‘Keep your mind on the job, Al,’ Michaela said. ‘Once we beach it, I’ll pretend to sunbathe while you go and…’ She made her lips like a beached fish. Needlessly disrespectful, I thought. It was a prize-winning koi she was talking about
‘You can’t pretend to sunbathe,’ I told her. ‘You’re either sunbathing or you aren’t. Before you do that though, let’s turn this bastard round, you know, for a quick pedal-away.’
We turned it round, pushed it up the sand. I slipped on the gloves hauled the cold store out and walked up to the bank at the back. It didn’t take me long to find Rump’s section. Peering through I could see Buddha sitting with his back to me. I pulled myself up, dropped the cold bag over, then hauled myself over too. My legs were like jelly after all that pedalling, but I managed it. No one paid me any mind. That’s the thing about most crimes. They’re so easy. No one takes any notice. No one wants to.
I pushed my way through the bushes. He’d done a lovely job, Rump, I couldn’t deny it. You couldn’t see the house from here, just the bamboo canes at the end, tall and feathery, the flagstone path all round the pool’s edge, the water running through this series of little set of steps instead of a waterfall. Nice that. Peaceful. I stepped onto the landing stage. I’d noticed from the last visit, there was a long wooden box on there, where he kept his pond gear, nets and stuff. There wasn’t even a lock on it. I opened it up. Spare filters, a spare pump, and tucked into the sides, two big nets, with removable handles you could screw on, like they have on billiard cues. All I had to do now was to fill the bag with water, give her the call sign and scoop his fish up.
I knelt down, opened the bag up. For a moment I couldn’t believe it, but there was no doubt about it. I was staring down at two giant Toblerones, the ones I’d bought in Poole that morning. There was even the bill of sale tucked down the side. It took me a minute to do anything. I just stared at them, wondering how the hell they had got there. It was like some nightmare conjuring trick someone was playing on me. Everywhere I went I was being followed by giant Toblerones. Or had someone hypnotised me, got me seeing imaginary chocolate bars, like alcoholics see pink elephants flying past or rats climbing up the wall? Is that what Michaela had done up on the cliff or that night we’d spent together, dangled something in front of me, hypnotised me without me knowing, done my head in?
I picked them up, not really wanting to, weighed them both in my hands. They were real enough. It didn’t help. I checked the lid. It was red all right, least I thought it was, and the red lid had been on the box that had the fishmeal in. Then how the hell…? Then I remembered. I’d sent old Alice B Vodkaglass to get the third Toblerone out for herself. She must have opened up the wrong one up first, switched lids without realising.
There was nothing for it. I tipped the ice packs out, dipped the bag in the water and filled right to the brim. It was cold in that bag now, too cold. I had to raise the temperature before I could risk Mother Teresa/Mini Ha-Ha, going in. A shock like that to her system could kill her right off. I waited five minutes, chucked the water in the bushes and filled it up again. Another ten minutes and the bag should have reached a safer temperature. It was a long ten minutes though. I didn’t know when Rump was coming back. Time up, I chucked the second lot out, filled it up again, let it settle, then tested it with my fingers. It was OK. I got hold of the net, laid it in the water and made the call sign. She was there in a flash, all eyes and intelligence. She was wonderful, that fish, whatever her name was, young and beautiful and wonderful. Torvill had been young and beautiful too, but not in the way this one was. There was something serious about her, calm, like she could look right through you, calm like she knew what you were thinking, knew what you were going to do. I brought the net to the surface and scooped her up. She didn’t even resist. She accepted it, took it in her stride, just like those Christians did when they were being fed to the lions, just like those nuns in the Sound of Music, because she believed. Rump was right. There was something special about her, something not of this world. I swung her out and dropped her in the cold store. As she hit the water I swear she lifted her head up and looked at me, not angry or afraid but like she was forgiving me for what I was doing. I nearly chucked her back in right there and then, but I still had Michaela’s promise to think about. I closed the lid on her, made it fast.
‘It won’t be long,’ I told her. ‘I swear on my mum’s grave. It won’t be long.’ I pulled out the phone, rang the number.
‘What kept you?’ Michaela said, her voice all taut and haughty. I ignored it.
‘Get the pedalo seaworthy,’ I said. ‘We’re on our way.’
