He picked up the photo off the bookshelf. Carefully pinching it by a corner, he gently wafted it to remove the film of dust that had appeared to have formed on where it was perched.
On closer inspection, though, in the antipodean sunlight radiating in through the window, he realised the ‘dust’ was the thin early-morning mist rising off the river in the picture. He murmured to himself in recognition and flipped the photo over. In a fine, looping cursive was the simple inscription ‘Fresnais’ in the top the left-hand corner. He flipped the picture back and gazed at it intently. He stood still with halted breath, as if he was holding the old Kodak camera and she was peering back at him through the mist.
Her tousled silver hair embarrassed the river’s glass surface. The baggy blue jumper and blue suede skirt she’d thrown on added a touch of urban chic to the bucolic setting. Stood on the bank, she turned to the camera laughing apparently at the absurdity of being up at this ungodly hour, particularly while on holiday. But the glint in her bleary eyes suggested she didn’t mind. Besides she clutched a plastic mug of coffee in one hand – and as a mother of three – she had long since learned that anything, anything at all is possible in the day’s infancy with the life-saving properties of caffeine.
In her other hand she held the butt of the fishing pole, supported in the crook of the arms of her youngest, who clasped his small hands together as if in prayer. Perhaps he was praying for a bite from the fish of which he was apparently dreaming. Standing-sleeping, his closed eyes were partially curtained by the thick thatch of straw-coloured hair that sat atop of his “bonce” as his father, the Doctor, termed it not-so medically speaking.
Everyone, and everything was slow to wake this summer’s morning – the sedate water, the soft sun yawning through the heavy-lidded air and even the branches of the tree that slouched over the river perfectly replicated in its surface. Evidently, the fish were still lying comatose on the silt bottom too given the float red top’s stubborn refusal to dip away.
It had been a different story the day before though with a life-changing event occurring for the young lad in the photo, now the man who contemplated it wistfully today.
The previous day, just another in another long summer camping holiday in France, the lad had cast the line out for maybe the 100th time. He remained totally undaunted and absorbed, still holding out a stubborn hope for something to grab his baited hook and pull the float under – he would come to know this as the Eternal Prayer of All Anglers.
Then it happened.
Initially doubting his eyesight, he breathlessly searched the surface for where the float tip had been.
With his heart suddenly thumping hard in his chest and throat he wound a couple of turns on his reel. Feverishly excited, he felt something pull back on the tip of the emerald green-rod. He continued to wind animatedly – each bump and tap on the line shooting new shocks of adrenaline through him. Then he saw the silver flash close to the bank where he perched. Delicious anticipation bubbled unbearably as the fish boiled and splashed on the surface. And suddenly there it was, suspended in front of him, flashing and spinning in the golden light like a small tear into a new magical dimension.
Quickly he swung the fish over and carefully lowered it onto the grass bank. Now what? As a completely alien situation to him, he had no idea what to do. He turned one way and another agitatedly, as the fish flipped and flopped gasping. Caught between ecstasy and anxiety, reason finally kicked in in his young bonce. He decanted the maggots from the coffee tin into a plastic bag that had contained a fresh, buttery croissant greedily devoured on arrival at the bank. He reached down to the river, filled the tin with water, and dunked the still-hooked fish into the receptacle. With shaking hands, he carefully placed the tin on the bank.
He took a hot second to marvel at his prize in the tin to check it was OK, before tearing off into the campsite. He started yelling incoherently as he sprinted through the campsite drawing bemused and concerned looks from campers broken from their deckchair reverie. “I GOT ONE, I GOT ONE!” he now bellowed having inherited his family’s propensity for reaching HIGH VOLUME levels.
They rushed to him, parental alert mode instantly and fully activated, with his dad, the Doctor, hurriedly kneeling before him and examining him for cuts, snakebites or God knows what. “What is it, darling, what’s the matter?” his mother breathlessly asked, trying to temper her rising panic. “I GOT ONE! I GOT A FISH!!!” They looked at him puzzled for a second before the penny dropped. Both smiled and sighed with relief, as his dad stood up, held his hands up to reassure the onlooking campers everything was OK.
Instantly defaulting into her supportive mum mode, she bent to kiss the top of his head and said to him, “Well done, darling, that’s wonderful.” “Quick, quick, you’ve both got to come and look at it,” he beseeched, dragging them back to the gate that opened onto the riverbank.
