Helmer glances up at Arne. Arne nods. Helmer grabs the knife and a cod weighing a good three kilos, thrusts his left index finger into the eye, forces his thumb under the jawbone and pushes the chalk-white belly upwards, shows Fredrik that it has been bled, here, so the blood can run out, that has to be done at sea, not the gutting though, then he sticks the point of the knife in about an inch down from the throat and slides it down to the anus so the guts tumble out and hang from a thin thread, slices the ear-bone and breaks the neck on the edge of the gutting bench, makes a couple more incisions and rips off the head, throws it aside and holds the end result in the air like a flag, sticks two fingers in the top of the cut and tugs out the remaining entrails in one go, asks Ingrid if she wants the liver, she says no, it’s red, it’s spring, and Helmer explains to Fredrik that those fish that are to be dried, like this one, shouldn’t be slit open right up to the throat, places it beside one of a similar size on the bench, already gutted, sticks a hand down into the pile of twine and ties one length around the two tails, quickly winds it three times and holds the pair of fish aloft, while Ingrid says they should have finished the drying ages ago, it is too warm now, but they can’t do any splitting either.

“Tha’s forgot t’ rinse ’em,” Suzanne says.

Helmer blushes, chucks the two fish in the rinsing tub, drags them through the red water a few times and holds them up again to universal laughter. Even Fredrik laughs, and looks enquiringly up at his mother, who says:

“Now it’s your turn. An’ teach ’im hvur t’ cut out th’ tong’, too. We’re haven’ fried tong’ t’day.”

But none of them knows how.

For the first time since the winter Ingrid goes into the new quay house and looks up at the white sky through the shattered slate roof, registers that there are no marks on the stone floor other than clean, wet water, locates the box with the spike, takes it outside so that Suzanne can show the four young men how to cut out tongues.

Ingrid smiles, impressed.

“She’s deft at cutten’.”