That Close

by Suggs

  We go to Porto Badisco to swim, and when they’re in season, sample the local delicacy of sea urchins. Ricci di mare, literally hedgehogs of the sea. They look like small black hedgehogs rolled into a ball. Two girls man a marble table on the street, carefully snipping the spiky creatures in half so’s to get at the delicious orange roe within, and laying them out on plastic trays. You scoop out the roe with brightly coloured plastic ice-cream spoons, or bits of torn bread. The flavour is delicate, somewhere between oyster and fish paste. It tastes like condensed sea. A bit like oysters, ricci are an acquired taste, I found later in life. The ritual of eating them is a big part of the pleasure.

  Ricci are only available for a few months of the year, and when they are people come from far and wide to eat them with almost religious fervour. Like oysters, they’re supposed to have aphrodisiac properties. When a full tray is delivered to a table of ragazzi there will be a spontaneous round of applause. Fishing and diving for ricci play a big part in the lives of the peninsula-inhabiting Salentinis. In fact I went diving once for ricci with Gigi, the local vet. We had a wondrous afternoon, drifting along the coast in his little fishing boat. A gentle day of snorkelling in the clear waters just off the most beautiful beaches.

  Gigi promised to bring some ricci round when we invited him for lunch one Sunday afternoon in July. As is so often the case in this part of the world, disparate people started dropping by. There were eventually about twenty of us crowded round the table in the back garden, including my brother- and sister-in-law, Keith and Alanah, and my two nephews, Jerome and Jacob. The local bar owner, several artists and musicians, a priest, and even the colonel of the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian version of Customs and Excise, in full uniform. The courtyard was starting to look like another scene from The Godfather. Gigi the vet turned up with a few fishermen pals and a huge tray of the promised ricci, and was duly applauded. The priest blessed the proceedings, including Scarlett and Viva for bringing said proceedings to the table. Great food was scoffed, oceans of wine were quaffed, and a great afternoon was had by all.

  During coffee and limoncello, a particularly delicious and potent liqueur, Gigi suggested I might want to go fishing with his pals the next morning who at this point were having an intense and animated row about the correct way to peel an orange. Why not? The limoncello flowed, songs were sung and dances were danced while Jacob and Jerome abseiled down the side of the house using knotted sheets. I couldn’t have been happier.

  Scarlett and Viva and pals decided they would go in search of music and dance of a slightly less rustico variety, and were off to the bright lights of the nearest town, the holiday village of Torre dell’Orso. Chelsea were also playing in the Champions League that night, so me, Keith and Jerome said we’d accompany the girls into town to see if we could find a bar that was showing the football. Keith drove us, as he’d eschewed the limoncello and wisely stuck to coffee.

  After the match Keith made an executive decision that Jerome could go and hang out with the girls. He was only fourteen but it was one of them irresistible holiday moments. Keith drove back to the house and I accompanied Jerome up the moonlit road in the direction of the pounding disco beat of the beach party to see where the girls were.

  When we got there the outdoor disco was in full swing. The girls were leaping about on the dancefloor and were pleased to see Jerome. Don’t worry, they said, we’ll keep an eye on him. I had one more drink, left the girls to it and headed for home. Look after him they did, with swigs from their lemonade bottle filled with vodka, which had him throwing up in the bushes, and again when he got home.

  When the turbulence subsided Keith asked him what he had learned from the experience. ‘I should have thrown up earlier,’ he replied. Ah, the joys of youth.

  Having left the girls, the walk back to the house was only a mile or so, but I wasn’t progressing terrifically well. It had been a long day/night. I passed an ice-cream parlour and caught sight of a man with a big red face and his hair stuck to his forehead, staring at me. What you looking at? I thought.

  It was a mirror. I staggered on but seemed to be going backwards. In desperation, I called Keith to see if he would come and get me in the car. Praise the Lord he did, but when my head hit the pillow it was 3.30 a.m.

  I was just slipping into unconsciousness when I heard a distorted car radio playing Abba outside our bedroom window. Headlights swept across the ceiling. ‘What?’ A car horn beeped.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ I sat up.

  ‘It’s the fishermen,’ Anne mumbled.

