Clownfish

by Alan Durant

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  Author’s Note

  To my dad, Christopher Durant (1929–2016), with love always and forever

  “You miss your dad, don’t you, Sharkbait?”

  Gill, Finding Nemo

  “What’s it like, Dad – being a fish?”

  It was something I’d wanted to ask him for a while and, as he was still for once and the aquarium was quiet, this seemed a good time.

  Dad looked up with a startled twitch and swished over to me. His little mouth opened and shut as if he was considering the question carefully.

  “Wet,” he said at last.

  “But is it … fun? Are you happy?”

  “Fun? Happy? Well, it beats sorting other people’s rubbish, I suppose.” Dad had worked at the recycling centre before he turned into a fish. “It’s very busy.”

  “Is it? What do you do all day?”

  He gave a kind of flick, like a fish shrug. “Swim around the tank, chase the damselfish, eat, blow bubbles, lie in my anemone, swim around the tank…”

  “You already said that.”

  Dad pouted. “Did I? My memory’s not as good as it was.”

  “That’s ’cos you’re a fish, Dad.” I smiled. “It must be great living here in the aquarium with all these other amazing fish. Every morning you can wake up and see the rays.” The rays had always been our favourites. They’d flap to the surface, raising their strange flat heads, as if begging to be stroked, then flipping over. Some felt rough, others slimy. They had little bumps down their back you could run your fingers along as they flapped by, as if you were playing a musical instrument.

  “Oh, the rays!” Dad said dismissively. “Just show-offs, they are. You don’t want to waste your time on them.”

  “But, Dad!” I was shocked. “You loved the rays. ‘Rays of sunshine’, you called them. You used to talk to them, remember? You said they could understand every word.”

  “Ah, well, I wasn’t a fish then. I’ve got an inside view now, haven’t I? And I’ll tell you something for free: rays are just about the dumbest fish in the entire ocean. The other fish are always making fun of them. You should hear the jokes they tell.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  Dad thought for a moment. “What do you call a clever ray?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “What do you call a clever ray?”

  “A flounder.”

  I pulled a face. “I don’t get it.”

  “Well, there’s no such thing as a clever ray, is there? So if it’s clever, it must be a flounder – another sort of flat fish. See?”

  “Oh.” I frowned. “It’s not very funny, is it?”

  Dad waggled irritatedly. “You have to be a fish to appreciate the joke. Fish have a very particular sense of humour.”

  “Yeah, I can see that,” I said.

  He swished to the front of the tank, glancing quickly from side to side as if checking we were alone, then waved his fins at me to come closer. “You haven’t got a burger on you by any chance, have you?” he whispered.

  I shook my head.

  He sighed. “Well, maybe next time.” Then he yawned. “Anyway, look, I’m off to have a rest in my anemone. It’s beautiful in there, you know. Beautiful! It’s like diving into the fluffiest shag-pile rug you could imagine. You should try it some time.”

  Dad waddled away, then turned and waddled back.

  “Only, on second thoughts,” he added, in a serious, fatherly tone, “its tentacles are poisonous, so you’d better stay away. One dea—” He hesitated. “One fish in the family is quite enough.”

  It all started like this.

  One morning Dad was eating breakfast and Mum was making tea. I’d already left for school. Dad’s always joking and fooling around. It’s one of the things that I love about him. Sometimes it drove Mum mad – which was probably why she didn’t take his gasping seriously at first.

  He’d just taken a bite of toast (carefully spread with butter, a thin layer of Marmite and a smothering of strawberry jam – his own favourite “concoction”, as he called it) when he began coughing … then gasping. Mum thought it was just – well, Dad being Dad. But then he crashed face down onto the kitchen table and she knew something was seriously wrong. She called an ambulance, but by the time it arrived, Dad was completely still, with no heartbeat, no pulse, no breath. The paramedics tried to revive him, but there was nothing they could do. Dad had suffered a massive heart attack.

