It was a question I had been expecting for some time from my nearest and dearest. (The nearer they get, the dearer they get.)
Why they said, didn’t I have bottom of the harbour scheme yielding something little more profitable than tommy ruffs?
It brought to a fish-head what has been smouldering in my mind for weeks and has irritated the faithful who fish the Bay of Magpies beyond Birkenhead Bridge and the gentle world of gents and cockles behind Torrens Island.
The bottom of our harbor has been littered with similes and metaphors, analogies and accusations. Cartoonists who have barely put a line in the water have had a field day. Tax dodgers have rocked the boat, investigators have shrieked about submerged funds.
Laundering
People have been doing their monetary laundering at the water’s edge.
There something rotten in the Bay of Denmark and it’s not just the friendly smell of decaying seaweed.
It is the destruction of the verbal environment, the rape of marine terminology.
As the next fisherman on the wharf said, it has made our breed ashamed that the rapacity of the human race should be linked with the dour monosyllabic rivalry of the gar gatherer and the whiting whacker; that the shady legal and political phraseology should invade the privacy of the bait box.
Bottom of the harbor indeed. It’s more than horseflesh and burley can stand.
It had worse effect for me. My family decided to come fishing with.
When my head and reel had stopped spinning my wife explained jauntily “We want to see if there IS anything at the bottom of the harbour.”
“You can dredge me a tenner, Daddy Person,” said my daughter, shouldering my fishing basket with the winning smile of a young white pointer.
My companions of the wharf were visibly sha ken to see my family group One or two hats were half-raised but whether in deference or defence I’ll never know.
“Have you caught any schemes?” my wife asked an old fisherman, his face scaled by three-score and 10 summers “that’s where you catch them Charlie, on the bottom of the harbour.”
Guardedly
I felt so ashamed with all these good men who would normally be chatting guardedly about the tide (is it on the turn?), the wind (was it beginning to rise?), the forecast (wrong again), aniseed (the tiddlers aphrodisiac) and all the reputable matters of the sea.
I could hear my wife’s jolly voice and see her pointing finger, “Yes I landed him 40 years ago and still haven’t thrown him back. I must admit he has some commercial viability.”
“Bring us up something, Big fisherman,” said my daughter, relaxing in my folding chair, “preferably a double-header of debentures, or some nice gilt-edged stock. I began thinking seriously about the bottom of the harbour. How nice both of them would look down there. But then one had to think of the fish. That’s the way with me—outwardly calm, but with so much going on under the surface
My wife was still haranguing the old fisherman. “Mind you, he’s not very venturesome. I go for high-interest tum over on the money market, but he’s still with his school bank book syndrome. But at least the Dow Jones averages show signs of recovering but wouldn’t be that keen about oils.”
Other fishermen were packing their baskets in panic. It is the first time I had seen any of them run to the bus stop.
My only catch for the day was an old boot with a bit of river bed adhering to it. So I smeared it on my offspring.
And why not. Mud is thicker than daughter.
We didn’t stay after that. There was nothing on the bottom of the harbour. But all the same, they gutted my wallet and quite enjoyed my going off the deep end.
So I am ringing my friend Dudley Burton, about English usage.
Bottom of the harbour indeed. It’s time we got our terms straight
Max Fatchen