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Wyl Menmuir

The Many

About the Author

WYL MENMUIR was born in 1979 in Stockport. He lives on the north coast of Cornwall with his wife and two children and works as a freelance editor and literacy consultant. The Many is his first novel.

1.  Ethan

A THIN TRAIL OF smoke rises up from Perran’s, where no smoke has risen for ten years now. Ethan spots it close in, a few hundred yards from shore, as he scans the houses, a regularity of grey spirals where there should be a break in the line. He turns to see if Daniel has seen it too and shouts back at his wheelman to keep his eyes on the course until they’ve cleared the rocks and made land.

He’s as calm as he can be. He lowers his gaze and busies himself on the foredeck, kicking the empty creels and crates back into place and combing the nets laid highest for snags, waiting to feel the boat grounding through the soles of his boots.

Clem is waiting for them as they approach, knee-deep in water that could be a lake for all it is moving, holding the winch cable. He moves aside and shouts up to them a greeting or a curse that is drowned in the engine noise as Daniel brings the boat in too fast onto the beach. Ethan takes a step forward and steadies himself against the gunwale, fires a final insult at Daniel and throws a line over to Clem. By the time it has fallen into Clem’s hands, the winchman has secured it to the cable in a fluid motion and is climbing up out of the water towards the machinery.

The boat’s engine cuts out and the winch takes up the drone. Daniel doesn’t wait for Clem to bring the ladder as the Great Hope pauses beyond the wave line or even for the boat to clear the water. He throws his bag onto the beach and jumps down into the water before the winch takes up the slack. He walks up over the grey stones, bag slung across his back, and Ethan decides against calling him back to finish the job.

From where he stands on deck, Ethan looks past his wheelman at the smoke still rising from Perran’s place. Perran, who would wait at the window for first sight of the lights of the fleet, who would run down the beach and stare as the lights attached themselves to grey shapes and the grey shapes became boats. Perran, who coupled the boats to the winch, careful and slow, and as he did this, Ethan would look over the gunwales to see the thick brown thatch of hair on the boy’s head. Ethan’s fingertips trace unconsciously the smooth crisscross of railroad scar lines on his right arm.

‘Unnatural calm,’ Clem says, as Ethan climbs down the ladder.

So Clem has not noticed the smoke at Perran’s. Clem’s eyes are, as they should be, fixed on the horizon from the moment he arrives at the beach in the early morning, and he won’t look back towards his home until he’s re-launched the boats late on. Ethan takes up a guide pole and follows the Great Hope up to the flat, pushing it back on course as it grates its way across the stones.

Ethan’s is the first boat back and the others will limp in throughout the morning, all holds empty, he’s sure of that. There’s been no talk from the small fleet above the radio static. No talk until a catch is made. It’s a rule. Sure as not setting sail on a Friday is a rule, sure as talking low when you spot a petrel close in is a rule, sure as not moving into Perran’s is a rule.