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Fish out of Water

Thomas Wright

‘I ’m Laurence, dear boy, Laurence Withayou,’ he drawls, shaking my hand floppily and forever, in this ‘artisanal café’ we met in Sunday morning before the removaling kicked off. And I thought, that’s a funny name for a greasy spoon without any tradesmen in it, and a funny surname, too, ‘Withayou’, ‘cos it took me a while to suss he was actually spelling out his Christian tag – ‘with a “u’’’, like. Maybe I should have been sharper, ‘cos he didn’t look anything like the Larrys ‘with a w’ I used to work with on the tools – he’s got college-boy hair, long shanks, and a port paunch, and he’s decked out in a beige linen suit, an Oxford-Uni cravat, all that. (Now, I know you’re thinking ‘What the Dickens!?’ But I ain’t trowelling, or raving, one little bit).

Loading up the blue Transit ‘Withayou’ has hired is breezy. There ain’t that much stuff, and it’s simple to stow – cricket clobber, vintage vino, hunting rifles. There ain’t much weather either in the big, blue Bedfordshire sky. But even before we get to half-time, Withayou says he feels ‘queasy’ and sits down cross-legged in the driveway like some giant groggy Buddha. And I thought he was just being namby-plummy – he’s done, what? five per cent of the lugging, ninety-five of the nattering.

‘You go and have a lie-down, Lord Very-soft;’ says I, adjusting his tie, ‘you’re a sweet-FA Oxen – you be the brains of the operation – leave the hard work to Sammy W over here … you know, Sam Weller … Mr Pickwick’s donkey worker?’ (but he didn’t know his Dickens, for all his old-schooling). Besides, I wouldn’t want you to break a sweat and ruin your Downton-Abbey outfit before the fancy-dress party.’

But then I have a close-up of the Oxy-moron, and he does seem a bit gammony about the gills – the sweat’s bubbling on his brow, and he pongs of past-it plonk. So, after I’ve filled up the van, I offer to drive, so he can kick back on the passenger seat. Anyway, I’d rather steer than ride shotgun cradling the special cargo – this huge tank brimming with manky water and tropical fish. Withayou is mad for rare Lilian Gish you see, and given their ginormous value – sentimental as well as financial – his aquarium couldn’t possibly go in the back, could it, or on the seat beside the passenger, ‘cos if we was to take a corner ‘at full tilt’, his ‘little finny friends’ might get shaken and stirred up, which wouldn’t do at all, as they’re uncommonly sensitive, especially the two guppies, Sebastien and Prunella (I nod like I can distinguish them from each other, and the rest, and like he’s not March-hare crazy). Unfortunately, though, Withayou wouldn’t dream of letting me pilot – that’s his responsibility – knobless oblige, apparently; besides, it’s his name down on the van insurance, and he’d rather not chance it, being a ‘safety first kind of fellow’.

So Withayou – who’s now the colour of the tank algae – clambers into the driving seat in slow-motion and eventually fires up the van, while I squirm next to him, with a shoal of psychedelic fish sloshing around the three-tonne bowl in my lap. After a stop-start first half-mile – during which Withayou is glued to the maps-App on his handset, and hardly glances at the road – we finally totter on to Havisham Street. Then, suddenly, the van’s all over the place, all over the place – we’re ramming the curb, cutting up buses, terrorizing Deliveroo dudes and Uber girls. But despite that, Withayou seems daredevil-may-care, so long as the dot on his smartarsed device is pointing in the right direction. And when we hit Bedford High Street we reel across it – like the van’s full of booze instead of petrol – we hack the mirrors off three parked cars, punch the rear lights out of two others. And the grotty water gets choppy, starts over-spilling and drenching my 501s. So I’m narky now, as well as scared bolt upright by Withayou’s virtually-insane steering, and the odds that we’ll crash, and have the cops on our case… while the koi don’t seem too chuffed about things neither.

‘Listen Mr Toad of Toad Hall, if you’re feeling seedy, maybe I should take the wheel after all, move you on to fish duties; apart from everything else, I reckon the Seb and Pru would be happier; I don’t want to alarm you, but they’re looking a bit stressy.’

‘I’m tip top;’ Withayou croaks, ‘just a little squiffy; must be that pheasant I ingested at my divorce party last …’

But before he makes it to the end of his sentence, Mr Okay-yah slumps onto the wheel, kayoed. His foot hits the accelerator – the van lurches into warp speed – we go crash-boom-smash into this beer-delivery truck outside the pub near the John Bunyan statue. The front of the Transit concertinas – the beer barrels pinball around the road – I sumo wrestle the airbag, and juggle with the tank and two flying fish. And, while I’m doing the Cat-in-the-Hat, Withayou rests his head on the safety cushion, snores and smiles away, as though he’s dreaming of Nemo, and brassy Bunyan looks down at us from his pedestal like he’s about to crack up.

