Shipwreck
There is a woman. She is sitting at a beautiful large wooden kitchen table. She is in London, Soho neighbourhood. Her head is in her hands.
The woman can think of nothing. Sobs wrench from her chest. Her abdomen convulses with giant hiccups of grief.
The radio plays in the background.
“The news. And this breaking story. Off the coast of Aberdeen, by the traditional fishing village of Pygmy. Reports that last night a traditional Aberdeen pygmy fishing vessel is missing, amidst what has been described as a significant storm. All aboard are presumed dead. More to come as this story develops.”
The woman is sitting at that table in London. Below, the sounds of Brittlefields Food Market waft up. 7am London life kicks into gear.
Sophia is the head buyer for Brittlefields Food Market.
Today marked her first 6 months. And now it is over.
Slowly, Sophia extends her hands on the table in front of her. Blonde hair a mess. Mascara streaming down the face.
Sophia had woken up geared up for the week ahead. Post workout. Stylish clothes.
She was feeling happy. After all - she had just closed a massive Aberdeen Pygime fish order with the largest Eastern buyer in the world.
But now everything has gone wrong.
More updates -
“Police are investigating the unusual incident. Locals knew the shipping crew to be from one of the oldest and respected fishing families in Aberdeen, famed for predicting the weather better than meteorologists. It is apparently highly unusually that a shipping vessel would set sail in such dangerous waters as the storm of last night. Ten crew are now presumed dead. Search parties are to resume once the storm passes.”
Sophia is sitting in London and there is a clap of thunder outside. There is no catharsis of lightning. Instead there is rain, sudden, heavy and black.
It was not meant to be like this.
Brittlefield Food Market approached Sophia just six months into her contract with the American consultancy firm. They offered her a dream job- taking Brittlefields and its suppliers into the international future.
The future was in reference to the rail route from the East to Aberdeen, finally completed last year. A fourteen hours train ride from Scotland to the Middle Kingdom.
Until then, the survival of the Aberdeen pygmy fish filling village depended on the selling their unique pygmy fish to the wealth of London.
Sophia’s new job had both seniority and profit share. It was a business school dream ticket of positioning real life Brittlefield Food Market, expanding beyond wares traditionally sold to top London restaurants. Thanks to the train, the East was calling. And Sophia’s job was to whistle in the orders. The wealthy of the East demanded rare goods.
The legendary Pgymy Aberdeen fish. Food wares did not get much more unique than that. With its famous flavour - a mixture of chicken, eel and seaweed.
And so Sophie’s strategy from Day one had been to fill quotas to fill- turnover and price. For Aberdeen Pygmy fish.
Set the highest bid for the fish. And then get out the highest orders. Under-promise volume and over-deliver. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Sophia leans over the table and lightly places her forehead on it. The rain is falling outside and her head aches.
What else could I have done? a voice moans in her head and moaning in her head as her forehead banged banged banged on the kitchen table.
She bangs her forehead on the table, as if to blot out the pain once, then again and again and again and harder. Water falls from the sky, harder and harder.
It was Rufus’s recommendation that had gotten Sophia for the job at Brittlefield Food Market.
Sophia and Rufus had met at business school in France. Rufus was not the fisherman. His father was, his uncle was, his cousins were. Rufus was the canny boy who’d been sent out to help the family business grown.
Rufus. The canny lad.
Her last conversation with Rufus played over in her head.
“Rufus! How are you?”
“I’m good Sophie, how is it going? Any business for me and Aberdeen clan?”
“For you Rufus, of course. Actually big business. Exactly what we want. I have great news. Those buyers from the East. They want two loads of pygmy fish by next week. And wait for it they are willing to pay ten times. Rufus, this is amazing. This could be the start of something good.”
“But we can’t do that Sophia. We barely have a load this week. And we need a second load to fill the orders for the London restaurants.”
“Rufus, you have to make it happen. We can’t miss this. Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“But I can’t drop the order to our regular customers. My family will kill me. We have been with them for fifty years.”
“Rufus, you need to find a way. Make it happen. So much depends on this.”
“Sophie, come on. Nice bonus for you. But this is not fair. I don’t think we can get this done. We don’t have enough staff. We don’t have cashflow to get the extra fishermen on board. We are going to have to fish 24.7. You know we can’t.”
“Rufus please”
There was a pause. It felt like the longest pause.
“Let’s find a way to make this work. Rufus. Please. What do you need?”
Another pause.
“Sophie it’s going to cost another fifty thousand to pull two more loads out. We don’t have the cashflow. Payments are not until after delivery. The exchange rate might work against us. We are mortgaged to the hilt as it is.”
Another pause and then Sophie said the words she regretted.
She regretted them because she was about to offer a personal loan indemnified by her debt of gratitude for getting her the job at Brittlefields. The job that would give her a bonus if the order came through,
But it was wrong wrong wrong. And yet she said it
“Don’t worry about the cashflow. I will lend you from my own money. I owe you. Send me your account details. Just get the order done Rufus. Make it happen. Promise me. Four loads of Aberdeen pygmy fish. This time next week. “
And so Rufus did. And now the Aberdeen farmers had to deliver four ton of pygmy fish.
The thing any Aberdeen pygmy fish fisherman can tell you about the sea, is that when its winds are with you, you can fly. And when they are against you, you are doomed.
What neither business school graduate , Sophia or Rufus, understood was that the stormier the storm that was coming, the less pygmy fish were in Abedenian waters to be fished.
And a storm was coming.
And so days after Rufus had promised four tons of fish, when Rufus had drunk away Sophie’s loan (the real reason his family had cast him out to business school) the Aberdeen pygmy fish trawl was still barely more than one load.
With two days to go to fulfil the order, Rufus woke up one morning with a start.
He had a heavy hangover from drinking the night before.
Every time he moved he could feel the whisky still sloshing through his liver.
And a mission pounding through his head.
Rufus went down to the village. Picked up a crew of ten workers. And without telling his family, still half drunk, took the small fishing vessel out to sea. In search of ever decreasing stocks of Aberdeen pygmy fish.
Rufus had not skipped a shipping vessel for ten years now. He’d been a good fisherman.
But that night. The storm hit.
Sophie stopped hitting her head on the table and let her head rest. The rain was still falling.
Her tears were still falling.
She was shipwrecked on a country kitchen table in London.
And Rufus was not even yet found.