Mid Lent Fair

The goldfish flaps and flounders on the conveyor belt of the checkout. The cashier leaps from her chair and screams, waving her hands in a careless echo of the fish’s death throes. A group of shoppers gathers around watching the tiny orange body gasp for breath.

‘Somebody get a bowl and some water.’

‘We can’t leave the poor thing here.’

The checkout assistant presses her buzzer for assistance. A light above the till flashes, calling the supervisor over. Another face joins the crowd, peering at the increasingly lifeless fish. It’s thrashing has become subdued; its gills open and close futilely, like the panting of a dying dog.

***

The arrival of a fair always filled us with excitement. The jewel bright lights, the smell of candyfloss, greasy hot doughnuts, super sized cuddly toys dangling overhead, the whiz and bang of the rides. To us children it was a strange sort of paradise, one filled as much with the shrieks of grown ups as with the open mouthed awe of us kiddies. The smells, the sounds, the sights, the hustle and bustle of the carneys as they beckoned you to try their rides. For a long time we were too small for the scary rides, the death defying drops full of screaming, giggling teenagers. But this doesn’t matter. Our judgment of a fair, our satisfaction, was based on a more simple pleasure. For if there was one thing above all else that we loved about a fair it was the chance to win a goldfish. We lived to see the stall where a well-aimed ping-pong ball would win you a glittering golden prize. The instant we spotted it all else would be forgotten. The constant pleading for candyfloss and toffee apples would stop short. Instead we were mesmerized by a hundred tiny fish. Rushing over to the stall we would look on in wonder. A sea of globular fishbowls stretching out like man made frogspawn. The good bowls, the winning bowls have inside them the shimmering, flashing prize, the fish itself. The others, the bowls to be avoided, were empty. Filled with nothing but water and coloured grit.

Thinking back there was something about these tiny fish that captivated our childish imaginations. Gold fish. Even the name suggested something special, a treasure, a prize. The gold at the end of the rainbow, hidden treasure, pirates loot. We coveted them without even knowing why. And we were never disappointed by these little fish, our hard won prizes. Even though they were never gold. A clear case of false advertising, an early introduction to the duplicity of description. A small but subtle slice of education. More often they were a carroty orange or even beige, sometimes they even had little black spots and murky markings. A curiosity to our childish literal minds but wonderful all the same.

‘Why’s it called a gold fish mum? They’re not even gold.’

‘I don’t know. I suppose because orange fish doesn’t sound so pretty.’

Us children alone understood their value, the grown ups seemed immune. In those all important minutes we focused our tiny selves on tossing the ball with just the right force, just the right distance to land in one of the fish filled bowls. An empty bowl was an early disappointment, the taste bitter. Tears would prick our eyes. Hopes dashed, we’d look up at mum or dad, beseechingly, tug on their hand, ask wheedlingly,

‘Can I have another go? Just one more? Pleeeeease?’

Sometimes our luck was in, another chance, another shot. Hold our breath. Steady now. Instructions from Dad, a competitive streak glimpsed like a flash of gold,

‘That’s it. Find the bowl you want, aim for it, watch it. Now…throw.’

It was always more about luck than skill, and on occasion luck was on our side. The ping-pong ball would land with a plop. Straining, standing on tiptoe or lifted high in a grown ups arms we’d try and see whether we’d won.

‘Let’s have a look… see there towards the back…you did it! Well done darling.’

Yes, yes, we could see. A startled fish lapping its tiny tank in a frenzy, the ball bobbing on the surface. The bored stall worker would mutter half-hearted congratulations, while our excitement bubbled over. Then, grudgingly it always seemed, they would reach up to where dozens of pre packed fish dangled in plastic sandwich bags suspended overhead. The nicer stallholders, less busy perhaps, would let you choose which fish to take. Would give you a moment or two to look them over before picking whichever caught your eye. This was the best part, as good as winning. A brief inspection, a moment of indecision, what did we prize above all else, was it to be the biggest, the shiniest, the smallest, the palest. Had we been asked we couldn’t have explained what made a prize goldfish, what the best type of goldfish should look like. Each time it was something instinctive, always some slight excess that drew us towards one particular bag and its tiny occupant. Then happily the handover, the goldfish swilling and slopping as you walked away towards the rest of the fair. Proud as a prizefighter.

I have lost count of the goldfish that were won over the years. But still I remember the peculiar excitement that seeing the stall elicited. When winning a goldfish became the only thing in the world that mattered. Strange in someone so young, the desire to win something living, to possess, to own.  I remember a fair in 85 or 86 in Richmond Market Square where goldfish were won. Jubilant my sister and I accompanied our mother into Woolworths, itself long gone. Why I now wonder? The motive behind the shopping trip long since forgotten if in fact it was ever known to us. My sister, the youngest, maybe three years old is tenderly clutching the goldfish in its bag as we approached the checkout. Then it falls, the bag explodes, a puddle of water and the goldfish flapping and curling like the fortune telling fish that writhe in your hand. I remember the fish lying on the conveyor belt but this makes no sense. I reconsider, reorganize the image. Try and impose some order on a childish memory. Why would it have fallen onto the checkout belt? Surely a small child would have dropped it on the floor. I try and grasp at the memory again but fail. It is hazy, and, the more I try and pin it down the more fragile it seems, the quicker it is to disperse. What is remembered and what have I coloured in between the lines? I think I remember my mother’s scolding, embarrassed at the mess and the fuss. What can she do about a dying goldfish on the floor in Woolworths? The shock and confusion of the young cashier. Was it a welcome break from the monotony of her shift. The other shoppers gather round. In the end the goldfish was saved. Put I think in my own goldfish’s bag, but I can’t be sure. The picture stutters and stalls like an old VHS tape, unreliable. Again and again I try and dredge up the memory. I become frustrated torn between fiction and fact. Strange what has stayed, the pieces that are clearly remembered, that mattered to my six-year-old self. And how I have fleshed things out. The harder I try and see the memory the more it shimmers and writhes like the little fish, neither golden, neither easily caught, neither entirely as they appear.