He proudly stood over the coffee tin jabbering a second-by-second recount of this epic capture – already embellishing, foreshadowing a life of telling “expansive” fishing tales. His dad gently took the fish from the tin in the palms of his thick hands and carefully removed the hook. “Would you like to hold him before putting him back, old son?” he asked prompting vigorous nodding by the lad. “Wet your hands first in the river so you don’t take the slime off him – he needs that to protect him,” explained his father remembering biology “O”-level learnings many years ago.
The lad eagerly did as instructed, before his dad handed him the gasping fish, with a delicacy of touch usually reserved for performing heart surgery. She watched him, captivated by her son’s wonder and reverence, as he received the little bleak – the species of fish her husband, who knew these things, had expertly identified it.
He carefully cupped the fish in his digits, his tongue slightly sticking out with intense concentration. He crept and knelt by the river, lowering the fish back into its watery domain. He opened his palms and momentarily the fish hovered in the water, recovering from its strange ordeal, before darting off in a blink as if never there.
And that was it, he was well and truly hooked…
He couldn’t remember if they’d caught anything the next morning when the photo had been taken. But he remembered fanatically fishing every day for the rest of those holidays, then on most weekends and holidays for several years thereafter.
While his mates became preoccupied with football, BMXing, Space Invaders and Scalextric – fishing became first his passion and then his latest obsession.
He loved that it took him to nooks and crannies in the Big City in which he lived, where nature forced its way through the concrete and the grime.
He loved the soft beauty of the riverscapes in which he would fish in majestic English country settings – sometimes in Shakespeare’s County as the signs read – causing his mother to theatrically recite passages of the Bard’s plays and sonnets to her son’s wonderment.
He loved the water and the myriad moods its surface expressed, somehow reflecting his own fluid emotional states, and the mystery of its depths and the quarry he sought below.
He loved the visceral bump and sometimes the thump of the fish when he swept his rod around to set the hook.
He loved the first electrifying glimpse of the flashing flank of a chub, carp or bream beneath the surface and the confirmation that what he had on the end of his line was truly a big fish – and the more he fished the bigger the fish got further fuelling what was by now his first addiction.
He loved being completely and utterly focussed on the float tip, waiting for it to bob and sink away. In this expectant trance, time did not exist and the usual babble of thoughts springing from his angst-riddled mind, melted away.
He loved that by the waterside doing this, away from the torrent of taunts and jibes, he discovered an eddy of peace, a joy in solitude and meeting a version of himself he actually quite liked.
He loved that he had found something not only was he absorbed by, but something he believed he was actually good at.
He told his dad this – who was gently dismissive, “But you’re good at lots of things, old son,” he said, noting his young son’s bourgeoning insecurity. Both he and his wife recognised and largely approved of their son’s angling fixation, encouraging him and financing his fishing gear and bait. His dad also revived his own interest in the piscatorial art, having successfully fished with a wily old Frenchman, while on those dreamy family camping holidays in France. He found his son’s enthusiasm infectious and saw an opportunity for paternal bonding through trips to rustic lakes bordering the city’s sticks and stretches of river a little further afield. They even won a “dads and lads” fishing competition on the river organised by the Angling Times featuring in said journal as well as the local evening paper for their exploits.
Magickly memorable as these trips were – it was his mother who mostly ferried him to the nearby park lakes and canals to enable him to get his fishing fix on weekends, in the school holidays and on Wednesday afternoons during his third- and fourth-year’s allocated school games periods. They would often talk in the car to and from these trips, she, indulging his excited babbling about the fishing session ahead or the highlights of the one he’d just been on. Prompted by her open love for and knowledge of nature, which he increasingly shared, he would also share with her the water birds, mammals, flowers and plants he’d seen and smelt while fishing. “It was this bushy plant with loads of tiny white flowers and after it rained, it smelt so nice,” he would enthuse from the backseat as the tackle-laden car wound its way back through the grey streets. She, with a serene smile playing on her lips, gazing ahead eyes fixed on the road would respond enthusiastically “Aah, now that sounds like elderflower – lovely stuff that, there’s a lovely cordial that’s made out of that – it’s very good for you – I’ll get us some from the health food shop.” And it was, as she said it was, lovely – just another of many, many eclectic things she knew about.
