The pelican, the boat and Ellen

Pelican, Lake Macquarie, Australia. ©Paul Foley/Lightmoods. Buy a print

He hadn’t taken notice before Ellen passed. He’d often seen a pelican sitting on the stern many times but hadn’t considered it was the same one. It was easy to tell it had been visiting there for a while, though. A pelican’s shit is hard to hide.

The little wooden row boat sat out on the lake as though moored in a time warp. It had been a long time since the old man, standing on the shore, had actually used it. After rain, he would wade out across the lake bed, toes squishing through the matted seaweed to bail it out. Sometimes he would give the painted wood a cursory clean. More often, though, he panned past it through his binoculars from the balcony of his lakeside home.

It was a part of his life he had left behind. He hadn’t noticed at first. And now, he couldn’t even remember the first Saturday he missed a pre dawn fishing expedition.

He had built the boat himself in another time when things were done that way. Long ago, he would row. Age, in time, introduced a little putt-putt outboard to meander him around his part of the lake. Hands, much less weathered then, would guide the bow around the point. The small motor’s pace was in scale to the short distance travelled, making it seem a journey to a place far away.

Their house was not visible once he rounded the point and the view from that side was so different. The lake’s shore was not developed here, the bush ran down to a rocky edge and the cold, green water told its depth.

It wasn’t a great place to catch fish but it had always been the perfect place to appear to fish. All the serenity without the hassle of the actual catch. Real fisher folk wouldn’t bother him — they knew better places where fish gathered. The narrowness of the bay also made it less suitable for powerboats with skiers in tow.

So it was usually quite. Except when jet skis arrived. Bloody jet skis he’d say. Even they soon left, though. There was never anyone on the lake shore to show off to.

Now, he stood down on the edge of the lake across the road from his house. Gnarled, craggy feet and legs blotchy with age were soaking in the shallow warm water. It was a hot day, no wind, only still, heavy air smothering the landscape. But not it’s colours. The light, on these days, thrives in the inferno. Colours are thrust like spears at your eyes.

So there the man stood, 20 meters from the large bird perched where he once commanded his vessel. It’s pure black and white strong against the blue. The pelican refused to look at him and he knew it knew he was there. It was too hot to shout or shoo it away and why would he want to anyway? Sure, it was his boat but that pelican was making better use of it than he had for quite a while. The white stains of its excrement plastered, as if a flag of possession, across the bow.

Ellen would be laughing. He knew she had noticed that first Saturday morning ‘fishing’ excursion he’d missed. Nothing said at the time. Or on the Saturdays after. Soon, she found other things for them to do. Before long, the habit of not fishing on the other side of the point wasn’t even a memory. Until today.

And here he was now, half considering to reclaim the boat. Not to go not fishing. Just to be in that time again. Before his arthritis made hauling the outboard to his boat too hard. When Ellen was around.

It was then he smiled, only a little and partly within. Those facial muscles, unused for a few months now, still worked. Sort of. After the finality of such loss his smile needed more rehabilitation. And time.

No matter how strong a relationship is, 57 years is a long time. But they had been so interested in each other, with honesty and passion, for all those decades. With such a bond, the expectation of each others presence is a given. Even when you know it is not.

Ellen’s death had been hard to deal with. Very hard.

But now he had smiled at a thought of her. It had been a while. There had been lots of thinking but until now, not a smile. Which was strange. She had brought his life so much joy and there was much to smile about.

So here he stood, old toes enjoying the warm water and squishy seaweed. No sadness, no anger, no despair. Only a happy memory prompted by a pirate pelican crapping on his boat.