Tricky Times - Published on D-Day - the Trickiest Launch Day Ever

"32 of the catchiest short stories I've ever read"

Find out why Fame Tastes of Fish

Here it is... the whole story in a five-minute read...

‘Fame,’ Andrew told me, ‘tastes of fish. Mine will, anyway.’

‘Perhaps you should be a chef mariniere, then,’ I suggested in semi-seriousness. ‘Specialise in squid, sprats and salmon – anything wet and scaley starting with s? Make a great name for yourself if you work up some avant gard recipes. Cooking them is a lot less weather-dependant than sitting on a muddy bank or jetty somewhere freezing your cods off.’

‘No, no.’ He stared at me, his best mate, most deprecatingly. ‘My fame will come through catching fish,’ he said, rather aloofly. ‘Man against fish. With rod and line.’

He sniffed, ‘I shall be famous.’

‘Fish? Plus, maggots, worms and floaty things?’ I suggested? Smiling at Betty.

Long suffering, his wife smiled weakly, ‘He’ll use dynamite, grenades and torpedoes if necessary, won’t you, Andy?’

There were times, I confess, when I suspected she was ready to use them on Andrew, not to catch fish in the reservoir, the lake, the Trent, or off Skeggy pier.

He was, indeed a fisherman who craved fame for his fishing prowess. Convinced it would come his way as a natural end-product of his diligence, persistence and dedication, he went fishing every occasion he possibly could.

‘It’s always the season for something, somewhere,’ he used to tell me. ‘I shall be famous for my fishing. One day. I shall break a world record.’

‘He forgets about me,’ Betty confided, aloud, but he didn’t seem to notice. ‘I’m sure he only does it because he found that the patron saint of fishermen is also called Andrew. He thinks he’s following in the footsteps of a celestial being.’

‘Doesn’t walk on the water, does he?’ I wondered aloud.

‘I shall break a world record,’ Andy often repeated, ‘and Betty will be there to record it. She will preserve my fame in the public memory forever.’

‘You should mind your heavenly body doesn’t come after you,’ I told him.

It was a rather lonely life for Betty. Andy was either at work, and she was left alone at home doing her home sales job, running What-U-Need.com on the internet.

If not at work, he was fishing. And if he was fishing, she had to be there, videoing his every cast and catch, to obtain a full and complete record of the great event.

The bringer of fame could be anything – biggest fish ever caught in that lake… off that beach… most fish in a day… biggest tonnage with a rod… whatever. ‘As long as it’s me; fish; and my catch; and I’m filmed doing it.’ So he so frequently told me, anyway.

On such piscine occasions, Betty had to remain approximately twenty feet away from him, with two cameras: one recording the wider scene – the shore and water, the surroundings and weather. The other zoomed in specifically on him, close-up, faithfully preserving his every effortful grimace and triumphant whoop. Thus, he would have the complete record, and a witness.

‘He’s utterly addicted,’ she told me. ‘Thinks of nothing else. He bullies me; I hate it, but he really insists on me videoing for hours on end in case he catches the one. He hasn’t got any mates left to do it with him. They all despise him now, for being so focused and never bothering about them.’

‘He’s got me,’ I protested, stroking a beautiful breast. ‘Doing a late shift today, is he?’

‘Mmm; he’s on afters. Won’t be back till half-past eight.’

‘I love these late times,’ I confessed. ‘Eight… half-past… nine… and I’ll have just arrived here to see if he fancies a pie and a pint down the Angler’s Tackle. ‘I don’t feel in the least bit guilty about our… affair. Not the way he totally neglects you.’

‘Mmm – I need someone like you, Dick. I have needs. And you fill them most wonderfully.’

‘I try my best,’ I told her,’ but I’m not sure how long it can last.’

‘Mmm. With all the effort he puts in, you’d imagine his fish-fame fantasy must pay off some time. Then where will we be, eh, Dicky?’

‘We’ll manage,’ I said. ‘With God – and you – willing. We ought to tell him, you know.’

‘Oooh, No. I love deceiving him. Like revenge, as well as lust.’

Funny how prophetic that was.

I had to spend a week in Godawful Godalming, down Guildford way, doing a refit on a posh historic shop where they wouldn’t know a fish from a fig, I reckon. Din’t get a call from Betty, like she usually does. And I didn’t like to ring her, in case Andrew answered. Until the Wednesday evening, and I was worried about her, him… them… the fish.

No answer. Straight to voicemail, so I left a message for him, hoping they were okay, and making something up about there being a lovely little lake he’d like, back of the pub where I was staying.

‘Wonder what’s happened there, then?’ I muttered to my lonely pint in the Fox and Stag.

