Thumbs Up – Harvey Kurzfield
March 3rd, 2009 | Published in Volume IV: New Order
By day, Edgar, a remarkable young man, worked as a fish gutter and filleter down at Newlyn fish market. It was almost an obligatory profession as his father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him had all been fish gutters and filliters. Some say the family tradition went back to the time of King Arthur, but of course there was no real evidence for this supposition – merely hearsay. It was strange to be part of a long line of fish slicers and it was also inevitable that the smell of fish would linger about one’s person.
Edgar had learned the craft from an early age and could outgut and outslice his own father before he reached the age of ten. By the time Edgar reached fifteen, his dad was able to retire, happy in the knowledge that his son would be able to carry on the great family tradition.
Apart from fishy fingers, Edgar was a personable young man. He had untidy black hair that stood out in tufts, rather like the quills of a porcupine fish and the bulgy eyes of a cod. These eyes seemed to fascinate the women of Paul where he lived. They would gather in a shoal round him in the local pub and flicker their own eyelids in a provocative manner. Edgar seemed oblivious to their attentions for in the pub itself he was kept far too busy to entertain young ladies. His skill and reputation was used, by those who should have known better it has to be said, to fleece ignorant holiday makers who thought that fish gutting and slicing could be accomplished by just about anyone with a sharp knife.
“You think you can gut and slice a mackerel quicker than young Edgar ‘ere? Why, you must have more money than sense!”
Goaded by the landlord’s barbs, these poor innocents would lay down coins and notes of the realm, and then, to their utter amazement, and even with a thirty second start, they’d see their money end up in Edgar’s pockets as he gutted and sliced one fish after another in seconds. While they were still sawing away at their first little tiddler, Edgar would have a pile, pilchards high! But, in the end, they were happy to part with their money, for the sight of such skill is a rare commodity. Besides, the landlord’s wife Tracy would deep-fry the fish and everyone in the pub would have a right good feed. Everyone that is except Edgar. He had to content himself with a bag of plain crisps. He never ate fish. It was an ancient family tradition, which stated that if any fish gutter in the family was ever to eat fish, then the family fortunes would vanish and the skill would be lost for all time.
One night, however, a terrible thing happened. A tragedy from which the villages of Paul, Newlyn and Mousehole have never fully recovered. In fact, if you were ever to go to these villages and ask about Edgar the famous fish gutter and filleter, people would look at you, shake their heads sorrowfully, give you strange looks and pass quickly on. Try it for yourselves sometime and you’ll what sort reaction you get.
This is what happened. One night, after a particularly heavy week working in the filleting factory down at Newlyn, Edgar came home exhausted. He went to bed and soon fell into a deep sleep. He began to dream. And this is what he dreamed.
He dreamed he woke up to hear the sound of someone calling “Heva! Heva!” He thought to himself ‘I must be dreaming,’ which of course he was, but he didn’t fully realise this. He knew that the cry of “Heva! Heva” had, in times gone past, come from the Huers’ hut and was shouted out as a warning to fishermen that shoals of pilchard were swarming in local waters. Edgar found himself outside his house, on the very edge of a cliff, convinced of the reality of his situation. Before him stretched the sea and in the sea a glorious sight he beheld. A vast shoal of pilchards was moving across the water. He guessed it must have been ten miles wide and ten miles long and maybe even, for all he knew, ten miles deep. The moonlight sparkled off the backs of the fish and they looked like jewels flashing through the water. Without thinking and without hesitation, Edgar dived into the sea. As he did so, an amazing thing happened. His skin began to change. He noticed it on his hands and arms at first. Silvery-blue scales seemed to form and enclose every part of his skin. By the time Edgar’s body glided elegantly through the water he was completely covered in scales. He found he could swim effortlessly, like a fish. Soon he was amongst the shoal of pilchards, indeed, within the very centre of the shoal itself, swimming as one with all the other pilchards. For a while there was a sense of elation as he experienced what no other human has ever experienced before. Then he became aware that the pilchards closest to him were beginning to turn their heads towards him. Those on his right turned their heads to their left. Those on his left turned their heads to their right. Those above him looked down upon him and those below him looked up as he swam. Soon the entire shoal had stopped swimming and twenty million pairs of eyes were staring at him, in growing horror. Through the water he sensed, rather than heard, hundreds, thousands millions of tiny voices
‘It’s Edgar….’
‘The fish gutter….’
“The slicer…..’
‘The knife wielder…’
‘Pilchard piercer…..’
‘Mackerel murderer…’
‘Ling liquidator…..’
Edgar was aware of a sense of growing hostility. He tried to escape but he was enmeshed and trapped. The pilchard voices in water screamed
‘Fillet him, slice him, fillet him, slice him…..’