I had one more thing to do. Out my back pocket, was the ransom note wrapped in cling film. I tore off the wrapping, propped it up on young Buddha’s lap and pushed my way back to the fence. Getting back was more difficult. I had to balance the bag on top of the fence with one hand, haul myself over with the other, careful not to drop the bag and have her spilled out into the brush, but I managed it, managed to hang myself over the fence and lower her safely down, managed it because she was a koi, like Torvill was once a koi, lovely and alive, swimming her way into a man’s heart.
I picked up the bag, walked to the beach. Michaela was sitting on the pedalo floating in the water, facing out to sea, keeping her face out of sight again. We’d done it. I was home and dry.
‘Al?’ Someone called my name.
I turned round. The polka-dot queen was sitting half up, squinting at me, one hand over her eyes.
‘Pardon me?’
‘Al? Al Greenwood? Don’t you remember me?’
I took a look at the face. Fuck me sideways, Miss Prosser. What the fuck was she doing here?
‘Heaven’s to Betsy,’ I said. ‘Miss Prosser. What are you doing here?’
‘I’m on holiday, can’t you tell. You too?’
‘No. I live round here. Not here exactly, but close.’
‘Lucky you.’ She stood up, brushed the sand off her hands. ‘Well this is a nice surprise,’ and she gave me a kiss, all open and friendly. I’d been so rude to her the last time we’d met, and she’d forgiven me, forgiven me like Mother Teresa had forgiven me, like Carol was trying to do. I moved the bag onto my other hand.
‘Are you here long?’
‘Two weeks. This is my second day. Hence the terrible white skin.’
‘That’ll change quick enough. Belle of the beach, that’s what you’ll be in a couple of days. Who’d have thought it, Miss Prosser, sunbathing at a beach near you. Where’s the boyfriend then? Off getting the sun tan lotion?’ I was dreading the answer. Me, a man of my age, having hopes like that!
‘Al! What makes you think I have to have a boyfriend. I’m on my own. Though I might find someone down here, at least for a few weeks, don’t you think?’
Her eyes went all twinkly. I could feel myself blushing.
‘Why not? That’s what holidays are for.’ I looked down at her feet. One foot was rubbing the other.
‘And how the painting going?’ she said. ‘Not given up I hope.’
‘As a matter of fact, I’ve taken up sculpting in a big way, Miss Prosser. Fish in the main.’
‘The name’s Emily. I thought it was you, coming through the scrub there. That’s Al Greenwood I said to myself. I wonder. Has he been making out OK?’
I smiled. That was nice. She pointed to the cold store. ‘What you got in there?’
Good question. What had I got in there? A stolen koi belonging to one of Dorestshire’s finest? Perhaps not. A load of chilled beer? No, I’d have to offer her one. What could it be? I said the first thing that came in my head.
‘Toblerone.’
‘Toblerone!’ She put her hand to her mouth, laughed. My eyes squeezed shut for an instant. Get yourself out of this one pal. You put yourself there.
‘Yes. We’re handing it out to families and kiddies as they go home. It’s a promotional thing. Part of the Dorsetshire tourist initiative.’
‘We?’ She
looked across to the pedalo and Michaela’s hat and her long brown back bobbing on the water.
‘Me and my daughter Carol,’ I said. ‘Come over all the way from Sydney, Australia to help her old man get back on his feet again.’
‘Your daughter. That must be lovely for you.’ There was relief in her voice. We stood there, not knowing what to say. ‘Well, I better not keep you both. You don’t want it all to melt.’
‘It won’t do that. That’s a cold store. I could leave them out here all day, if I had reason to.’
‘Yes of course.’ There was another pause. Neither of us wanted to leave.
‘Where are you staying, if you don’t mind me asking?’ She answered in a flash.
‘Strangeways Guest House, Albion Rd.’ Now it was my turn to smile. ‘I know. I know. But with a name like that, how could I resist?’ She leant forward a bit, like she was telling me a confidence. ‘It’s not very nice.’
‘What a surprise. Perhaps I could spring you free one evening. Treat you to a slap up meal. Take you to see my sculptures.’
‘That would make my holiday, Al.’
‘It’s a date then. Before the week is out. Do you have a mobile?’
