The Gradual by Christopher Priest

Author:Christopher Priest [Priest, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

41

The man turned away from me and set off across the quay, away from the ship. He walked with his head down and his shoulders hunched. His gait was stiff. The etching tool swung at his side. I removed my luggage from the trolley, hefted my violin case across my back, then piled the holdall on my shoulders on top of it. It was uncomfortable, but it left both my hands free. I held one of the cases in one hand and used the other hand to carry the stave, clutched with the lighter of the two cases. By the time I had everything the man had reached the far side of the quay and was about to move out of sight around the corner of a building. I hurried after him with ungainly steps, the two cases banging against my knees. The sun’s radiant glare was deadly on the unshaded parts of the concrete apron. Warm air drifted listlessly under the cranes and winches that littered the place. It smelled of hot oil, rusty metal, rotted food, the salty sea.

I followed him from the commercial section of the harbour and soon we came to a rundown area littered with grounded old boats long beyond seaworthiness, a tangled mess of torn fishing nets, many large pieces of rusty and unidentifiable equipment and a huge number of lobster pots shrouded in the remains of ancient seaweed. Here a small boat with an outboard motor was waiting at the bottom of some uneven stone steps leading down from the quay. The man had barely waited for me. As I was clambering awkwardly and unsafely down the disintegrating steps he was already pulling on the starter cord. I had to lean out from the lowest steps, swinging my stuff on to the boards. Trying not to lose my grip on the stave made everything twice as difficult. The boat was actually moving as I leapt aboard. I sat down heavily on one of the thwarts.

He speeded up and we steered out into the main area of the port: for the first time I gained some idea of the immensity of the facility. I could see ships, masts, cranes, chimneys, flyovers, warehouses stretching away from us into the distance. We headed past the harbour arm, the small jetty that enclosed the area we had been in. I was glad to be sitting down and not trying to manage my heavy bags but as soon as we were beyond the protection of the jetty the estuary was packed with ships, large and small, many of them under way. The water was rough here and the little boat threw spray high around us. The man steered the boat skilfully, eventually turning dramatically in front of the churning bow wave of a huge trawler. Now we were heading across the wide river mouth towards the further shore.

The water was just as choppy but I was glad of the cooling effect of the spray.

We closed with the opposite shore, which was undeveloped scrubland.

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