The one that got away - a fishy tale of love lost

As an apology for not writing for some time, I present some short fiction for your reading (or listening) pleasure.... enjoy!

The air is alive with sounds – gulls screeching overhead, the scrunch of shingle underfoot, waves breaking and the swoosh of the shoreline pebbles being sucked to and fro by the strong tide. I feel alive in this landscape. The cold wind whips my hair about my face, and the smell of ozone and salty sea water fills my nostrils and expanding lungs as I breathe in deeply, taking in the unspoilt panorama.

It is a warm, sunny September afternoon, and elsewhere, t-shirt weather, but my hiking jacket is a necessity here on the beach, exposed to the penetrating north wind. The sky overhead is a deep azure blue and stretches off into the horizon, where it meets the darker blue of the North Sea. The sun, high in the sky to my right, cannot penetrate the coolness of the sea air. A few meters away, a little Turnstone, just clear of the water line, flutters over the pebbles, picking out juicy morsels of insects with its small black beak. I am standing at the water's edge of the North Norfolk coast, soaking in the atmosphere of the nearly deserted beach.

My reverie is broken by the scrunch of footsteps approaching and Pete calling out my name.

“Sue.”

I ignore him and continue to gaze at the mesmerising sea, shimmering playfully in the sunlight.

“SUE” he shouts louder. “Are you going to help me here or what?”

I turn and watch him walk towards me, he looks old today. His cropped steel-grey hair matches the colour of the new whisker stubble adorning his face. He hunches down into his jacket against the wind, almost bent double, like a rickety old man. Tucked through each arm is a beach casting rod, and slung over his shoulder is a heavy bag of fishing paraphernalia.

“Sorry” I call out. “I could not hear you in the wind. Isn’t it beautiful here?”

“Yeah” he replies with indifference “Could you possibly fetch the tackle box?”

I ignore the tone of sarcasm and head past him towards the shingle bank and the car beyond to fetch the box. As I walk my thoughts drift back to when we first met.

Pete was a friend of my mother's, and she had been keen to introduce us. At forty, she thought he was an excellent match for her thirty-year-old, still single daughter. He had recently undergone some pretty extensive surgery on his teeth and had that gummy look of people who wear dentures; at five foot six, he was short and small-framed. Not my type at all. I was definitely not interested, that is until it became apparent he was not interested in me! It then became a challenge to my ego. Like a Siren, I lured him into the rocky shores of my heart, singing songs of flattery and lust. I had to catch him – and catch him I did – hook, line and sinker.

Within a few months, as his mouth healed, Pete had lost the gummy look. He had won me over with his sense of humour, sociability and love of dancing. Despite myself, I had fallen in love with him, blind to his faults and my initial feelings. I was caught up in the madness of romance and happy ever-afters. Six months later, we brought a house together and cemented our relationship with an engagement party.

I cannot recall when the cracks began to appear, but I do remember lying under him, his head turned away from me and wondering why, if he loved me, he could not look into my eyes as we made love. I felt hurt and used. If he loved me, why couldn’t he connect with me at our most intimate moments? After a night of lovemaking, the next day, he would be hurtful, bullying in tone and sarcastic. I was left feeling confused and wounded by his resentment and the varied ways he found to put me down. My love was been worn away like those seaside pebbles, eroded by the constant emotional battering.

Returning to the beach, I watch Pete as he assembles his rod. He attaches the reel and untangles the line before threading it through the eyes of the long shaft. The skin of his face appears stretched, taut, and thin. Blue lines faint beneath the surface cross his pale white cheeks as he squints to thread his hook. He unwraps the newspaper parcel and cuts off a small portion of the stinking, slimy bait with the sharp blade of his hunter's knife. I recoil a couple of steps backwards as the smell of the rotting squid flesh hits my nostrils.

“Jesus Christ, Pete, just how old is that bait? It stinks.”

“The smellier, the better”, he replies “It attracts the fish.”

Pete continues to pierce the bait through the hook several times over, carefully creating folded layers, fingers glistening with opaque white slime. His pointed tongue pokes out slightly from his mouth in concentration. I am used to this habit of his, but for some reason, today - as I look at the red flesh resting between his puckered blue lips - a shiver of revulsion runs down my spine. As if noticing my sudden distaste, Pete looks up at me from his crouching position.

“You look cold love, why don’t you go and sit in the car for a while?”

“Yes I think I will” I reply as I head up the beach towards the car park.

“I could do with a cup of tea; you can bring the flask back with you”, he shouts to my retreating back.

I should have known there was a selfish motive, and his idea had not been out of concern for my welfare, I think, as I clamber over the shifting beach pebbles. Well, he can wait for his bloody brew. I need to warm up first.