Sometimes – being of a literary bent, she would recite snippets of poems about nature by the likes of Ted Hughes. He would listen attentively and ask questions about the poet’s use of words or devices like “silhouette/Of submarine delicacy and horror,” (Pike, 1960) – for she had helped him with his English schoolwork, with which like a couple of other subjects he struggled. Little by little she had helped nurture a growing interest and attraction to words, sentences and their creative construction. She had always read to them at night – at first Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Men books – which they loved – especially Mr Tickle which ended up in a tickling for all of them eliciting squeals of happy laughter. Then later magical books like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and then the epic The Hobbit in nightly eagerly awaited instalments. The latter title seemed all the more magic to them, given its author had been a resident of the Big City in which they lived and had taken much of his inspiration for it from some wild park land just down the road from where they lived.
So, they’d sometimes talk about the books he was now reading sometimes under his own volition, sometimes for English lit homework, tucked away in his bedroom on cold afternoons when even the allure of wetting a line wasn’t enough to venture outdoors. She’d give him tips on his critique essays as she ferried him to and from canal, pond, lake and river.
Occasionally, usually if the fishing hadn’t been any good, he would tell her gloomily on the way home about the hard time he was having at the big grammar school he was now attending, how some of the other kids taunted him for being posh and a little chubby; how he felt like he never fitted in – another reason why he liked fishing so much, a tranquil space where he could be alone and solitary and he liked that. He didn’t see her pained look as he told her about these things from the front of the car or catch the concern in her eyes as she glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. “I’m sorry to hear that, duck,” she would soothe, “But things will get better, you’ll see, nil desperandum, my son, nil desperandum.” “Oh Mummm, you know I hate Latin!”, he would protest, and she would let out one of her hearty, uplifting laughs, which always made him feel better, particularly when he was responsible for inducing it.
One mild, overcast late October Saturday afternoon, saw her on her way to collect him from the reservoir tucked away in the backwater of one of the city’s anonymous suburbs. The lake abutted an industrial canal, mineral works and a local council rubbish tip – hardly a salubrious setting, but he had come to love its quiet, ramshackle beauty and the mystery and stillness of its depths, in which resided, it was rumoured, a gargantuan-sized pike called Oscar. Local legend had it, not just baby ducklings, but also their fully-grown adult mother ducks would be seen snatched beneath the surface with unworldly explosive submarine force with just a few scattered feathers a clue to their existence split seconds ago. No one had ever seen or caught Oscar, but the leviathan was reckoned to be 60 pounds or more and the length of an adolescent boy.
But pike were not this adolescent boy’s quarry today. He was fishing in the deep corner of the lake at its main entrance targeting silver and blood-red finned roach and stripey green, black and scarlet finned perch. His bait was not fully grown ducks, but rather small maggots, impaled on a tiny hook tied to gossamer-thin line under a slender float, weighted down with split shot leaving only a speck of the bright orange tip above the surface so even the most delicate of bites would register. He’d been there since mid-morning and sport had been slow – but he didn’t mind, happy to be utterly absorbed from one eternal moment to the next poised awaiting for the orange speck to suddenly disappear. The ecstasy of that split second when it came was something he’d been increasingly obsessed by and chasing since that first fish had pulled his float under on that summer morning in France. Today, it had only happened a couple of times and for his efforts, he had one small roach of a few ounces and one approaching three-quarters of a pound that he’d satisfyingly had to slip the net under to land. Both fish resided in his keepnet, and the fading autumn light suggested that might be all that would be occupying it today. She would be here soon, and it would be time to pack up after his inevitable beseeching of “just one more cast, mum” (usually after about five previous “just one last casts”).
The air now became thick in the pre-twilight with a low mist ghosting up from the water shrouding everything into stillness, with the murmuring drone of distant traffic in the background punctuated only by the piercing pipping of a lone moorhen. The lake solidified into an utterly motionless plane with not a breath troubling its surface and in the monochromatic light, the orange float tip was markedly noticeable when it rose up by a quarter of an inch. He momentarily stopped breathing and was motionless, other than his hand imperceptibly tightening on the rod butt resting on his fishing box, upon which he sat. He recognised this as a “lift-bite” typical of a tench, the thought of which now triggered the familiar thump-thump in his chest and throat. The “rezza” was known to hold numbers of good tench – some big ones – but they were typically caught in summer and catching one this late on in the year would indeed be a special capture. But he didn’t dare entertain such an idea yet – he first had to hook the fish and, if it was a tench, play it and land it which on the light line and tiny hook he had on would be no mean feat. He knew not to “strike” yet though – to set the hook – the fish could be just mouthing the bait with its thick rubbery lips and a sharp pull on the rod tip could merely yank the baited hook away from the fish.
