Clownfish

by Alan Durant

  Stephan wasn’t sure at first. “It’ll be fine, Uncle Stephan,” Violet assured him. “I’ll sort it out. Leave it to me.”And sort it out she did, moving people away from the places where Ricky wanted to film and stopping them from making too much noise.

  The reporter began by interviewing Stephan next to the wall that was the cause of all the trouble. This took a few takes as the soundman had some problems with the echoes. Then Ricky wanted some footage of the fish in their tanks, which Violet organized. Finally he wanted to interview me and Violet about the campaign.

  “We need an interesting backdrop,” he said. “Something colourful preferably.”

  Violet said she knew just the spot. I thought she might choose the piranha tank (even though you could hardly call the piranhas colourful), but she didn’t. She chose the tank that was my favourite.

  “Hello, son. Back again?” Dad mouthed when he caught sight of me. Then he saw the TV crew with their equipment and his mouth gaped. “Is that a TV camera?” he murmured. I nodded. Dad waggled his tiny flippers and wiggled his body. I chuckled.

  “Hello-oo, Da-ak,” Violet called. “The camera’s this way.” Reluctantly I turned away from Dad. Violet smiled at Ricky. “Dak’s crazy about fish,” she said. “He could watch them for hours. Couldn’t you, Dak?”

  “Yeah. They’re amazing.”

  “That’s a clownfish, isn’t it?” said Ricky, nodding at the tank.

  “Yeah. All fish are great, but clownfish are the best.”

  I couldn’t see Dad’s reaction, but I imagined him giving a little dignified bow.

  The interview went fine. Violet did most of the talking about the campaign and I spoke about the fish. The TV people wanted to know about Dad too – just as Violet had said they would. I felt uncomfortable talking about that, especially with Dad there behind me, but I did my best. It was for the good of the aquarium, I kept reminding myself.

  “You’re a very brave boy, Dak,” the reporter said.

  I frowned. She was like those people at the funeral, calling me brave. I didn’t understand how I was brave. Surely you had to do something heroic to be brave – like save someone’s life.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Taking on this campaign to save the aquarium so soon after your dad died,” the reporter explained.

  I shook my head. “That’s not brave. I just love fish, that’s all.” And anyway, I thought, my dad hasn’t died. He’s right here.

  When the TV crew had gone, I went back to Dad’s tank to have a chat.

  He was bubbling with excitement. “So I’m going to be on TV!”

  “Yes, Dad,” I said. “We both are.”

  Dad quivered then seemed to droop a little. “My first time on TV and I’m not going to be able to see it. Just my luck.”

  “I’m sure Stephan will record it. And the TV people told us they’d send us a DVD so we can use it for our campaign.”

  “That’s not much use to me in here,” Dad grumbled.

  “I can borrow a DVD player and play the interview for you. We’ll watch it together.”

  This seemed to cheer Dad up for a moment. But then his mouth drooped again. “No one’ll know it’s me, will they? All they’ll see is a bloomin’ fish.”

  “A magnificent fish, Dad. A magnificent, wonderful, fabulous fish.” I paused for emphasis. “A fish with dignity!”

  “Dak?” The voice took me by surprise and for an instant I didn’t recognize it as Violet’s. Then I turned. She was standing behind me in the shadows, watching, like that first day I’d met her. “You’re talking to that fish.” Her tone was unusually hesitant.

  I said nothing. What was there to say?

  “You called him ‘Dad’,” she continued, frowning.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. My mind was whirring, like in the recording studio when Victoria had asked if I still went to the aquarium with Dad.

  “Well, Dak?”

  I glanced back at the tank, saw Dad’s raisin-black eyes staring out as if urging me to reveal the truth. I looked back at Violet, taking a deep breath to steady myself.

  “He is,” I muttered. I half-turned and nodded at the tank. “That clownfish there, he’s my dad.”

  Violet laughed uncertainly. “You’re joking, right?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not. He’s my dad.”

  “Your dad’s dead,” Violet said bluntly.

