The Tribulations of a Young Whelk Fisherman

Tom had awoken early but refused to move. His ear-shattering twin-bell alarm clock had jerked him awake, inducing the minor heart attack he had come to accept first thing in the morning. Again whelks had followed Tom into his dreams; he could not remember the last time he had dreamt of anything else. They were like a taste lurking at the back of his throat that refused to disappear. He had accepted their residency in his mind.

The apartment was so cold he could not face getting out of bed. During the night he had pulled off his woolly Aran jumper as it kept itching his bare skin and denying him sleep. He could see it now, crumpled on the floor, mocking him for this decision. There wasn’t any point reaching for it, he thought. It was probably frozen solid. 

Frost had crept up the thin single paned window distorting his view of Dublin, a city hidden in darkness behind the translucent haze. It wouldn’t be light yet for hours, thought Tom. His breath came out in a thick cloud. He pulled the blanket up over his chin, but doing so caused his feet to be exposed. Bed makers never account for the six-foot sixers. Wincing, he tucked up in the foetal position and closed his eyes again, falling into a semi-conscious state of sleep. The dangerous kind of sleep that takes control of you when you least expect it and causes you to be two hours late for work. 

Before the seductive pull overpowered him he dragged himself up, shaking his bright red curly hair with his calloused hands, as if trying to thrust the sleep away. Only hours ago he was eager for tomorrow, eager to get back to work; he loved his work and loved the boat. The sea. Even Jimmy had a certain charm to him. 

That feeling of excited anticipation had left him in the night. The sleep and the cold had overpowered his excitement, and now he felt like crying. It was a hard job. The cycle down the coast in the biting wind, the hour spent smashing crabs open for bait. Then the full day toiling on Jimmy’s little trawler. All to collect those horrible, stinking sea snails that had taken over his life. 

Reaching for his cold jumper he crawled into it, squeezing his eyes shut in discomfort. He pulled a second pair of socks over his feet, then dragged on his jeans, over his trackies. His windbreaker was hanging up - still wet from the day before, so he left it until the last moment. He tugged a hat on over his unruly hair, and put the kettle on the boil. Just as the cold can drain you of motivation, tea is undisputed in its ability to banish feelings of lethargy. 

At least he did not have Molly here tonight, it was always harder to pull himself from bed when she was there, warm and naked and inviting. 

As the kettle hummed softly in the otherwise silent early morning, Tom glanced quickly at his freezer, and the dilemma trapped in there. He decided it was too early for that ethical debate. Out of sight, out of mind.

He had feared the cycle would be horrible, and it did not disappoint. He hit his ankle on the pedal as he carried the bike down the stairs, swearing at life as he scrunched up his face in pain, hearing his curse echo down the fire escape. 

His ankle still throbbing, he began to cycle. The lamp posts were on, glaring aggressively down on Tom as he pushed himself through the pitch-dark early morning. By the time he reached the first set of lights that led to the canal from Harold’s Cross, his knuckles were numb and frozen and stiff. Tom tried not to think how much farther he had to go, down the N11 to Dún Laoghaire, the sea breeze blowing into his soul the whole forty minutes. Pushing his chin down he nestled as much of his face into his scarf as he could, trying to assimilate the feeling of being still warm in bed. The light turned green and he pushed forwards.

⧫⧫⧫

Tom exhaled as he stood and squinted in the early light. What a waste of a morning. He had cycled down to the edge of the county to find Jimmy still in his car, with the heating on and a pale look on his face.

‘It’s too rough today, we can’t go out in that.’

Tom looked out at the waves attacking the docked sailboats, spray spitting up into the air as their assaults slapped against the precarious vessels. It was cold. Windy. Bad weather, but nothing they hadn’t gone out in before. Jimmy was getting soft.

‘Those whelks aren't going to catch themselves, Jim.’

Jimmy spun his head round and snapped his usual responses. Who is the real fisherman here? Who owns the boat anyway? Jimmy knew best Jimmy had been doing this every day for thirty years. Etc.

Tom let him talk himself out. He relented eventually, offering to drop Tom home so he wouldn’t have to cycle all that way again. He promised to pick him up the next morning so he could leave his bike at the pier.

So there he stood, on the corner of Stephens Green and Cuffe Street, cold and annoyed that he had gotten up at five for no reason. He had nodded off during the drive, the car’s heating wafting towards him like an artificial blanket. Now he felt cold and sleepy for the second time that day. Hard as it was to get up, by the time he arrived at the harbour he was alert and ready. The drive had taken him back a step and he now had to wake up all over again. Tom checked his watch. Half seven. Sighing, he sat down on the steps of the church opposite Stephens Green, the one often frequented by junkies or the homeless. People probably saw him as a homeless junkie, he reasoned, sitting there glaring at life.

Where to next? The day was free, and the world was his, oyster. Part of him wanted to go into town and get a coffee, but he could not face bumping into college mates, asking why he dropped out, or what he was doing with his life. It seemed easiest to just not move. By the time he had found the motivation, his legs were numb and one arm had fallen asleep. He wasn’t sure if he had dropped off or just lulled himself into a tired daze. Knowing if he went home he would just go to bed and dream of Molly and whelks and what was in his freezer, Tom started for Rathmines. 

He walked down Camden Street in that peculiar light. The sun had risen without him. The day had begun, while Tom had mentally prepared for a battle with the sea that did not materialise. 

