My Daddy's a Diver

Courtesy of Mr. James Cameron.

Women weren't supposed to die in childbirth, not anymore. It had taken twelve months, mesmerised by a helpless baby and numbed by her mother's death, but finally he'd allowed himself to grieve properly. Sometimes though, it came back. Warm tears misted his cold dive mask. Lifting its seal he let seawater in, bathing his face, erasing the sadness. He took a long breath, jack-knifed and finned downward.

Ocean was up. Coarse sand patched tawny reef beneath. Strong ground-swell sucked, sent the grains swirling. 'Like snorkelling through a snowstorm,' he thought and grimly admitted he oughtn't be out there, skirting the drop-off where dumpers curled then crunched. But he and little Lizzie had to eat and he'd refused the dole. Every other deckhand signed on after local lobster grounds got re-zoned 'marine park'. Not him. Scrutinised like some criminal malingerer? Bugger that! No, he and his small daughter could survive on his dive skills. Fresh fish, if not directly consumed, were straight cash-in-hand exchange or top barter - if he could find them. Today, surrounded by sandy soup, that wouldn't be easy.

Simple but effective, his 'Hawaiian sling'. Pacific Islanders had used similar hand-spears for millennia. Firing rubber, looped twixt thumb and forefinger, got stretched along shaft, held, spear was aimed, released quick: 'Whack!'

Pinching nose, he kicked deeper. A large sweep's white-tipped tail showed, then vanished in the sand stir. He finned upwards, heart thumping double-time. Cramp crimped one thigh. Two strenuous hours gone - no result. Hitting choppy surface, he spouted, sucked air and shivered. Wetsuit was old, perforated, retained scant body heat, but Lizzie had priority over a new suit. Right now her principal need was nutrition. He must get a table fish.

How his precious little blondie loved her fillets. Right now, spoilt rotten by Faye, the trawlerman's widow, Lizzie was curled beside a fire, sucking thumb, twirling her salt-blonde silk locks and watching Disney videos... What did you call a child no longer a toddler but still needing cuddlesome reassurance? Bloody gorgeous. Sometimes he thought only his love of, and the love from this child, kept him sane.

He dived again, into a gap in the reef. Here the sea surged inshore like a flooding irrigation channel. Swept over writhing bull kelp, he glided into pond-like environs. Reef now formed a barrier to the outside breakers. At last he had fair visibility. Far below lay a sponge-and-weed-matted overhang. This, he knew, concealed a cave-like ledge where, on turbulent days, fish sometimes congregated.
Once more he tilted downward, finning rhythmically. Awkward movement might spook his one chance for a hit. Closing on the overhang, he drifted beneath. In the deep green half-light his eyes adjusted on an easy target.

Like fondling teenagers sprung by a cinema usher's torch, the two Butterfish all but froze. Lying nose to nose, tails fanned just enough to retain station against the algaed reef wall. Butterfish weren't prime eating but, at five kilos, the biggest meant many fishcakes. He fired - head shot, a clean kill.

Butterfish towed on his float-line, he swam shoreward. The surviving fish followed, shadowing, circling its dead mate, dreadful in its uncomprehending sorrow. He felt hollow as an empty shell.
An hour later that hollowness, like the Southern Ocean's coldness, persisted. He'd begun to fillet. Lizzie was studying the process. Head barely high as the low kitchen bench, Lizzie's own gaze met the fish's sightless one. Then, earnest sea-blue irises fixed upon her father's, she asked, 'Daddy, do fish cry?'

Life has its moments of truth. This was one.

After a sober minute between himself and the fish, he asked, 'Lizzie, you like baked beans, yeah?'

This didn't mean he would not cook the Butterfish. Its life taken, it must be eaten. Simply, never would he spear one fish of a mating pair ever again - even if, in its place, very ordinary fare had to be partaken.

Lizzie's face frowned in contemplation before she replied: 'But beans make me fart.' The pronouncement's solemnity, and the way she sucked her bottom lip after making it, was pure comedy. But aware of his child's sensitivity, he mustn't laugh. Suppressed mirth, however, generated warmth in a soul colder from transgressing one of nature's lesser laws: Thou shalt not destroy companionship.

'Hmmm alright,' he said with mock gruffness, 'how about two minute noodles?'

'Ooh yes,' responded Lizzie, guileless eyes shining like rock pools on a bright day, 'I love noodles!' A smile to turn any sinner saintly. Lizzie's slight arms encircled a thigh hardened by decades of driving swimfins against oceanic surge. Cuddling in she added, 'But daddy, I love you even lots more.'

In this moment a man, not a fish, found himself weeping.