Me, You

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A FISH IS a catch once it’s in the boat. It’s a mistake to shout that you’ve hooked it when it has only snapped at the bait and you feel its weight bouncing in the hand that holds the line. A fish is a catch only when it’s on board. You have to pull it up swiftly from the depths with a gentle, even movement, and without jerking. Otherwise you’ll lose it. You mustn’t get excited when you feel it thrashing below and it seems heaven only knows how big judging by the force it exerts to extricate the hook and bait from its body.

Nicola taught me how to fish. The boat wasn’t his, it was Uncle’s, my uncle. Nicola used it year-round, but when the weather was mild he was my uncle’s sailor on Sundays and during summer holidays. At night he went out with a lantern and fished for cuttlefish, a kind of squid, to make bait for the tip of the hook.

He got the boat ready and we would leave early in the morning. The island was silent. Going down to the beach barefoot, a boy could feel that he was slippery smooth because of the rock under his feet, that he smelled good because of the fragrance of baking bread that wafted by his nose from the ovens, that he was grown up because he was going out to sea to acquire a skill. The other boys went to the beach later on to meet girls and swim. The rich ones rode around in circles in their motorboats with gleaming wood and multi-horsepowered motors.

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