  I shook my head again. “He’s not. He’s … changed. He’s turned into a clownfish.” Finally I’d said it, shared my secret. And it came out almost matter-of-factly, not in the dramatic manner I’d imagined: as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Because now, well, for me, it was. I felt lighter, relieved, like my head was full of air.

  Violet laughed again, louder and harsher this time. Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t be stupid, Dak. People don’t turn into fish.”

  “My dad has. He talks to me.”

  “He talks to you?”

  I nodded decisively. Violet huffed. “Fish don’t talk, Dak. Don’t be an arsehole.”

  “I’m not. It’s the truth.” I spoke confidently, but a pip of anxiety formed in my stomach.

  “OK then, prove it,” she challenged me. “Talk to the fish. Let’s hear him.”

  I glanced into the tank. Dad was swimming round the dottyback. “He’s distracted,” I said, the anxious feeling growing.

  “He’s a fish!” Violet snapped. “And like I said, fish don’t talk.”

  “He does.” My voice was shaky now. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

  Dad flimflammed to the front of the tank as if drawn by our voices. Violet strode forward and crouched down a little until she was eye to eye with him.

  “OK, Nemo, what have you got to say for yourself? Tell me, what’s it like being a fish?” She cocked her ear towards the tank. “What’s that, Nemo? Nothing to say? Let’s try another question. What’s the capital of America? No? Let’s try something simpler. What’s two times five? I still can’t hear you.”

  “Don’t!” I pleaded. “Leave him alone.” She was ruining everything. Dad’s little black eyes looked hurt and confused, as if he couldn’t understand what was going on.

  But Violet was relentless. “How about this one: can you blow bubbles out of your arse?”

  She’d gone too far. “Shut up! You’re being stupid!” I yelled.

  “You’re the one that’s stupid,” Violet hissed.

  “I thought you’d understand,” I said, shaking. “I thought you were my friend.” My voice was rising, out of control. “But you’re just a stupid, bossy, bad-tempered, selfish, horrible girl!” I was shrieking now. “I’m not the arsehole – or your dad. You are!” I pushed past her.

  Moments later I was through the foyer, shoving the glass doors open and hurrying out into the street. I stumble-ran, my breathing clumpy, my head thumping, and didn’t pause until I reached home. I whacked the battered boater off Becks’s head, then fell on the front step and sobbed.

  Mum brought me in and hugged me. She made me some hot chocolate, then she sat down next to me on the living-room sofa and got me to tell her what the matter was. I was calmer now – less upset, more angry. I told Mum that I’d fallen out with Violet but I didn’t tell her why. I wasn’t going to risk revealing that again.

  “She always has to be right,” I said. “I’m sick of it.”

  “Well, I suppose she’ll be going home soon,” said Mum.

  “And good riddance,” I muttered.

  We watched the news together. The item on the aquarium was right at the end, in the local section. It only lasted a couple of minutes. The reporter introduced the campaign, there were a few words from Stephan next to the dodgy wall, then a tiny bit of the interview with Violet and me.

  “That was great, wasn’t it?” said Mum afterwards. “And I was right – you were brilliant.” She leant across and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I hadn’t really paid attention – I’d been gazing into the background at th
e tank where Dad was just visible, dancing and shimmying, desperate to be noticed.

  “And they gave out a contact number too,” Mum added. “So hopefully you’ll have lots of people phoning up to offer money.”

  I frowned. “Violet and Stephan can deal with that. I’m not going back while she’s there.”

  Mum gave me a concerned look. “Oh, Dak. It can’t be that bad surely?”

  “It’s worse,” I said. And I wouldn’t talk about it any more.

  We spent the evening watching TV and talking. I told Mum about the quotes on the foyer walls. One was by an art critic called John Ruskin and another by someone called Doris Lessing – I asked if she’d heard of them.

  “I’ve heard the names, but I couldn’t tell you anything about them.”

  “What about D. H. Lawrence?” I asked and I recited his quote.

  Mum knew more about him. “He wrote novels – and poetry,” she said. “I remember studying one about a snake when I did my GCSEs.”