Back at the car I pour myself a cup of steaming tea and light up a cigarette, enjoying the sunbathed warmth of the Volvo’s interior. As the smoke curls around me, I am aware of a feeling of loss and discontent. I have been feeling like this for months, and it’s getting worse. I know I have to do something, if only I could summon the strength to make that leap. It will be painful and messy, but I have to be brave. Not yet, I’m not ready. Like an old-fashioned train, I need to build up a head of steam, and then I’ll be off, and there’ll be no stopping me.

A tap on the car window startles me out of my thoughts, and I jump out of my seat, tea spilling over my hand and into my lap.

“Jesus Pete, you frightened the life out of me.” I swallow down my guilt at being caught thinking through my plans as if somehow he could see them written on my face.

“Come on, I’ve got your rod ready, It's time to catch your supper, Sue, and bring the flask with you.”

He grabs his hat from the car boot and heads off towards the beach, pulling the wool cap over his small head and pink sticky-out ears.

What does he look like in that bloody bobble hat, I think, as he disappears over the sea wall. And why didn’t he take the flask with him? But why should he? After all he has muggings here to do his carrying and fetching for him. I wipe away the spilt tea from my waterproof jacket with a tissue and with flask in hand walk slowly back towards the beach.

Unlike Pete, who is determined to catch an elusive bass with his stinking squid, I have opted to catch Mackerel using feathers. The feathers are bright colours - orange, white and red - and designed to look like little fishes when they skim through the water. There are six feathers along the length of the lure tied to my rod's line, each with a large hook attached. The aim is to cast out and reel in immediately, snaring any passing Mackerel that spot the fake fish. The action and immediacy I prefer to sitting patiently waiting for a random knock on my rod that is the art of bass fishing.

I stare at the shoreline in the distance, my hand above my eyes to shade the sun, squinting as I try to make out what is happening.

“Pete, look!” I yell out in excitement. “Jesus, it’s alive with them!”

About twenty yards out, a stretch of water over a hundred yards long gives the appearance of boiling as it foams and froths with movement. The strangely moving water is coming towards me and I know it is a shoal of Whiting. The fish have been driven to the surface in panic as they are chased along the shoreline by a shoal of hunting Mackerel, invisible but deadly beneath the water line. I raise my rod behind me, my finger on the line, and swoop it up in an arch towards the bubbling sea, letting go of the line at just the right moment to send the lure hurtling into the mass of Whiting. Immediately, I start to reel in the line, and within seconds, it starts to feel heavy as I struggle with the weight.

“Careful, take it easy, slowly does it” Pete coaches at my side.

With a final effort from my aching arms, the lure pops out of the water, and three large Mackerel hooked to the feathers wriggle to free themselves.

“Three bloody whoppers.” I cry out in glee. “That’s dinner sorted.”

“Well done, Sue,” Pete says quietly as he goes back to his rod, and I pick up my bounty, heading back up the beach to unhook them from the lure.

An hour has passed since my catch, and I am huddled in a blanket beside Pete, reading a book. Pete sits patiently on the wet shingle with his rod beside him. Suddenly, he jumps up and grabs his rod from the rest.

“Sue, I’ve got a bite”, he yells, the excitement in his voice mounting. “It’s big, whatever it is. That has got to be an eight-pound fish!”

The line is taut as he battles to land the fish, minutes pass. He reverses the clutch on the reel and lets the fish race away with the line before snapping it back on and once again strains to bring her in. For a few seconds the fish appears, thrashing above the water before disappearing. Pete staggers back, almost falling over as his line goes slack and whips into the shore. He has lost the fish, a beautiful big bass, and the air is blue with the sound of his anger.

As we pack up our gear and disassemble our rods Pete rambles on about his lost fish.

“I can’t understand how I lost that bloody bass, she was firmly hooked. I played it right, let her have some line, then brought her back in, wearing her out.”

“You wear me out” I mumble to myself.

We stow our tackle and gear in the car boot, and Pete gets in the driver's side. He kneads his sore, heavy eyes with his knuckles as if trying to message them into alertness.

“Do you want me to drive?” I ask in a mock concerned manner.

“Please love”, he looks at me, self-pity written all over his worn face.

“You have a little snooze. You look done in. A nice little sleep followed by fresh Mackerel for tea, what a treat.” I can’t help adding, rubbing salt into his wounded pride.

He gives an unimpressed grunt and settles down into the front passenger seat. I don’t mind driving. I know that he will be lulled into sleep within minutes, and I will be left alone to plot how I, too, will become “the one that got away.”

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