Clownfish

by Alan Durant

  “I went to the aquarium,” I said meekly. I certainly hadn’t meant to upset Mum and I was surprised that I had. She’d barely seemed to notice me over the last few days.

  “You must tell your mum before you go off. She’s very anxious right now and needs to avoid any undue stress.” Doctor Doyle came down the stairs. She bent down so that she and I were face to face. “She’s really quite ill, you know, Dak; she needs a lot of looking after.”

  I nodded. “I’ll look after her,” I said. I was twelve, soon to go into my second year of secondary school. I wasn’t a little kid any more.

  Doctor Doyle smiled. “But what about you, Dak?”

  “I’m fine. I can look after myself.”

  The doctor looked doubtful. “Are you sure?

  “Yes,” I said firmly.

  Of course I was fine. I was better than fine. I was happy. Who wouldn’t be happy to discover that the dad he loved and thought was dead wasn’t dead after all – he’d simply turned into a tropical fish? But I knew it would be a waste of time trying to tell the doctor that; she’d just pity me more.

  I didn’t want her pity. I didn’t need it. Why, on such a happy day, would I need anyone’s pity?

  I went up to see Mum – she was lying on the bed with her head propped up on a couple of pillows. Her eyes were open, staring, and they were so full of misery that I felt a stab of shame.

  “Mum,” I called softly. “I’m back.”

  Mum moved her head towards me but her expression didn’t change. There was neither anger nor relief – only misery. I sat beside her on the bed and she reached out a hand to me. I leant against her and felt the downy softness of her sweater on my cheek, smelt the familiar sweet vanilla of her perfume.

  “Oh, Dak,” she moaned. “Oh, Dak.”

  I put my arms around her and squeezed gently. “It’s okay, Mum,” I murmured. “I’ll look after you.”

  I longed to tell her the amazing news about Dad. But I sensed that it wasn’t the right moment. I’d only upset her more – and I couldn’t bear that. It would have to be my secret until she was stronger and ready to share it.

  “I’ll make you a cup of tea,” I offered brightly. In times of stress, Dad always suggested tea.

  While the kettle boiled, I went out to the front lawn and put the Union Jack sun hat on Becks. I imagined the clownfish waddling towards me and I smiled.

  I dreamed of the Isle of Wight.

  I was at a theme park with Dad. Dad was on the pirate ship, pretending to be a pirate. He was saying crazy things like Avast, me smarties! and Hoist the skull and crossbuns! I was laughing my head off, having a great time. But then, suddenly, a gang of real pirates swarmed from nowhere onto the ship. They captured Dad and me. We were out at sea and there were sharks and giant barracudas in the water, lots of them. The pirates were making Dad walk the plank. Three more steps and he’d be in the water.

  I had to do something to save him – but I couldn’t move. I tried to cry out, but I had no voice.

  “Aagh!”

  I woke, gasping. Rain pattered on the attic skylight like the panicky beating of my heart. I shut my eyes, reached for the old grey sweatshirt … and remembered: Dad was alive; Dad was a clownfish safe in the aquarium. Everything was OK.

  That morning I put the sweatshirt back under the pillow, got up and dressed. Mum was still sleeping. The tablets she took knocked her out completely and she probably wouldn’t surface for an hour or so yet. I wrote her a note and left it on the bedside table so that she wouldn’t worry.

  It was barely raining, just “picking” as Dad would say, speckling black dots on the concrete path. (He loved words that sounded a bit funny like “picking” and “concoction” and “flimflam” and “lugubrious” – and now, so did I.) It wasn’t wet enough to change Becks’s headgear. Not that I would have changed the Union Jack sun hat anyway, even if it had been chucking it down.

  The aquarium was just opening. “You’re an early bird,” Stephan greeted me.

  “Mmm,” I agreed, heading quickly for the door that led to the tunnel into the main hall.

  I was thinking about my dream. I’d gone on holiday with Mum and Dad to the Isle of Wight last summer. One day we went to a theme park called Blackgang Chine. Dad was in his element. He enjoyed the place even more than me. We had a mock gunfight in a cowboy saloon and Dad threw up his hands as if he’d been shot and dropped to his knees, moaning and groaning ridiculously. Then we joined the crew of a pirate ship.

