Champ

Shaking, Neala sat in the small canvas-covered boat, waist-deep in flopping mackerel and seawater. At the other end of the teeming curragh, her Da lay on his back, unconscious and bleeding, a torn piece of fishing net floating beside him.

For three days now, Neala and her father had gotten up hours before the sun—and Mam—to secretly practice rowing and netting in the dark, for the spring mackerel run was happening soon. She had never done any real fishing with Da before today. In fact, she’d never even so much as set a foot in a working curragh until this week, and that didn’t count—it was just practice. Sure, she’d been rowed back and forth to the mainland several times from An Blascaod Mór—Great Blasket Island—but always as a passenger with her Mam and older sisters on the way to Dunquin. No Blasket girl had ever rowed or worked a curragh before. And no girl ever would if the men on the island had anything to say about it.

Fishing was man’s work, or lad’s work at the very least. The whole island knew that Neala’s father had always wanted a son to pass the family curragh on to, and if he ever did get a son, he would call him Neal, Gaelic for “champion.” Truth be told, after having four girls, her Mam and Da were so certain Neala was to be a boy they hadn’t even picked out a girl’s name until the day she was born. By her Mam’s telling, the first time Da held her in his arms he’d said, “Welcome to Blascaod Mór, Neala, my little champ!”

From that first day, her father treated her differently than her sisters. When she was just a baby, he would go about his chores carrying her on his back in a sling he had fashioned from a piece of fishing net. There she’d be, peeking out from under her bonnet while he’d be tending sheep up by the signal tower or digging up spuds from the garden.

As she got older, Neala went from watching to working. Da showed her how to do things he hadn’t shared with the older girls. The year of first class, he had her tying sailor’s knots. By fifth, she was mending mackerel nets. Over the years, the village men codded her father about her without mercy.

“Is that Neala you’re laboring with, Padraig? Or should we call her Neal?”

“Shouldn’t she be mending stockings instead of nets?”

“Don’t pay them any mind,” Da would say, “They’re just jealous that their lasses aren’t as skilled as you—or their lads either!”

Neala loved when he said that. But it was how he treated her that showed his heart. Like this December past, on the day she turned twelve, when he had been the last to give her her morning birthday hug, and then—just like that—handed her the peat spade.

“Could you bridle-up Petey and head up to the Doon to get us some turf for the hearth? Mam’s cooking mutton stew for your birthday supper.”

Neala beamed.

“Me, Da? Are you sure? But I’ve never done it by my—”

“Go on with you now,” her Mam said, “and be sure Petey’s baskets are filled to the brim just like you know you can. This frosty December night we’ll be stoking the fire plenty.”

Now, on this April night, the air was mild and the sea was looking-glass smooth. With no rocking boat, Neala had cast and hauled the practice nets more times than the two previous nights combined without a worry of going for a swim in the still wintry-cold bay. She felt ready. She could hear her father’s smile in the tune he hummed while loading several large stones into the old hauling net.

“I thought you might do one more heave-ho before heading back, but you know what?” he said. “You don’t need it. Let’s skedaddle.”

Neala’s rosy cheeks turned scarlet as she grinned and shifted up into the bow. Her father plopped into the middle seat and started rowing. The curragh glided for home, the only sounds her Da’s humming and the gentle splashes of his even strokes—until he rowed smack into a shoal of flittering mackerel feeding near the surface just off Bannig Point.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, can you believe the good fortune!” he said. “Come on, kiddo. Enough of this pretend fishing. There are real fishies here for the taking.”

Laughing and singing, Neala and Da dropped their net into the sea, hauling it back in over and over again, loaded with wriggling macks. And then it happened. The old net, stretched to its limit, ripped as her father pulled at it with all his might. A piece tore off in his hand and he was thrown back, cracking his head against the starboard gunwale.

Now Da was lying there helpless and bleeding, their curragh was adrift nearly two miles from the strand, and she was scared.

