Fish

Vans with corrugated sides, low on the ground like snails with wheels, arrive early in the market square. Bright-faced and burly drivers fold down sides, open flaps, pull out shelves, fiddle with hoses and taps and curse as they push open the huge blue bâches, magically transforming the vans into stalls. Wives in clean aprons and rubber boots unload boxes of fish. There are fans of shimmering sardines, trays of beige oysters, mountains of black mussels, pink hummocks of shrimps, creaking baskets of live langoustines. Soft crabs scrabble to the insurmountable walls of polystyrene boxes, congers are coiled, a pyramid of lemons (given free with a reasonable purchase) rises from a field of parsley. Jars of fish soup, dark brown and thick, stand like a guard of honour along the sides of the stall. The sun has not yet risen above the church and there is still more fish to unload.