  ‘What fishermen?’

  ‘The fishermen you said you’d go fishing with.’ Anne turned over.

  ‘Oh, bollocks.’ It was starting to come back to me. I looked at the clock: it said 4.30. I flopped back down.

  ‘Oh, no, I can’t go fishing now.’

  ‘Then why did you say you’d go?’ Anne said through the pillow.

  ‘Because I was drunk?’ The car beeped again. ‘Bollocks.’

  I clambered out of bed, threw on a T-shirt, shorts and a pair of flip-flops, said goodbye to Anne and headed out into the dim light. Cesare, Gigi’s mate, was leaning against a white jeep. ‘You ready?’ What a question! I don’t think I’ve ever felt less ready for anything in my life. ‘Yeah,’ I mumbled. I clambered into the jeep. Anne shouted through the bedroom window, ‘When you gonna be back?’ I looked at Cesare. ‘We should be back by seven,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in about three hours,’ I shouted back. ‘See you later.’

  As we drove down the coast road towards the harbour, the sun was just starting to peep over the horizon I started to look on the positives. C’mon Suggsy boy, a few hours poodling up and down the coast. Fresh air and swimming, this’ll do you good.

  I don’t know what I was expecting when we reached the harbour – a small dinghy, a sailing boat? But we walked past some of those, and the bigger boats and the yachts, until we came to the great rusting hull of an industrial fishing trawler, engines throbbing. I looked up to see giant nets and a crew of men in rubber boots. Oh yes, this was it. I followed Cesare up the slippery ramp and the first thing that hit me was the smell. Gesù Cristo, I don’t think there is a smell on earth to compare with that of burning diesel and rotting fish. My guts nearly went. My head was throbbing and my mouth was dry as a chip. The four-man crew were sitting on the nets happily chewing on dry biscuits and sipping red wine.

  Er, was there perhaps any water? It seemed not. I was handed a luke-warm bottle of red wine. I shook my head, it was replaced by a bottle of luminous green pop. The engine throttled up and we pulled out of the harbour, the first rays of dawn breaking along the horizon. I held on tight to a stanchion and was managing quite well as we bobbed out and into a relatively calm sea. I was most assuredly green about the gills, but I was coping, just. Then we stopped. Now the boat wasn’t just bobbing up and down, but rolling from side to side as well. The whole boat had turned into a giant seafaring Waltzer.

  I was starting to feel very peculiar indeed, with the sun now well in the sky and beating down. I felt faint. ‘Come on Suggs, pull yourself together,’ I heard myself saying out loud. ‘You’re British, for God’s sake. A direct descendant of an island race that ruled the high seas for hundreds of years.’ The bile was rising. I took a swig of the luminous pop and hummed ‘Rule Britannia’ through my nose. A huge net was lowered into the sea and thank God we seemed to be moving forward again.

  After a couple of hours’ trawling the ocean bed, the winch was cranked into reverse and the net slowly hauled out of the water. The engine smoked and the winch screamed as the bulging net burst through the surface of the water. It was jam-packed with flapping fish of every shape and size, but as the crew turned the winch to land the catch, the overloaded thing broke. The net burst open and the whole silvery catch rained down, splashing back into the sea from whence it came. Engine smoke drifted across the deck and the crew fell silent. After much shouting and gesticulating, Cesare turned and looked at me. Hang on, wa
s I the Jonah, in my weakened, near-sunstroked daze?

  I began to imagine they were gonna throw me overboard as some sort of sacrifice to Poseidon. Cesare came towards me, stopped, and proffered a bottle of red wine. It was even warmer. Great, just what I need, mulled wine. But I was so thirsty I took a swig. It nearly came flying straight back out again. The sun was now high in the sky, the boat had no cover, I was really feeling it. We were right out in the middle of the Adriatic, I could see the coastline of Albania quite clearly in front of us.

  Er, Cesare, aren’t we supposed to be back at seven? ‘We are,’ he said, somewhat distractedly. I looked at my watch, it was midday. Yes, he said, we will be back by seven, seven this evening. My knees buckled. I only thought we’d be out for a few hours. I had no suntan lotion, no hat, my phone wasn’t working and no water. I took another swig of the warm wine. I had been hanging on for grim death and now had another seven hours of this hell to look forward to. I seriously contemplated throwing myself in and swimming back, but the coast of Italy on our right had all but disappeared. The crew were in no mind for compromise. They’d lost a big catch and were determined to make up for it. The net was dropped and the boat ploughed on.

