O is for four crustaceans and a funeral

FOUR CRUSTACEANS AND A FUNERAL

The carrier bag on the floor in the corner of the kitchen had wriggled
so horribly, that at the time there seemed no choice left open to me,
but to lead the eleven of us down to the beach on that rainy December
night.

It had all began with an act of kindness, as the best and most bizarre
stories do, one of those kindnesses that ends in self-loathing,
disappointment and death, you know the type. This particular kindness
was a gift of five crabs for cooking, five hairy-knuckled, deep red and
macho crabs, all wriggling in a Tesco carrier bag.

That morning the fisherman had slipped this bag of crabs to the slender
waitress who hung about the cafe imitating work, in futile expectation
of an invite to dinner. She, being a space cadet and permanently out to
lunch, thought the crabs were like the curries she got from the garage,
ready to cook. When the fisherman had left the cafe and the bag started
its heaving and rustling, her screams woke up old Eric in the corner
and ruined the fervent rhythm of his recurring dream; Shirley Bassey,
naked on a chaise-longue, reciting FA cup winners.

The waitress, now horrified, gave them to a warped and mischievous boy,
a boy so warped that he combed his hair diligently. He sold them to the
man who ran the sailor's museum, and he passed them to me, after his
girlfriend's liberal humanist over-reaction to food that waved its
claws about.

I didn't have any qualms, any immediate moral considerations, or even
any queasiness at the idea of the crabs boiling to death in a big,
shiny pot. I just had one of those almost sexual longings for the taste
of something zesty and real. So I took the crabs home without
hesitation or doubt.

The doubts were brought out in me on my arrival back home. Not
immediately, but through one of those group dynamic things that really
expensive consultants charge millions to describe. When I first arrived
home and suggested a crab feast to my flat-mate, an exquisite and
adventurous cook, her response was fantastically positive. Her cookish
instincts kicked in as she described the dressing and seasoning of the
crabs. I lay the bag on the floor next to the cooker and pulled out the
shiny and expansive pot, filled it with water and set it on the gas
burner.

As we talked and drank tea, I glanced at the bag and noticed that the
heat of the kitchen had somehow aggravated the crabs into fevered
movements. This was when my chef flatmate informed me that I would have
to kill the crabs prior to them going into the big shiny pot.
Discovering that you just don't plop them into boiling water was my
first shock. Her insistence that they must be killed manually, brought
out my innate cowardice and I betrayed several squeamish nancy boy
grimaces. It got worse.

"Stick the knife in the gap between their eyes" the chef told me
lasciviously, "and twist it back and forth until you disconnect their
brain from their body". I made the face of a man unexpectedly
confronted by the beauty of childbirth, and immediately planned to
abscond from all involvement and responsibility.

Luckily, help then arrived in the form of several children scuffing
through the door. The youngest ones, being five or six, reacted to the
news of the crabs with great wonder, which soon transformed into
jittery fear. The middle children, being nine or ten, reacted by
clamouring for a combination of exhibitionism and gore. The older
children, being newbie teenagers, were just embarrassed and
contrary.

I decided to sway their various interpersonal and moral doubts by
suggesting, in one of those rather evil moments of clarity, that we all
traipse down to the beach and release the crabs as a kind of David
Attenborough-ish thing to do.

I did it. I had the crowd behind me in a second. The young citizens
crowed and jabbered with a new-found understanding and mercy for every
living creature. Saved from having to do the dastardly act.

Jamming on overcoats, and fully equipped with sweets, cigarettes and
self-righteousness, we set off into the rainy night and headed for the
beach. Four adults, four children, three teenagers and five crabs in a
carrier bag, in the rain, in the dark, walking the ten minute path to
the beach on a mercy mission.

The journey set the crabs to wriggling, possibly as a result of our
pious blatherings as we walked, and none so pious as myself, the
original crab nemesis. Arriving at the cliff-top we were all soaked
with the rain, but warmed by a sense of derring-do and altruism. Down
the long steps to the beach we snaked, the eleven of us and our five
crabby friends, until we stood on the forlorn cold sand and stared out
over the bleak night sea.

On the sands we instinctively made a rather formal half circle around
the bag, awaiting confirmation that we were creating some kind of minor
miracle. Gingerly, I started to untie the bag, the crabs, which until
now had been just a glimpsed collection of claws and legs and beady
stalked eyes, were now revealed to us. I ripped the bag open and there,
an angry tangle of red crabs, like mutants involved in a vicious game
of alien twister.

Pulling at this leg and that, avoiding the muscular and vicious claws,
I separated them one by one. They sat there, blowing bubbles at no-one
in particular. One was clearly dead, its leg still pinioned in the
claws of another. It was at this moment that I really saw the crabs
properly. To describe them blankly as red crabs was a mistake. The
shells were a dusky gradient of different matt reds, like the surface
of some distant ferrous planet, marked and seasoned by tides, moons and
territorial battles, lived on by enzymic parasites and other tiny
forms. An impossibly rich red when set against the dark jade of the
English Channel. Their heavy ridges perfectly designed to allow no
breach by gull or seal, like an armoured peasant warrior, but a warrior
nonetheless.

Now they sat in the tattered remnants of a carrier bag and I could see
they were already three-quarters dead, and I had led them to this point
without ever looking at them. I could have saved them earlier, by
taking them immediately to the harbour and throwing them in the deep
end, if I had not been so self-devoted and so indulgent. I felt utterly
despondent. For a second.

The children gathered in close and daringly tried to shoo the sluggish
crabs towards the fray of the incoming waves. The crabs, obviously
mustered by some deep instinct which negated their physical distress,
brandished their fearsome claws and spread themselves wide, so wide,
that they almost looked like entirely different creatures. The waves
started to lap at the crabs, and with the exception of the dead one,
they made faltering steps towards the sea. But it was too late, they
had suffered massively during their day on land, and the adults
conspired to keep that reality from the children with knowing looks.
Leaving the crabs to their fate, we led the troupe of impressionable
monsters up the long steps and took them home, via the sweet shop, and
had cheese on toast instead. David Attenborough would have been proud
of us.

The child in me furiously hopes that the crabs embarked on a long march
across the bay, and into the welcoming depths.