A fisher-boy's life - part four

A fisher-boy’s life (part four)
So many questions, that year forty fiveworld war two ending, my mother gonewith someone else, me a boy all alonecrying in secret in bed on ‘holiday’ exile; ‘Get him out the way,’ he’d heard her say,blonde stranger to daddy that mixed-up day,‘Send him down there to your ma and pa  on Hastings front, he loves his fishingand very soon he’ll stop his wishingfor mummy Marie to come back ‘ere;  she can’t make up for leaving ‘im - or you for that man, my Eddy, my dear.’ And thus the small boy learned to fear,that grown up thing without a name, (the lives it wrecks), learned hate, the stateof soon to be except the purely magic sea;unchanging, moody, salty sea, its mystery,the life that swims down deep, so free - by the window the boy sits watchingdreaming of the fish he’ll be catching.
‘Why don’t you go across to the beach for some prawns?’, my grandfather asks ‘It’s low tide now so take this drop-net.’ He ruffles my hair, shows how it is set: ‘You prise limpets off the rocks for baitskewer them in the mesh, lower it deep,deep down in a rock pool out of sight,leave good time for them to get inthen hook it out quick with this stick; quick! 'fore they flick out over the rim!’Grandfather! So well I remember him,and remember those juicy fat beauties transparent, black pin eyed, jumping, flip-flopping the bottom of the bag-netand boys gathered around me to seethe how and the what my secret might be,the scrambling to shore as the tide arose,and falling, knee bleeding over my clothesGrandma says it’s all right, Bryan, see,we’ve got your prawns for our special tea.’ I see them plated, smell their sweet scent,contentment arriving as passion is spent.
Bryan IslipPart four of  ‘A fisher-boy’s life’ : May 2014