  On the horizon another boat appeared, the first I’d seen all day, and it was heading our way fast. It was the Guardia di Finanza. They spent a lot of time patrolling the waters between Italy and Albania, on the lookout for drug and human trafficking. Within seconds their well-armed speedboat was roaring alongside. I was unceremoniously ushered below deck, where I was told to sit quietly on a stool, in the engine room, till further notice. The door closed, leaving me in the deafening, boiling hot, smoky dark. Well, my Italian wasn’t up to much, and I didn’t have my passport. Bollocks! Maybe I would be mistaken for an Albanian refugee, who’d been drifting out at sea for days. It was certainly how I was beginning to feel, and look. I really didn’t fancy spending a couple of months in a southern Italian prison.

  So I sat still in the engine room, breathing through the sleeve of my T-shirt. After a while I saw the silhouettes of feet shuffling past the door. They hovered for a second, and then they went. After what seemed an age the door finally opened and the blinding sun burst in. I scrambled out, gasping into the fresh air. I couldn’t give a bollocks if I was being arrested or not. A southern Italian prison cell would have been heaven compared to that.

  Cesare was standing there. With my broken Italian, I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but boy was I glad to be back on deck, hot and stinky as it may have been. As I once again hung onto my stanchion, the will to live had almost evaporated. The boat zigzagging across the sea, the net being let out and winched in time and time again.

  We finally pulled into the harbour as the sun was on the wane, having caught very little. ‘Seven o’clock,’ said Cesare, pointing proudly at his watch, pleased with what he saw as an unusual piece of Italian punctuality. How I managed the long hours till 7 p.m. I am not sure. With my last ounce of strength I crawled ashore, weakly thanking all concerned, and climbed unsteadily onto my feet. Back, at last, on dry land.

  All that time at sea had left me with what felt like legs made of rubber. ‘Hang on,’ said Cesare, as I began to wobble off down the quayside. He disappeared into his lock-up and reappeared with a big polystyrene box. ‘A present,’ he said. ‘As we caught nothing today, it’s a little something from yesterday’s catch.’ It was all I could do to turn around. I thanked him again and set off home, pitching and rolling like the fishing boat, as I struggled not to drop the slippery box of fish.

  I was pulverised, dehydrated, sunburnt as I veered up the drive to the house. I was in such a state of delirium that I began to imagine that the lid of the box was moving. I stumbled on, the front door almost in touching distance. Hang on, the lid was moving, a tentacle was making its way from under the lid and round my left wrist. Then another, then another. The lid came off to reveal six or seven live octopus, all making a break for it. By the time I got to the front door one of them had got right up my arm and had a tentacle wrapped round my face. Anne unsurprisingly looked shocked. Jesus! She’d been really worried as I hadn’t phoned. I didn’t have the energy to explain. Nor did I have the energy to deal with half a dozen frisky cephalopods.

  At this point I was perfectly happy to accept that the octopuses had won. Anne began prising them off with the handle of a wooden spoon and flinging them back into the box. She got them all in and sat on the lid. What are we gonna do with these, then? I couldn’t speak. What we are going to do with them, I couldn’t care less. I didn’t have the strength, never mind the inclination, to kill the things. It would all be over in a matter of minutes, and I’d be the one on the barbecue.

  Anne didn’t fancy it either. We’d only witnessed the preparation of live octopus once before, on holiday in Greece. It basically involved grabbing them by the tentacles and bashing their heads on the rocks. Maybe we should let them go and put them back in the sea. No, we couldn’t waste the things; they were a very highly valued luxury in this part of the world. It would be a terrible insult to the chaps that bought them. Hmm. Anne rang our next-door neighbour. She was round in a trice and very happy to take them off our hands/face. The car pulled away and I flopped in a chair. I still couldn’t speak.

