The Concrete Deck 



then the thumb went on, piercing through behind the gills to the 

 body cavity of the haddock ; and the knife in his right hand moved 

 between the shoulder bones of the fish, parallel to the left thumb 

 and, with a single measured stroke, slit the belly from the head to 

 anus. Even as the knife went forwards, but very slowly so that 

 they might all see it, his left forefinger moved over to press the 

 front of the gut against his thumb. The knife came back and slit 

 the oesophagus just ahead of the hold of his left hand and the fish 

 fell into an empty basket, gutted, while the entrails dangled be- 

 tween the thumb and the forefinger of the fisherman. He threw 

 these into another basket where there were already a few lacer- 

 ated insides, and Jan, who had watched him attentively, was able 

 to gut his next fish with an ease that astonished himself. 



But haddock and cod were the easiest fish to clean. The slit 

 that he learned to make on the side of a plaice meant that he had 

 to grope for the slippery stomach, pull it out, cut the fore gut 

 blind, and then manipulate the connective tissues that held the in- 

 testines to the body wall until he had severed them with the blunt 

 back edge of his left thumb. As for the lemon sole, its gut was im- 

 bedded far along its body and only finished near the tail : that had 

 to be drawn out gently or it would break off inside the fish and its 

 decaying contents start a rot in the flesh. And then, when there 

 were not difficult guts, there was the sharpness of bones to think 

 of. The whiting — he could not tell it from a haddock when he 

 first saw it alive on the Caroon — had hard sharp and brittle bones 

 that scratched blood from his thumb. The hake, too, was, as it 

 were, internally armoured so that a haul of hake usually meant a 

 fistful of festering scratches as well as a thick pay-packet. (There 

 was a fisherman's rumour that its bones were poisonous and that 

 rumour was confirmed by many a septic experience.) And, long 

 afterwards, he found that a large halibut can crush a man's hand, 

 almost to breaking point, between its scaly gill covers and the un- 

 yielding strength of its shoulder bone. Herring, alone, were easy 

 to gut, but that was only because they were never gutted at sea. 



All these things he found out as he grew older. His first day 



4^ 