  He was dead. Gone… Or so it seemed.

  I just couldn’t take in what had happened. It didn’t seem real. That morning when I’d gone to school, Dad had been there, joking as usual, pulling silly faces, doing daft voices, looking forward to a day at home; later, when I came back, he was dead. Where was the sense in that?

  I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t feel anything. It was all so weird: Mum’s pale face and her sobbing; the constant flow of people through the house, asking me questions: Was I OK? Did I want to talk to someone? Of course I did – I wanted to talk to Dad. I wanted him to walk in the front door laughing at the joke he’d pulled on all of us. I wanted him to wink at me like he always did and say, “Got you there, Dak.”

  I thought the funeral might change things, but it didn’t. It just made everything seem even less real. At the crematorium, a priest I’d never seen before said a few words about Dad. Robert had a great sense of humour, he said. He’ll be greatly missed by all who knew him. For a moment I didn’t take in who he was talking about. Nobody ever called Dad “Robert”. He was Bob or, sometimes, Bobby, but never Robert. The whole thing was wrong.

  When the coffin started to slide away, it was to the Hallelujah Chorus, which I’d heard Dad sing loads of times – but always in a ridiculous opera-style voice as a joke. Never straight, as it was played here.

  Afterwards people shook my hand and said what a tragedy it was, how sorry they were, how brave I was being. I didn’t feel brave. I still didn’t feel anything. It was like there was a glass barrier between me and what was taking place. This barrier only slid aside once: when I looked up to see, in clear focus, grey smoke puffing from the crematorium chimneys. I had this sudden sharp ache, like my heart was wincing, and I quickly looked down again.

  That night I went into Mum and Dad’s room and found one of his favourite sweatshirts – rain-cloud grey with a yellow smiley – from the chest of drawers. I took it to bed with me, breathing in its familiar Dad smell, hugging it like a blankie to try to conjure him, in the desperate hope that it would bring him to life again, like in those sci-fi films when they manage to clone someone from just a strand of their DNA.

  But Dad wasn’t coming back, was he? He wasn’t going to come into my room and ruffle my hair or crack a joke, or kiss me goodnight. I’d never see his face or hear his voice again, I thought. I pressed the sweatshirt against my damp eyes.

  Dad was gone. For ever.

  When I got up the next day, I knew I had to get away from the house. I’d been cooped up too long. I was tired of visitors whose presence just seemed to make Dad’s absence more unbearable. They weren’t even family. Mum and Da
d didn’t have any siblings and nor did I. Our only relative was Mum’s mum, my grandmother, who lived on the other side of the world. The visitors were family friends or neighbours like Mrs Baxter from up the road, who was with Mum now.

  I didn’t like Mrs Baxter – I didn’t want her there, taking charge as if it was her home. I just wanted Dad. Couldn’t anyone understand that? All I wanted was Dad – funny, crazy, lovable, wonderful Dad.

  I didn’t even want to talk to my friends. I had two best friends at school – Ruby and Tom. We often met up at weekends – went round to each other’s houses or to the beach or the shopping centre. I liked them a lot. But after what happened to Dad, I couldn’t speak to them. I didn’t want to see them. I was sure that they’d ask me questions and pity me like all the others and I couldn’t stand the thought of that.

  They tried calling and emailing; they wanted to come round and see me, they said, but I wouldn’t let them. My head felt too crammed full for other people, even my friends – especially my friends. So I avoided them and ignored their efforts to contact and comfort me. Ruby came round one day, but I didn’t open the door. I pretended no one was home. I felt bad about doing it, but I just couldn’t face seeing her. Not then.

  That morning, after the funeral, I escaped to the aquarium. It was only a short walk away, down by the beach, and the breezy air did me good. I chose the aquarium because it had been Dad’s favourite place and I loved it too. We went so often that Dad had bought a family season ticket. Now I could go whenever I liked.

