Five Miles From Outer Hope (9 page)

‘Really?’ I cluck tartly. ‘No surprises there, then.’

He ignores me. ‘She was in hospital in Denver for a few days. Nothing too serious. Just… uh…’ he grapples for the word, ‘something
cosmetic
.’

His voice sounds disapproving. ‘And she’ll probably be coming home soon, to recuperate properly, but only if we really try and play our cards right. As a
family
, I mean.’

There’s a warning tone in his voice which I don’t
quite
appreciate.

‘Okay.’

I lie down again (yes of
course
I’m absolutely charmed and delighted and ecstatic and everything).

‘Well,’ he says eventually, clearly disturbed by my monosyllabic reaction, ‘I’ll be seeing you in the morning.’

I close my eyes. ‘It
is
morning, stupid.’

He turns to go. ‘Okay,
smart-arse
,’ he mutters, tip-toeing off and closing the door gently behind him, ‘there’s no need to get all flip and sassy with me.’

Chapter 12

Five a.m. My fickle eyes (having been as bright as a Chelsea Pensioner’s buttons all the dark night long) would seem to have chosen this hugely inauspicious time to self-seal by way of a glutinous
slew
of crusty secretions. It’s as if my upper and lower lashes have all been individually crisp-crumbed by the illusory fingers of a phantasmagorical chef, and then slowly and painstakingly golden-battered together. It’s
putrid
.

I rub away the worst of it as I slam out of the hotel and stagger resolutely downhill to meet with Black Jack for our somewhat untimely fishing assignation.

The sun has already risen in the east like an undercooked ivory-coloured muffin. The gulls swoon above me, full of early morning zeal, bleating like spring lambs and experimenting on a riotous helter-skelter of wind currents. Hovvering, swooping, diving.

Because it’s fairly breezy, I yank my lilac-coloured crochet cardigan a little tighter around me, shove up my shoulders, curse a few times and readjust my unwieldy fishing equipment (all ancient stuff, but
exceptionally
hardy, passed down by Mo’s great uncle who game-kept in the Scottish Highlands before volunteering for that worthy but – in his own case – rather
tragic
Spanish Civil War business).

I have an emergency banana stuffed into my woolly pocket, for energy. And frankly, I am most
miserably
in need of it – feeling as I do, at that precise moment, about as well-worn and washed-out as a busy whore’s best knickers – but I hold off peeling and devouring it (time is of the essence) and plod bravely onwards, my stomach growling, all the while, like a territorial Alsatian.

On approaching the jetty – the swollen tide is already quietly contemplating the possibility of rushing out again – something wholly unexpected makes me stop, start violently and widen my heavy, sleep-encrusted eyes to fuller than their full capacity.

For there, large as Lucifer, a mere thirty yards or so ahead of me, stands that horrid, blackguard, hell-hound
La Roux
, lounging against the huge wheel of the sea tractor (fully balaclavaed), looking lively as a sharp south-westerly (the
bastard
) and deep in cheery conversation with Jack the Skipper.

He is holding something. As I draw closer I see it is a ball of dough, but bright yellow, which he is gently massaging in the palm of his hand to (as he expresses it) ‘maintain its texture’. Jack is staring at this ball with great attention, all previous difficulties between the two of them now plainly forgotten. (How the hell does he
do
it? This man is more rank and slippery than a bed of oysters. He could give the Reverend Jim Jones a run for his money. They should seriously consider funding research into his human-management techniques for the United Nations.)

As I draw closer I am able to decipher certain choice segments of his shameless patter. It turns out that this unappetizing yellow muck is an all-but
legendary
South African fishbait (Yeah. Believe that and you’ll believe
anything
). Phenomenal stuff, La Roux’s telling him, both for fresh
and
for saltwater fishing. Nothing too fancy either, just a rough-and-ready mixture of dough and cheese and curry powder. In all the right proportions, obviously.

After perusing this wonderbait at some length, sniffing it, squeezing it and touching it with the tip of his tongue, Black Jack finally gets around to apprehending my arrival, and affords me the kind of minutely surprised look you might give a traditionally attired Elizabethan princess who appears unannounced and noisily demanding to join a clutch of horny-handed men of toil in the pursuit of something manly.

I point to La Roux. ‘What the hell is
he
doing here?’

Jack shows me the bait, almost sniggering. ‘Have you
seen
this stuff? La Roux says fish’ll bite off the hook for it.’

I take a closer look at this wondrous concoction. It seems vaguely familiar. It
reminds
me of something.

‘Nice tackle, Medve,’ La Roux observes benevolently, staring at my breasts, his eyes twinkling.