Six years of schooling, lass, and you’ve not one idea of what to do? For goodness sake, stop fretting and get doing, Neala thought. Geez, I sound just like Mam. So get doing! I know I’ve got to row for help and the boat’s too full of water. So, there’s but one choice.

With fishy eyes glaring at her, Neala reached down through the quivering mass and grabbed the bailing pot secured under her seat.

“All right, Neala, start bailing!” she yelled.

Neala struggled with potful after potful of water. Her arms began to ache, yet the boat seemed just as full. Might it be easier if I only half-fill each pot? That was it. In a short while, the water was down quite a bit, and her father was lying half-submerged on a fluttering pile of macks. But it’s still too heavy! She glared at the fish. Da’s not going to like this. Grabbing the bailing pot by the handle, she started shoveling them over the side. In no time, she’d cleared out the fish in front of her and started into the ones behind her seat.

“Neala, what in heaven’s name are you doing? Have you lost your mind? Those are schillings you’re tossing overboard!”

Somehow, Neala’s father had come to and gotten to his feet. Arms flailing and head bleeding, he rocked unsteadily from leg to leg.

“Da! You have to sit down or you’ll send us over! Please sit down and I’ll try to explain.”

Her father sank to a sitting position. He put a hand to his wounded head then squinted at his bloody fingers.

“You’ve had an accident, Da. The net was overloaded and ripped when you yanked on it. You hit your head on the gunwale.”

“But why are you here, Neala?”

“I’ll tell you about it later. Right now I have to get rid of more weight so I can get us home. And I will get us home.”

“Aye, Champ...you...will,” he said as his eyes went vacant and he slumped backwards onto the pile.

A sliver of light glowed along the horizon. Mam would certainly have discovered them missing by now and alerted the rest of the island. She scooped out as many more fish as she could and positioned herself on the rower’s seat facing her father. She pinned the training oars to the gunwales and took one in each hand.

“Now, pull your right hand over your left, Neala,” she yelled, trying to copy her father’s booming teacher voice. “Sit up nice and tall. Don’t dip the tips in too deep. Get a rhythm going. Remember to breathe. Think about the rhythm. Think about your breathing. Then stop thinking.”

Neala took a slow, deep breath and braced her feet. On her first pull, one oar never even made it into the water. On the second, she didn’t get enough clearance and pinched her fingers between the oars. The third, fourth and fifth attempts were not much better. After the sixth, Neala shoved the oars away.

“All right, Neala, begin again. Do it right this time!” she shouted.

This time she rowed more slowly and focused on her father’s instructions in her head. With each pull, she improved. Soon, her pulls became strokes.

Stroke, two, three. Breathe.

Stroke, two, three. Breathe.

Stroke, two, three. Breathe.

Just like Da said. A shallow wake eddied behind the curragh.

In a rhythmic trance, Neala rowed toward An Trá Bán, the white strand near her home. When Slea Head materialized in the growing light, she knew she was close. Without breaking stroke, she looked over her shoulder and saw a crowd gathered on the beach. Several men who had been pushing their curraghs into the bay stopped when others on shore began to point and wave their arms.

They probably think Da is rowing us in, not me.

A wave of searing pain broke the trance. Neala inhaled sharply, dropped the oars onto her lap, and stared at her blistered, bleeding palms. The thought of putting her bare hands back on the oars turned her stomach.

But we’re so close!

Neala’s eyes darted around looking for something, anything, to wrap around her burning hands. Glancing down at her feet, it came to her—her stockings. Gingerly, she unbuttoned her shoes with the tips of her fingers, kicked them off, and removed her thick wool stockings. She slipped a cupped hand into each one.

This might work.

Her father moaned and stirred.

This has to work.

With one quick move, Neala grabbed hold of the oars. Tears gushed and her chest heaved as she rowed for home.

Stroke.

Two.

Three.

Breathe.