Then after maybe a second, maybe ten, the float tip started to slowly move away and finally down and with a smooth but powerful motion, he swept the rod up off the rest and to the side. The rod hooped into a broad arch through which he felt connected to something very solid at the other end of the line in the opaque depths. At first nothing happened, just solid resistance, which had him thinking he might have just hooked up to a snag on the bottom. Then came a slow inexorable tug on the rod and he backwound to release line off the reel as whatever it was on the end of the line took off in the direction of the middle of the lake. He was awed by the animal power he felt through the rod as the fish surged. Eventually he took his hand off the reel allowing it to spool line off under the fish’s steam, the handle spinning furiously as if powered by some ghostly force. After what seemed an inordinate amount of time, the handle began to slow in its revolutions eventually coming to a halt. Everything was still for a moment, he held his breath and held the arched rod. The line was taught as a garrotte, and he carefully began to “pump and wind” his rod and reel like he’d seen on fishing shows and read about in the Angling Times and the small library of worn angling books that were crammed onto his bedroom bookshelf. To his excitement the fish yielded, and he began to get a few yards of line back on the fish. Out of the corner of his eye, he checked the position of his landing net. Just as he did though, as if the fish was reading his thoughts, the rod was nearly wrenched from his hand as the fish tanked off again on an angry and even more powerful run sending the reel handle into a blur of revolutions. Thankfully this time though, the run did not last as long as the previous one and this time he was able to get more line back on the reel. By now a couple of other anglers fishing further down the cinder path had walked over to where he was fishing to see the kid do battle with what was obviously a good fish.
“Alroight kidda, yow got a tench on there?”
“I think so – feels decent,” he replied stiltedly, fearing even the smallest break in concentration might lose him the fish.
“What loine yow gorr on?”
“Two and half pound main line and a one-pound hook length.
“Ffffttt, Bit under-gunned there intya, kidda?”
“Yep. Was fishing for roach and perch, thought it was too late in the year for the tench.”
“Seen um caught on moild days like this roight into Novemba – but yow don’t gerr um often that’s for sure.”
He nodded in agreement silently cursing to himself that he hadn’t put heavier line on that day.
She pulled up in the car park and walked up the steps cut into the dirt and cinders, retained with old planks. As she got to the top of the bank, she saw a group gathered around a small figure she realised was her son because of the royal blue tackle box atop of which he perched with the matching rod bag tucked up along the back of it.
She ambled up to see what was going on, unsurprised let alone annoyed, that her son once again appeared not to have even begun to pack up his gear. This was par for the course, besides, unless it was bucketing down with rain or freezing cold, she quite liked looking around at the aquatic scene while chatting to her son as he broke down his rod and gear.
As she approached, she could see the significant bend in his rod and although not a devotee of “the piscatorial art” herself, she’d been around her husband and son enough when fishing to know the significance.
“Have you got one on love?” she called out amiably to her son. One of the group of onlookers turned to her to answer on behalf of the lad. “He’s got a bloody good tench on, missus – ‘ad ‘im on for a whoile now – lad’s doing well with the foight.”
Intensely focussed on the task at hand, but unable to contain his excitement, without turning around he excitedly jabbered, “It feels like a whopper, mum!”
“That’s wonderful love, well done!”
“I’ve got to get him in first!”
“Keep the tension on the line, kidda, Oi don’t reckon ‘e’s got much left in the tank,” coached one of the seasoned rezza anglers in the gathering.
She took out her cigarettes and offered them around the grateful group, lit one up and watched on quietly with a smile playing on her lips, internally delighted for her son’s animated excitement and hoping he could land the scaled beast on the other end of the line.
Gradually he worked the fish closer to the bank and got its head up closer to the surface evidenced by the creases and ripples of water now fanning around his taut line. Still the fish was not visible though and continued to make downward lunges.
“Oi’ll grab the net for ya kidda – he’s nearly there,” counselled the veteran of the reservoir as he puffed on the ciggy given to him by the kind posh mum.