His earrings, two small gold rings together on one lobe, were freezing and causing his ear to throb. As he walked on, wondering if he should not just go home and spend the day watching cooking videos, he approached a homeless woman by the construction site up ahead, where the Bernard Shaw used to stand, tall and proud. She was sitting cross-legged and wrapped in a blanket. In her blackened hands was a tatty, dishevelled book. 

‘’Morning.’ said Tom as he searched his jacket pockets for some coins, finding nothing but beer bottle caps and empty crab shells. As he watched she silently pulled a cigarette from within her blanket and busied herself trying to light it without losing her page.

Tom awkwardly mumbled that he hadn’t any money on him.

‘And there I was thinking we were friends.’ she scowled, only half joking. She went back to her book and Tom crossed the street, deciding against offering her some of the relatively fresh, uncooked whelks he was carrying. 

Down Rathmines, right at the Omniplex, down Leinster Road, to Oisín. Oisín was one of Tom’s remaining friends from college, a man unparalleled in his ability to turn a bad day around.

‘How you getting along?’ Tom asked Oisín, looking at the clock hanging in the kitchen. It was somehow already half twelve. The morning had sailed by during his internal wanderings on the church steps.

‘Yeah not too bad at all to be honest. Making some calls to London, see about getting a job in the City or something. We’ll see.’

Tom had nothing relevant to say to this so just nodded politely.

‘Shall we have a beer then?’ Oisín said, fishing the last two Prazkys out of the fridge and leaving the empty wrapper in there. 

The door rattled jarringly as knuckles rapped against it. To Tom’s annoyance a small troop marched into the little kitchen. 

‘Tom! Didn’t know you were still alive. How’s Molly?’ said a man in a suit with a short, sharp haircut.

‘We broke up.’ said Tom. 

Short back and sides laughed awkwardly and sat down, followed by the others. Tom recognised them all. Stephen, in the suit, was working for some corporate law firm in a grad program. Aoife was doing her phD. The other one had just moved in with his beautiful girlfriend; they had posted lots of pictures of the event. Oisín had once tried to force a friendship between Tom and Stephen because Stephen had been a champion angler in his youth. He’d fished every lake in Cavan, or something. Tom had no time for amateur fishermen. Sport for those with too much time. He would like to see Stephen in his suit out there on the boat, the stench of whelks and crab meat filling the back of his throat. Which reminded him.

‘I brought some whelks.’ Tom offered, pointing to the SuperValu bag of stinking crustaceans. 

They hadn’t liked the whelks. Tom could tell. The silent awkwardness as he prepared them, pointing out the ‘foreskin’ that should be cut off before you could fry them. More silence as he demonstrated the best way to cook them, with lots of garlic and oil to get the most flavour out of the rubbery texture.

He couldn’t blame them, he had not liked them at first either. He could not expect everyone to have what could only be described as an addiction, a yearning, an almost sexual desire for the snails. His body needed whelks. They were an aphrodisiac after all. They hadn’t believed that either.

He didn’t fit in with that group anyway. Tom wondered what group he did fit into. The lads down on the boats all knew and put up with him, but he hardly fit in there either. It didn’t matter. Whelk fishing was a solitary affair.

Leaving the house on Leinster Road, it was not yet late but the light had already faded. Winter days were so short, it didn’t matter how early you got up. He hated meeting people. Being asked the same inevitable questions, re: his future, Molly, what next? Why whelks? What even were whelks? 

Still, better than having to answer the same monotonous questions from his family, who likewise could not understand his fixation with fishing. His mother had, in a fit of anxiety over her only son, tried to push him towards a career in the army. He thought about that. 

Then he thought about when he and Molly had gone to London and she had seen a parakeet and said she loved the feathers. And Tom wanted to surprise her with some but couldn’t find any, so he dropped a brick on an unsuspecting bird and then felt so bad that he never gave her the feathers. He thought about when she left him and he had taken the cat they had bought together and hung it from the ceiling fan, crying and rocking as the cat twitched above him, swinging slowly back and forth like the tide. 

He thought about the octopus in his freezer he was too scared to kill. He had watched a David Attenborough about octopus making love and he could not bear to hurt them. The octopus was alive, slowly dying a worse death because Tom was too much of a coward to end it quickly. Tom did not like killing. He would not have liked the army. Whelks are non sentient. 

The cold hit Tom like a silent frozen embrace. He knew it was coming but was surprised anyway. He stepped out, stuffing his hands into his coat, and began to march home, watching his breath rise in clouds above him. The moon was out, a full round beacon of defiance against the mist.

⧫⧫⧫

Tom breathed in the wet, salt-saturated air and closed his eyes. Buckets of whelk surrounded him, as he stood aboard the boat under the cold, clear winter sun. He could see the coast, a distant memory already, six miles away. Bray and Howth shielded Dublin in their protective caress. The trawler bobbed apprehensively in the waves. A lurking flock of seagulls followed the boat, giving half-hearted swoops down in search of fish. Not even their incessant calling could dampen Tom’s determination. As the loud, relentless cry of the birds continued, a wave spilled over the side of the trawler, shooting ice-cold water up his sleeve and all the way down his back. Tom breathed in again. He used to gag whenever he took too deep a breath while on the boat. Not anymore.

He was working too hard to be cold. Too hard to worry about the smell of nearly half a ton of whelks. Too hard to care about Molly, or college, or anything except his job here, in front of him.

An eruption of cursing from Jimmy brought him back to the only thing that mattered, hopping around crab meat and whelk, sidestepping starfish, hoisting up the rope and heading to his position, ready to launch the hook onto the next bucket.