  The vaguely familiar sounds of a beeping car horn and distorted radio were coming up our drive. Seconds later Gigi and Cesare were standing on our threshold. They clapped their hands together, rubbing them vigorously. ‘Right, where are those delicious octopus?’

  THE BARBIE BIKE

  I’ve always loved cycling. I think it started in my early teens when me and my mates decided we’d cycle from the courtyard of Cavendish Mansions to Salisbury Plain. I don’t know why; I think I’d seen it on a map at school. Maybe it was something to do with the army range. And well I remember strapping my transistor radio to the handlebars with an octopus clip. It was a warm summer’s morn and we were off to the tinny strains of Cockney Rebel’s ‘Judy Teen’. Unfortunately the batteries ran out at St John’s Wood and so did my legs. But fortunate in the end really, as we had no tents, food or money.

  The bicycle is the ultimate leveller. No matter what your worth, on a bike everyone is equal and you don’t need no gas. There are not many better feelings than weaving side to side down a country hill, imagining you’re on a motorbike, or many more challenging things than puffing up the one that inevitably follows.

  Clive Langer, Madness’s producer, is a keen cyclist too, and I’ve been on a few trips with him, from the early days of the London-to-Brighton, through the 180 miles of the Bath-to-London. Trips round Brittany where terrific lunches would be followed by bouts of enthusiastic competitive cycling which would wilt in the late-afternoon heat, to the point that on one occasion we pulled up at our destination in the back of a local farmer’s tractor.

  It is a fantastic feeling pulling off in the morning into the unknown, pedalling past the countryside at a pace that allows you to take it all in. The sights and smells of the great outdoors. Finding yourself really in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields of sunflowers and corn. Stopping in a one-horse village for a coffee and restorative shnoofter. Up hill and down dale, free as a bird, waving at the occasional passer-by and stopping for a well-earned lunch at a small auberge, where the wine is already open and on the table.

  Clive says that, apart from making music, it’s one of the only times he really feels alive, feels life’s purpose. Most of my friends cycle, and in fact the whole band did at one point. I remember the big pile of bikes outside our rehearsal room off the Cally Road, or setting off in a big pack from North London to Clive’s studio in Notting Hill Gate. Up round the back of the Regent’s Park Estate, along the private road that runs along the front of the magical Nash terraces, and up through the park.

  We’ve cycled from London to Brighton, Bath to London. Clive and I even did a ten-day charity ride in Thailand with about thirty other people, which was great. Beautiful people, great food, truly specta
cular scenery, hills, rivers, and a 400-foot golden Buddha. We arrived in Chang Mai for the moon festival where thousands of those sky lanterns were released, and an equal number of candles were set on the river. It was a most memorable trip, marred only by the fact that the party on the road was broken down into pretty much three camps, going at their own tempo, with a lorry bringing up the rear with all our bags. It was also there for those who needed a break from the saddle, or who felt like giving up.

  The first group were the super fit, iron men, triathletes and the like; the second a mixed bag of pretty fit people; then came a group of the less fit who poodled along chatting. Then a couple of old grannies with bikes with baskets on the front. Then me, with the chugging engine of the truck of death breathing down my neck, day in and day out. I remember one particular afternoon crawling up a steep hill, one of them where you don’t look up, you just focus on the white line and try not to fall off, given that you are in the lowest gear possible and barely moving. Helmet on the side of my head, each painful pedal filled with the mantra. ‘I’m not giving up, I am not giving up’, the growling truck of death licking at my heels. The sun was beating mercilessly, my tongue was hanging out and my head felt like it was about to explode, when Clive drifted backwards into my sweat-blurred view.

  He’d dropped back to see how I was, which was nice. We rode together for a bit before he said, ‘How are you?’ I wanted to say ‘Fuck off’, but all that came out was, ‘Ffffff … ine’. He rode alongside me for a little while before picking up the pace, which wasn’t difficult, seeing as I was being overtaken by ants. He shot off again, with a terrifically encouraging, ‘You look terrible.’ The last thing I saw was the back of Clive’s head, before my attention was once again focused on the white line. ‘One, two, musn’t give up …’ Pedal, pedal. Rumble of lorry engine. ‘Three, four, musn’t give up.’ Pedal, pedal.