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empty, then he put it down so as to see Mister Cawdor again.
    ‘I’m not sorry,’ Mister Cawdor said, smiling at Mister Dalwood. ‘If you were me, wouldn’t you have had enough?’
    ‘Okay,’ said Mister Dalwood, ‘so I bungle. You’ve told me before.’ He was frowning down at Mister Cawdor and looking uncertain, as if he did not understand Mister Cawdor’s mind.
    ‘I know what you thought you were doing,’ Mister Cawdor said. ‘To that extent, thanks.’
    ‘Fine,’ said Mister Dalwood, with a serious face. ‘I’m glad you see it.’
    Mister Dalwood and Mister Cawdor looked at each other in the way that people half-look.
    ‘I mean well,’ Mister Dalwood said. ‘You tell me I think with my muscles, but I mean well. I’ve been used to having people around me all the time, but here…We’ve got to get on, or nothing will work.’
    I saw that Mister Cawdor did not think the words of Mister Dalwood were important, though his face was kind. ‘It works,’ he said. Then he made his face more kind by wanting to, and said: ‘Let’s have a row, say, every Wednesday.’
    When I saw Mister Dalwood looking so glad I guessed that he was thinking of those boxing-gloves that he cannot find anyone to hit with.
    ‘You’re on,’ Mister Dalwood said.
    Then it was very quiet, and nothing was happening between the Dimdims, and I went to the side and looked at the island. The sea-haze was still in front of it, but I saw the tops of the palms and the sharp roof of Mister MacDonnell’s house. So I was glad, thinking of the people and the parties.
    But suddenly everybody went running down the boat. The crew, the policemen, the houseboys, they all ran to the arse of the
Igau.
‘What’s up?’ cried Mister Dalwood, using his loud voice again; and he went with them, asking questions that nobody listened to. Over all the people Mister Dalwood waved his head like a tree, asking questions from side to side.
    The arms of the people were reaching out to the line, and their voices were crying: ‘O! O!’ I heard Mister Dalwood’s cry, one foot above them: ‘God Almighty!’ Then they were all dancing, clubbing the leaping thing that had come into the boat. When their bodies moved away I saw Mister Dalwood crouching over the great fish.
    ‘Jesus wept,’ said Mister Dalwood. ‘Isn’t that just beautiful?’
    The fish was like the tin toys that the children have in the ADO’s house. Its belly was silver, its back was black. The sunlight leaned on it and made it burn. The fins of the fish were yellow like bananas, the streak on its side was butterfly-blue.
    ‘Oh God, that’s beautiful,’ Mister Dalwood kept saying, as he stroked it. ‘Hey, life’s beautiful, did you know?’
    ‘Kai for the MacDonnell,’ said Mister Cawdor. ‘We ought to take him something.’
    ‘How can you talk like that?’ said Mister Dalwood. ‘Here’s this magnificent thing come up from the bottom of the sea, and you’re thinking about feeding the MacDonnell.’
    Mister Cawdor had not moved from the bench. He looked down at Mister Dalwood, who squatted among the brown legs, and I saw that he was a sad man, which I had forgotten. Mister Cawdor looked down at Mister Dalwood looking up at him. The sun on Mister Dalwood’s face made his eyes small and shiny, and I saw the salt on his red skin. Because he was out of breath he showed many teeth, and he was laughing also.
    ‘I was never so young in my life,’ said Mister Cawdor, and shook his head.
    Then Mister Cawdor turned and leaned over the side to look at the island, which had turned from grey to green. Over his shoulder he said: ‘I can just make out the house,’ in a voice that sounded as if he did not care.
MACDONNELL
    I had dozed in my chair, and woke slowly, bringing to the surface with me the memory of some sound. A breeze had come up, through the shutter, moving my hair and carrying with it a complicated sweetness. Fifty years I’ve been smelling it, crushed and warm from their