  Dad and Stephan, the owner, had known each other for ages, they’d gone to the same secondary school. They were always chatting about the old days – friends they’d shared, things they’d done. That’s when they weren’t talking about fish. They both loved fish. Dad used to say they were “ichthyophiles”. Well, actually he said they were, “hic-thyophiles”. He said it like he had hiccups. I always smiled but Stephan didn’t. He had sort of droopy eyes and a whiskery saggy face that made him look permanently miserable.

  Cheer up, Stephan, it may never happen, Dad used to say.

  It already has, Bob, was Stephan’s gloomy reply.

  “Dak, I didn’t expect to see you,” he said now, with surprise, as I pushed open the glass doors and entered the aquarium. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” I mumbled. I felt uncomfortable in the bright light of the foyer. I wanted the murky anonymity of the aquarium’s main hall.

  Stephan ran his fingers over the thin, sandy-grey moustache that hung down at either side of his mouth like a fish’s barbels. “I still can’t get over it, about your dad. It’s terrible. Terrible.”

  I nodded. I liked Stephan a lot but I really didn’t want to talk. I just didn’t know what to say, so I shuffled quickly away.

  I loved all the fish in the aquarium. There was something fascinating about every one of them – name, colour, features, movement, habits – though today I was too busy with my own thoughts to pay them much attention. I wandered through their world, deep in my own. I felt a lot closer to Dad here than I had at home or at the funeral. I could see him now, peering into some tank with amused excitement, calling out to me to join him: “Come and see this, Dak. This’ll make you smile.”

  Together we’d watch the spotted garden eels, poking up out of the sand like thin silver periscopes, stretching, bending, swaying, one moment hardly visible, the next weirdly tall. Or the flashlight fish with its fluorescent white eye that winked in the darkness. Or the bug-eyed Picasso triggerfish, or the fox-face rabbitfish, or the stripy lionfish with its exotic and deadly skirts. If Dad’s spirit was anywhere, I was sure it wasn’t in the cemetery, but here in the aquarium among the fish he loved.

  As I passed through the Coral Reef section, images of Dad floated before me like the bubbles from a fish’s mouth. He was everywhere … but he was gone. Forever.

  The realisation was like a punch in the stomach. I felt suddenly dizzy, faint with loss, and slumped down on a chair, closing my eyes and taking long, slow breaths, waiting for my heart to steady, for the pain to fade…

  “Dak? Dak!”

  The voice was urgent, impatient. I opened my eyes slowly, thinking it would stop, but it didn’t.

  “Dak!” it called again, more sharply. It seemed to be coming from the tank beside me. Turning my head, I saw small purply-blue fish with amber tails, and green fish darting about clumps of reddy-brown coral.

  I peered at the identification labels at the base of the glass: Pomacentrus melanochir, Blue-finned damsel, and Chromis caerulea, Green chromis. (Stephan always put the fish’s Latin name first; it sounded more dignified, he’d explained when I had once asked him why.) There was an anemone listed too, a sea hedgehog, and one other fish. I examined the card and photograph more closely: Amphiprion percula, Clownfish.

  As I glanced up it approached me through the water, orangey-red with wide bands of white. “Dak,” it said, wagging its thin face as if it was a bit cross. For a moment, we were eye to eye.

  My mouth gaped open.

  “Speak to me,” the fish demanded. “Say something, anything – as long as it’s not Shakespeare. Or the shipping forecast. Them, I can live without.”

  My mouth gaped wider. For an instant all I could do was grunt “ahh” as if I was at the doctor’s having my throat examined.

  Finally, I managed a single, quavery “Dad?” – then, “Dad, is that you?”

  The clownfish swished itself one way, then the other. “Of course it’s me,” it said, laughing. “Who did you think it was … a fish?”

  So that’s how it happened – how I discovered my dad hadn’t died, but turned into a clownfish at the aquarium. It was amazing, astonishing, incredible – wonderful! My dad was alive and talking to me!