  “And Robert Lowell – have you heard of him?”

  Mum shook her head. “You’ll have to Google him. But tomorrow – not tonight. You need an early night and a good long sleep. You look exhausted.”

  It was true. I was tired. The last couple of days had been so full of emotions. I felt like my heart had been ripped and shredded.

  I woke up in a panic. In my dreams Violet was a piranha, but a huge one, more of a shark really, with enormous red eyes and massive teeth – and she spoke like the Finding Nemo shark Bruce. “I’m having fish tonight,” she growled like in the film and chased me, jaws snapping. I was worried she’d attack Dad and I was trying desperately to find him before she did…

  Once again I reached for Dad’s grey sweatshirt. I hugged it to me, burying my face in its yellow smiley, hoping some of its happiness might rub off on me.

  I went downstairs and poured myself a glass of milk. I put a slice of bread in the toaster… Then it came to me: of course Dad wouldn’t talk to Violet, not when she was being so horrible and rude. As I sat at the kitchen table munching my toast, I remembered how upset he’d been about people who’d turned abusive down at the tip. He hated it. So, no way would he respond to Violet when she was being so nasty. She’d probably go and tell Stephan and maybe Johnny too that I was talking to the clownfish and calling it dad. I could hear the sneering laugh in her voice as she said it.

  Well, let her sneer. I’d trusted her and she’d betrayed me. I should never have let out my secret – not to her, not to anyone. I thought for a moment about my old friends, from my old life – Ruby and Tom. Would they have treated me the way Violet had? No, I was sure they wouldn’t. Some friend she was.

  In the morning, the phone kept ringing. I would’ve let the calls go to answer phone but Mum took them. She hadn’t answered the phone for ages. It was a sign that she was getting better, I supposed. The calls were from reporters wanting to arrange interviews, but I told Mum I didn’t want to speak to anyone.

  “Tell them to talk to Violet,” I said. “It’s her campaign. I’m not part of it any more.”

  I tried to distract myself by going on the computer to find out more about Robert Lowell, or Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV, which, according to Wikipedia, was his full name. He was an American poet, born on 1 March 1917, died on 12 September 1977. He’d won quite a few prizes and was obviously important. I put in the quote from the aquarium-foyer wall: I often sigh still for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom of the fish. It came from a poem called “For the Union Dead”.

  I Googled it. It wasn’t like any poem I’d ever read before and I didn’t really understand it. But I could tell it wasn’t a happy poem. It seemed to be about an aquarium in a place called Boston in America that the poet used to visit as a child, but now it was abandoned, its windows broken and boarded up, and it was going to be pulled down to build a giant car park. He called the fish “cowed” and “compliant”. I looked the words up. “Cowed” meant sort of scared and bullied, and “compliant” meant obeying rules and always agreeing with others.

  Was that what fish were like? I asked myself. Well, there was no way Dad was like that. Dad. What was going to happen to him? The poem made me more worried than ever. I remembered how I’d shivered when Stephan had first read out the quote and I felt the same now, having read the poem. It was like there wasn’t any hope. Things changed, but for the worse – and there was nothing that you could do to stop it. The aquarium, the fish, wishes and hopes … they were no more than bubbles, burst bubbles.

  The phone rang again. I couldn’t stay in the house. I had to get out. In seconds I was through the front door and on my way down to the sea.

  The water winked and twinkled, blue near the shore changing to green further out. The sunlight gave it a sheen like it had been laminated. Some little kids in blue polo shirts and white sun hats were having a picnic on the beach, their voices squeaky with excitement. A couple of seagulls squawked and pecked at each other. A sudden strong breeze gusted in from the sea and took my breath away as I scrunched across the pebbly sand.

  The tide was still out enough to see the strange bumpy landscape beneath the cliffs. The lumps of chalk had formed into shapes: a pillow, a flour sack, a giant egg, a gravestone… I quickly looked away out to sea, where a small boat with a single white sail skimmed across the water.

