Catch
They have escaped to this region on the recommendation of Josh’s friend, who has family down this way. Josh and his partner, Matt, don’t think they know anyone else who lives or holidays here—not regularly. The whole environment is abnormally clean, the air and the freshwater springs, the bush, the burnished beaches, the sea and sky, all of it crisp and vital, perpetually new. The photos that Josh and Matt post to their social media accounts—just of the scenery—are entirely untouched, unfiltered. Alteration would be an insult, a form of blasphemy.
Josh’s friend had also insisted they visit his favourite spot in the region: a compound, smuggled away within the natural sprawl, offering an unbeatable morning and a good feed at the end.
The compound, being humanmade, imparts less of that natural brilliance, and suffers despite a schedule of maintenance which, in countless small ways, is a losing game. But the bright sky overhead, the encircling trees, and the animals in the supplementary petting zoo—the kunekune with their ink-blot hides, the coppery roosters and spangled peacocks—help to soften the hardness of the looping concrete paths, the plastic and steel gateways, the machinery pumping water through the ponds.
Josh had wanted to watch the animals a while longer, but Matt said they should get underway—he could play with the pigs after lunch.
Now, in the forty minutes that they have been fishing, and against all expectations and advice, they have caught nothing. All day long the fish swim in circles, around and around the perimeter of the pond. Can’t miss ’em, the attendant had said when they’d collected their gear. Yet somehow, they have managed to miss ’em. They decide to approach one of the attendants wandering the compound in a branded black polo shirt and cap. The attendant nods before they even finish explaining. She carries a bucket of pellets and throws a handful into the water.
Here we go, boys. Cast your lines, she says.
Within moments Matt’s rod bends and he jerks it to snag the fish, then lets out a whoop as he begins to reel the fish in, a whopper of a salmon.
The attendant smiles and touches her cap.
Need any help from here?
All sorted, Matt says. Thanks for that.
You’re away laughing now, boys.
*
Are you sure this is the way? Josh asks.
Yes, Matt grunts.
Matt is holding a tool, supplied by the compound, with a wooden handle and a metal spike. An awl? Matt has pushed the spike into the eye socket, piercing the membrane behind the eyeball while the eye itself strains up at them, wild. The technique is not as efficient as they’d hoped.
What about through the top of the head? Josh says.
They said behind the eyes.
It’s unclear what they’d meant, Josh supposes. Top of the head, just back from the eyes, he’d thought.
Try pushing harder, he says.
Will you give me a chance?
Matt lifts the awl out partway then presses down again, levers the awl back and forth. The fish beats its tail against the hot concrete, and Matt grips its body tighter with the handling glove.
Quicker. Quicker, the eye says.
Must be getting close, Josh says.
Matt gives the awl another twist and the fish goes still.
Thank God that’s over, Josh says.
Matt puts the fish in the chilly bin, fits the lid into place, and rests the awl and glove on top. They cast their lines into the pond once again.
Go down a bit, or we’ll tangle, Matt says.
Here they come, Josh says, shuffling away a few metres, into the shade. Racing right back around for another turn.
Will the meat have become stressed? Josh wonders. Will the texture and the flavour of it be changed? It must still be nicer than the usual fillets from the supermarket freezer, always a little bland and disappointing.
*
They have two fish now in the chilly bin and, feeling hungry, decide that’s enough. They can always come back another day, there’s no shortage of time. Even though they caught one fish each, Matt killed them both. Josh had wanted to kill his own, but in the end, with the awl in his hand, he had been unable. He’d known that if he tried, he would hesitate and falter, and it would be bad—worse than before. Quicker. Quicker. Though he had been right about the top of the head. The second kill was also too slow, the positioning of the awl still inexact, but it was faster. With practice, if they did come back, they could be experts in no time. Job done with a flick of the wrist.
Because Josh couldn’t kill the fish, he lugs the chilly bin, while Matt carries the lighter rods. They walk up the sloping path to the preparation area. An attendant, a cook, accepts the chilly bin from Josh and asks what they would like—and would they like it here or to take away. They consider the menu for a while, apologise, then consider it a moment longer. They finally agree on a whole mānuka-smoke and whole lemon-pepper, with the mānuka-smoke and half the lemon-pepper to be vacuum packed for taking back to the rented bach. They will eat the other half of the lemon-pepper now, with a basket of house-made sourdough and whipped butter, and two ice cold IPAs.
Waiting for the fish to arrive at their table, they drink three IPAs each. They will not have any more given the drive ahead, twenty or thirty minutes of unfamiliar road.
I feel pissed already, Josh says.
Too much sun, Matt says. Should’ve worn a hat, like me.
I’ll be better with food. You’ve eaten most of the bread.
You might as well have another beer. I’ll drive. God, can you imagine crashing around here? They probably shovel you off the road, put you in the dehydrator, and grind you up into that fish food.
Oh, here it comes.
Wow, okay. It smells so good.
It really does smell good.
Look at all that lemon-pepper.
Sorry, can we get extra bread? And one more IPA?
*
The silver skin, spread on the wooden serving block, has been stripped of flesh and shredded in places by the scraping of their forks.
Me provide, Matt says, and beats his chest with his fist.
Me provide too, Josh says.
Matt throws him a look, to say, Sure, but arguably, not.
Perhaps they should have asked an attendant to kill the fish. An attendant mentioned it was an option when showing them the rods. The attendants seem almost eager to do the killing for you.
Josh sips his IPA and studies his partner.
Do you reckon neanderthals were gay? he says.
Must have been, Matt laughs. Why not? Slapping cocks in the back of the cave. No religion to tell them not to—not yet, I don’t think.
No religion also means no marriage.
That started more as a contractual thing.
One Jane for access to mammoth grounds?
The old life seems stranger and stranger.
I saved you from shameful normality.
Well, you saved me from a certain unhappiness.
Oh, we should take a photo, Josh says.
I can’t stand people posting photos of their food. Anyway, look at what’s left. Did you want this?
Too full, Josh says, thinking, A photo of us.
Using his fingers, Matt picks up the last sliver of coral flesh and slips it into his mouth.
Satiated and slightly dazed, they forget about stopping to see the other animals—those bristly kunekune happily grunting away in the petting zoo—until they are on the doorstep of the bach.
Another time maybe, Matt says.
Will we need to go back? As it is, we’ll be gorging on salmon for days.
You can see a pig just about anywhere.
I certainly work with a few.
Anyway, we have our own zoo right inside. Just open the fridge door.
*
The moment will return to Josh’s mind many times across the years. Often, the reason will not be mysterious, the association needing only a little thought. The wild image will arrive as he slices into a piece of meat on his dinner plate—whether fish or pig or some other animal. It will come to him during the long evenings spent beside his atrophied mother in the hospice. Seated on a crowded bus next to a man who presses the back of his spotted hand against Josh’s thigh, the wild image will persist until Josh disembarks four stops early. But the first time it returns to Josh is a few weeks after that summer holiday, when Matt calls to say his wife has made another plea and he feels he could use some breathing room. The children are mentioned, and any counter-argument defaults before it can even be made. The end of the conversation is drowned out by the wild image, the silent voice in Josh’s ears in rhythm with his own heartbeat.
Quicker. Quicker.
Anthony Lapwood (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Whakaue, Pākehā) is a fiction writer living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. His work has appeared in numerous publications and his story collection Home Theatre won the Hubert Church Prize for Fiction at the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Visit www.anthonylapwood.com.