Lynne Voyce

Fish Story

Lynne Voyce

Cordelia picks her way across the shingle in vertiginous heels, the straps straining against the tanned skin and graphite painted toe nails. The gathering summer wind stings her face and bare shoulders with a whip of sand. There is the screech of a circling, hungry seagull overhead. Her heavily made up eyes stream; her long, bare legs burn in the elements. She had forgotten how visceral the beach could be. But the warm, newspaper wrapped package against the thin silk of her blouse comforts her, its heat constant and intense in the fevered evening. The smell of hot fat and porous matt paper mingles with her perfume to create a heady promise of sensual pleasure. She finally reaches the wind worn steps of the beach hut. It stands chalk blue and ramshackle; a haven against the unpredictability of the coast.

Finding the key in her shell shaped evening bag, she unlocks the door. The salty smell of home seeps out. She totters in, her sequined skirt making it difficult to negotiate the entrance. On the whitewashed wooden wall ahead is a Turner seascape, supposedly lost. It had been acquired by her mother in her heyday, like so many of Cordelia’s treasures. She stares at its luminous chaos for a moment, as if drinking it in for sustenance.

She turns the oven dial on her table top Baby Belling, puts the package in to keep warm. Cordelia has waited for this. She is past hunger. She must savour this anticipation. She must prepare. There had been weeks of tiny canapes and sushi; weeks of using delicate fingers and silver forks; months, years even, of dieting and calorie counting. She has been famished for so long now, she knows little else. It is the only way not to be conspicuous among those flesh-less beanstalks. And she knows Caspar prefers her thin and shimmering, holding a glass of vodka or champagne.

Cordelia unbuckles her sandals, feels the sea grass matting beneath the impossibly soft soles of her feet. Then she unzips her skirt, lets it fall to the floor in a sparkling, aquamarine pool. She takes off her pearl drop earrings and her Tahitian pearl necklace. What a lovely gift from him, presented in a coral-red, velvet box. But it wasn't what she wanted. “Beauty for beauty,” he had purred. What a silly, gaudy remark. It took all she had not to throw back her head and snort with raucous laughter. Instead, she’d given a flimsy smile, admired the precious magnolia beads between her perfectly manicured fingers, put her head to one side with a faint expression of dissatisfaction: “Thank you, they’re ... nice”. And in response to this ‘damning with faint praise’, the gifts kept coming. His ego needs her to smile and say: “This is just what I wanted. I love you, darling.” She just has to wait to get her prize.

It has been nine months since Caspar responded to her siren call in the night club; all jewel coloured neon and plush velour.

“Can I buy you a glass of wine?”

She’d looked at him levelly, “Wine would be ...erring...nice.”

“Champagne, it is then,” he’d said, entranced.

It had not taken her long to track him down. His tawny hair and freckled skin were the image of the man in the faded photographs, his father. Caspar frequented the very nightspots every other wealthy, relatively young bachelor did. He ate at the same restaurants, drank the same cocktails, talked about the same empty subjects. But he had never spoken about the one thing she was interested in. He had never even alluded to it.

Yet, she knew he had it. She knew somewhere in the safe, throbbing with the sound of the sea, it lay on a blue silk pillow, waiting majestically: the New World Pearl. A treasure that was plucked from an oyster that dates back to before Jesus Christ, before even Neptune himself. A hundred million year old spoil, in a safe in London, suffocating quietly. Unable to breath just like the boy who had found it. His drowned carcass had been hauled from the foam, clutching the pearl in its hand. It took many minutes for his aging father to revive him in their narrow wooden boat. And the elder had wept with relief over his child’s brown, glistening, gasping body. The father gave thanks to a God, who had never before been benevolent. Then he prized the perfect golden-bronze sphere from his child’s hand and put it in a chamois bag at his waist.

It had made the old man rich; just the very word of it had brought him money, wealth that lasted for generations, but it had brought nothing else but trouble. His son never uttered another word after the day he emerged dead from the sea. A part of the boy’s brain, the part that let him speak, had exploded in the depths. And the man’s wife never spoke another word to her husband either, knowing he had urged the boy to go deeper and deeper in search of the pearl.

One day, in his dotage, the fisherman, now rich and broken, had thrown the New World Pearl, as it had become known, back into the warm shallows. That is where Cordelia’s mother had found it.

Cordelia’s mother had adored the pearl. And that is why, years after she discovered it, she had given the New World Pearl to Caspar’s father as a love token before she had left one winter for warmer climes. The unspoken agreement was that it would be handed back when she returned. But the next summer Caspar’s father had moved inland and disappeared.

Because she loved him, Cordelia’s mother had faded away, heartbroken, having believed his sweet words and promises. Then right at the end, when she realised he had meant his pact only for the moment, the pearl became her obsession. Over and over Cordelia’s mother had said it, her voice the soft roar of rolling breakers: “I gave him the pearl, the same way as I gave my heart and he has kept them both. But the pearl belongs to the sea or those born from the sea, you must find it and take it back. You must do it by any means because it is the right thing to do. No one will judge you but yourself.” If only Cordelia would have known that it was going to be a war of attrition: foodless and funless. They say the pearl is cursed. Still, it rightfully belonged to Cordelia’s mother and now, in turn, it rightfully belonged to her. She will have it. Somehow. Caspar so wants to please when he bestows gifts it must only be a matter of mind numbing, diminishing, play acting time before he gives it to her. Just another few months of famine.

