PART TWO
6With a yellow quarantine flag tied onto the starboard main stay, I haul the anchor out of the for’ard bunk. Dad creeps into the chain locker and pokes the end of the anchor chain up through the hawsepipe so I can shackle the corroded galvanised link onto the rusty anchor and drop the whole bundle into the harbour. We’re here to stay.
The harbour is big, with misty green hills way around the other side – hills as softly romantic in the hazy morning light as the sprawling wharf is harsh with commerce. The angry sound of steel being smashed and beaten into new forms is our new song, the deep-throated rumble of ocean-going liners and smaller container ships its rhythm. A siren reminds me of rigidly punctuated, ordinary working lives – maybe comfortably so. Scruffy yachts and old fi
