Chilled by the frozen air, Freddy found herself doing a Hail Mary for
the Mermaids, wherever they were now. For Mags.
There was a shortfall on her order of smoked haddock. It was a popular
day for making Cullen skink, a soupy stew of haddock, leeks and potatoes. She’d
be out of haddock by mid-morning.
Annoyed with herself, Freddy set about arranging her stall. Erica had
been on the nightshift so all was shipshape, price labels ready, cutting boards
scrubbed. Freddy put the previous day’s unsold fish at the front of the
cabinet, closest to the customers, to encourage a quicker sale. Smoked fish on
their left, then breaded fish, followed by a strip comprising tuna, scallops,
sardines and squid. Hake, bass and one of her favourites, bream. Lastly, a
delicate arrangement of prawns, oysters and mussels around the bags of samphire
and parsley and delineated with lemons. The samphire was imported from Israel.
As a kid, Freddy used to pick it from the beach at Newhaven. Getting out early
to beat anyone else who knew where to look. She’d sell it to her dad, leaving a
ten per cent mark-up for his customers. Frederick Power had encouraged his
eldest child’s entrepreneurial spirit. She took after him, he used to say.
Before he called her a freak of nature and disowned her.
Freddy speared the labels on sticks into the ice. She walked around to
the front to consider the effect from the customer’s perspective. When they
were trading insults, frequently these days, Sarah said people paid no
attention to how the fish were displayed. Freddy said Sarah spending her life
with murderers and rapists had killed her eye for beauty.
In a terrible American accent Maxine PA’d that it was ‘five to
take-off’. Freddy was on schedule.
Last but not least, the knives. From her locker Freddy hooked out a
bashed-up leather bag. She had bound the handles with a ring of blue gaffer
tape, the colour code for fish, to avoid cross-contamination with the meat
section, coded red.
The knives had been a coming-of-age present from Freddy’s father when she
turned ten. They were, he’d informed her, his mark of trust in her. His father
had given him the same gift. She was the next generation. She wished he’d let
her stick around to prove it.
She wiped the blades of the knives and placed them on the blue cutting
board. She retied her overall and adjusted her net cap. She was all set.
Lift off, we have lift off. Maxine’s voice crackled
over the system. Freddy felt a cool draught. The street doors were open. The
first customers were coming her way.
Freddy’s phone buzzed. Phones were supposed to stay backstage in
lockers, but that morning Freddy and Sarah had had a humdinger of a row.
Today’s slanging match was ignited when Freddy found the front door
ajar. All and
sundry could waltz in and murder us. A realistic possibility; a
defence lawyer, Sarah had a few unsavoury clients. OK, so no one had waltzed
in, but it came on the heels of Sarah shrinking Freddy’s best jumper in the hot
wash and buying her five more as compensation. Sarah’s behaviour meant Freddy never
knew if she was coming or going. Going, perhaps.
This has to stop, the text read.
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