Statistical fish and a well earned barbeque

I never did like fish much.  They look so oily and glassy eyed.  When I was a kid my mum used to drag me around the fish market.  I didn’t mind the fillets so much, laid out, neat and tidy.  But the others, the whole fish, they just turned my stomach.  The mackerel were the worst, piled up in icy boxes, grey scales and all those beady eyes staring at me all at once. 

I didn’t much like the smell either.  Raw fish blended with putrefying pheasant or whichever other game was in season and hanging upside down going ripe.
Memories like that just don’t go away.  Certainly not with me anyhow.  With me they tend to develop into full-blown obsessions. Now I’ve grown up I don’t have to endure being dragged round the fish market, so as a general rule I go nowhere near the places.

Today though was different.  Today I had to go and see a man about a fish, or to be more precise, I had to go and see a few men about a whole lot of fish.  This wasn’t from any personal interest; this was just me trying to earn a living.  I collect statistics.  All kinds of facts are of interest to my company’s clients.  What colour lipsticks do eighteen year old girls prefer?  How much a member of the public would pay for a disposable toilet seat cover from a vending machine?  That sort of thing.  Did you know, eighty per cent of households with a full, brick built barbecue earn over thirty-five thousand a year? No?  Did you know that barbecues cause seventy-six per cent of summer food poisoning cases?  No?  It just goes to show that the middle classes are as impatient as the rest of us.

So, that’s the sort of thing I do.  Compile meaningless sets of figures for my company to sell to other companies at a hugely inflated price.  And yes I do have a barbecue, but no, my family or I have never suffered food poisoning. 

Before I collect all this information I have to do a certain amount of groundwork.  That was how I came to be in the fish market with James Pemberton.  Well, Pemberton was there for altogether different reasons.  Chairman’s nephew and all that.  He was on a watch and learn brief.  Basically, that meant I got to do all the work and he did bugger all except drive the new company car his uncle had thoughtfully given him.

“Nearly there,” he says.

Prat. Of course we’re nearly there.  I can see the market from here.  He parks the car on double yellows and gets out.  He’s the sort of lucky sod who gets away with this sort of thing.  For the rest of us, we just have to leave one bit of exhaust pipe hanging over one inch of yellow paint and that’s it.  Parking ticket, forty quid.  I mean what are the chances of that?  When I retire I’ll have to research that one.  What percentage of lucky smarmy bastards get away with blue murder while the rest of us suffer?

“What’s the format for today?” he smarms.

What a dick. He’s one of those who think if he’s not talking he’s going fade away and die.  I think the sound of his own voice must give him some comfort.
I set off, clip board in hand, ready to make notes, him trailing behind, fishing out his mobile phone.  He’s probably going to phone Uncle Frank to tell him we’ve arrived, or his mum to ask her what she’s put in his sandwiches.

I can smell the fish even before we walk under the canopy of the market.  All my childhood memories are rushing back.  I can picture shoals of mackerel already.  I’m beginning to hate Pemberton for this.  Of all the things I could hate Pemberton for, this is the most irrational.  I know this, but he’s an easy man to dislike and it always does you good to project your feelings onto someone.

Further inside the market I can see they still even have the game hanging up.  I’d have thought there was some EU rule about that by now.

“What an atmosphere,” he says.  “Just breathe in and feel it.”

What a complete and utter tosser.  That’s just what I’m trying not to do.  Breathe it all in.  I can feel the panic rising and all I want to do is run away.  I don’t though.  I can’t even trust this simple job to Pemberton. 

I go up to the nearest stall and wait for the trader to finish serving.  I’m trying desperately not to look at the scales glinting off the bare light bulbs and the glassy eyes watching me.  I think, insane as it sounds, that the fish know I hate it and they stare at me with deliberate intensity, daring me to flip.  I don’t flip though, at least not yet.

I look at Pemberton. He is positively loving this.  ‘Soaking up the atmosphere.’  It’s then that he does it.  He picks up a fish.  Not any fish, but a mackerel.  Grinning from ear to ear he waves it in front of my face.  His lips are moving but the words don’t register.  Now I flip.

I pick up the nearest fish.  A huge grey thing.  A salmon perhaps.  I’m not sure.  I swing this great fish around my head to take a swipe at the fuck-wit stood, grin fading, in front of me.  I suppose one advantage the young have, no matter how smarmy, is faster reactions than the likes of me.  He ducks and I miss.  The fish swings round, out of control, and slaps some old woman a glancing blow on the shoulder. I don’t know why but I start to laugh until I realise what it is I have in my hands.  I hurl the thing as hard as I can.  It catches Pemberton and lands on the tiled floor, sliding underneath the stall opposite until all I can see is its head - and its eye - staring me down.

And now?  Well of course, I'll have to take early retirement.  That dick Pemberton will get my job.  At least now I’ll have time to follow my own line of research.  What percentage of silver-spooned, talentless wankers screw up your life.

I hope he builds a barbeque.