And Edgar found himself under attack from all sides. His scales were being ripped apart, his flesh exposed, no longer able to swim, no longer able to breathe – he opened his mouth to scream and gallons of sea water began to pour down his throat – and it was then he awoke in his own bed, sweat pouring from every pore in his body. He sat up, gasping, terrified, trying to control his breathing so that it no longer felt as if his heart was going to burst. Gradually he calmed down. His legs were covered in a single sheet. A single, very wet, sodden sheet.
‘Have I sweated that much?’ he wondered.
Then the sheet began to move, to flop up and down, to twist and turn. Edgar leapt out of the bed and pulled the sheet back. There in the middle of the bed a single, large pilchard lay wriggling frantically. Edgar stared at in horror. How did this pilchard get into his bed? Was this someone playing a cruel joke? Clenching his teeth, Edgar grabbed at the fish. It slipped from his grasp and shot up to the ceiling where it bounced and hit the floor. Edgar dived and there followed a furious tussle in which much furniture was damaged, several rugs wrecked and a bookcase overturned. At last, however, the fish was held firmly in Edgar’s strong grip by its tail.
“Got you, you bugger!” exclaimed the exhausted, but triumphant young man.
He stalked off towards the kitchen, fish in hand. In the kitchen he hunted for and found his best, his sharpest, his most wicked of knives. He laid out a marble slab, he got out a pan, he found a plate, he turned on the electric grill. Edgar was going to EAT FISH! He stretched the pilchard on the slab. Its eye flicked towards him. The thought of the fish, lightly marinated in a little lemon juice, sprinkled with sea salt, its flesh rubbed with garlic and ginger, lightly grilled in butter, then laid over a bed of mustard laced mashed potato garnished with parsley, baby carrots and sweet corn caused Edgar’s mouth to water. It also meant that for the first time ever, Edgar was not completely focussed on the job in hand. Normally, whenever Edgar gutted and filleted a fish it received his full attention. On this fateful night Edgar was trying to think of two things at once. ‘Swish,’ went the knife, and ‘whoosh,’ went the fillet….along with Edgar’s thumb. There was no pain. It was a brilliantly clean cut. And there was Edgar’s thumb-less left hand to prove it. Under normal circumstances Edgar might still have saved the day. He could have remembered his first aid training, if indeed he’d had any, or some semblance of common sense might have urged him to pick the thumb up, drop it into a cup of milk and phone for the air ambulance at the very least. But poor Edgar was in shock. In all the years of gutting and filleting fish he had never so much as nicked himself, let alone cut anything off. So he stared at his thumb, and with each beat of his heart the blood spurted out in a great fountain. There was something rather beautiful about the deep rich red of the blood and he watched in fascination for each subsequent gush. Soon he was knee-deep in his own blood and, looking at his reflection in a mirror on the wall, he realised that his end was nigh. Dipping his finger in his own blood he wrote on the wall nearest to him ‘ scatter my ashes over the sea’ and signed it, rather shakily, in his own name. He held up his hand. The blood seemed to be flowing less now. Then he realised that his heart was on its last gasp – plop – gasp – plop gasp gasp ……..
Edgar’s eyes flicked towards the half-filleted remains of the pilchard. It winked at him as he fell back into his life’s blood. The force of the wave caused by Edgar’s body splashing down opened the outside door and Edgar’s body floated on a red sea, on a silent journey through his own village.
His body was found next morning outside the pub – scene of so many of his triumphs. At first the landlord thought he was dead drunk, but when he saw his face, he realised that he was just dead.
The whole village mourned. Edgar’s family and friends saw to it that his last wish was carried out. The fishing vessel, The Jolly Mackerel, PZ 79 was hired to carry his remains, together with those members of his family prepared to do the deed. The boat reached deep water. After a solemn ceremony during which many tears were shed Edgar’s father unscrewed his son’s urn.
“We commit thee to the sea,” he said, and upturned the jar. The ashes floated on the water. Suddenly, a great shoal of pilchards swam up to the boat and began to consume the ashes. Everyone crowded round the edge of the boat to watch. The shoal disappeared as quickly as it had come and a single piece of ash remained. Unbeknown to everyone on board this piece of ash was the sole remaining part of Edgar’s heart. The people on the boat watched as it sank through the remarkably clear water. They watched as it settled on the seabed, close to a flat fish lying nearby.
Edgar’s father stared up into the sky.
“Well Lord,” he said. “It looks like he’s gone to a better place.”
“Amen,” said everyone, and the boat returned to Newlyn.
Edgar left behind a small mystery. His thumb was never found. Some say the pilchards carried it off as a kind of trophy; but I just think that on that unfortunate night when Edgar met his end, the red sea carried it out to the blue sea. And there it lies. If it’s ever found that will certainly be some story.
Or even, thumb story.