‘Yes, but do you have a pen? I know.’ She bent down, rummaged about in her bag, pulled out a lipstick. ‘Here. I’ll write it on your arm.’
She took my wrist, held it steady, wrote her number on the pale underside. Apart from that one quick peck, she’d never touched me before. They’re not allowed to, teachers in prison. Sometimes when she was standing real close in class, looking over my shoulder, her finger tracing what I’d drawn, her neck all close and heavy with perfume, I’d wanted to, you know, touch her, put my hand on her, but I never did. That would have been the end of art class for me, and that art class was the best thing that happened to me in prison. Now she was close again, close in a polka-dot bikini, not one of those lumpy sweaters she wore so that we couldn’t see what she had, what we all thought about, what we all wanted to see. Now, it was all there before me, like she’d come here specially to this little beach, like she was waiting for me, had been all the time. I could fell my heart thumping, like it does when it strikes you down. Love. Jesus Christ. If only she knew. Knew what I was really like.
I stared down at the smeary red numbers.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ I said. ‘Unless I fall in the water and this washes off.’
I put my hand on her, gave her a kiss on the cheek, not one high up, where it don’t count, but close to the edge of her lips. I could feel her face wanting to turn, feel her mouth wanting to open, take me in. My hand tightened on her shoulder as we parted.
‘It’s lipstick Al,’ she said. ‘It gets wet all the time.’
Back on the pedalo, I stowed Mother Teresa in the back and hopped on board.
‘Who was that?’ Michaela asked.
‘Just some lonely bird on the beach who fancies me. Happens all the time, this neck of the woods.’
We pedalled away. Michaela took out the shark-infested T shirt and chucked it in the briny.
‘Audrey was right,’ she said. ‘You’re disgusting.’
11
By the time we got back to the jetty I was in a bit of a mood. I knew that I had that second sculpture back at the bungalow, but if my first hadn’t been nicked, I’d have something proper to show Miss Prosser, something to impress her, something that told her that this wasn’t just a passing fancy, but that I was serious about it, that I’d listened to what she’d said when I was in prison, acted on it. I didn’t just want to get her in the bungalow for a quick bunk up. I could feel feelings for her welling up inside me, feelings that I hadn’t felt for anyone ever before. True I’d courted before, got hitched too, but taking up with Audrey had been more of a challenge than anything else, like climbing Annapurna out of season, or sailing round the world the wrong way. It was the conquering that made it worth while, the tireless battle against the elements, but pedalling back with Mother Teresa thrashing her tail inside the box, I knew it wouldn’t be like that with Miss Prosser, Emily as I could now call her. There’d be warmth and understanding and yes, questioning. Thanks to her I was seeing the world through different eyes. It suddenly seemed so obvious. The more I was with her the more I’d see, like John Lennon did with Yoko Ono. She was an artist too, like Emily was. Emily. I felt close to her already, even closer than I had to Miranda. Miranda was my flesh and blood, but there’d always been that distance between us, knowing what I knew, what I could never say to her, however brilliant she was, however beautiful, things I couldn’t feel for her either, shouldn’t. But Miss Prosser, Emily, though she wasn’t half as good looking as Miranda or half as smart probably, there was something there, a sort of shining goodness and honest sexiness that was turning my stomach inside out. Emily Prosser. What a turn up. What a fucking turn up. This was a once-in-a lifetime chance for me. She might be up for a holiday fling, no questions asked, nothing more expected, but me, I had a feeling I’d be playing for keeps. Having my first fish to show her might have just helped me seal the deal.
We parked the pedalo, walked up, just blending in fine. Half the men around me were carrying something similar, and any number of women were sporting hats, some even bigger than hers. At the car park the old couple next to me had gone. Just as well really. They’d have noticed me returning with a woman like Michaela in tow, made a joke about it on the way home.
We set off, windows open. It was baking in the car, but that wouldn’t affect Rump’s fish. She’d be fine, tucked down behind the passenger seat. There was a queue to get out onto the main road, people impatient to get off home, wash the sand out of their hair. I wasn’t looking really, paying much attention, just wanting to get home myself, deal with this mess the best way I could, put the fish and the woman on the cliff and Robin behind me. Start afresh with Emily, slate wiped clean. Didn’t even a man like me deserve one decent crack at the good life?
