Clancy had his finger in the air, elbow on the table in front of him and was laughing through his teeth, his face red with whatever it was had got him going and the sound coming out wet with drink.

The mackerel man, Jack Mackerel, he came back with his family the following year and stayed at the same cottage with its boat. Tom Cronin had the cottage and he set the boat up before he came and he had a small engine on the back of it then and made sure there were a couple of new lines, hooks and weights, ready tied in the garage. He may have seasoned them but I’m not sure he told the man that.

The second year we got a name for him, a proper name, the one that his wife used, but we didn’t bother with it and when he came in here we still called him Jack and laughed with him for being a fecked fool with the mackerel.

He was more relaxed when he arrived here for his two weeks. He’d started a beard before he got here and all he seemed to wear was an old pink shirt and a pair of rough blue trousers no matter the weather. His wife and their children seemed happy to stay hereabouts and they didn’t bother to go driving off to a beach twenty miles away. The second year coming back they had gotten more comfortable with the place.

But the man still wanted his mackerel and after two days here he was out again in his boat to try and get some. With the engine he didn’t have to go so long as he could get past the island in a few minutes and there was no need to use the oars. This time he had a better idea of where to go and the time to be out there and he would park the boat out there fifty yards or so off the island, there in the channel and put over his line in the late afternoon on the rising tide.

He did that for three days straight and we watched him out there and he caught nothing.  As each day went he stayed out there another hour or so longer as if sufficient time would have him pulling in the fish but there was feck that he caught on those new lines.

He came here when he’d finish and as those three days went by his shoulders started to slope down and he lost some of the relaxation he had on him that first day he arrived.

After that third day he came in here in the early evening. He had his family with him and they took a seat in the corner there and it was if they were waiting for him to catch his fish before they could move up here to be closer the bar.

I’d a bag of fish I had caught that afternoon under my chair. I had been up further along the bay in Paddy’s boat there and we had caught a bucketful in less than twenty minutes.

The man was up at the bar buying his drinks and waiting on his pint and so I asked him about the fish ‘You caught nothing out there?’

‘Nothing’ he said. ‘Not even the feel of a bite. I was there for almost three hours and there was nothing. After last year I thought that I had it but obviously not…’

‘There’s nothing to it’ I told him. ‘The fish are there alright but you need to let them know you are waiting to catch them and there is nothing I can say that will help with that. But take some of my fish. Have these for your breakfast and they’ll make you feel better.’

He protested and said they had eaten already and there was food where they were and he couldn’t take them from.

I reached down into the bag and pulled out one of the fish. It was still bright from the water. It was a big fish, more than twelve inches long and I could feel its hard fat belly under my fingers.

‘You’ll not be eating the fish’ I told him. ‘ Look at this.’

I took out a knife from my pocket and cut a line up its belly. I spilled the guts out into the bag by feet and then eased out of the pouch two fat creamy glands.

‘Have these for your breakfast. This is a male fish and this is its milt. I got it and a couple of others before they could let it go out in the bay. Have that for your breakfast.’

I pushed the two glands back into the belly of the fish. The man’s pint was on the bar and he took a long drink at it.

‘Fry up some bacon in butter and as it cooks put in the milt and mash it up with a fork and eat it with scrabbled eggs.’ I looked over to the family. ‘Don’t tell them too much and you could feed it to them. You have that and wait for a day and go out fishing the next morning and see if you catch some fish then.’

I wiped down my fingers on my trousers and gave him the fish in a bag along with another. He took the bag and went to sit with his family and I watched as his shoulders eased up.

Clancy had his finger down now but he was still laughing quietly through his teeth.

The ancients produced from fish two extremely strong seasonings, muria and  garum.

 The first was nothing but the brine of the tunny, or rather the juice which flowed from it when it was salted.

Garum, which was more costly, is much less well known to us. It is believed that it was made by pressing the seasoned entrails of the scomber or mackerel, but if that were so its high price would not be justified. There is reason to believe that it was an imported sauce, perhaps that soy which comes to us from India and which is known to be the result of letting certain fish ferment with mushrooms.

Analytical gastronomy has long tried to determine what effects a fish diet has on an animal economy and the opinion is unanimous that they are strongly sexual and awaken in both sexes the instinct of reproduction.

Once this result was admitted, it was found that there are two causes of it so obvious that they can be understood by anyone: (1) various ways of preparing fish in which the seasonings are plainly excitant, such as with caviar, picled herrings, marinated tunny, salted cod, stockfish and the like; (2) the various essences with which fish is imbued, which are above all inflammable and which are converted into oxygen and turned sour by the process of digestion.

A still profounder analysis has discovered a third and even more active cause of the sexual effects of a fish diet: the presence of phosphorus, which occurs already formed in the milt, and which always appears in decomposition.

I meant to light a fire last night but didn’t get round to it and we were sat down in the kitchen anyway so we wouldn’t have got the benefit.

So as the light goes out of the sky outside the fire is now lit. There is big log on it and a child is sat bang in front taking the full benefit of its heat.

last night we had four started; beetroot with yogurt, aubergine with yogurt, squid with red wine and tomatoes and clams and beans.

The beetroot was from the garden and for some reason a very pale pink. It was boiled for a couple of hours until soft, peeled and then blitzed in the magimix with a couple of spoons of yogurt, garlic and olive oil. It came out the colour of a particularly vivid blancmange.

But the highlight was the squid. I took a tip from Wards and kept the skin on. I also saved some of the ink for the sauce. After an hour or so’s cooking it was almost black and had a deep dark taste to it.

After the starters we ate monkfish with raisins, vinegar and honey and pearl diver’s rice. Both from Diane Henry’s Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons.

That was followed by five quinces roasted for a couple of hours in a slow oven served on a bed of whipped cream. We will be having that again.

And to drink there was lashings of good red wine.

Dan was missed.

After clearing the head this morning I went out into the garden. Most of the time was spent raking up leaves and scrubbing out the beds. There is now a big pile in the corner of the garden. Hopefully it will be dry this week and next weekend we can have a bonfire.

Although we are almost into winter there is still some colour in the garden.