Page 48 of Totally Wrecked
“You up for a few weeks in the South Pacific?” my agent had asked. “What else are you working on?”
I look around my apartment. “A bottle of scotch and a hangover?”
Maurie scoffed. “High time you stopped moping.”
Maurie was right. My last job was done and nothing was on the calendar. I pick up my cigarette packet and wander out onto the balcony. “I guess I can. What’s the job and when do I leave?”
“Champion of the World. You worked with them in Alaska. Trevor quit, so they need someone for their South Pacific shoot. I can probably negotiate a better rate than last time, because they’re desperate.”
Trip to the South Pacific? Increased wages? Maybe hook up with Brooke Jackson again?
“I’m in.”
As I started packing, I scanned the CDC website; yellow fever and typhoid shots are only ‘recommendations’ and not actually required, luckily. I run a hand through my hair. The sprinkle of grays have multiplied thanks to Stevie.
Shit, better call Ma before I leave.
Hearing she wasn’t going to be a grandmother after all hit her pretty hard.
“It doesn’t matter that the babe is not my blood. I’d love it all the same, Killian.”
“I know you would, Ma. I would have as well, but here we all are.”
But here we are. Here we are indeed, stuck on an island, trying to catch a fish.
One swims into view and I cautiously take hold of the corners of the net, then wait motionless. As I move, the ring on my pinky flashes in the sunlight. Grandma’s emerald ring. She left it to me, saying I was to give it to my true love one day. I’d taken to wearing it on my little finger because I had this deep feeling that I would never find true love, and I didn’t want the ring to sit in a box forever.
Maybe one day I would have given that ring to Daisy.
Present tense, present tense, present tense,I tell myself firmly.
Maybe one day Iwillgive that ring to Daisy.
The heat is making the blood in my head pound. I know I’m in danger of getting heat stroke, but feck, just one fish! I’ll wait all day if I have to.
Suddenly the fish moves towards the net. I can see it hanging out right next to the web. I think this is it. With a snap of the wrist, I pull the net high out of the water. It bows dangerously, as though it is about to split, but I swing it round, so the net, and the fish inside, are safely over the rocks.
“A fecking fish!”
Shite. So now do I try to get more? One fish isn’t going to go very far between four people.
“In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,” I start singing to the fishes, as I hover over the pool.
“As she wheeled her wheel-barrow, through streets broad and narrow, crying, cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!”
Hmm, cockles and mussels.
I wonder what the shellfish game is in the South Pacific.
“She was a fishmonger, but sure 'twas no wonder, for so were her father and mother before. And they each wheel'd their barrow, through streets broad and narrow crying cockles and mussels alive, alive oh!”
Feck, yes! Another one!
I stand up and look at the two flopping fish at my feet. I give them a quick thwack, and decide to call it a day. I’m fecking done in.
How many more of these will I need to catch before we’re rescued?
How many will we need to keep alive, alive oh.
