Black tribal swirl tattoo on the side ribs

We lost the old trawl off the Dogger on Tuesday and Dougie has not said a word since. Not one. He sits in the wheelhouse with the chart unrolled over his knees, tracing the wake line with his thumb as if it might tell him where the warp went. I told him the sea keeps what it wants. He told me to mind my own business, which is how I know he's listening.

The new net came aboard on Thursday, folded in the hold like a sleeping animal, and it took six of us a full day to shackle the bridles. You'd have liked it. Pete the engineer ran his palm along the mesh and said the pattern looked like the scrollwork Gran used to crochet onto the tablecloths, all those tails that taper to nothing and then curl back on themselves. I said that was daft. Then I caught myself counting the floats and seeing them as little black dots strung down the line, one, two, three.

On Friday we shot the net at dusk. The warps ran out in long dark curves across the water and the buoys bobbed like full stops nobody had written yet. Dougie came out of the wheelhouse for the first time in three days and stood at the rail with his hands in his pockets, watching the lines lift and settle. 'She'll do,' he said, and went back in.

Haul was at six this morning. Forty crates of haddock and one ugly grey thing with too many teeth that Pete wants to keep for his mother's aquarium. Dougie wrote the tally on the back of the old chart, the one with the lost ground marked in pencil. I'll send it on when we're in. Keep the kettle warm.

Love, Tam