‘Up your arse,’ I mutter, clumping gracelessly across the wooden landing bay, climbing carefully on board the boat and hoping against hope – perhaps rather naïvely under the circumstances – that we’ll be leaving the quisling South African behind us.

The boat is nothing fancy. A small rower with a smoky out-board motor. Seats two comfortably. It’s a squeeze for three. La Roux – suddenly bedecked in a stinky life-jacket which reeks of perished rubber – springs on board (from whence does this man derive his crazy energy?) and rocks me green-gilled with a frenzied bout of horribly inexpert clambering.

I observe that he has his beloved twig with him, on the tip of which he has affixed a length of wool threaded with a small, bent, darning needle. And he absolutely
insists
on sitting at my end, right in the nose of the boat, like a preposterously over-sized figurehead, with his devilishly bony spine knocking repeatedly into mine every time the boat jerks or a random wave rocks us unexpectedly.

The sea is slightly choppy to start off with, but thankfully it calms down after twenty minutes. Jack drops anchor approximately half a mile out into the bay. It’s getting warmer. The wind is dropping. It’s pretty much
perfect
fishing weather.

I bait my hook, check my reel, cast off – nothing too spectacular to begin with – and contentedly watch my fly bobbing among the gentle waves. Jack does likewise.

La Roux, having spent the duration hawking into the water, and trying (but failing) to encourage Jack to do the same on a competitive basis, eventually abandons this game when I spit something green and grievous at
least
five metres into the deep blue distance. He suddenly gazes up dreamily into the high clouds above him and casually pretends he hasn’t noticed
.

Eventually he affixes a huge chunk of wonderbait to his ridiculous needle and dips it in over the side. From the rear he resembles a lacklustre rubber gnome with disturbing paramilitary tendencies.

At long last, for the first (and unfortunately the final) time during our short voyage, he voluntarily observes the habitual meditative silence of the serious fisherperson.

I use this brief and blissful hiatus to pull out my banana and peel it. La Roux’s head suddenly whips around like a hungry gull’s (I’m talking 180 degrees,
minimum
). ‘What
is
that?’he asks.

I frown. ‘What does it
look
like? It’s a fucking banana.’

‘May I have some?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘No.’

‘Oh, come
on
.’

‘
‘No!
’

‘But I’m
starving
.’

‘La Roux, you’re
killing
me.’ I bite off half the fruit in a single mouthful and then viciously swallow it.

‘My God, I can’t believe you just did that.’

‘
Believe
.’

I consume the second half just as spiritedly – ‘Yum!’ – and toss the skin overboard.

La Roux peers down into the water to watch it sinking. Then he turns to stare at Jack. ‘Do you have anything worth eating at your end, Jack?’ he enquires ingratiatingly. Jack is manhandling a lugworm. He glances up, hardly listening. ‘Uh… no. Nothing.’

‘He only has lugworms,’ I interject helpfully.

‘
Lug
worms?’ La Roux repeats the name with interest. ‘Okay,’ he says, ‘pass one over.’

Jack appears not to hear him. But I won’t miss this opportunity.

‘Jack,’ I say firmly. ‘Lugworm.’

A deeply preoccupied Jack distractedly hands me his tupperware tub. Inside it, fifteen lugworms squirm delightfully, each of them that delicious trademark blood-mud-red colour. I pop in my fingers and pull one out.

‘Here you go.’ I proffer it to La Roux.

He inspects the gyrating worm for a few brief moments, rolls up his balaclava, takes it from me (this particular prime specimen is a good four inches) and tosses it into his mouth. Two quick chews and a big swallow follow.

I emit a little scream (yes, I
know
it’s beneath me to behave so
girlishly
, even if I
am
a girl of the giant variety). Jack glances over. ‘Have you hooked something?’

‘Uh. No. La Roux just ate a lugworm,’ I explain sheepishly.

The Worm Eater is already readjusting his balaclava. Jack looks nonplussed. ‘If I’d known you were that desperate,’ he says, reaching into his jacket pocket, ‘I’d’ve given you an Iced Gem.’

La Roux’s head snaps around again. ‘What was that?’ he asks, his back instantly straightening.

‘An Iced Gem,’ Jack repeats, holding up a small packet of this obscure miniature-multi-coloured-icing-topped-biscuit-based delicacy.

On espying these alien English sweetmeats, La Roux begins wriggling like a puppy.

‘Oh yes,’ he says, ‘I’ll certainly be willing to try one of those.’

‘Believe it or not,’ Jack informs me (ignoring the eager La Roux with most magnificent aplomb), ‘I like to use these things to attract tiddlers. For some strange reason they seem to have a real
appetite
for them.’

