Fish and chip shop man

A Story by Crayfish

Water gushes into my nostrils, burns up through my nose and to my sinuses. The stinging makes my eyes stream and I gasp as you lurch me out from under the water, hands under my armpits, rough palms against the thin material of my swimming costume as you throw me onto your shoulders. I am victorious, temporarily towering above the pool that stretches for miles, grinning with pride despite the sour chlorine hitting my throat and the pain rushing into the back of my eyeballs. I’m almost eight years old, by now our Tuesday ritual is honed and I tap my feet with anticipation in the last lesson at school, knowing your white van will be parked on the kerb, knowing I can hoist myself up the steps into the cab without you needing to grab my hand, now I’m tall enough to reach.

You drive me to the swimming pool and park round the back, swim bag already packed, and I wait for you to pay for parking before clambering up the steps to the reception desk. The receptionist always grins at me, eyebrows raised behind her thick glasses, I think she must like Tuesdays too. I know my way to the family changing rooms so you let me run ahead to pick my favourite locker as you swap your coins for wristbands and follow me through the door, bleach steaming around our ears as we walk past the showers and pick an empty cubicle to undress in.

Costume yanked on, rubber earplugs for you since you perforated your eardrum by throwing yourself off the top diving board last year. I flail out of the blue double doors and over the tiles, pull on my goggles and plunge into the shallow end. I barely register the other families squirming around us as you thunder in after me, instead I grab your hand and challenge you to a race to the deep end. Aunty Julie gave me lessons for free, she’s not really my aunty but she’s my mum’s friend and she used to be a swimming instructor, before she got fat, you said.

Thanks to Aunty Julie I’m proud and strong as I windmill my arms, splashing through front crawl and you, my dad, bigger and taller and stronger than me, let me win. I crash hard into the wall with my fists at the ‘two metres, no diving’ sign and stun myself for a second until you grab me to celebrate, spinning me around under water until my head whirls with blue and I almost cross the threshold into panic but I hold my nerve, kicking back at you to let go and you do. We spend the next hour inventing games, pushing battered foam floats under the water and standing on them until we fall off, cackling, as nearby mums steer their precious toddlers away from our unpredictable splashes.

We have to get out when the small hand gets to five and the big hand gets to twelve. I squint at the big clock through fogged up goggles and feel a pang of sadness as the end nears. Later you squeeze shampoo onto the top of my head and in the cool trickle of the communal shower I scrunch my hair until the foam dribbles down into my eyes. I’ve learned to keep them shut but it still stings and I squeeze them tighter but it seems to make it worse, hot froth burning my eyelashes and smelling like peaches. You help me rinse, cupping the water in your giant paws and splashing it over my face, and I suddenly feel upset, I want to be dry and warm now but I’m cold and wet and my eyes hurt. One time I cried in the changing rooms and said I wanted my mum, she’s just at home, you said, you can see her soon, but then you got extraordinarily cross and told me to never say that again so I don’t. I want her now though, your hands are rough and cracked from building walls but my mum’s are small and familiar and she would never ram them under my armpits as you do, scooping me up to sit me on the bench in the changing room, wrapping me tight in a scratchy white towel from the cupboard with the boiler in at home.

My eyes are still stinging as I scramble back into your van and click my seatbelt around my bony waist. My hair is damp and clings to the back of my neck, I pull the collar of my school shirt up around my ears and slump down, waiting for the lights to change so we can move along. Your van smells like metal and wood, an odour of iron catching my nostrils and melding with the dirty denim of your work jeans, worn thin by years of wiping your hands at the same patch on either thigh. There’s a plank of wood above my head, visiting from the back of the van, and I daydream as we pull into the car park behind the fish and chip shop, imagining it screeching forward and smashing into the windscreen.

I’m allowed to come into the fish and chip shop and choose my tea, the anticipation of salty chips almost as exciting as going swimming each week. A bell tinkles above the glass door as we push from the cold air into the hot stink, fish and sausage and hot batter clinging to my skin within seconds. I run to the counter to press my nose against the warm glass just as the man appears from behind the shelf, slapping your arm across the salt and vinegar bottles and asking you how work is going. The ritual is so familiar now it feels futile, the same questions and answers slugged back and forth, how’s the wife, good thanks how is yours, same same, until the man turns his attention to me.