Eventually, I steady the slippy bowl and decant the fish back into their element. But while I’m counting up the critters, and my blessings, three beer-delivery boys bomb over and start banging my window, shoving, see-sawing the van. And they’re gonna shake hands with my kidneys for wrecking their god-damn lorry aren’t they; they’ll fry my effing fish for upsetting their blankety-blank beer. ‘Has the world gone bonkers or are we the oddballs out?’ I ask the fish, since there seemed little point philosophizing with the Greene-King yobs. However, when I see that my little brothers-and-sisters-in-adversity are getting tossed and tangled up in seaweed all over again, I feel obliged to reason with the hooligans:

‘I can see why you’re peeved, but might I suggest you’re suffering from false consciousness? The damaged property ain’t yours – it belongs to your exploiters, Messrs King and Greene.’

But my revolutionary red pill doesn’t make them pause, so I change tactic:

‘Anyway, there’s no need to take the Lord’s name in vain, especially on a Sunday,’ I thunder, pointing at the statue, ‘in earshot of the author of Pilgrim’s Progress.’

That put the flummox on them – and they say there’s no god no more! The rock-and-rolling stops, and they gawp up hangdoggedly at Bedford’s famous Puritan son. But then one bod comes to, and bells the boys in blue.

And it must be a slow morning down the station, ‘cos this pair of Peelers are on the scene sharpish, siren blaring, like Withayou and I were targeting Bunyan in some anarchic statue attack.

The older Old Bill is gaunt, bald, beaky; the younger beefy, black-mopped, gormless looking. The bad old cop marches unsteadily towards the van, like he’s being hung out to dry by the night-before’s booze, then eyeballs Sleeping Bertie next to me, and digs his sidekick in the ribs:

‘This is drink-driving, son – open-and-shut. It’ll be three years for driver Jeevesy and one for his half-cut skivvy, as an accessory before or after. Look and learn, lad.’

‘How could we be tanked?’ I protest, ‘It’s eleven on a Sunday morning! And, as a footnote, the pilot would be Wooster, and I’d be Jeeves.’

Grimacing, old fuzz leans into the van, filling it with a stale cidery reek, then sprays bile-spit into my face:

‘So, how come your gaffer has just driven into a dozen parked cars, and an artic, and is now sleeping off his exploits on an airbag?’

Officer Dribble then whips out a breathalyser, and shoves it in my mouth, before I can shout ‘Yiu can’t – I weren’t driving!’

‘Failure to co-operate’, his numero duo squeaks up, ‘is a criminal offence.’

Now this is getting seriously screwy, and it gets seriouser and seriouser after I receive the all clear. ‘Cos despite that, and the absence of an accusation, the old Mosleyite marshal recites me the Riot Act, then brandishes his notebook and biro.

‘The driver’s name?’

‘His Lordship Laurence … with-a-“u”’.

‘Lord Laurence Withayou?’ He scrawls, struggling to keep his pad level, between his stupefaction and the shakes. 

‘Yeah, I thought it was funny an’ all, but then I savvied it’s how you spell his first name – you know, Laurence, with a “u”, instead of a “w”.’

‘Never mind the spelling of Laurence, what’s His Lordship’s surname?’

‘Dunno. Never met him. I’m just helping him and his fish move house, following his mid-lady-wife crisis.’

‘Leave His Lordship’s private life and pets out of this. Where have you come from?’

‘Elstow borders.’

‘The address.’

‘No idea – we met in this “artisanal café” near My Lord’s manor. You know, I reckon they call caffs that to put tradesmen like me off entering. Hard to know where you are, innit, orificer, when names and things are arsy-versy – you’re law-enforcement, Withayou’s public school and ‘safety first’, Truth Social tells anti-social porkies.’

‘Where were you going?’ he sighs.

‘Bolnhurst.’

‘The address!’

‘Dunno. Didn’t need to, did I. If you hadn’t noticed, Sherlock, I weren’t driving; which begs the question: what am I being accused of? Criminal bysitting?’

‘So, in summary:’ he squints at his notes, ‘you’re in a hired Transit, with a distinguished gent you’re unacquainted with, whose name you don’t even know, and you’ve set off from an unknown address and are heading towards ditto. That’s your cock-and-fish tale is it Mr Clever-clever?’

He smirks at sideshow Bobby, who explodes with psycho-phantic laughter.

‘You’ve hit the head running Sarge;’ I come back, ‘but the legal point is – what’s the accusation? You can’t book me for holding a fish tank. And, without a charge, you can’t KGB me either – not, at least, until your mate Nigel Farrago’s in charge …’

But then I twig there’s no point reasoning with them. In a seriously mad world, I’d be mad to act sane, since only the insane make an impression, so I go on the psycho-offensive.