  I was reminded suddenly of a poem Dad used to recite (a poem, he said, that his dad had recited to him) when we were at the seaside. I could feel his strong arm around me, hugging me close, and the unusual seriousness in his voice as he recited the lines:

  I must go down to the seas again,

  To the lonely sea and the sky,

  And all I ask is a tall ship

  And a star to steer her by.

  Dad didn’t know who’d written the poem or what it was called. It didn’t matter, though. The words were beautiful: so simple, so atmospheric, magical … dignified. It had hope … very different from that poem by Robert Lowell.

  I wished that Dad was here now, that his arm really was round me, hugging me to him. I tried to take a deep breath but it broke into a shudder. Everything had changed so much, I thought, in the few days since Violet and I had sat in the hole in the cliff and started to plan our campaign. We’d been full of hope then. We’d thought that we could change things, that we could save the aquarium. And we had achieved a lot. We’d got lots of attention and even raised some money – but not nearly enough. We were still far, far from the ten thousand pounds needed, which meant that Stephan would have to sell the aquarium. It would go the same way as the one in Robert Lowell’s poem – bulldozed by developers to build offices or flats or a massive car park.

  Mum had said that Dad would have been proud of me, but why? I’d failed; I’d tried but I hadn’t managed to save the aquarium, to protect Dad’s home – and worst of all I’d betrayed him by telling Violet his secret and letting her make fun of him and destroy his dignity. What sort of a son was I? I wished that the sea would wash over me, take away my misery and pain and anger, set me free – free like a fish…

  I sat for a long time huddled on the shore, watching the incoming tide, until the sky clouded over. Without the sunshine, the wind was chilly and harsh and I started to shiver. I stayed a little longer even then, not wanting to move or go home…

  In the end the cold was just too much – my whole body began to shake, and I had to get up and leave.

  Bare-headed and one-eared, Becks peered at me wonkily through a pair of Dad’s lensless turquoise-framed glasses. In another mood I might have found it funny but now it seemed sort of pathetic and sad. I did my best to straighten the glasses, but it was difficult with Becks’s missing ear. The straw boater was lying upside down on the grass where I’d knocked it the day before. I picked it up and dusted it off gently before putting it back on Becks’s head. Then I went inside.

  I heard Mrs Baxter the moment I stepped into the hallway and I stopped, stiffened. I really didn’t want to have to face her. I
headed swiftly for the stairs but I was too late. Mum must have heard the front door open and she called out to me.

  “Dak?”

  “Hi, Mum,” I said, hoping I might still escape. I really didn’t want to talk to anyone and especially not Mrs Baxter.

  “Where have you been all afternoon?” It was obvious from Mum’s tone that she wasn’t going to be brushed off. Reluctantly I walked into the sitting room.

  Mum and Mrs Baxter were drinking tea. “I’ve been worried about you,” said Mum. “Where have you been?”

  I shrugged. “I went down to the sea.”

  “You’ve been there all this time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s nice this time of year, isn’t it?” Mrs Baxter said, her friendly tone taking me by surprise. “Warm, but fresh.”

  I nodded. Mum offered me some cake but I shook my head. I liked cake all right, but I wanted to get out of the room and be on my own.

  “We were just talking about your television appearance,” Mum said. “Mrs Baxter saw you.”

  Mrs Baxter beamed. “You were quite a star. And your friend… What’s her name?”

  “Violet,” Mum said.

  “What an amazingly confident girl,” Mrs Baxter said admiringly.

  “She’s not my friend,” I corrected her.

  Mrs Baxter looked confused. “They’ve fallen out,” Mum explained.

  “Oh dear, I’m sorry to hear that,” Mrs Baxter said. “I’m sure you’ll make up.”

  I shook my head. “No, we won’t.” All of my anger and resentment rushed back. “Never.” And I slouched out of the room.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. My thoughts came in wild waves and I couldn’t control or make sense of them. I had to do something, so I started to tidy up my room. It was a bit of a mess because I hadn’t tidied it for ages and Mum hadn’t been in any state to nag me like she usually did. I was picking stuff wearily off the floor when, buried under a pile of clothes, I came across a screwed-up piece of paper.