The Half-Million Pound Fish

I don’t know why I’m always the chosen one. I can barely look after myself, let alone tropical fish. But little Sue insists I’m the right person to take care of them while she’s away. In hindsight, I should have said no. Told her life is chaotic enough already. That I haven’t got time to be checking tank temperatures and monitoring feeding schedules like some underqualified marine biologist. But how do you say no to little Sue? You don’t. Not when she’s standing there in her Royal Mail fleece looking permanently sleep-deprived, talking at the speed of an auctioneer because she’s worked six consecutive twelve-hour shifts and is surviving entirely on caffeine, spite, and an unnatural emotional attachment to aquatic life. Sue loves animals more than most people love their own children. Fish. Birds. Lizards. Frogs. She once rescued a pigeon with one leg and bottle-fed it in her kitchen for three months. She owns two parrots that apparently swear at delivery drivers with such vulgarity that one bloke reported her to the depot manager. And now I have her fish. Two enormous plecos named Pablo and Pedro. She wheels them into my house in a tank roughly the size of a Jacuzzi and spends the next several hours giving me instructions. “Lights off at ten.” “Only feed them a pinch.” “They don’t like sudden movement.” “They respond to stress.” Frankly, same. By the end of it, I’m nodding along with the glazed expression of someone being read terms and conditions before surgery, retaining absolutely none of it. The instruction sheet gets abandoned on the kitchen side almost immediately. Then life happens. Because life always happens, doesn’t it? Work. Errands. Laundry. Replying “sorry just seen this” to messages that have emotionally moved on without me. The ongoing collapse of pretending to have my life together. Days blur together in that weird way they do when you’re permanently tired. One day folds into another until time itself becomes soup. And — I’m not proud of this — I completely forget about the fish. Not partially forget. Not “fed them late but meant well” forget. No. I forget they exist at all. Days pass. Maybe a week. Until one afternoon, halfway through tearing the house apart looking for my car keys, I glance at the tank and notice Pablo floating motionless on the surface like a tiny aquatic crime scene. Hmm. I’m fairly certain fish aren’t supposed to do that. I move closer slowly, already knowing. He’s dead. Not “sleeping funny” dead. Not “give him a minute” dead. Dead dead. Windows-shut-and-call-a-priest dead. I stare at him in horror while my brain catches up. Maybe he’s fainted. Do fish faint? Surely fish can’t just… die under my supervision. People die under my supervision emotionally, yes. But fish? Panicking, I plunge my hand into the tank and scoop him out. He’s horrifyingly slippery. Cold. Limp. Like handling a haunted ravioli. And before any rational thought can intervene, I do something genuinely unforgivable. I give the fish mouth-to-mouth. Behind me, my son Alex watches in stunned silence. “Mum…” But I’m committed now. I keep blowing. Tiny desperate puffs of CPR into a dead fish like a woman moments away from appearing in a local newspaper. Come on, Pablo. Don’t do this to me. “Mum.” I ignore him. “Mum,” he says carefully, “that fish has been dead for a week.” I stop. Slowly turn. “Surely not.” Alex nods solemnly with the exhausted expression of a child who has accepted that his parent cannot survive unsupervised. “I tried to tell you,” he says. “But you were too busy.” And there it is. The guilt. Sharp as a knife sliding between the ribs. I look back at Pablo’s little corpse in my hand. “Oh.” Alex folds his arms. “To be fair,” he says, “the mouth-to-mouth probably made it worse.” “Well thank you, David Attenborough.” Then: “I don’t actually think you’re meant to do CPR on fish.” “Right, well I didn’t see anyone else volunteering.” “Mum, he was stiff.” “I PANICKED, ALEX.” At least we still have Pedro. Except Pedro looks absolutely horrific. He’s lying at the bottom of the tank, barely moving, staring into the middle distance with the hollow resignation of a man waiting for bad news in a hospital corridor. His expression somehow says: Just finish me off, Deborah. “Oh God.” I finally notice the food container sitting beside the tank. Only it isn’t fish food. It’s potpourri. Potpourri. For the last week, I have apparently been lovingly feeding Sue’s rare tropical fish a fragrant seasonal table arrangement. Lavender petals drift gently through the water like the aftermath of a Pinterest-approved murder scene. “Oh my God.” Alex squints into the tank. “Can fish eat cinnamon sticks?” “Apparently not.” Pedro gives one final weak flap against the gravel. Then stops. Quietly. Almost mercifully. And suddenly all I can think about is Sue. Sue, whose fish are her entire world. Sue, who works herself into the ground sorting parcels while talking about Pablo and Pedro like they’re her actual sons. This might genuinely destroy her. I picture her collapsing dramatically beside the tank while mournful violin music plays. I cannot