Bellows and Leather

The forge in Easky is dim when I pull up. One oil lamp burning in the window. I'm Rae, forty-four, marine hull surveyor, and I have been standing in wet boatyards for twenty years. This job is different. This job is leather.

Mack is already there when I let myself in. He's the driver, forty-seven, big hands, gray coming into his beard. He nods at me from the bench.

"You found it okay," he says.

"Easky's not hard. One road in, one road out." I set my clipboard down. "So. The bellows leather comes with me tonight. Insurance claim. It has to be handled right or the claim stalls."

"Handled right how? I put it in a van. I drive."

"There's more to it than that." I pull the paperwork out. "It's got to be wrapped flat, not folded. Photographed before packing. Sealed. The adjuster wants a chain of custody, which is a fancy way of saying nobody sneezes on it."

Mack laughs. "Right. So I stand there and look pretty while you do the important bits."

"Something like that."

He wipes his hands on his trousers and looks around the place. Stone walls, tools on pegs, the old forge cold for the night. Then he stops at the bench in the corner.

"Is that a phonograph?" he asks.

"It came with the forge," I say. "Owner says it's older than he is. Probably older than the forge."

"Does it work?"

"I never tried it. It's not on my checklist."

"Well it's on mine now!" He's already over there, cranking the handle. There's one record sitting beside it, dusty. "Look, one record. We get to hear exactly one thing tonight and it's whatever this is."

He winds it and drops the needle. A hiss. Then a tune, faint, warbling. And under the tune, a scratch, rhythmic, like a heartbeat limping.

"You hear that?" I say. "That dragging sound?"

"That's the felt pad on the reproducer. It's frayed through." He lifts the tonearm and squints at it. "It's catching the groove. My father had one of these. I know that sound."

"You know how to fix it?"

"Not with what's here." He turns the pad over. It's coming apart, fibers hanging. "Needs new felt. Or padding of some kind."

I look around the forge. There's a leather scrap bin by the bellows, obviously. And there's a tin of wax and a roll of soft chamois on the shelf.

"Chamois," I say. "Cut a small disc, wax it light, glue it under. It's not felt but it's close."

"You know this from boats?"

"I know this from being annoying about old things, yes."

So we work on it. He holds the reproducer housing steady and I cut the chamois with a razor knife. His hand is near mine when I trim the edge, and I feel the heat off his knuckles. I don't move away. I'm not going to make a story out of that right now, but I notice.

"Little left," he says. "There. That's it."

"Perfectionist."

"With my father's machine, yes. Old habit!"

I press the new pad down and hold it while the wax sets. His fingers come up to help hold the other side and we're both just holding this little brass lump together for a good thirty seconds, saying nothing. The lamp flickers.

"Tell me about the job," he says while we wait. "Hull surveyor. What does that even mean, day to day?"

"I look at boats that have been in accidents and say whose fault it was. Or what it costs. Or both." I check the pad with my thumbnail. "Mostly it's writing reports nobody reads until they're angry."

"That sounds lonely."

"It is lonely. That's the honest answer." I let go of the reproducer. "There. Try it."

He winds it again, drops the needle. The tune comes up cleaner. Still old, still hissy, but the dragging heartbeat is gone.

"Ha!" He actually pumps his fist. "Listen to that. We did that."

"We did." I'm grinning, I can hear it in my own voice. "Best thing I've fixed all year, and I get paid for fixing things."

He turns the volume thing down a little and we sit on the bench. The record plays. I don't know what the song is. Something with a fiddle.

"So why Easky?" he asks. "You're a hull surveyor. This is a forge. Bellows leather is a long way from boats."

"It came through the firm. I took it." I look at the lamp instead of at him. "My flat is empty right now. Has been for two years, since Janey and I split. But it felt extra empty this month and I didn't want to sit in it, so I said yes to a job in the west of Ireland on a Friday night."

"Janey. Long time?"

"Twelve years. We met at a maritime conference when I was thirty. It ended fine, if you can believe that. No shouting. She just stopped being there, slowly, and then officially."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was just over." I finally look at him. "What about you? Somebody waiting on you somewhere?"

"No." He says it easy, not sad. "Never married. I raised my son on my own since he was small. His mother and I were never a thing that lasted. And he left for university three weeks ago, so now the house is just me and a kettle that gets used once a day instead of eleven."

"Three weeks. How's that sitting?"

"Bad, if I'm honest. Good, if I'm prouder." He shrugs. "He's doing engineering in Galway. He rang me Sunday to tell me about a lecture and I was glad the whole day. That's how it goes now, I think. One phone call buys me a week."

"That's a good trade."

"It is. It just leaves the evenings long."

The record ends. The needle hisses in the runout groove and he gets up to lift it off. I watch him handle the machine the same way I asked him to handle the leather, careful, two hands, no rushing.

"You're good with it," I say.

"I'm old with it. Different thing." He sets the record back in its sleeve. "Should we do the actual job before midnight? I do have to drive this leather somewhere, allegedly."

"Right. Yes. Work." I get up and get my camera. "Wrap flat, photographed, sealed. You watch, I do the important bits."

"Looking pretty the whole time," he says, and I laugh harder than the joke deserves.

We lay the leather out on the long table. It's the old bellows skin, big as a door, cracked at the folds but sound in the middle. I photograph it corner to corner while Mack holds the lamp where I point. Somewhere in there our