The Devil's Music (2 page)

Manrope Knot: Tied in manropes, which are ropes leading to either side of the gangway. A man who can make a Manrope Knot is an object of respect.

Matthew Walker Knot: Sometimes called the Single Matthew Walker by the uninitiated, it is the most important knot used on board ship. Amongst knots proper, the Matthew Walker is almost the only one which it is absolutely necessary for the seaman to know.

Midshipman’s Hitch: A semi-permanent loop, one of the strongest.

Monkey’s Fist: Used on the end of a heaving line; commonly tied over a small, heavy ball of stone, iron, marble or glass. The heavy core is required to carry the weight of the heaving line.

Overhand Knot: The simplest of all knot forms and the point of departure for many of the more elaborate knots.

Pentalpha (see Sinnet)

Reef Knot: A true Binder Knot, for which purpose it is admirable, but under no circumstances should it be used as a bend.

Royal Crown: An ornamental method of finishing a rope’s end.

Sinnet: A three-strand flat Sinnet is commonly known as a simple braid or plait. A Solid Sinnet is larger and more complex, resembling crochet or French knitting. A Solid Sinnet, in cross-section, may be triangular, elliptical, hexagonal, and so forth. In cross-section, a Solid Sinnet that is a Pentalpha will be a five-pointed star.

Two-Strand Lanyard Knots: Sailors use these lanyards on knife, marling-spike, whistle and pipe lanyards.

I’m alone under a high sky. Clouds race across the blue, skim in reflected shoals over puddles and hollows in the wet sand. I’m holding Susie’s rubber bucket. Far away, made small by distance, a man digs for lugworms.

   
You’re in charge, Andy
, my mother said. She picked Susie up and put her on one hip. They went to get ice creams.

    My shorts are wet and clinging. I have tipped out Susie’s morning collection of slipper shells, bits of razor shell, the joined pairs of purplish shells she calls butterflies, and now the bucket is filled to the brim with water. Tiny cracks appear in the stretched rubber handle. The water’s surface glints, tilting like a flipped coin; the slanting
O
almost reaches the lip. It will spill.

    I put the bucket down. At my back the sea heaves and drags.

    The rubber bucket is old. Once, it was mine.

    I look up towards Jelly’s carrycot, a long way away on the pebbles. Then down to the edge of the wet sand where Jelly lies on my towel by the pool I’ve dug for her. She was lumpy as a bag of coal in my arms and nearly as heavy; my chin knocked on her head and my bare feet burned on the pebbles. But she was too hot and squashed in her carrycot. She couldn’t stop crying. Further up the shingle bank my mother’s empty deckchair billows red and white stripes.