let that happen. There is only one solution. Replacements. Unfortunately, finding replacement fish turns out to be significantly harder than anticipated. I arrive at the pet shop carrying the bag containing the now officially deceased Pablo and Pedro. The teenager behind the desk looks seventeen and proudly unequipped for this interaction. Acne. Puberty moustache. The vacant haunted expression of someone paid £7.42 an hour to separate horny hamsters. I place the bag carefully on the counter. “Two replicas please,” I say. “It’s an emergency.” He stares at me. Then at the fish corpses. Then back at me. I can physically see him trying to determine whether I’m: A) mentally unwell B) dangerously unstable Or C) about to cry. Honestly, all three. He lifts the bag slowly into the air and studies the fish with the seriousness of a forensic pathologist. Finally, he whistles. “You do realise these are limited edition?” I laugh nervously. “Limited edition fish?” “Yes.” He points at the markings. “These colourings come from some deep-sea breeding programme near an island off Indonesia. Nearly impossible to get.” “Well,” I say weakly, “that sounds expensive.” He looks at me with genuine sympathy now. “Half a million each.” Silence. The world drains of sound. Half a million pounds. For two wet bastards that died eating potpourri. I grip the counter to steady myself as the room begins rotating gently around my body like a badly assembled carousel of aquatic judgement. “Are you alright?” he asks carefully. “No,” I whisper honestly. I take a shaky breath. I can fix this. I have to fix this. “Do you have anything,” I ask, voice trembling, “that could pass as these half-a-million-pound nightmare fish?” He considers this. Then shrugs. “We’ve got tanks full of plecos.” So begins the most psychologically taxing hour of my life. I stare at fish until my own eyes start bulging. Every pleco begins looking identical. Every single one somehow looks mildly disappointed in me. One genuinely appears to roll its eyes. Eventually, I find two that vaguely resemble Pablo and Pedro if viewed from a distance by someone legally blind. Good enough. I bury the originals in the garden that evening. A tiny shoebox funeral beneath the hydrangeas. I make a little gravestone from a broken paving slab. RIP, you fuckers. Alex stands beside me in respectful silence. “Should we say something nice about them?” he asks. I think for a moment. “They lived and they died,” I say finally. “Compelling words, mum.” Then the replicas go into the tank. They swim happily around their new home, blissfully unaware they’re participating in organised fraud. “She’ll never know,” I whisper. But who am I kidding? Sue has the observational skills of a prison detective. The woman can identify individual fish by personality alone. Three hours later there’s a knock at the door. Of course there is. Sue stands outside looking refreshed and sunburnt, tiny but terrifying, like a holidaying mafia boss. “Alright?” she says cheerfully. The fish are swimming calmly when we walk into the living room. Sue smiles for approximately three seconds… …then her face changes. She steps closer to the tank. “What happened to my fish?” Oh Christ. My organs begin shutting down one by one. I brace for impact. The screaming. The tears. The bankruptcy. Potential prison time. Sue turns sharply towards me. “You’ve been overfeeding them.” My heart violently restarts. “Oh.” “Look how fat they are.” “Right. Yes. Guilty as charged.” She shakes her head. “Honestly. Men.” I don’t correct her. At this point she could accuse me of arson and I’d thank her for her understanding. We carry the tank out to her van together. Sue seems genuinely happy. Relaxed. Lighter than she’s looked in months. Maybe the holiday helped. Maybe everybody needs to leave their real life behind before it swallows them whole. Before she climbs into the driver’s seat, she surprises me with a hug. “Thank you for looking after my babies.” And there it is again. That awful guilt. Heavy. Permanent. I smile weakly. “Anytime,” I say. “They were no bother.” Sue grins. Then pauses. “Oh — one more thing.” My stomach drops. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small envelope. Inside is a photograph. Two fish. Pablo and Pedro. Only these fish are completely different. Bright gold markings. Long elegant fins. Not even remotely the same fish currently swimming in her tank. I stare at the photo. Then at Sue. Then back again. Sue smiles slowly. “The originals died three years ago,” she says casually. “I replaced them before this holiday.” Silence. “What?” “Couldn’t bear to tell anyone,” she shrugs. “Been swapping them ever since.” I blink at her. “You mean these aren’t—” “Oh, those aren’t Pablo and Pedro either,” she says, nodding towards the tank. “But close enough.” She pats my arm. “You’d be amazed what people don’t notice when they feel guilty already.” Then she climbs into the van and drives away smiling, while I stand at my gate, wondering if I’ve just been psychologically outmanoeuvred by a woman under five foot tall with two fake fish, unresolved grief, and a Royal Mail pension.