Cats and Fish

Before Mac and I were married I often went to his parents’ house for lunch once school had been let out for the day. Momma Simmons always welcomed me on “Family Hill”, but I have to admit she was one intimidating woman! It took a while for me to feel comfortable in her presence; Momma was quite opinionated and, being a newcomer to Bequia, there were times I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. In other words, I had a lot to learn!

Mac’s father was rarely at home when I visited, he ran the local sail   loft and usually worked until mid-afternoon. Lincoln Simmons (known on the island as “Bluesy”) was a lovely and often very funny man, and when he wasn’t mending sails or tending livestock he liked to go fishing. He usually caught ballahoo in a seine to use as bait, then motored out of the bay in his wooden boat. Bluesy always returned with several barracudas, fish that I would thoroughly enjoy for lunch the following day.

Momma kept a very keen eye on her husband, and I DO mean keen! She would hunker down on the porch with a pair of powerful binoculars and watch his movements, movements she invariably had a lot to say about. She would train the binoculars on Bluesy while he tethered his cow by the coconut wharf, and voice her disgust every time a woman stopped to chat with him. She was convinced he used that cow as an excuse to “lime de gurls”, and expressed her displeasure audibly to anyone within earshot;

“Watch de man! Watch he good! He dere talking to dat wutless gurl from Hamilton. Tedder de cow my ass, watch wutlessness!”

Mac always just laughed whenever his mother had a “porch rant”, his father was simply tethering a cow by the waterfront, not seducing women! I would have liked to take a peek through the binoculars, but doubted Momma would ever loosen her tight grip long enough to give me a turn.

One day I sat on the porch after lunch, and saw that Momma was busily scanning the harbour with her trusty spy tool. She was watching for Bluesy’s boat, he had gone fishing that afternoon and would be returning soon with his catch. Sure enough, the boat motored into view and Momma watched him like a hawk, muttering to herself under her breath. The muttering grew louder as she saw where the boat was headed, because Bluesy was steering towards Hamilton instead of Port Elizabeth.

“Watch de man! Watch he good! He takin’ my fish to dat damn “key-at” (cat) in Ocar!  Watch wutlessness!”

This was not the last time I would hear Momma complain bitterly about her fish being fed to a cat; Bluesy often landed at Ocar before coming home with his catch of the day, and she would fume about it as she watched intently through the binoculars.

“Watch he! You see dat? Dem wutless “key-ats” gettin’ my fish!”

I finally asked Mac about his father’s fishing trips. There were no cats around the family home, did Bluesy keep some at Ocar? Mac had no idea what I was talking about, as far as he was concerned his father would never give his fresh fish to a cat. When I described his mother’s rants whenever she spotted the boat heading for Ocar he burst out laughing;

“De fish in Ocar for de two-legged cats!”

Mac explained that Bluesy had sired a child before his marriage to Momma, and the mother and child (now a grown woman) lived at Ocar. Whenever Bluesy caught fish he always dropped some off for them before delivering the balance to “Family Hill”, and the fact that the “keyats” were given fish was a bone of contention that stuck in Momma’s craw. The fact that they received theirs BEFORE Momma made it even worse, she figured they were probably given the best fish.  I privately thought it was a lovely gesture on Bluesy’s part, but wisely kept that opinion to myself!