The Ferryman
A Short Story
I like to be busy, me- ‘cause at the end of the day it’s the slowing down that’ll get you. I’ll give you a for instance- so me and a whole gang of fellas at my old work all got made redundant at the same time. Nice phrase that made redundant, it tells you a lot about how the bosses see you. Anyway, a bunch of us got laid off one way or another when the old firm was bought out and the new set of bosses started about, trying to make some cuts and bolster up the bottom line. One of those writing on the wall type situations. Some of the younger lads managed to stay on but a lot of us took what pensions we had and skedaddled. It made sense. Me, I was state pension age so I wasn’t too fussed in a way. Money-wise I’d be alright. But still, nearly forty years at the same job and then unceremoniously given the elbow at the end of it all. Things like that can rankle if you let ‘em.
Anyway I mention all this because I knew what was gunna happen next, could see it from a mile off. So I kept in touch with everyone who’d been on the job with me- the ones I liked anyway- some of me mates in the office, some of the site gangs, some of the fellas who’d done the same job as me in the different patches. I made sure I had their numbers and I’d give ‘em the odd bell and go for a drink. That sort of thing. But like I say, I could see what was gunna happen from a mile off. Soon enough, the calls came less and less often and then I started to hear about how one bloke- only the same age as me, mind- had come down with cancer and how another had a massive heart attack while out walking his retriever. A year, year and a half after that last day piss-up down the pub and they were starting to drop like flies. Redundant. It’d get so you’d almost start to dread the phone ringing. I tried to tell em ‘If you don’t stay busy with yourself once you’ve packed up work you won’t be around for long’ and they all nodded and said ‘right you are’. I’d seen it with me dad’s generation- a whole crop of men who left the factories and the building sites and the maintenance work in their early mid sixties and then dropped dead within a few years. See, if you don’t have a reason to get up in the morning then you’re done for. I said all this to ‘em but still a lot of me old work mates just retired to the telly and the newspaper or else they went on a few cruises with the missus- if they’d done a bit of clever investing- and after a couple of years they were in the ground.
So the pub trips and the Saturday morning fry ups at the caff became less and less and the calls telling me that someone else has passed on became more and more. The fact I seen it from a mile off makes it no less of a shame, to be honest. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t next in line for the crematorium. So I decided to use some of me lump sum and get me act together.
I made sure to sort everyone out before I left. I cashed everything out, sold up the old semi-detached, gave the kids their share of what they had coming to them early while I’m still here to see ‘em enjoy it. The eldest will no doubt get on the ladder with her share because she was always sensible like that whereas the lad’ll no doubt blow it all on one scheme or another. He’ll either blow it all or turn it into a million, I should say. Easy come, easy go with him. I don’t mind it too much to tell you the truth, he’s had the same attitude to life ever since he was a little ‘un. His mother never understood it, mind, but that’s just one of those things. Speaking of which- I made sure to pay her a visit and give her her share and all. Her and the new fella- I say new but they’ve been married for seven or so years now- point blank refused the cash but we hashed it out over a cup of tea and in the end they took me cheque. I get the feeling she genuinely didn’t want the money whereas he didn’t mind so much and was just playing the part. Makes no difference to me so long as they took it. It’s up to them what happens now. The money’ll probably be siphoned off to the kids or else it’ll go on a couple of holidays. Them cruises again.
So like I say, I sold up, sorted everyone out and then drove right across the country down to the seaside here. Best thing I could’ve done, especially on a day like today. I mean it doesn’t get much better than this does it? Sometimes the gulls cawing might do your head in if you let ‘em but if that’s the only downside then I’m doing pretty well I’d say. For me this time of the year’s the best, the weather’s nice as often as not- I mean just look at that sky out to sea there- the season hasn’t started yet so I’m not just carting the out of towners to-and-fro all day. Not that I mind that so much as far as it goes but it’s nice to have a chat sometimes, isn’t it? Take your time about things, enjoy the purr of the engine here, the sound of the boat going through the water, even the sound of the lorries reversing at the docks over there I don’t mind. Days like today you get to take it all in if you want to. Does you a bit of good the fresh air, being on the water, getting to have a little chat for the few minutes it takes to get from one side of the estuary to the other. Most passengers I get don’t seem to notice much of anything I can tell, and it’s not just because they’re keen to get from the main town beach over to the posh village there or vice versa. It’s not that. They’re just taking pictures of each other, of a seagull on a buoy like that one or of some of these nicer moored boats as I’m arcing me way through ‘em. It’s like they’re looking but not seeing if that makes sense. Anyway we’re here now. Just let me shove this ramp out onto the sand and you can be off to the village. The caff down the end of the beach there is decent, so they tell me. Now mind how you go down the ramp there. Oh- and me last trip back to the town beach is at four, don’t forget. Take care.
You again? Well that’ll be two quid again then, please. Perfect. I’ll not have to bother rifling through this coin bag here for change. Nice afternoon in the village there? Funny, I’ve been doing this ferrying for a good couple of years now and I’ve never been around the village other than that patch of sand where I stand as I’m getting you all up onto the ramp. They tell me it’s beautiful but I like the main town side me. Funny how from the fancy village side you can see the dockyard over there and the main road and the trains running in the distance- but when you’re on the main town side with your back to all that, all’s you can see is this bit of estuary, the sea, the moored boats and that lovely village with all of its bright coloured houses. Picturesque as they say. I suppose that’s the kind of thing you end up thinking about when you’re on the water all afternoon like me.
Now, what was I saying to you before? Cuh, it’s even sunnier now. Oh yes, I was saying I’m only doing this two days a week, the other days I’m either on me market stall or else I’m on me patch of land or tinkering with me classic motor. Good to stay busy. The other days it’s this bloke Mike who does the ferrying, quiet fella. I told him people like to have a chat, you know, maybe learn the odd little fact, tell ‘em how the boat’s painted black and white around the top of the hull there because that used to be the sign for a ferry boat, like the red and white they have on the barber shop pole. Before most folks could read. He nods and all that but I know he just goes rapid back and forth from one side to the other all day, not saying a word to anyone unless he’s spoken to. Up to him at the end of the day. But it’s a false economy all that whizzing back and forth like that. Often it pays you to get off for a minute, stretch your legs, nip to the W.C. across the car park near the town’s lifeboat station there, talk to the ice cream sellers, pet the dogs being walked on the beach, that sort of thing. It’s funny how dogs on the beach like to dig and like to get in the water. You rarely hear ‘em whine and bark like you do if you go past city houses in the daytime. Says something that does. Besides, as I was saying with Mike there, if you take your time a bit between trips the boat’s full up to its full dozen more often rather than just running one or two people back and forth back and forth. False economy that way.
Now I know it’s just you again now but that’s besides the point. It’ll pick up soon enough when the season kicks off. All them tourists. That’s when it gets to be like the Mike routine, back and forth like a ping pong ball. Gets to be a bit repetitive, a bit boring. But it’s only a day or two and it helps keep me fit. Talking of which- hark at that those two over there in the rowing boat, they’re going for it. Big fella wheezing at the stern has got on one of them expensive Tilley hats. I heard they’re unbreakable. I mean, I’ve never heard of anyone breaking a hat except maybe Laurel and Hardy but… Anyway we’re just coming up to the sand bank now, just bear with me a minute. Lovely. I’ll just get the plank for you to walk. There we go. So that’s me for the day, then. Moor this up, then it’s off to meet me mate from the dockyard down the pub there. He likes to keep himself busy and all. Best way to be you ask me. Mind how you go.