I saw them arrive, mate, in their yellow campervan, with the load of kids and the two dogs and all of them full of vulgar, youthful energy.
I was sitting in my old chair, with my old bait box and my old radio, my old fishing rod in its holder, and I was listening to the small talk of the waves when I heard the first alarming cry.
“Look. Mummy, at the funny man with the big guts.”
“Hush dear, he’s fishing Play sandcastles. Don’t tease, Mona DON’T TEASE”
Yes, I heard it all mate. It was like the doors of bedlam swinging open. The seagulls winced, and a small salmon trout fled seawards, its tail a blur of anxiety.
“Mummy. Shep’s gone up to the man’s chair.”
I was aware of a sudden warmth on the right leg, and I saw this small, urban canine, the maddened lust of seagull-chasing in its blood-lusting beady eyes.
The maddened lust of canine chasing came into mine like a red mist and my voice, quiet these past hours, went four-lettering over the astonished sandhills.
“Hullo, mate, Caught any, mate.”
It was the man from the camper- van, the sire of this decibilious progeny. He was Esky-carrying and the whole, atrocious brood was showing all he signs of pitching a beach umbrella within sinker shot.
Already a child, not yet sure on its limbs, was bellying its way forward, Its bright eyes fixed on the bait box and its nose dribbling with infantile intensity.
“There’s a nice little spot further along mate,” I said. “A small gnarled tree spills a sea-breezed shade, and the grass is right for a rug, mate.”
“She’s right mate. Like a bit of company. Want to see if you catch any, mate.”
He gave a hitch of his spectacularly brief trunks that clasped his lower midriff like lockjaw.
Why don’t you go, mate? My inner voice shrieked at him. Why come here, when the fishing channel comes close ashore Here, of all places, on a seven-kilometre beach.
The child was rapidly approaching my bait tin. I quickly ringed the tin with hooks and squid jags. The second dog approached my collapsible chair with its hind leg already at the hoist.
I drove it through mid-off with my rod holder.
“That’s Tiger,” said another child accusingly.
“And I’m Tyrannosaurus rex, mate,” I said, “and I crunch kidos.”
“I’m from Star Wars,” said the kid “Kerchow, bam, bam, bam.”
“Lookout for your swimsuit,” I said, or you’ll get a sea wasp in your belly-button.”
The woman had arrived now. She was young, had a hat, long hair and she had an enormous and ferocious aptitude for inciting her children into a frenzy of defiance. She was like one of the mythical Furies, with her hat, black sunglasses and her shoulder blades sirloined in the sun.
I didn’t care for mate.
The two dogs beg barking and the first dog looked headed in the direction of chair.
You got something your line, mister,” said a child.
Telling ME, mate.
Of course I had, scab face. There was a whole ocean on my line, great deeps and mighty chasms, huge fish with a mouthful of gut crushers, mate. And even peace, salvation for a man’s spirit, as if anybody would notice, mate.
“Everyone in the water,” shrieked the woman. In they went, the whole dreadful company, barking. leaping gurgling, bubbling. All over my fishing spot. Lashing it into foam. Disturbing the sand, squashing the jellyfish.
Even the baby was out there bubbling and squeaking.
For one moment, mate, I was thinking of putting on my heaviest sinker and my biggest hook. But who wants to hook spectacularly brief trunks or a sunburn-lotioned belly-button, or sirloined shoulder-blades.
“Catch anything mate they said later back at the little seaside town.
Well, in a way I did if you count a yellow campervan three kids, a bloke, his wife and a couple of incontinent dogs!
Mate!
Max Fatchen