‘BTW, have you considered your legal responsibilities vis-a-vis the top-drawer tropical fish in your care during this unlawful inquisitioning? They’ve been grievously disturbed by the smash up. Look at Seb and Pru –  they probably won’t swim through unless I get them home pronto, the poor, dear creatures (very dear, at 500 quid a plop).’

Gazing down at the gyrating guppies, the Tweedledum duo go all boss-eyed, stupor-fied.

‘You wouldn’t want their deaths on your records, or consciences, or credit-card bills now would you. His Lordship loves his minnows more than his ex-Ladyship – that was part of their problem, apparently; furthermore, his little bro is a ninja QC, who could nail on you a charge of fishslaughter or even cold-blooded murder.’

It looks like Dicko of Dock Green is either about to be convinced or keel over, but then he shakes himself out of his trance, and starts barking about me ‘accessorizing’. So I demand to know if I’m being charged as an accessory before or after the fact, ‘cos I can’t be both,  can I. And Dicky goes from shirty to shitty, ‘cos he hasn’t a clue what ‘before’ or ‘after’ mean, especially after consulting Shat GBH, but he can’t confess pig ignorance in front of his Dr Watson. So to save his pukey-yellow face, he says he’ll haul me down HQ for a proper, ‘evidential’ breath test and ‘further questioning’.

Now, if I’m going to be hung, on a Trumped-up indictment, there’s no point being sheepish is there:

‘Haven’t His Majesty’s forces got anything better to do, given the nation’s state, like arresting disabled pensioners for protesting a genocide, or protecting rioters while they’re setting fire to refugees?’

Mr even Angrier hauls me out of the van, with the help of his hulking protégé, then they drag me over to their Black Maria, and stuff me in.

As I slump on the backseat, the morning’s misadventures must start tolling on me, ‘cos when I think of my new-found fishy pals, left unprotected in the van, for any passing street cat or aquatic-enthusiast to pilfer, I begin to blub and can’t stop.

As we speed away, PC Plodder phones in an order for an ambulance for ‘His Lordship’, who’ll be taken to a private hospital, where he’ll be ‘comfortable’ while his blood is ‘checked out for sherry’. And that forensic evidence is gonna nail me, according to the Laughing Policemen, for I still don’t know what, and neither do they, but at this point I don’t care.

Down the cop shop, after I ace the ‘evidential’, Sergeant de Sade is about to charge me with ‘wasting police time’ – me, who hasn’t got the oomph to answer him anymore, let alone answer back. But then this Doctor-Spock type in a lab coat bursts in and hollers ‘hold everything’. He’s just come from the hospital with ‘My Lord’s’ test results, which prove he didn’t have a sherry brekky after all. The reason the ‘poor chap’ went sparko at the wheel is he’s got diabetes, unbeknownst to himself, and loading up the van beforehand lowered his blood-sugar levels. Now this seems fishy to me – more to do with the fact they think he’s titled, than the facts – but I ain’t contradicting Dr Deus ex machina am I. ‘It was an act of God’, the Vulcan winds up, ‘so it’s an insurance issue now, not a legal one’.

After Spock’s exit, the ghastly face of Constable Crushed and Burned turns from livid to liverish; he can barely spit out ‘shove off’.

‘I’ll learn you to nick me for being kind to fish.’ I say, strutting out. ‘I know my rights; I know animal rights an’ all. Lord Withayou and I are gonna get the RSPCA on to you.’

I dashed outside, sprinted back towards the scene of the non-crime, improvising a prayer to the patron saint of fish on the way. And thanks be to St whatsherface (and maybe to Bunyan’s watchful eyes too), I found my finny friends still among the swimming. We hailed a taxi, and, with the cabby’s help, I accompanied them up to my flat.

I’ve been keeping them company, and in colour-enhancing flakes, all week. I’ve learned their types and temperaments, and renamed them after Dickens characters – Headstone, Mr Dick, Will Dorrit. And when I read Boz of an evening, I declaim for their entertainment, which is doubtless why they’re getting their technicolour and Mojo back. I’m scribbling this story for them, an’ all, and reading it out to their delight, as I write. Contrariwise, I’ve no idea if Withayou’s up and waddling again. Still, he’s got my number, he can arrange to come and get the fish anytime. And if he doesn’t, all the better – I’ll take them as payment for the half-time work and full-time hassle. In a world that’s looking-glass loopy, I reckon I need some intelligent comradeship to stay sane … don’t you?

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Thomas Wright’s play Death in Genoa was performed in London and Genoa, and made into an online audio-drama starring Simon Callow (listen for free here). His non-fiction books include Oscar’s Books (US title Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde), and Circulation (US title William Harvey). He has written documentaries for BBC Radio, articles for the Times Literary Supplement and the Independent, and fiction for The Brussels Review, The Rumen and TrashLight Press.

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