  But it hadn’t been at all scary like it was in my dream. We had brilliant fun. Dad stood on the poop deck shouting, Ahoy, there, shipmates! and Shiver me timbers! and Who’s nicked me parrot? I really laughed at that.

  On the Isle of Wight, we’d also gone to an aquarium. It wasn’t as big as Stephan’s and looked a bit old, like it might fall to pieces at any moment. The tanks were grimy and had pieces of sticky tape on them and there were pipes snaking all over the place, but it had plenty of interesting fish. On each tank there was a funny little notice about the creatures inside, typewritten on a scrap of card: This is a moray eel. You won’t be able to smell it, but it can certainly smell you! Moray eels have a keener sense of smell than a police sniffer dog.

  I remembered that now. I remembered the eel too – it was greeny-yellow like a tennis ball. It kept opening and shutting its mouth as if it was shouting, “Help!”

  I reminded Dad about it. “‘Feed me!’, more like.” He laughed. “They’re greedy beggars, those eels.” He wagged his stripy head. “The word in here is that one of them got so greedy the other day he swallowed himself.”

  I shook my head. “That’s rubbish, Dad. How could a fish eat itself?”

  “I’m just telling you what I heard,” said Dad grumpily. “Mind you, it was a liar fish that told me.” A jet of laughter bubbled from his mouth.

  I shook my head. “You’re the liar fish.”

  When I told Dad about my dream, he told me not to worry. “There are no sharks or barracudas in this tank,” he assured me. “Just me, the clownfish, and the chromis and the damselfish.”

  I reminded him that there had been clownfish in that aquarium on the Isle of Wight. I had never seen a real one before – only the animated ones in Finding Nemo – and it had been love at first sight. When we came home, I’d persuaded Stephan to get one.

  They’re great examples of symbiosis, I’d said, quoting from the card on the tank at the Isle of Wight aquarium. Clownfish make their home among sea anemones, whose tentacles are poisonous to most fish.

  “The only thing I didn’t tell Stephan,” I said to Dad now, “is that clownfish can be a bit aggressive.”

  “Me, aggressive?” said Dad indignantly. Then he took a chomp at a passing damselfish.

  “Dad!”

  “Only joking,” he sniggered. “You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? Or … well, you’ve just got to laugh, that’s all.”

  He faced the front of the tank, his little black eyes staring out at me.

  “Want to hear an eel joke?” he asked suddenly.

  “All right,” I said.

  “What did the shark sing when it met a family of eels swimming across the ocean?”

  “I don’t know. What did it sing?”

  “Eel meat again,” Dad sung. His pink lips twitched in a quick smile. “Have a good day, son. I’ll see you later … eel-igator.”

  Then with a swish-swash, he swam back to his anemone.

  I went to the aquarium every day – I arrived at opening time and was the last customer to leave. I’d happily have stayed there all night.

  “I ought to make up a bed for you,” Stephan said. “Is your mother all right with you being here so much?”

  “It’s fine,” I assured him. “She sleeps most of the time.”

  Stephan nodded sympathetically. “It must be very hard for her.”

  I spent all day chatting with Dad or watching him swish around the tank. We shared happy memories and he’d tell me about his life as a
fish. Overall, apart from the food, he seemed to be content.

  “Don’t you miss your old life – as a human?” I asked him.

  “Nah,” he replied. “It’s much more relaxing here. I don’t have to work, I get fed regularly and no one gives me grief.”

  “Who gave you grief before?”

  “Oh, you know, people down at the tip who put their rubbish in the wrong container and then got shirty if you told them.” He thought for a moment. “And Mum sometimes.”

  “Mum?”

  Dad twitched. “Oh, just when I sat on the sofa in my dirty overalls. That sort of thing.”

  I smiled. “No, she didn’t like you doing that.”

  “Or when I played one of my jokes on her. She gave me grief then all right.”

  “But only for a moment,” I said quickly. “She always forgave you, didn’t she?”

  “Oh, yes, your mum can take a joke,” Dad said. He wobbled with amusement. “Well, she must do. She took me.”

