Doggerland
‘The Road meets Waiting for Godot: powerful, unforgettable, unique’ Melissa Harrison, author of At Hawthorn Time.Doggerland is a superbly gripping debut novel about loneliness and hope, nature and survival – set on an off-shore windfarm in the not-so-distant future.‘His father’s breath had been loud in the small room. It had smelled smoky, or maybe more like dust. He had knotted and unknotted a strap on the bag he was holding – he must have been leaving to go out to the farm that day. ‘I’ll get out,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll come back for you, ok?’ The boy remembered that; had always remembered it. And, for a time, he’d believed it too.’In the North Sea, far from what remains of the coastline, a wind farm stretches for thousands of acres.The Boy, who is no longer really a boy, and the Old Man, whose age is unguessable, are charged with its maintenance. They carry out their never-ending work, scoured by wind and salt, as the waves roll, dragging strange shoals of flotsam through the turbine fields. Land is only a memory.So too is the Boy’s father, who worked on the turbines before him, and disappeared. The boy has been sent by the Company to take his place, but the question of where he went and why is one for which the Old Man will give no answer.As his companion dredges the sea for lost things, the Boy sifts for the truth of his missing father. Until one day, from the limitless water, a plan for escape emerges…This beautifully crafted novel about loneliness and hope, nature and survival, is as haunting as it is compelling – a very special debut indeed.
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4th Estate
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London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate 2019
Copyright © Ben Smith 2019
Cover image © Shutterstock.com
Ben Smith asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008313364
Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008313388
Version: 2019-02-25
for Lucy
Contents
1 Cover
2 Title Page
3 Copyright
4 Dedication
5 Contents
6 Bootlaces
7 Nothing
8 Cracks
9 Junk
10 c.8,200 Before Present
11 A Fur Hat
12 Something
13 Tins
14 Bottles
15 c.20,000 Before Present
16 Knots
17 Circuits
18 Systems
19 c.14,000 Before Present
20 Down
21 Up
22 c.11,000 Before Present
23 Paper Cups
24 Fish
25 Westerlies
26 c.9,500 Before Present
27 Easterlies
28 Cracks
29 c.8,500 Before Present
30 Nothing
31 Dust
32 Year Zero
33 Acknowledgements
34 About the Author
35 About the Publisher
LandmarksCoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter
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Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Something. Fourth hook down on the drop-line there was a dark shape. The boy stopped pulling and sat back on his heels. The swell was small that day and it was more than three metres from the platform down to the sea. The boy watched as the shape stretched and buckled beneath the grey water.
‘Strange fish,’ he said to no one.
The wind was blowing in from the west – consistent, ten or eleven metres per second by the feel of it – droning through the platform’s pipes and grilles and pushing the sea into hard ridges. The North Sea shifted from horizon to horizon, like a tarpaulin being dragged over rough ground. It looked sluggish but, under the surface, currents ripped and surged. It was hard to imagine the sheer tonnages hauling past every minute, every second.
The boy wound the line around the railing until it was secure, then took hold of the hanging length, lifted it a few inches and let it fall. He moved it from side to side, but the hook was lodged. He’d have to pull it up. He moved the line again. It was heavy, whatever it was. He hoped his line wouldn’t break. It had taken him a long time to get that length of cord. How long? Months? Years? He looked out at the horizon as if it would give him an answer, but couldn’t even pick out where the grey of the sea became the grey of the sky. It was good cord. That was all that mattered. And a hundred miles offshore it wasn’t easy to get hold of good cord.
Could you even get proper fishing line any more? The wind squalled and worked itself through the seams of his overalls. Who could he ask? The old man wouldn’t know. He didn’t know. And there was no one else out there.
He stood up, set his feet shoulder-width apart and pulled his sleeves down over his hands. He moved his hands slowly and kept the rest of his body very still, as if trying to steady himself against the motion of sea and sky. His legs were planted almost a metre apart and his sleeves barely covered his wide, calloused palms. Of course, the boy was not really a boy, any more than the old man was all that old; but names are relative, and out in the grey some kind of distinction was necessary.
He took hold of the line and, using the rail as a fulcrum, began to haul it up out of the water. As soon as the load broke the surface the line tightened and rasped through his sleeves. He stopped for a moment and let the wind smooth the edges of the pain, then carried on pulling until the fourth hook was level with the platform. He looked down over the rail.