And how is school young lady? He laughs as I flinch, jolting myself away from peering at the battered sausages and pies behind the glass. They smoulder in an artificial orange heat as the hot lamps built into the metal shelf illuminate the fat spikes of batter. Good thanks, I try to smile. He reaches over the counter and I grimace as his long fingers, hair scuffed across the knuckles, fingernails harbouring a day’s worth of grease, touch the top of my head. He sees me wince and retracts his damp hand, a snail recoiling back into its shell. Don’t worry, you’re not tall enough for me to get you yet. He throws his head back and howls a disproportionate wail of laughter and I can see his dental fillings, dark dirt pressed into grout between white tiles and I suddenly feel sick. He has black eyes, tiny and terrifying and he squints and shakes his head gently, amused as I press my nose back against the glass to avoid his gaze.

I’m waiting for my dad to ask me what I want when the bell tinkles again and the man’s two daughters bound through the door, stopping when they see me, a familiar customer, same age and size yet completely alien, wearing different shoes and a different school uniform. Their skin is darker than mine, their eyes a different shade, their hair is wrapped in headscarves and as they stare at me I can’t help but stare back. Their father gestures to them and as if operated by remote control they pad silently behind the counter and disappear through the bead curtain, its wooden strings clacking against their backpacks as he turns back to my dad and asks him if he wants vinegar on his chips.

Ten years later and the bouncer is too busy looking at my chest to ask for ID. I feel like an exposed child as I push my way to the front of the queue for the bar, squirming in my too-small top and checking again to see if my card wallet is still in my pocket. Three vodkas in and my legs feel heavy, I can feel a headache creeping like a vine up the back of my neck and I wonder whether my eyeliner is still on my eyelid or crawling down my clammy cheek. The woman behind the bar looks at me in a way I know well and ten minutes later she plunges her hand through my hair as she kisses me in the smoking area. There are posters tacked up to hide the metal fence surrounding the smoke-filled yard and they swirl around my vision as she pushes me up against a fake palm tree, its plastic bark scratching my shoulder blade. I cry out and she stops, taking a step back and looking at me as I readjust my top and take a drag off the cigarette in my left hand.

I don’t really know why I came here. I usually have some friends to dance with but tonight nobody came and I don’t know if I’m here because I’m just trying to avoid home but I’m suddenly acutely aware I’m on my own, drunk and scratched and realise I’m staring open-mouthed at the bartender when she leans forward and moves my hair to one side. I’ve got to get back to work, she laughs in my ear, and she turns and walks back inside. I’m reeling from the vodka and I clamp my fingers tightly around the plastic palm to steady myself. The cigarette tastes acrid and gritty and I drop it between my feet and watch it smoulder on the damp concrete. The air out here is cold and I let it grip my skin, I suddenly feel sweaty and ill and I make the decision to go home.

The scratch is still raw and it stings the skin on my shoulder as I make my way back through the club, avoiding the direction of the bar and pushing my hands through the warm bodies. The crowd undulates, swaying and sweating, the thump of the music blends with the odour of wet skin and I gulp down the feeling of nausea as I push harder to get through to where I know the main doors are, promising cool air.

The music seems to be getting louder and I feel disorientated when a damp hand grips the back of my arm, pulling me back into the swell I’m desperately trying to escape. I shout out but it’s too late, I’m facing the opposite direction now and hot breath suddenly hits my ear.

You too, the breath says.

I recoil backwards and see spiky black eyes and a thud of recognition punches down into my stomach, crashing into the nausea coming up in the opposite direction. His hand is still clamped around the top of my arm and I paw at it with my other hand, trying to get him off me, trying to pull away. A man, dancing next to him, grips his chin and turns his face to move him sideways and as quick it happens it’s over, and the fish and chip shop man is pressed, clammy and jerking, against a bare tattooed chest. As I surge for the exit, still thrusting my way through the crowd, I glance once more over my shoulder to see his black eyes following me. He mouths. Don’t tell. My head spins as I try to escape the tangle of bodies and the unwanted secret and I shove my hands against the door and vomit into the icy air.