  I decided not to tell him about Mum – how ill and unhappy she was. What good would it do? He couldn’t do anything in here, could he? It would only upset him.

  Another of the things Dad had brought home from the dump was a singing fish called Trevor the Rainbow Trout. It was a large colourful plastic fish mounted on a wooden board. He’d cleaned it up and put it on top of the bathroom toilet. When anyone went near the toilet it started to sing this old song.

  I’d laughed out loud the first time it had suddenly turned its head towards me and sung, “Wild thing, you make my heart sing!” It flicked its tail out to the beat too. It had been even funnier when Mum sat on the toilet and the fish started singing. She screamed and Dad and I slapped hands outside the bathroom door. She gave Dad grief for that – but not for long. She was soon laughing with us.

  Over the next months that fish astonished many people, especially when its motor went wrong and its voice took on a weird spooky tone like it had been possessed by a demon. Eventually it died completely and not even a new battery could revive it. Dad hadn’t thrown it out though. He left it lying soundless, motionless on the top of the toilet as if he hoped someday it might return to life and burst into song again.

  One morning Stephan found me by the clownfish tank. Dad was resting on his anemone, while the damsels and chromis flickered through the water.

  Stephan said he had a proposition for me. He wanted to know if I’d help Johnny, his assistant, with the feeding – the boy who used to help had moved away.

  “So Johnny’s a bit stuck,” Stephan said. “It’s hard for him to give his talk and do the feeding too. He could do with a helper and I was wondering if you’d be interested, Dak – seeing as you’re here so much.”

  I grinned. “Yes! Yes, please!” I said excitedly.

  This was perfect. Now I’d have a reason to be here – a reason other people would understand and encourage. Things were getting better and better…

  I had my first feeding session with Johnny that afternoon. I knew who he was but we’d never spoken before. I’d always thought he looked a bit scary.

  “All right, mate.” Johnny smiled when, hesitantly, I introduced myself. “Good to see ya.” He was dressed in black, as always, from head to toe. His hair was slicked into a quiff at the front and his ears were riddled with piercings. There was a tattoo of some kind of crab on the left side of his neck. “Stephan says you’re up for helping us.”

  “Yes,” I nodded. My voice sounded small and croaky.

  “Ya sure?” Johnny asked. I nodded again, more vigorously. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t keen.

  “That’s great,” Johnny continued. “There ain’t much to it really. Ya just gotta drop the food in when I give ya the nod.”

  The sea bass were first. Johnny showed me the food and how much I needed to put in the tank. “Ya don’t care about getting a bit wet, do ya?” he asked cheerfully.

  “No,” I answered, a little puzzled. I wasn’t actually going in the tank, was I?

  “They can be a bit frisky,” Johnny said, as if that explained everything.

  Feeding time for the sea bass was two o’clock. A small group of adults and children gathered around the tank. Johnny advised them not to get too close – which made me a little anxious. Why did everyone have to stand back – everyone except me, that was? I looked into the tank: the stocky silvery-grey sea bass were bobbing around lazily. The tank was fuller than most in the aquarium, but the fish didn’t look scary at all.

  “Ready then, mate?” Johnny asked me – and I nodded. “Good,” he said. He turned to face the audience. “Good afternoon, ladies and gents, boys and girls and—” he gestured to the tank— “fish, of course.” There was a ripple of laughter. “In a moment or two ya gonna witness the feeding of these fine fellas here, namely the sea bass.” He waved his hand again. “Now, does anyone know anything about sea bass?”

  “I know they’re delicious pan-fried with fennel,” said a man with a small child on his shoulders and there was another ripple of laughter.

  Johnny nodded. “Well, it’s interesting ya should say that, mate,” he said good-humouredly, “’cos most people probably only think of sea bass as something on their plate. They’re a very popular fish for food – and for sport. So popular, in fact, that they had to be made a protected species. The law says if ya catch more than two in a day then you have to throw the rest back into the sea, where they belong.” Johnny looked around, addressing his whole audience as he talked. His final comment, however, was directed very specifically at the man who’d spoken, who gave a small, shame-faced nod.

