Read Online Lessons in Letting Go by Corinne Grant - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Corinne Grant
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turned up that morning in a flannel shirt, track pants and Blundstones. I looked like I should be heading out to a paddock to collect bull spoof myself.
Jamie was the only one in our party that I was not worried about. Adam was a constant source of concern for too many reasons to list and Thomas had already proven himself a disaster. Jamie was supposed to be the one who was in control. So it took us all by surprise when he proved to be the most unfit for country living out of all of us.
That morning, we were going to visit the local trout farm. Thomas had never seen a trout farm before and Adam thought it would be funny. Wendy and Jamie came along, acting as nonchalant as possible. Trout were nothing special; only city folk got excited about fish. So we went and we looked at ponds and we saw some fish flapping about. Adam and Wendy went off to hire some rods and Thomas took a call and went off to say ‘fuck’ a lot in private.
I was quite proud of the trout farm. It was one the town’s biggest tourist attractions and it sold a trout pâté to which I am yet to find an equal. It even had an underwater viewing platform where you could watch the trout swimming about undisturbed. Jamie and I went down for a look. The viewing area was not perhaps as spectacular as I had remembered it. It was smaller and murkier. It was pretty much a thirty-centimetre-square piece of thick glass looking into some cloudy water. Jamie complained that he couldn’t see anything and pressed his face right up to it to get a better look.
Essentially, a fish is nothing more than a shiny, smelly muscle with a flipper on each side. Muscles move quickly. Jamie should not have been at all surprised when one of them shot into view right in front of his face. Even so, he screamed so loudly that the fish, stunned into unconsciousness, instantly turned upside down and floated to the surface. After a moment of standing completely still and open-mouthed, we both ran up the stairs to see if we could find it. Adam came running towards us.
‘What happened? Corinne, are you all right? Why were you screaming?’
‘It wasn’t me, it was Jamie. He screamed at a trout and we think he killed it.’
‘What do you mean, “Jamie screamed at a trout”? Who’s scared of trout? Jamie? Did you scream at a trout?’
‘It came out of nowhere!’
‘You’re at a trout farm, it didn’t come out of nowhere, it came out of a trout pond. Why did you scream at a trout?’
And then we saw it floating on the surface. Jamie put his head in his hands. Then, just as quickly as it had stopped moving, it started again. It was like someone had pushed a reset button and it swam away as if nothing had happened.
Everyone was quiet. Then my sister, standing behind us and holding all the fishing gear, called out, ‘Hey, J, how about we forget about these rods and bait and we just let you wade out into the middle of the pond to scream until all the trout float to the surface? You’ll be like an aquatic version of Shelley Duvall in The Shining .’ Adam clapped his hands in delight.
Later that day I took us for a drive somewhere dry, where the fish couldn’t hurt us. We drove out the other side of town, my sister and I pointing out the sights along the way. Here’s the cemetery that everyone’s forgotten about, here’s the place that was nearly the capital of Australia, here’s the place that was used in a movie once. As we were driving, I saw something in the middle of the road, and as we got closer, I realised it was a turtle. The middle of the road is not a good place for a turtle to be hanging out. Cars are fast, turtles are slow. I pulled over to the side of the road with the plan of picking it up and putting it back onto the grass, safe from oncoming traffic. I will also admit, I had never touched a turtle and I could not envisage a time in the near future when I might get to touch one again. It was an opportunity too good to pass up.
Everyone got out of the car to
Jamie was the only one in our party that I was not worried about. Adam was a constant source of concern for too many reasons to list and Thomas had already proven himself a disaster. Jamie was supposed to be the one who was in control. So it took us all by surprise when he proved to be the most unfit for country living out of all of us.
That morning, we were going to visit the local trout farm. Thomas had never seen a trout farm before and Adam thought it would be funny. Wendy and Jamie came along, acting as nonchalant as possible. Trout were nothing special; only city folk got excited about fish. So we went and we looked at ponds and we saw some fish flapping about. Adam and Wendy went off to hire some rods and Thomas took a call and went off to say ‘fuck’ a lot in private.
I was quite proud of the trout farm. It was one the town’s biggest tourist attractions and it sold a trout pâté to which I am yet to find an equal. It even had an underwater viewing platform where you could watch the trout swimming about undisturbed. Jamie and I went down for a look. The viewing area was not perhaps as spectacular as I had remembered it. It was smaller and murkier. It was pretty much a thirty-centimetre-square piece of thick glass looking into some cloudy water. Jamie complained that he couldn’t see anything and pressed his face right up to it to get a better look.
Essentially, a fish is nothing more than a shiny, smelly muscle with a flipper on each side. Muscles move quickly. Jamie should not have been at all surprised when one of them shot into view right in front of his face. Even so, he screamed so loudly that the fish, stunned into unconsciousness, instantly turned upside down and floated to the surface. After a moment of standing completely still and open-mouthed, we both ran up the stairs to see if we could find it. Adam came running towards us.
‘What happened? Corinne, are you all right? Why were you screaming?’
‘It wasn’t me, it was Jamie. He screamed at a trout and we think he killed it.’
‘What do you mean, “Jamie screamed at a trout”? Who’s scared of trout? Jamie? Did you scream at a trout?’
‘It came out of nowhere!’
‘You’re at a trout farm, it didn’t come out of nowhere, it came out of a trout pond. Why did you scream at a trout?’
And then we saw it floating on the surface. Jamie put his head in his hands. Then, just as quickly as it had stopped moving, it started again. It was like someone had pushed a reset button and it swam away as if nothing had happened.
Everyone was quiet. Then my sister, standing behind us and holding all the fishing gear, called out, ‘Hey, J, how about we forget about these rods and bait and we just let you wade out into the middle of the pond to scream until all the trout float to the surface? You’ll be like an aquatic version of Shelley Duvall in The Shining .’ Adam clapped his hands in delight.
Later that day I took us for a drive somewhere dry, where the fish couldn’t hurt us. We drove out the other side of town, my sister and I pointing out the sights along the way. Here’s the cemetery that everyone’s forgotten about, here’s the place that was nearly the capital of Australia, here’s the place that was used in a movie once. As we were driving, I saw something in the middle of the road, and as we got closer, I realised it was a turtle. The middle of the road is not a good place for a turtle to be hanging out. Cars are fast, turtles are slow. I pulled over to the side of the road with the plan of picking it up and putting it back onto the grass, safe from oncoming traffic. I will also admit, I had never touched a turtle and I could not envisage a time in the near future when I might get to touch one again. It was an opportunity too good to pass up.
Everyone got out of the car to
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