When It Was the War by J.L. Fiol

Author:J.L. Fiol [Fiol, J.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781467001854
Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
Published: 2011-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

MUTED GREEN

We called them bailas. I don’t know whether it was a local name or one we boys made up. They were, I suppose, a kind of sea trout. We weren’t what you would think of as keen or knowledgeable fishers. For us fishing was something improvised: one of many spurious activities periodically touched upon in our early teens.

It could be that the name derived from the Spanish bailar, which means to dance. But perhaps I would be crediting us with too much imagination in thinking that we might have linked the name with the sinuous weaving of the fish, or the dancing concentric ripples it made when it punctured the surface of the water to the beat of skimmers with wings.

They were solitary elusive creatures, gliding languidly just below the surface. On a calm day of still water, catching sight of one was, for me at least, akin to spotting a Snow Leopard in another place. To actually land one was unthinkable. We mainly trafficked in the voracious Rockfishes, with rare fortuitous encounters with small shoals of young Mullet. Crabs were a standby in lean times.

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One Sunday morning, when I might well have been summoned to Church, I found myself walking along Casemates Square and through the tunnel towards the Glacis Jetty. I have no recollection of the time leading up to that. Looking back, it’s as if sometimes we experience moments imbued with such clarity and intensity as to effectively swamp other data in the memory banks.

It was already hot which, if anything, further aggravated the hollow sense of foreboding which, until quite recently, I have always associated with Sundays.

I might well have been wanting to avoid another summons from Father Rapello. Like the one I had three Sundays previously. Father Rapello is a server short for the eleven o’clock Sung Mass. Can you get yourself to the Church. And that at a quarter to eleven. Such was my confusion and the size of the chip on my shoulder, that I could have sworn that Father Rapello wanted a short server. I took off my ragaround clothes and grabbed the green suit.

I didn’t like serving at the eleven o’clock Sung Mass. It was like the Opera: a place to be and be seen to be. All the girls on the prowl went to it. All dolled up to the nines at eleven.

Serving at the seven o’clock morning Mass from Monday to Friday, although no picnic, at least had the attraction of a dimmed church, no incense, no singing and no girls. Of course, there was the inevitable fly in the ointment. Twelve actually. My teachers, the Christian Brothers. Not a rewarding feeling, being at eye level with the religious entities as they knelt to received Holy Communion, with me holding the gold platter under their chins. I managed to develop an ability to perform my sacred duty whilst averting my eyes Heavenward. It worked pretty well, but for the occasional bumping into the priest.

Of course, some well-meaning Christian lady had to tell my mother saw your Pepe serving at the eleven o’clock Mass.

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