  I’d been right, I reckoned, to be a bit scared of Johnny. He seemed jolly enough, but there was a steely edge to him. I watched now as he went on to explain with relaxed expertise that the sea bass was not one particular fish, but the name given to any of the 475 species of the family Serranidae (“hamlet, hind, cony, graysby, jewfish, groupers, to name but a few”) most of which were to be found in the shallower waters of warm and tropical seas.

  “Sea bass vary widely in size,” he continued, “from a few centimetres to a maximum of two metres and two hundred and twenty-five kilograms.” He acted the measurements out first with his thumb and forefinger, then with a dramatic sweep of his arms. “That’s five hundred pounds in old money, madam,” he added cheekily to an elderly woman holding the hand of a small boy – her grandson, I guessed. “The majority of fish in this tank are groupers. They ain’t the most dynamic of fish, but that’ll change in a moment when young Dak, my intrepid assistant here, gives ’em their grub.”

  The small boy raised his hand. “What do they eat?” he asked.

  Johnny crouched down with a warm smile. “Good question, son – very good question. Well, sea bass are carnivorous, like us. They feed on small fish, crustaceans like shrimps, and molluscs – clams, sea snails, that sort of thing. We give ’em a kind of fishy mix that contains all the goodness they need and they seem to like it all right – as you’ll see.” He grinned broadly, which made him look even scarier. “And now, if there’s no more questions, we’ll get on with the main event.” He raised one pierced eyebrow at me. “All set?”

  I nodded. Johnny turned back to his audience.

  “Okay, I’m gonna count to three and then I want ya all to shout ‘Feed the fish!’, nice and loud – and Dak here will do the honours.” I held the bucket of fish food a little in front of me. Its smell definitely wasn’t appetizing – strong, sharp, a bit like wee.

  “One, two, three…!” cried Johnny.

  “Feed the fish!” the audience responded enthusiastically.

  I poured the mix into the tank – and the sleepy, lazy fish came suddenly to life in a fluster of mouths, fins and tails. They squirmed wildly, their tails slapping the surface, splashing water out of the tank. I stepped back quickly but not before I’d been soaked from head to foot. The audience laughed.

  Johnny shook his head and his quiff bounced. “And that, ladies and gents, is why ya don’t wanna g
et too close at feeding time – ’specially not in mating season. As ya can see, they get a little frisky.” I wiped the drips of water off my face with my hand. “Now I think we should give my assistant a clap, don’t you? That was his very first feeding time and he did a great job.”

  He started to applaud and the audience joined in. I smiled weakly.

  “Well done, mate,” Johnny congratulated me when everyone had gone. “Soz you got wet, but it’s a good end to the show.”

  “It’s OK.” I shrugged. “I don’t mind a bit of water.”

  “Good man,” said Johnny and he punched me lightly on the shoulder. “I reckon ya gonna be just fine.”

  That night I had more uncomfortable dreams. I woke wet with sweat and, as before, it took me some time to recover and get everything back into perspective. I rubbed my face into Dad’s old sweatshirt, took a deep breath, felt its soft familiarity slowly soothe me…

  I washed and dressed, then went into Mum’s bedroom and was surprised to find her awake. She called me to her for a hug.

  “Are you OK, Dak?” she asked, her arms wrapped around me.

  “I’m fine, Mum. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “But I do,” she sighed. “I do worry, Dak. I worry about everything.” She hugged me so tightly it was like she was trying to bring me back inside her. I closed my eyes and smelt her warm, sleepy scent. She kissed my head and I felt her start to sob, tears wetting my forehead.

  I was a bit guilty because I still hadn’t said anything about Dad. That would stop her tears right away, wouldn’t it? Or would it? I lifted my head and put my hands on her face softly.

  “It’ll be all right, Mum,” I whispered. I kissed her on the cheek and went to make her a cup of tea.

  I didn’t go straight to the aquarium that morning – I stopped off at the beach first, crunching over the pebbles between the salt-weathered wooden groynes and sitting down where the beach banked. It was still too early for tourists, which meant that the gulls were either high in the sky or scavenging in the town.