The Swan Diary Extract
The boat is a like a spider’s web, held in place by expertly spun threads in their necessary positions. They can move with the wind until fixed by the crew, or sweated into position. Each crew member is a leg of the spider, the skipper perhaps, the head. What does this spider catch? Or catch hold of? The wind, the tide. The metaphor may not hold completely – there is no catch for the Swan, although Ian Nicolson, the Shetland engineer whose smile delights and soothes, has been catching mackerel with his spinner. But perhaps this spider is in a new phase of its life. She used to hunt – herring. We are sleeping in the herring hold, carefully, or bumpily, stowed, in our bunks, or hatches, like legs folding into the spider as she waits patiently for her prey to be trapped in the web.
The midden is a great metaphor for human time. What remains is what we throw away – not what we mean to keep.
No Comments