He had two ropes strung over blocks: once he was satisfied with the fall of the net, he began to operate them against each other, drawing the net closed and hauling it back to the surface. It came up streaming water and bulging with the sparkling struggles of tiny fish. It must have been heavy, but he spilled it over the bulwark without apparent strain, fishes no longer than a finger pouring like mercury over the boards.

He stood with them wriggling over his bare feet, and looked up to meet my eyes, confirming that he was aware of my gaze. He smiled at me: clear and untroubled.

I could find witticisms. I could look away, I could sneer. But then and there, in that sunlit moment, I wished to do nothing but see him.

~

The calm perfection of that afternoon was nearly enough to sweep away the thoughts that gnawed at me: the memory of the poor man they’d shot in the water, the distressing turn in my father’s condition, the unknown horrors that waited in the southern islands. When I look back now, I see that afternoon as the hinge upon which everything turned.

Dr Gideon took another net from the same locker the first one had come from. This one was finer: a closer weave and a lighter cord. He needed no effort to lift the whole bundle of it with him, up into the rigging. He was so high above me that the blinding sun was no longer behind him but under him as he let the net fall. The top edge he retained, and threaded onto the gaff using a line of cord. Once satisfied with this, he clambered down to the boom and pulled the net taut, then corded it again.

When he was done, the net was stretched like a large transparent sail. It lilted gently in the breeze, just visible.

Back on the deck, he filled a basket with handfuls of the little fish and a few dozen wooden dolly pegs. His idea was opaque to me, but I did not want to pre-empt anything by asking what he was doing. Up he went: the same dance over the boom, this time pegging the fish one by one all over the net so they hung suspended and glinting up there, and my sleepy eyes saw it as something jewelled and diaphanous, the sequined veil of a bride.

He slung himself down and sat on the boards beside me, looking up happily at his work. ‘Now we wait,’ he said.