He pulls open the small packet and tosses a large handful into the water. La Roux howls like a wounded wolf.

As if only just apprehending La Roux’s interest, Jack pulls out a couple extra and hurls them his way. In his frenzy to catch them La Roux elbows me in both the ear and the shoulder. I complain vociferously, but to no avail. La Roux catches one, but the second lands in the water. Even so, he holds his tiny prize in the palm of his hand and stares at it lovingly. ‘
Iced Gem
,’ he repeats, and stares some more.

My eyes return firmly to my gently bobbing fly, while behind me a sudden ecstatic crunching commences. Five quiet seconds pass. Jack reels in his line.

‘I need another
Iced Gem
!’ La Roux suddenly bellows. ‘Give them to me!’

I turn on him. ‘Would you actually mind
shutting bloody up
for a single minute? You’re scaring the fish away with all that racket.’

‘I
need
an
Iced Gem
!’ La Roux shouts. ‘I just love them. I’ve fallen in love with them. Give me another.
Give me another Iced Gem.
Give one to
meeeeee
.’

Jack completely ignores him (He seems to have perfected this capability). He pushes a worm on to his hook and casts it out again.

‘
Iced Gem!
’ La Roux yells.

I turn to Jack. ‘For God’s sake, I can’t stand it. Please do us both a favour and just
give
him one.’

Jack points. ‘See. Over there…’

I wincingly (the sheer volume of La Roux’s expostulations is simply
deafening
) follow the line of his finger. A short distance away an isolated but still-floating Iced Gem is being consumed by something scaly.

‘I
told
you they loved them.’

Jack shoves his hand once again into the open packet and casts a few more out to sea.

‘
No!
’ La Roux howls.

Jack smiles (he can’t
help
himself), puts the packet down onto the bench beside him and reels in his line a little. My fly bobs. I yank up the rod and also start reeling. Jack notices. ‘A bite?’ he asks encouragingly.

‘Can’t quite tell as yet…’ I continue reeling, breathing heavily.

During this brief moment of fisherly distraction, La Roux – without any kind of warning – suddenly hurls himself across the boat towards the packet of Iced Gems, shoving me discourteously aside in the process.

I almost topple overboard. The whole boat rocks wildly. But Jack’s much too quick for him, and snatches the Gems – or most of them – out of harm’s way before La Roux’s frantically lunging hands are able to grab a firm hold. Three tip on to the mucky floor and La Roux manages to herd them together. Then (like an electric eel which has recently emerged from its coral hunting hidey-hole) he rapidly retreats again.

A further, elongated bout of ecstatic crunching follows. Whatever was once on my line has now slipped off it. I reel in, cursing darkly, and rebait. ‘You know what?’ I gurgle over my shoulder. ‘You are worse than a bloody animal. You are an absolute
fucking
liability.’

‘Ah, fuck you back,’ La Roux mutters, still crunching enthusiastically, his birdy-eyes peering greedily at Jack over the length of the boat again.

‘He’s like a starling,’ Jack says, glancing over and (would you
believe
this?) smiling indulgently. ‘Just
look
at him. Just look at those tiny, sharp eyes. A starling.’

La Roux pauses mid-crunch. ‘What’s a starling?’

‘A greasy little brown bird. Very
noisy
,’ I tell him coldly.

Jack nods his agreement, then, ‘Ooops,’ he expostulates, focusing forward, ‘something’s nibbling.’

It’s at this point that the lucky
swine
casually bags a three-pound mackerel. No fuss. No rigmarole. No unmanly hassle. I watch in awe while he reels it in and then enviously eyeball his prodigious catch as he proudly unhooks it.

‘They’re only not biting my end,’ I tell him sulkily, ‘because of this
noisy bastard
here.’ I thumb contemptuously towards La Roux.

‘I’m so
hungry
, so terribly
hungry
,’ La Roux is muttering. ‘How long before we can head back home again?’ (We’ve been in the boat, at this stage, all of thirty minutes.)

Jack deftly concusses his catch on the edge of the vessel. ‘Couple more hours,’ he answers casually. A powerful silence ensues from La Roux’s end as he digests this terrible revelation.

‘Two
hours
?’ he gasps finally, his voice hollow with horror.

‘Approximately,’ Jack says.

‘But how will I
survive
it?’ La Roux bellows.

‘By catching some fish like you’re supposed to,’ Jack tells him, ‘that’s how.’

It is at this awful juncture that La Roux suddenly notices that he has lost his beloved twig (I fear it fell into the water during his struggle for the Iced Gem packet. And maybe I
helped
it, God forgive me). He is devastated.