For decades she supposes the pearl has stayed in the safe, not even seeing the light of day: not resting on the cushiony décolletage of a beautiful woman, or even being admired by business associates as its owner shows it proudly in their palm.

Cordelia switches on the radio, the sober voices of a discussion panel provide her company: “The implications of this law are manifold...”. She is relieved to be able to forget the vacuous small talk and insipid smile of networking and looking beautiful.

Opening the small, white fridge, tucked behind a cliched gingham curtain, she lifts out a stout, smoky-brown bottle. She pushes the top against the driftwood shelf above the fridge, delighting in the pop-hiss sound of freshly opened beer. She takes a swig, enjoying the slip slide of her thick carmine lipstick against the glass neck. The slight fizz and honeyed taste make her glow despite its icy cold. It is beer brewed from hops that lie in fields just a few miles inland. They are fields she played in as a child, fields rippled by the fresh coastal wind as it sweeps inland, fed by the rain and the intensity of the summer sun.

No champagne tonight, no Bellini’s, mojitos, cosmopolitans, just this beer and the feast still warm in the oven.

She puts the beer on the side and takes the folded table and chair that hang from hooks on the hut walls.

Jamming open the double doors with the largest of beach pebbles she places first the table then the chair in the doorway, looking out to sea. The door jamb acts as a frame and Cordellia is faced with the most beautiful seascape, reflecting the Turner behind her: first shingle, then marmalade coloured sand, then blue-grey breakers, edging ever forward. By the end of her meal the tide will be in and she will swim.

Swimming on a full stomach makes her sleepy and she may allow herself to drift off in the twilight surf, the cold water lapping at her cheeks and nose. Maybe even breathe the water in, douse the constant smell of sweet perfume and expensive gloss that swirl around her now.

On the table she places a cloth, a print of seaweed and anemones, then the stub of a plain wax candle that she uses in power cuts, stuck precariously on a jam jar lid. She lights it and the flame flickers in the uncertain air but doesn't go out. Then by it, so the pool of extra light falls on the pages, she places Lyrical Ballads, open on Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It had been read to her as a child and she returns to it often. Then she lays out salt, brown table vinegar, a napkin, and a spoon. No knife and fork because, of course, the proper instruments to eat a fish supper are one’s fingers, but there must be a spoon to ladle just the right amount of mushy peas into the greasily translucent paper, so it doesn't get soggy and give way. Then at the corner of the table she places a finger bowl, full of tepid water and a quartered lemon, a slice for the finger bowl, a slice to douse the beer batter.

Finally, she goes to the cooker and takes the package out. She places it on the table and with care opens out the paper leaves, first the newspaper, then the dry white paper, then last the grease sodden final layers. The fish supper lies on the table vulnerable and prone. She takes the small white polystyrene carton from where it lies in the outer layers and opens it to reveal plump, green peas, floating in a chartreuse liquid.

She is arrested by the mingling smell of fish, peas and the very particular aroma of fried potato. The hunger within her rises in a wave, but she quells it with the singular pleasure of eating a chip that is too hot. She hollows out her mouth, lets the hot potato swim for few seconds in her saliva before she dares to chew on its steaming flesh.

She feels the salty grease on her fingers, savours the warm salt on her lips. Fish and chips. Maybe the pearl is cursed, she thinks. It has forced her into being a half starved, ramrod thin, vacant woman, who has to sneak about to enjoy art, literature, and a fish supper. Yet, she will have it, at any cost. She will avenge her mother’s loss. One day she will wear the New World Pearl on a chain of pure gold resting on her soft, ever plumper décolletage. In that moment Cordelia draws strength from her supper.

Then slowly, as if she is flowering, she crosses her long slender legs and watches them transform. The smooth, tanned skin becomes scintillating scales of purple and aquamarine. Slowly, pleasurably Cordelia unfurls her elegant, coruscated mermaid tail. Tomorrow she will return to her self-imposed fast, hoping for her rightful prize. But tonight she will indulge herself and eat. And then after dinner, she’ll play in the sea.

The Top Ten...

Small Pleasures for Very Busy People

1. Read two pages of a book you’ve read many times.A tiny bit of Bronte or Austen always perks me up. And it reminds me of how great the rest of the book is.

2. Watch a well written, half hour situation comedy. . . something that creates its own little escapist world, like "Black Books" or the IT Crowd.

3. Have a cup of tea. Just that: sit quietly, drink it and think.

4. Put on perfume. Coco Chanel said: “A woman who doesn't wear

perfume has no future.” There’s no better sensual pleasure. I’m not sure if aftershave works the same way for a man.

5. Flick through a brand new magazine. I love the moment Vanity Fair drops through the door - and the first ‘flick’ is the best.

6. Play a single from your youth. The Smiths’ "How Soon is Now?" still hits the spot.

7. Look at some decent photography. A picture says a thousand words, so it’s a bit quicker to plug into. The Guardian newspaper’s photo galleries are my favourite.

8. Eat on the street while you’re walking.Bad manners I know, but fish and chips out of the paper on a cold day takes some beating.

9. Look at the night sky. Really look until the stars appear from the darkness.

10.Kiss someone.