Nothing else I could do. Till Thursday evening. Tried again. There was a hastily-set – it sounded – message from Betty saying in view of events, she wasn’t answering calls just yet. So I left a message, sort of innocuous, asking if Andrew had caught anything, like a marlin, or a cold? the plague? a train to Vladivostok? ‘Joke, joke.’ I added.

Nothing on Friday.

So it was Saturday when I got back, and popped round to see them.

Her. ‘Andrew’s not all here,’ she said. ‘The middle bit of him’s missing. Like evaporated in a massive straight-through hole.’

‘Oh?’ My mind boggling, about to ask what she’d done… what made her snap.

‘It was God,’ she said, sort of dreamily. ‘Sent a meteorite down for him. I got it on both cameras. Good quality HD film-digi-thingy. You can see it coming over the lake – nice reflection. Straight at his chest. Never moved an inch.’

She had that languid kind of Oh-it-was-lovely smile

‘I’ve got over it now. Big shock then, though. I was there, of course. Saw it coming for a couple of seconds. And hit. He like, staggered back and fell. I got knocked back as well by the something-cushion, and there was this smoking splot-hole right behind him. So I picked myself up, out the mud, finished having a quick hysterics, and checked the cameras were still standing on their tripods, and clean, and pointing straight – like he always insisted I did. And went to see, sort of sploshing through the branches and reeds where he’d sent me. He was dead as they come. Hardly any blood – like cauterised, he was. With a hole straight through his middle like a weird sculpture called Heartless, or something. Or out a sci-fi film. I could put my fist through that, I thought.

‘These other folk came along and were fussing and being all aghast and getting their mobiles out. Streaming live on Facebook or YouTube, or whatever. So we called for the ambulance and police, and while we waited I heaved up this like iron-rock lump. Size of a sherry glass; it was bloody heavy, baking hot and steaming. Somebody said it was a meteorite and must be made of iron.’

‘Yeah, that sounds about right, from my limited knowledge of such things.’

‘The emergency lot turned up, and eventually took Andrew away in a plastic bag.’ She had that smiley look again.

‘I loaded everything in the car – the meteorite, all his fishing stuff. His best rod was snapped, too. And his big hamper was missing the back, and half the top. All scorched.’

‘But you?’ She had me worried. ‘You were alright? Not hurt? So close?’

‘Fine. Shocked to sugar by the blast. Andrew’s suddenly got a hole through him, hurling back. Hamper went flying. Ground exploded in a mush of leaves and twigs and mud. I was on my backside in the water and reeds. Mud splattered everywhere. But it’s all on the films – little crater and everything. Me putting the meteorite thing in my car in what’s left of the hamper. And the rod bits. And his tackle.’

‘So what now?’

‘Oh, we’re still alright, Dicky. Aren’t we?’ She gripped my wrist, and I clutched her elbow.

‘Not what I meant, Betty. I mean – Andrew; the funeral; everything?

‘All fixed. Fortnight Tuesday at Pickford Crem. Service at four; buffet and bar at five.

‘Tricky to get the timing right on these things, Betty, but that sounds pretty good. And you? Are you okay? Anything I can help with? Do for you?’

‘Oh, no, no, Dicky. It’s all organised. I put it all on my website, links to Amazon, eBay, YouTube and all the rest of it. Like syndicating it.’

‘Syndicating? What?’

‘Well, Andrew’s fame, basically, I suppose. The first man ever to be filmed being killed by a meteorite. The film, on two cameras. Plus the actual cameras. And the fishing stuff. And the meteorite itself—’

‘Isn’t that for the police? A deadly weapon?’

‘Oh, no. Act of God. Like a flash of lightning wouldn’t be taken into custody, would it? Or a tornado sucking him up?’ The thought of that seemed to give her some additional pleasure.

‘So the meteorite?’

‘For sale. Apparently it’s a rare sort with metal and stone in it – sounds like our back yard – but the stone’s called pallasite, with something called olivine in it. And it weighs seven kilos and I’ve got the whole thing – the rock and the film as a package; and the hamper. Andrew’s everso famous. He’d have loved it. But they wouldn’t let me list him on eBay or Amazon.’

‘Worth much is it? Few hundred quid? Pay for the funeral, will it? I’m happy to help out, anything you need?

‘We’re not having a state funeral, Dicky. The bidding’s reached one million pounds sterling so far. And likely to double as the auction heats up.’

‘He got his fame, then.’

‘Yes, lying there, with his chest all gone, he even had the nerve to look as if he was smiling with that extra-smug, “Told you so,” look he had.’

Fame at Last