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We’re half a mile out from the White Cliffs in my Grandad’s boat. Me, Smeg, and Den, with our fishing rods and a cooler of Heineken. Refreshes the parts other beers can’t reach, Grandad would say. He quotes old ads a lot.
It’s sunny and calm. Smooth as a millpond, Grandad would say. Like at Dunkirk.
Den says, “There’s one of the bastards.”
It’s not just one, there’s maybe twenty of them, all in orange lifejackets, packed into an RIB riding low in the water. They’re calling to us. They’re far away so we can’t see their faces, but their voices are high and scared.
Den says, “Let them have a bath, if they like the fuckin’ Channel so much.”
Smeg says, “They’ve got a baby.”
It’s my boat (well, it’s Grandad’s) and my choice. I feel sick, millpond or no millpond. But the coastguard shows up, slicing white through the water, and goes alongside the RIB. We get more beers, sit back, and watch while the baby’s handed up first, the rest hauled over the side after. It’s sunny and calm again.
Other things Grandad says:
This country’s full. Though it doesn’t feel like it in our town, with boarded-up shops and a closed-down leisure centre, and chip papers blowing along the beach.
Send the buggers back to France. It’s not far, you can see it on a clear day. I’ve never been to France, though Mum says we could do a day trip to Calais easy. Grandad says no thanks, you can’t get proper fish and chips there. And they don’t speak English.
They get put in hotels and given everything, when our own people can’t get houses. They hang round the streets intimidating decent people. It’s true the migrants stand around a lot, but they mostly look bored. Some of them are no older than me and Smeg and Den. I don’t like walking past them. Den once tried to pick a fight, but they just looked at him and walked away.
Them that went over to Dunkirk in the small boats to save our lads, they were heroes. Grandad was too young for the Dunkirk run, but his fisherman uncle Tommy went, in his boat Britannia that’s Grandad’s now. England to France and back twice, with soldiers crammed in like sardines. Tommy got a medal for bringing back forty-seven of them, and one more that died of his wounds on the way. Grandad’s still got the medal, he gets it out to show people like it’s the Crown Jewels.
Right now Grandad’s watching all the D-Day stuff on TV. More heroes. I’d rather watch Netflix, but I know better than to ask.
It’s all over the news that the Prime Minister came back from the D-Day celebrations early, and Grandad’s raging. He says, No bloody respect. He says, He doesn’t understand our culture.
Mum says, “You can’t say that, Dad, it’s racist.”
Grandad mutters that he won’t be cancelled. Mum says, “You daft old sod, no-one’s cancelling you.”
That happens a lot in our house. Grandad grumbles, Mum tells him off, both of them try to get me on their side. I want to say, Who’s on my side? They argue about me too. Mum wants me to go to college, Grandad wants me to go in the Navy, but I haven’t decided yet. I like the sea, but no arsehole in a uniform’s telling me what to do. I wouldn’t mind being a fisherman, but that’s not an option these days.
Grandad used to be a fisherman, like his uncle Tommy. Tommy drowned after the War, then it was Grandad going out out in Britannia after mullet and mackerel, there was plenty in those days. It drove him mad how the French boats came into our waters and took our fish. He saw the Brexit ad that said Tell the EU to sling its hook and hedid, he voted Leave. That’ll teach the buggers, he said, but now most small-boat fishermen in our town have gone out of business. Now when the Prime Minister says Stop the Boats! Grandad says, They stopped the bloody boats all right. Stopped our lads making a living. Pack of bloody liars.
The only good thing from the Brexit shitshow is, now Britannia isn’t a fishing boat any more, me and the lads get to go out in her and have a drink and a laugh. Sometimes we even catch a fish.
The second time I see a boatload of migrants in the distance, it’s just me, no Den or Smeg, and no coastguard.
I don’t even know why I’ve come out. Bored, probably. It’s a shit day for it, the water’s grey and choppy.
I see the RIB, even more packed than last time, and I think, Fuck, not again. I’m just wondering what to do when a squall hits Britannia and then it’s me in the water, choking, my head gashed and pouring blood, and it’s the fellers in orange lifejackets pulling me up and over the side of their boat.
Blood stinging my eyes, blood everywhere, I’m lying half in half out of dirty water in the bottom of the RIB, mixed up with a load of bony knees, I’m flopping like a drowning fish and puking, moaning, scared to death and thinking they’ll lay me out on the beach under a rubber sheet, Mum and Grandad’ll have to come and identify me. Mum’ll cry, but Grandad’ll say, No dead hero, just a dead fool. He’ll be right.
Someone presses a towel soaked in seawater to my head. Someone says, “You’ll be OK. I’m a doctor,” and I faint.
By Patience Mackarness
