Because of this, Tim’s not a permanent fixture. Only on days when Matty is either too wasted, or else feeling flush – because he made a few extra quid, doing the sort of stuff Matty does when he isn’t aboard Kitty K. Like selling a little spliff, growing a few heads of skunk, or middleman-ing a bit of knock-off gear. He will then bang on Tim’s mum’s door at Sparrow’s Fart, or call her mobile, and get the little prick to come down the quay for a day’s graft.

  Also, Matty likes to have an audience for whatever it is he’s doing. An audience dumb enough and young enough to think Matty’s a bit of a player and a ‘dude’. Unlike his big brother Adie, who Tim thinks is just a moody old prick.

  Adrian clamps his mouth shut in a thin straight-lipped line and says nothing. Not a word. Not a greeting. Nothing. He reverses the transom to the harbour steps. Matty and Tim climb aboard and Adrian slips Kitty into forward gear, aiming her seagull shit-splattered prow towards the harbour mouth.

  On deck, Matty regales Tim with a story. Adrian can’t hear the details. Thank God. What with the consumptive growl of Kitty’s 80-horse Cummings inboard diesel and the wheelhouse door being half closed, means Adrian’s spared the details that Tim is now drinking up with teenage glee. Details of the night before. Of how twatted Matty got. Where. Who with. And what he ended up doing to the Korean Chinese chip shop owner’s daughter, nearly half his age.

  This morning Adrian hates his brother – his only sibling – with a hate that makes his face hot and stingy. His jaw is clamped shut, cheek muscles bulging, stewing in his own passive aggression. Believing his silent sulk will communicate to Matty just how monumentally fucked off he is. At the same time, his sulk makes Adrian feel pathetic. He knows he’s behaving like a child. Nothing about Adrian’s relationship with his brother makes him feel good.