“Thanks, mate – I really appreciate it,” he said, she noting his good manners with a little sense of motherly satisfaction.
Finally, there was a flash of an olive-green flank, beneath the surface as he began to really bend the rod into the fish. Just then a slight breeze blew up rustling the autumn leaves in the trees and his line began to sing as the float now suspended above the water surface danced with the fish’s last lunges.
“Easy, easy, kidda, let the rod do the work,” was the advice from the impromptu fishing guide.
Finally, the tench yielded a big black-green shadow on the surface in the half-light. He wound one more turn of the reel lowering the rod slip lightly then pulling the fish back across the rim of the semi-submerged net. As the net bearer began to pull the net handle back through his hands, the lad let out an ecstatic “YESSSS!” and a spontaneous round of applause broke out from the assembly of onlookers.
“Bloody bostin’ kidda – ya played ‘im loik a pro!”
His pride was temporarily eclipsed by his eager excitement to see his catch up close. The net bearer looked down into the wet mesh, ciggy in the corner of mouth, his eyes widening, “Bloody ‘ell, that’s an absolute belta of a fish!” he exclaimed as he brought the next over to the lad.
His mouth fell open as he got his first proper look at his bounty – the most beautiful, massive-est, most vibrant, olive-green tench he had ever seen – one of its ruby-red eyes staring up at him, its whiskered mouth opening and closing as if to say, “Fair play, son, you got me, you’ve earned the right to gawp.” And it really was a huge fish for a tench, by any standards – even its substantial tank-shell head, seemed dwarfed by the deep intricately scaled side which filled the net to practically bursting.
As the lad sat there, his mouth agape as much as the fish’s, others peered over the net’s rim whistling and “ooh” ing at the lake beast before them.
“That’ll go four and a half at least,” exclaimed one of the admiring spectators excitedly.
“Five – five-and-a-half,” said the net bearer/guide authoritatively. “Whatever it is – that is an absolute peach of a tench, kidda,” he turned to her. “You should be proud of ‘im, missus, hooking and landing a fish likes that takes a lot of skill – I know ‘owd blokes ‘oo’ve fished this rezza all their loives and would give their roight arm to catch a tench loik that. Almost as big as my biggest,” he said winking at the lad with a grin.
The lad was lot for words, but looking from the man to his mum, seeing the look of pride on her face, he broke out into a beaming smile radiating happiness and joy.
He looked back into the net the fish still gleaming like an olive moon crescent in the rapidly fading light. He knew he needed to get the fish back – he wet his hands in the water before slipping them underneath the fish’s velvety belly.
He lifted the fish from the net with the care and delicacy of a mid-wife. He sank to his knees and held the fish up turning it to him to inspect it one last time – this was the days before mobile phones or electronic cameras – but that image of that exquisite animal almost glowing in the gloom was indelibly stamped on his mind forever.
He gently lowered the fish into the water, holding the fish just below the surface allowing it to work the water through its gills. After a short while, he could feel the vital strength of the fish begin to radiate through its torso, it was time. He slowly took his hands away like a magician revealing a dove and the fish slowly powered off out and then down and sliding out of view into the inky depths. He sat on his haunches for a moment before standing up – apparently a good couple of inches taller than before, she mused to herself.
He received slaps on the back, “well done, kidda”s and hair ruffles before they made their way off back to their homes for tea and a couple of tins with Match of the Day.
As he packed up his gear, he jabbered away excitedly to her recounting the epic capture reel wind by reel wind – she just smiled and smoked and waited, as she often did on these occasions. In the car he continued his elated discourse, “Honestly, mum – what an incredible fish from that lake, I feel so happy! Feels like one of the best days of my life. I am so glad you were there when I landed it!”
“Ah that’s wonderful, darling – you did so well getting him in,” she said as she drove along through the early evening traffic back to the family home – via the chippy. She’d promised him celebratory fish and chips, such a halcyon day as this warranted it. And then a thought occurred to her.
“You know maybe you could write about it?” she suggested.
“That’s a great idea, mum, I will….”
Beginning its languid descent, the sun stretched its dreamy glare across the impossibly blue sky. The ocean transformed again into a seething expanse of quicksilver. Waves folded and thumped and sloshed along the powder-yellow beach, along which he walked with his small entourage of son, nephew and niece, all of them laden with fishing gear.
