We were each allowed to take home a herring to cook for our tea, a lumpy or spotty one, unfit for pickling. Clementina stood over me while I gutted our three and then she begged our hoosie-mates to let me practise on theirs. Just the thing after the longest day on my feet, the hardest day on my hands: to gut another six herring. But Gena Buchan I was not, and Clementina wanted me to work on my action.

Ye’re a disaster now, quinie, aye, but the speed’ll come if ye get the action right.

She sprinkled the fish with salt, like the curers did in the yards to give us a better grip.

Move your thumb a bit. That’s right. Now line it up with your middle finger on the other side. The back in the palm of your hand. See?

I did what she said, but I was too tired to see anything. If Clementina thought I might progress to be less of a disaster, then I was happy enough because it meant she might leave me to rest. But no, she’d not finished with me yet. I was to have my lesson.

Now, then, Fish Meggie, you won’t be needin’ to learn to pack for a good while to come—that’s my job—but it’s as well ye understand how the team works, eh?

I glanced across to Kitta by the fire. She was brewing tea and frying the herring I’d just gutted. She wasn’t coming to my rescue. I looked back at Clementina and nodded.

Right, then, quinie. The barrels are packed all with the same type, matties with matties, fulls with fulls. They go in layer by layer, neat an’ tight, salt in between. Bottom layer dark sides up, heads clockwise, next silver bellies up, widdershins. Dark then silver right to the top, an’ we always finish with bellies. Eh?

I nodded again.

The girls from Cruden Bay were eating their tea and looking on as though I was the night’s entertainment. Isobel called out, through a mouthful of fish, Eh, Clementina, this one’ll never make a packer with arms like that! No reach on ’em, eh?

I looked at my arms. They didn’t seem so short, but they were skinnier than Clementina’s. Was this a bad thing? I couldn’t tell.

Clementina ignored her and carried on with her talk.

Has to be neat, mind. If the inspector lifts a head to check an’ the fish are slidin’ this way an’ that, he’ll make us pack the whole barrel again afore we can get the Crown brand. So has to be neatly done, see?

She was waiting for me to say something, maybe a sign that I understood how important her job was. A nod was all she got.