MORNING SERIAL
THE visitors would no longer be around. It was a relief. There would always be next year. His grandfather looked sad and below the frame there was a net-needle missing. He must have dropped it when the boy startled him. He would go and look.
He couldn’t find it. It wasn’t there. He searched high and low in the grass, under the boat, by the shed, around the net where he had been intending to work. It could have bounced anywhere.
He had to find it. His grandfather carved it for him from a walrus tusk that he was given in Alaska, but that was another tale for the telling. He had also engraved it with his own initials GDE, just like his grandfather’s needle. In the end as the sun went down behind the cottage and the light faded, he gave up. He would resume the search in the morning.
CHAPTER 3
NEXT day he could just see through the rain-spattered window that the beach was deserted. A September westerly gale carried the horizontal rain off the Atlantic, buffeting the cottage. He debated whether to go out but the storm wasn’t what bothered him. He might bump into the boy and that would be difficult. On his mind was the lost net-needle. It had to be somewhere in the garden. He must find it. Despite the storm he would take another look, followed by a walk on the beach. The boy might not be around in this weather. Donning his oilskins and sou’wester he went outside. It had to be there somewhere, but where? He still couldn’t find it. Giving up for the time being he selected a pebble from the half empty, or was it half full, box, pocketed it and made his way down the slipway to the beach.
It had been blowing all night and the surf had tossed new pebbles on to the shore and scoured the sand, revealing newly exposed shingle. Watery eyes down, carefully scrutinising the stones, he began a new search.
The Herring Man by Cyril James Morris is published by Parthian at £7.99
www.parthianbooks.com