“Do you really think it’ll be better up this end of the beach, Dad?” asked the slight, curly-haired boy, as he skipped along clutching the handle of a large white bucket.
“Don’t know, son, but it was dead down there, wasn’t it?” said the man striding with purpose, fishing rod perched on his shoulder, gaze fixed on a point further up the beach.
“Yeah – it was pants, Dad. I don’t really think we’re gonna catch anything tonight,” sighed the lad.
“Nil desperandum, son, nil desperandum.”
“Nil who, Dad? Did you say something about a match result or something?”
“Never mind, son. Besides, you see that surf break up there, I reckon that might hold some tailor in the foam.”
“What are tailor like, uncle?” blasted out the chunky blonde-haired lad, much the loudest of what was already a considerably loud group for its small size!
“Ahh, now, tailor are great fish, nephew,” said the man. “They’re like the piranha of the sea – wicked sharp teeth on an underhanging draw. Vicious and aggressive, they are, they bite hard and fight hard.
He put on his best growling, salty sea dog burr eliciting giggles from the gaggle. “’Zum saaays they get their name from scissoring fishermen’s nets with thems gnaaaaashers trying to get at the bait fish. But oi reckons it’s because they bite the tails off their prey fish first – stop ‘em swimming around, see. Then theyze circles back on ‘em and chomps ‘em down. CHOMP-CHOMP-CHOMP!”
“WOWWWWW!” all the kids chorused.
His little niece, shocking blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, scampering to keep up with the bigger kids around her, eager to not miss out on the conversation piped up, “How long have you done fishing, uncle?”
“Mmm…about 40 years,” he mused.
“Wowww – that means you must be reeeaaalllly old,” said the little princess giggling.
“Yep – a right daft old bugger as my mum would say,” he said grinning.
“What’s a bugger, uncle?” she asked giggling some more.
“Well in this case a very silly old-ish man,” he said.
“You can be very silly uncle – why aren’t you being silly now?” she asked hoping he would perform some of his funny shenanigans and antics.
“Well, niece, we’re fishing now, and fishing is a serious business. Very serious indeeeeeeed,” he pretend-growled, suddenly turning and pivoting pulling a mock monster face right up against hers. It drew squeals of delight from the wee lass.
“Did your dad teach you to fish, uncle,” asked his nephew.
“A little bit, but I learned a lot from other fishers.”
“Did your dad take you fishing lots?” asked the niece.
“He did, but my mum did too.”
“Did she fish?”
“Not really – she just took me fishing…a lot, when I was younger….”
He trailed off in reverie. It was a year ago and a day that she had finally succumbed to the cancer. He had been with her when she got her diagnosis from the not-unsympathetic, but straight-to-the-point, doctor in the pokey public hospital room. His mother’s matter-of-fact response seemed to suggest she had been expecting the diagnosis. “Well, it’s hardly surprising, I’ve smoked 20 fags a day for a large part of my life. I’m surprised I got away with it as long as I did,” she said.
The doctor nodded impassively. “Well, yes, you are right of course, but let’s look forward and consider your treatment plan.”
“No, none of that, thank you,” his mother said quietly, but firmly. “I’ve lived a long and good life, and I don’t want to draw this last bit out any longer than I have to – I just want to be made as comfortable as I can please, but without being loaded up to the eyeballs with morphine all of the time.”
He sat and listened, head bowed, trying to digest what he had already known to be true in his heart, now being medically confirmed for the first time. He knew his mother to be one of the most stoical people he had ever known, but even with that to be true, he was in quiet awe of her unreserved acceptance of her circumstances. He sat, slightly numbed, trying to comprehend that in the not-too-distant future this beautiful soul, this generous, kind, gentle and deeply loving woman, this unshakeable pillar that had always been in his life would be gone.
He’d left the glowing warmth of early summer in the New Country to return to the biting bitterness of mid-winter in the Old. He’d stuck around back at the family house for a few weeks doing what he could to help, the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, all that stuff she’d dutifully and lovingly done for him and the rest of the family for years with little complaint. Mainly though, he just sat with her in what had once been his bedroom with some of his old, fading music band posters still on the wall. They talked a fair bit, but also sometimes they just sat in a sacred quietness, the precious peace in her company, even when she was asleep – which she began to do increasingly as the disease leached from her remaining strength and energy.
