His curiosity was beginning to get the better of him, but he still wasn’t going to play the game. He just sat in silence waiting for Tommy to continue.

Tommy was impressed. Most other children, adults too for that matter, would have become impatient and demanded to know what he had seen, but Ronnie sat impassively waiting for him to reply. Of course, the question was what Ronnie was thinking whilst he was waiting. Tommy had a good idea of that as he had got to know Ronnie pretty well by now, and he recognised that Ronnie’s silence was a disarming disapproval of the game-playing Tommy was involved in. Tommy did sometimes feel concerned about the seriousness of such a young person, but although he knew that Ronnie had already had some pretty serious events in his life, he was basically sound underneath it all.

He realised that even Ronnie would begin to lose patience if he didn’t continue. He had opened-up this topic, so he had better continue with it. However, he did roll himself a cigarette before continuing.

By the time Tommy eventually replied, Ronnie was silently screaming inside his head. Was he never going to continue?, he thought. He was in a funny mood today. He liked Tommy, but sometimes he could be infuriating. He had learned to be patient with him as it had always been worth the wait, but now that patience was beginning to crack.

Tommy lit his cigarette, leaned back in his chair and continued. As he did so, Ronnie removed a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and also lit-up. Tommy knew that he probably shouldn’t allow him to do that, but knew that he smoked anyway – so allowed it to happen – he could hardly preach to him about not smoking. His concession was that he himself would never offer any of his tobacco to him. If Ronnie wanted to smoke, he would have to fund it himself. He leaned forward as he told Ronnie that what he had seen in the bay was a buoy. Ronnie waited for the rest, but nothing else was forthcoming. His initial reaction was that there was nothing very interesting about a plastic marker in the sea. The lobster fishermen used them all the time to mark where they had left the creels. Then he realised the point that Tommy was making. Other fishing went on in this bay, and lobsters were caught at varying other points along the coast, but not in this bay. “So, what is it marking?” he asked.

Tommy replied: “Well, that’s the point! I don’t know, but I very much want to know. Are you up to finding out?”

Ronnie ignored the challenge and said “It’s probably just some new fisherman who doesn’t know the bay.” Even as he said it, he knew that simply wouldn’t be true. All the fisherman were sons of previous fisherman, and although there was a certain amount of rivalry amongst them, they all shared information about the best spots. There was enough to go around.