We crept along so slow I almost felt like jumping out there and then, tell Michaela to fuck off, belt down the road, put Rump’s fish back where she belonged, and let fate take its course, might have done too, if this poxy Volvo hadn’t stuck its nose right in front of me, trying to jump what was left of the queue. As some of you know, I’m not a great fan of the Volvo. Cars for the living dead, that what I call them, driven by self-satisfied prigs who need taking down a peg or two. Not that I’m prejudiced or anything. That observation is based on hours of road and garage forecourt experience. This one, surprise surprise, had its headlights on. Three o’clock in the afternoon and it had its headlights on. Tells you everything doesn’t it? The driver looked familiar, crinkly hair, checked shirt, kind of a cut-price cowboy look, the woman too, headband, freckled skin, bones like a Viking, but loose with it. I made the appropriate up-and-down hand motion reserved for such tossers. They pretended not to see me, but they recognised me the instant I recognised them. The Bowles, that’s who they were, the couple I’d chucked out the bungalow day one, along with their stunted fir-cones and manky fishing nets. Trust them to drive Sweden’s answer to euthanasia. And then I saw it, sitting on the back seat, staring up at me through the window like an abandoned pet. My fish! The fish that I’d sweated blood over, the fish that Alice and me had spent all night bringing to life. My first sculpture, the thing more than anything else I wanted Miss Prosser to see.
I jumped out the car, yanked his door open and had him out the car, stumbling about on the grass before he knew what was happening.
‘You stole my fish, you pillock.’
‘What?’
‘You blind? That thing on the back seat you nicked from my garden.’
‘I can assure you…’
‘Two hundred and fifty quid was the asking price and you left two pound fifty. Some sort of joke was it?’
‘You owe us money Mr Greenwood. You pay us what you owe, you get your fish back. I was going to write to you.’
‘What? You’re holding my fish to ransom? You’re stealing my
fish and…’
‘We did not steal your fish. We left a deposit.’
‘That’s what it was, was it? How about I leave you one in return?
He let out a shriek, clutching his nose. I wrenched open the back door, dragged it out. Mrs Bowles was dancing round her husband, trying to mop up the blood seeping through his fingers. Lucky he wasn’t wearing an earring. I walked back real slow, strapped the fish in the back-seat safety belt, and foot down, skidded past them, out onto the open road. It had only taken a couple of minutes. Michaela was sat back in her seat.
‘I suppose that’s what you’d describe as a memorable getaway,’ she said. If anything she looked quite pleased.
It’s strange, that feeling when you reach that point where you just don’t care, where you think that you can take whatever they throw at you. I was feeling a bit like that by the time we got back. It looked bad on the outside, breaking Bowles’ nose, straight after stealing Rump’s fish, but there was no reason for anyone to connect the two. People lose their rag over parking issues every day of the week. Besides, I wasn’t going to keep Rump’s koi for long. I had better fish to fry. I was in love. I’d only been in love for under an hour but it was eating me up like a fever. I was hot and cold, sweaty and shivery all at the same time. If I didn’t watch out, I could die of it.
Back at the bungalow, first thing I did was to put Mother Teresa in the pond. I lowered the box in the water, turning it on its side, then slowly took off the lid. She lay in there for a moment, curled up a bit like she couldn’t move, then, poked her nose out. She was looking straight up through the water at the nymph. Blow me if she didn’t turn her head away, shake it, like in disgust, then flick her tail and disappear under the rocks by the waterfall. I’d never have credited it hadn’t I seen it with my own eyes, but maybe there was something in what Rump said after all. I mean the last thing the real Mother Teresa would have approved of would have been some Western tart prancing about in the all-together like she was enjoying it, right outside her gaff. It’s the same with the Popes. If you’re a bird and turn up at the Vatican showing a bit of ankle, that’s it mate, you’re out. Popes don’t like it out on parade, least not in the flesh so to speak. That’s why they got all their artist acquaintances to paint all those nudes over the years, so that they and their cardinal chums could cop an eyeful without getting into holy hot water. Nymphs, angels, religious ladies of the past, you name it, if they’re up there on a canvas, they’ve got their bazooms out, no matter what. Appropriate behaviour according to the ongoing situation never came into it.
Fish Tale (Cliffhanger Book 2) Page 20