Even with her considerable resilience and even-temperedness – the pain and the discomfort would occasionally make her grouchy. “Ach…what a bloody crank this thing is!” she would spit irritably. When it was like this, he would try to cheer her up playing classic old comedy skits on his laptop, they got as far as episode four of the first season of The Young Ones that had them both cackling delightedly at Rik and Viv’s madcap shtick. They even watched a good portion of the Pythons’ Meaning of Life – and both had a good chuckle at the Grim Reaper scene: “Darling there’s a Mr Death here – I think he’s here to do the hedges.” He would often recall how poignant this scene was – his mother literally laughing in the face of death as the old bastard approached.
Then the time had come – she had quietly ordered him to go, “It’s been wonderful having you here, but you’ve your own family and they’ll be wanting you back there for Christmas. Your brother and sister and the carers can look after me from here.” He knew there was no arguing with her.
He popped into the bedroom on his way down the landing.
“Well, this is it, Mum, I’m away to the airport.”
“OK, darling. Now listen, don’t be sad when I’m gone…”
He looked down momentarily and nodded his head. When he looked up, he could see a twinkle in those warm blue-grey eyes.
“…well, alright, you can be if you like, just a little bit.”
They both smiled. In the end it was the gentlest of goodbyes either of them could have wished for. He turned and left the room.
The January morning she finally succumbed – he had been taking a personal training session and out of nowhere a large rain cloud appeared and deposited its load over the park. It was high summer and there hadn’t been a drop of rain for weeks, and it passed quickly enough. As he was packing away the equipment into his car, he looked up to see a huge markedly vivid double rainbow appear over the football field. A couple of hours later his sister called to let him know she had gone. He didn’t even have to ask exactly when she’d passed – because he realised now, she’d come to say goodbye to him, filling his eyes and heart with colour. Her maiden name, you see, was Rainbow…
One year and one day later….
“Dad, when are we going?” his son said through chattering teeth. By now the golden orb had slid over the horizon leaving an ochre and pink sky, a velvety twilight and a creeping chill in the evening air. The kids, long disinterested in the static rod tips, had taken to scampering around in the sand, trying to beat the waves as they rolled in up the shore. In the process, they were getting wet and a good coating of sand, for now oblivious to the cooling sea breeze.
But he knew he had a very limited window before their hunger and cold kicked in and all of them would start nagging him to pack up and go.
“Very soon, son – this is the…”
“…. ‘the witching hour’ YES – you ALWAYS say that, Dad, when we haven’t had a bite in ages and then you have another 20 casts!”
He laughed out loud at that one.
“You know me too well, son! But I have been getting a couple of nibbles.”
Just then there were two distinctive enquiring taps on the rod tip.”
The lad saw them too. “You mean like that, Dad?”
“Yeah, just like that,” he said suddenly very alert and focussed on the end of the rod. There was a pause of a few seconds and just as he was beginning to think he’d missed the bite, the rod violently bucked over. He swept it back over his head to set the hook and whatever it was on the other end of the line became very angry, very fast and shot off. The drag on his reel screamed in protest as the fish tore a long length of line off.
“Wow! What do you reckon it is, Dad!” his son asked hopping from foot to foot excitedly suddenly forgetting the cold and his boredom.
“Gotta be a salmon the way that’s gone off,” he said confidently. Finally, the fish finished its run, and he began to pump the rod back and reel in the line as quickly as he could. He could feel a substantial weight on the other end of the line confirming in his mind this was indeed a West Australian salmon – one of the fantastic fish you can catch in this part of the world. Although, not related to their Atlantic namesake, their torpedo profile, white sides, broad blue-grey backs, big heads and powerful V-shaped tails, had many of the early English and Irish immigrants name these fish salmon. That’s where the similarities end, though, and many in this part of the world turn their nose up at the eating quality of the West Aussie salmon disdainfully dubbing it “a-mother-in-law fish”. However, by now a reasonably seasoned fisher of these parts, he knew what those in-the-know, do indeed know:
“If you catch a West Aussie salmon, dispatch ‘im quickly, bleed ‘im and chuck ‘im in the Esky in an ice slurry, he actually makes for a bloody good feed.”
“’ken oath, maaate!”
