Breaking the tension, she pulls the knife back sharply towards herself. Wordless, I watch as she descales the fish. It seems to come to her as naturally as breathing. As though she has done this all her life. Perhaps she has.
The scales fall like wedding confetti onto her counter, sticking to her hands. She makes it look so easy. But then, unexpectedly, alarmingly, she offers the knife and fish to me.
I wait for some reassurance, but it doesn’t come. It appears she thinks I am perfectly capable of this. Strange, to consider what I am capable of. A fearsome thing, really. Something that I try not to let myself think of too often.
Slowly, I move the blade to the skin like she did, only without managing to remove any scales. She takes my hands and puts them where she wants them.
‘Like this.’
She says, and I realise when she motions down to the fish that I have been staring at her. Once more, I begin to draw the knife back towards myself. Now and again I go in too deep and leave tiny cuts. The smell in my sinuses. Flaccid body in my hands. I have to focus more on steadying my breathing than I do on the knife in my hand. And still I gag. The noise of my throat jumping, of my saliva rising and catching. What a personal thing for her to have heard. Heat rises under my skin. Blood pours into my cheeks. The indignities of my human body, exposing me as immature and unversed in something as minimal as the smell of fish. I don’t want to seem rude or ungrateful.
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.’
Choiceless, I have to keep at it. The little cuts ooze. And I wonder about the shades of my own blood. Of Betty’s. What temperature it takes, and how thick it flows. The eye stares up at me, watching as I peel away its body again and again. By the end of it, my hands are glittering with scales, glossy with plasma. When Betty takes the fish and knife back off me, all this lovely gore is transferred to her, and I feel suddenly afraid that she will know I am menstruating.
‘Now, watch this part carefully.’
She says, gently, and without warning, sinks the knife into the fish’s belly. I don’t mean to, but I gasp. How childish I must appear. Unable to handle anything visceral.
Softly, easily, she runs the knife up through the body, slits the gills and pulls the fish apart. Dizzy, I watch and wait for Betty to tear the thing’s head off.
Instead, she reaches inside, into the unknown universe that exists within a fish. Isn’t she fierce brave? Isn’t she merciless? Out with her hand comes everything that once kept the fish alive. Little organs, pulled out and dumped on the side. I expect to see small, distinguishable kidneys and lungs coming out. But it’s just bubbles of unidentifiable flesh in lilac and red, which Betty severs with the knife. The head removed, the body cut in half. It seems much less of a fish now. The indignity of its body.
‘Offal.’
She says. Awful, was it?
And then, just when I am sure that I can’t handle another moment, Betty pulls out the fish’s spine. And I swear I feel my own spine being pulled out, too.
It’s all too close. Too intimate. The gagging, the blood, the teaching.By the end of the dissection, I feel that the development of my relationship with Betty has been accelerated. We have almost become one thing. As she cuts what’s left of this fish into fillets, I want to run outside and throw myself into Tom’s arms. I want Betty to wash her hands and put the knife away. Please let all this be over and let me never see another fish again.
‘I know, it isn’t nice. But you’ll get used to it all, I’m sure.’
A whisper of goodness, isn’t that soothing? Isn’t that lovely?
‘I’ve had fish before, it’s just I never made it myself.’
‘That’s alright.’
Betty says, smiling. How good it is to have a woman smiling at me. Telling me I’m alright. I forgot what that was like. As she turns, I catch sight of the freckles dotted at the top of her neck. Like daisies crowding the edges of the road. Like stars clustered at the highest point in the sky.
The sun is about to disappear.
‘Now, the job is done. That’s ready to cook.’
She says, satisfied, and I look at the counter. The knife, bleeding. The spine, pale yellow. The eye, still staring. I am nervous to say another word.
‘You know, you’ve lovely hair, Anna.’
She starts, almost absentminded, moving past what we have just done as though it didn’t faze her at all.
Outside, I see the shapes of Tom and Bill driving the last of the piles into the earth. The fence is up again. The horizon goes from orange to blue in an instant. The last clouds of sunset are here.
We head home, Betty and Bill wave from the door as we go. The walk is dark, but I don’t mind. The fog is freezing, but I feel fine.
‘That was so nice.’
