Heading Inland by Nicola Barker Read Free Book Online Page B

where they were spawned and that’s where they returned to die.
    But first, such a journey! Feeding on plankton, the tiny, little transparent eels, newborn, floated to the surface of that great sea from their deep, warm home in its depths, drifted on the Gulf Stream, travelled over the Atlantic, for three summers, then into European waters, in huge numbers, swam upriver, from salt to freshwater. What a journey. And man couldn’t tame them or breed them in captivity or stop them. Couldn’t do it.
    How did they know? Huh? Where to go? How did they know? But they knew! They knew where to go. Moving on, living, knowing, remembering. Something in them. Something inside. Passed down through the generations. An instinct.
    Wesley uncovered his face and looked around him. He wanted to find another exit. He walked to the rear of the fridges and discovered a door, bolted. He went over and unbolted it, turned the key that had been left in its lock, came back around the fridges and strolled out into the shop.
    ‘Thanks, mate,’ Wesley said as he pushed his way past Fred and sauntered back outside again.
    Trevor shook his head. ‘No way,’ he said. And he meant it.
    ‘You’ve got to fucking do this for me, Trev,’ Wesley said.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘You know how old some of those eels are?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Some could be twenty years old. They’ve lived almost as long as you have.’
    ‘They get them from a farm,’ Trevor said. ‘They aren’t as old as all that.’
    ‘They can’t breed them in captivity,’ Wesley said. ‘They come from the Sargasso Sea. That’s where they go to breed and to die.’
    ‘The what?’
    ‘Near the West Indies. That’s where they go. That’s what eels do. They travel thousands of miles to get here and then they grow and then they travel thousands of miles to get back again.’
    ‘Sounds a bit bloody stupid,’ Trevor said, ‘if you ask me.’
    ‘I’m a travelling man,’ Wesley said, ‘like my dad was. Don’t try and keep me in one place. Don’t try and lock me away.’
    ‘They’re eels, Wesley,’ Trevor said, almost losing patience.
    ‘Imagine how they’re feeling,’ Wesley said, ‘caught in those fridges. Needing to travel. Needing it, needing it. Like an illness, almost. Like a fever. Dreaming of those hot waters, the deep ocean. Feeling cold steel on their noses, barely breathing, crammed together. Nowhere to go. No-fucking-where to go.’
    ‘Forget it,’ Trevor said, ‘I’ve got no argument with Fred. Forget it, mate.’
    ‘Take the van, Trevor,’ Wesley said calmly. ‘Drive it round the back, where they make the deliveries. I already unlocked the door.’
    Off Wesley strode again. Trevor jangled the keys in his pocket, swore out loud and then ran after him.
    Wesley crept in through the back entrance. He stood still a while. He could hear the chattering of customers in the shop and he could hear the sound of a van pulling into the delivery passage. He went outside, smiling wildly, happy to be fucking up, same as he always was.
    ‘OK, Trev,’ he said. ‘Open the back doors but keep the tail up so’s when I dump them in there they don’t escape.’
    Trevor looked immensely truculent but he did as Wesley asked.
    Wesley went back inside, opened up one of the big, silver drawers, pushed his arms in, down and under all that silky, scaleless eel-flesh. He curled his arms right under, five eels, all wriggling, closed his arms around them and lifted. Water splashed and splattered. He looked over to the doorway leading into the shop, bit his lip, couldn’t pause. The eels were whipping and lashing and swerving and writhing. He headed for the exit at top speed.
    Trevor stood by the tailgate. When he saw the eels he swore. ‘Fuck this man! Fuck this.’
    Wesley threw the eels into the back of the van. ‘Ten minutes,’ he said, ‘to get them back to water, otherwise they’ll suffocate.’
    Trevor watched the eels speeding and curling in the back of his van, swimming,