With this knowledge, he knew if he could get this fish in, he could feed his family and his brother-in-law’s family, whose friends’ nearby fabulous South-West retreat they were residing in for the long Australia Day weekend. He could be the provider, the hero of the beach and enjoy the glow of self-satisfaction and growth in stature as The Fishermanof the family. Someone who could be relied on to deliver the much-cherished fresh fish.
So, he made sure to keep up the pressure up and the line tight on the now surely tiring salmon. One of these tenacious fish’s characteristics is a tendency to launch out of the water, furiously shaking its head to try and throw the hooks. Still no jumps from the fish, but now he readied himself to sharply lower the rod tip to mitigate the hook twisting out of the fish’s maw on such a leap, but instead, the fish took off on another powerful surging run.
This was beginning to feel not like a salmon at all. He sensed it, his son sensed it.
“What do you think, Dad? Mulloway? Shark?” His son had inherited his passion for angling and had already gained a fair amount of piscatorial knowledge, he proudly noted.
“Yeaaahh – possibly, could be a Samson fish, perhaps, or could be… I don’t know, it could be any bloody thing!”
This time the fish’s run was shorter, and he sensed the fight was beginning to turn in his favour. He started to pump the rod back and wind down on the reel reclaiming ground on his quarry. He was cautious at first as there were a few thumping shakes on the end of the rod, but when it seemed like the fish wasn’t going to run, he drew the rod back and cranked the reel with more vigour. Finally, the line angled into the water just above the break on the beach and he knew this was particularly treacherous territory with the push, pull and turbulent turmoil of the surf. Sure enough, just when he thought he was going to get the fish close to being within reach, the surging backwash dragged the fish back out. It seemed to sense this was going to be its last chance at freedom and a few furious headshakes sent jolts up the line to the rod and straight to the very core of his nervous system! Then for a few seconds, it was stalemate – the fish holding in the powerful surf current, the rod bent over – he daren’t exert any more pressure on the rod for fear of the hook pulling, or the locked rod snapping even.
“Go on, Dad- you’ve got this!” his son exclaimed excitedly. “Is it a big one, Uncle?” his niece who along with her brother had now joined the gallery.
“Yes – it’s a big one, alright,” he replied through gritted teeth.
Cursing under his breath, he started to walk back to drag the fish up out of the surf gutter and into the ebbing and flowing shallow water in front of them. Just then, though, a big wave came through on the break and suddenly, the fish came fast towards them. Now he manically backstepped, cranking the line like mad to ensure tension remained between the rod and fish.
His son – well schooled in what needed to be done – raced out into the surf to grab the fish.
“OOOHH MY GAAAAWD!” his son shouted beyond excitedly in a full-bore True Blue Aussie accented voice. “DAD, IT’S A…”
As he said this, the lad plunged his arms into the boiling water, scooped up something big, staggered, righted himself and turned to his by now extremely animated father.
“… MASSIVE PINK SNAPPER!!!”
“WOOWWWWWWW. IT’S HUUUUUUGE!” chorused his niece and nephew in unison.
For a moment he was speechless, wide-eyed at the spectacle of the pink snapper not far off a metre long with big deep flanks. Its rose-pink side glistened in the twilight and its blue spots appeared almost iridescent with its bristling spikey dorsal fin redolent, he later reflected, of Jules Verne’s Nautilus. This was a true leviathan – a beast of the sea.
Then he couldn’t repress the surging wave of euphoria that was breaking in heart and soul and he let out a huge whoop. All the kids, who were literally jumping for joy, joined him in his joyful howl to the ocean, the skies and all the universe.
He cradled the fish facing the camera his son pointed at him – his face a picture of excited, contented, ecstasy. The fish was resplendent in the emerging moonlight, a pink moon, framed by the now pink and lilac horizon behind him and the brooding silhouetted outline of the rocks in the distance where the coast arced around into infinity.
All things eased into the deepening inky twilight. The wind dropped to a seductive whisper. Where not long before the surf seethed and roared, now it gently boiled and murmured. And he held up his prize the blue bejewelled pink grail in front of him studying its magnificent texture and hues. Momentarily, he averted his gaze out to ocean to the dimming clear light at the far point of his vision’s end and beyond.
Quietly he whispered, “Thanks, Mum…for everything.”
And right at that moment, some place, somewhere, a radiant rainbow was shining in all its brilliant splendour.
pomtification 