  There were so many things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t speak. I just stood there grinning. Dad wanted to know what kind of fish he was. “Not a perch! Tell me I’m not a perch! Or an eel. Anything but that.” He shivered theatrically.

  I shook my head. “You’re neither of those. You’re a clownfish.”

  Dad wobbled his head and chuckled, shooting a jet of bubbles through the water. “A clownfish!” he gurgled. “A clownfish!” He chased after a chromis that was swimming close by, then flimflammed back to the front of the tank.

  “What are you doing, Dad?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know, just having some fun. Clowning around.” He waggled his little flipper fins and rolled his black beady eyes, pouting ridiculously.

  “You’re crazy, Dad,” I laughed. I felt my heart leap back into life. “I knew you weren’t really dead, I just knew it.”

  The clownfish wiggled in the water. “Me, dead?” he said. “No way, mate. I’m alive and kicking, I am. Well, alive and flipping anyway.”

  I stared at the clownfish. I still couldn’t take this all in. “But how did it happen? How did you become a fish?”

  Dad waggled his flippers again, as if in a shrug. “Search me, son. One moment I was eating breakfast in the kitchen, the next I was here. Like magic.”

  I nodded. It was magic, wasn’t it? My dad hadn’t died. He’d turned into a living, breathing, talking fish! And here I was, chatting with him.

  “A clownfish,” Dad said, his little mouth sort of smiling, “like Nemo. I remember watching that film with you when you were very small. It was your favourite – Finding Nemo. You watched it over and over… I think you knew the whole film by heart.”

  “Yeah, I did.” I laughed.

  “You didn’t like the anglerfish, though,” Dad continued. “You thought it was freaky.”

  The anglerfish always made me shiver. I was glad there wasn’t one in the aquarium.

  “You didn’t like that bit at the start, either, when the barracuda—”

  “Nobody likes that bit, Dad,” I interrupted. “The bit I like best is when Nemo and his dad are reunited. Like us.”

  Dad flicked his tail and pouted. “Nemo’s dad’s nothing like me. I never lost my son,” he said huffil
y. “And he wouldn’t know a good joke if it bit him.” He gave me a frowny dark-eyed stare. “With fronds like you who needs anemones,” he mimicked. “Even a ray could come up with a better joke than that.” And he swished away.

  I waited for a while, hoping he’d come back, but it seemed he’d had enough for now. I didn’t mind too much. He wasn’t going anywhere, was he? He’d still be there when I came back. This was his home now – and I could visit him whenever I wanted.

  I almost danced back to the house that afternoon. The first thing I saw when I got there was Becks, the stone bulldog. He was sitting in the front garden wearing a pink plastic rain hat. Dad had rescued him from the recycling centre and brought him home. He was as good as new, except that he’d lost one ear.

  Mum thought Becks was ugly and ridiculous, but Dad had insisted on putting him on our tiny front lawn. One sunny day, as a joke, he’d placed a straw boater (also rescued from the dump) on Becks’s head. People stopped and looked and laughed. After that, Dad gave the dog a variety of hats and accessories. Depending on the weather and the time of year, Becks wore a tartan bobble hat and scarf, a Father Christmas hat and red cape, a Union Jack sunhat and rainbow sunglasses, an old tin army helmet…

  As I passed Becks, I whipped off the rain hat. I’d swap it for the Union Jack sun hat that was stored with the other hats in the front porch. That was Dad’s hat for special occasions – and today I had something really special to celebrate, didn’t I? I pulled the pink hat down over my head and grinned at the stone bulldog.

  The front door opened and Doctor Doyle appeared. She was wearing a black and white checked skirt with a green cardigan, and carried a large black bag. She was tall and standing on the top step, she looked like a giantess.

  “So there you are, young man,” she said with a frown. “Your mother was worried about you. She didn’t know where you were.”

  “I went out for a bit,” I gabbled, quickly taking off the rain hat. “Mrs Baxter was here. I didn’t think they’d notice I was gone.”

  “Well, your mum did notice and she was worried.”