It is as though losing the knife is part of a greater and more complex plan which only he is privy to. He shows no sign of irritation or surprise.

The barman nods, picks up the knife, and stows it in his waistcoat pocket. He tosses the coin and slaps it down hard.

The barman takes a shilling from his pocket and shows it. “It’s a fine knife, that one,” the man says. He unfolds the blade and tests it against the ball of his thumb. He puts the jackknife on the bar, and the barman picks it up and looks at it carefully. This good knife of mine against a tot of your rum.” “I’m leaving in the morning,” he explains, “on the Volunteer. The barman looks down at the coin and shakes his head. He pushes the single halfpenny across the bar. He delves in his pocket, but all he finds there are bread crumbs, a jackknife, and a halfpenny coin. There is a low fire in the grate and a smell of frying. The bar is almost empty at this hour in the morning. He turns around and walks back towards the tavern. He thinks of flesh, animal, human, then thinks again-it is not that kind of ache, he decides, not yet it is the milder one, the one less pressing. He notices the pink smell of blood from the pork butcher’s, the grimy sway of a woman’s skirts. He peers around and for a moment wonders what it is. His ship leaves at first light, but before then there is something that must be done. He senses a fresh need, small but insistent, arising inside him, a new requirement aching to be met. He breathes in again and runs his tongue along the haphazard ramparts of his teeth. His shoulder rubs against the smoothed red brick, a dog runs past, a cart piled high with rough-cut timber. Above the warehouse roofs, he can see the swaying tops of main- and mizzenmasts, hear the shouts of the stevedores and the thump of mallets from the cooperage nearby.

At the end of Charterhouse Lane he turns north onto Wincolmlee, past the De La Pole Tavern, past the sperm candle manufactory and the oil-seed mill. He sniffs his fingers, then slowly sucks each one in turn, drawing off the last remnants, getting his final money’s worth. He snorts once, rubs his bristled head, and readjusts his crotch. He shuffles out of Clappison’s courtyard onto Sykes Street and snuffs the complex air-turpentine, fishmeal, mustard, black lead, the usual grave, morning-piss stink of just-emptied night jars.

The North Water by Ian McGuire