Damien was sat in his bivvy, slowly shaking his head and wondering just how he had managed to end up in this position. On the plus side, it was a surprisingly mild December evening, he was fishing beside his favourite lake, and he had a nice warm five season sleeping bag if he wanted to get his head down for a few hours zzz’s later.
The only, and to him elephant-sized, fly in this otherwise idyllic unguent, was the presence of the mobile compost heap that was his dear uncle Donald who was sitting just outside, fortunately downwind, puffing on his obnoxious pipe. As always a string of seemingly unrelated events had brought this about.
Firstly, Damien’s parents did their usual Christmas thing and planned a few days’ away doing the family duty thing and visiting distant relatives. Damien had long been excused attendance at these gatherings, as early on in his teenager years he had perfected the art of the all-day sulk. Donald’s advancing years also counted against him ‘doing the rounds’. Firstly, for the long journeys involved meaning innumerable comfort breaks en route; secondly, for the need to keep at least one window open during the entire trip for very necessary ventilation and thirdly, on arrival, for the interminable reminiscing about the good old days once the sherry and old photos came out.
As soon as they said they were going away for a few days Damien announced he was off fishing but his mum said she wasn’t too happy about Donald being left at home all alone. Donald said he would be OK; he was going to sit out in the garden watching a meteor shower that was due over that weekend. Now that really worried Donald’s mum, the thought of the old boy out in the cold on his own: What if something happened? What if he fell over in the dark? He might hurt himself, or get hypothermia or worse…
She could never forgive herself if anything occurred and to this end Damien was roped in to act as babysitter. It took a lot of persuasion, and not a small amount of cash, because if he had to take him out fishing with him Damien insisted on Donald having his own bivvy. He most certainly was not about to spend a night in close proximity to the old git So his parents had to shell out for a new bivvy and sleeping bag – Donald got the old ones.
Now ‘old’ was a relative term in respect of Damien’s tackle; six months was about the limit for his gear and, along with the new stuff, provisions resembling a bumper Harrods’ hamper were assembled for just the one night on the bank. Having emptied wallets and purses and having checked, and double checked, the weather centre to ensure clement conditions were forecast Damien’s parents set off, with warnings of dire consequences ringing in his ears should anything happen to Donald after they had invested so much in his well being.
And so Damien and Donald arrived at the lakeside for their night out together, Damien having to unload the mountain of gear by himself and set up both bivvies in double quick time. This was partly in deference to Donald’s advancing years but mostly because he couldn’t wait to get fishing and knew that left to his own devices Donald would take forever and probably manage to erect his bivvy upside down and inside out.
In no time at all the camp was set up, rods were out and Damien, with his mother’s stern warnings about Donald’s well being ringing in his ears made sure the old boy had everything for his night vigil of stargazing. He unpacked a flask of soup, took a bottle of whisky out of the hamper and proffered a travel rug to put over his legs to keep out the cold, not quite expecting the response he got.
“Cold!” exclaimed Donald. “Let me tell you when I was in India I spent one winter up the Khyber Pass with the Scots Guards. They reckoned it was so cold if they squeezed a fart out from under their kilts it would freeze into a bubble, and if they were very careful they could then model them like toy balloons.”
With an image in his mind that he would find difficult to erase, Damien went back to his bivvy; he had just sat down when Donald popped his head round the corner and waved a battered old canvas bag under Damien’s nose. “Give us a hand to get this going, young ‘un’” he said.
Damien sighed, “What piece of junk have you got there?” His voice was tempered with the certain knowledge that whatever was going to be produced would be some clapped out piece of God knows what.
A battered glass and brass contraption was dragged out of the bag and Donald waved it under Damien’s nose. “This is what you need for a night out laddie, gives you light and heat, perfect; and it’s a lot better than those fiddle–de-dee lights you’ve got.”
“Fiddle-de-dee lights?” said a puzzled Damien, “That’s L.E.D. lights you old goat. I bet that thing’s so old you’ve got to take it up Mount Olympus to get it going.”
“No laddie, this is a classic paraffin lamp, might be an antique, you just give it a few pumps for me and I’ll be set for the night.”
“Oh really, and just why would I be doing that then?” queried Damien.
“A bit too strenuous for me, what with me pacemaker and all.” replied Donald, The mention of the ’P’ word brought a groan from Damien. He’d had more than enough experience of what ‘having a pacemaker’ allowed Donald to do, or much more likely, didn’t allow him to do.
Reluctantly, Damien took the lamp and gingerly pumped the plunger. “No, laddie” said Donald, “you’ll have to go faster than that to get the pressure up, the washer is a bit perished.” Hmmm… “It’s a pity you haven’t perished yet,” thought Damien as he pumped harder…
SUDDENLY there was a blinding flash and the air was filled with smoke. “WTF…!!” cried Damien, “Your piece of junk has nearly killed us.”
The two of them sat stunned for a moment, then leaned back in their chairs as a ghostly figure appeared, wreathed in smoke. “I am the spirit of the lamp” boomed the apparition, “I am at your command, and you may have one wish each.”
“Hang on,” said Damien, who had been to enough pantomimes to know the rules, “Surely we should get three wishes?” The situation may have been unbelievably bizarre but even he knew there was a certain protocol to be followed in such circumstances.
The apparition boomed back: “One wish each, limited to £1000, no cash, any goods and services you choose are not refundable or transferrable, refer to T & C’s. I am only allowed out once every forty years and at the moment there is a double–dip recession on, you know.” Having qualified the offer the apparition folded its arms and looked sternly at both of them.
“Oh well” said Donald, “Let’s get our thinking caps on, best not look a gift horse in the mouth, eh laddie.” his face was beaming, and he was swinging his legs under his chair and gleefully rubbing his hands together.
Damien’s eyebrows were so high up his face it looked like he had put his head out of a car window at 100mph. “Is it just me that can see there is something not right with this picture…?”
The spirit spoke again: “You have thirty seconds to think of what you want, or the offer expires.”
Damien looked across to Donald; the old boy had his head tilted back, eyes closed, deep in thought and was twiddling his thumbs. This whole thing was utter madness, but all the same, £1000, what could he get with that? Those two new carp rods he had been looking at in an up market tackle catalogue sprung immediately to mind. Custom built, 3.5lb test, matching pair and a bargain at £499 each, that would do nicely. A smile spread over his face, but then a strange feeling crept over him.
Twenty seconds to go and he found another thought pushing itself into his brain. A week before, Donald had mentioned that he had a letter from the last remaining friend he had left from his days in India. Said friend was on his last legs apparently and Donald had expressed a desire to make one final trip back to the old empire, before he too shuffled off. But the price of the ticket was around £1000 and there was no way he could afford that, what with him being a pensioner etc.
That strange feeling was Damien’s conscience and he didn’t like it one little bit: new rods or a ticket to India? No contest, it had to be the rods for himself, hadn’t it? The old git would ask for the tickets wouldn’t he? Then that feeling came back, Damien knew that if nothing else that Donald was a soft touch and he would probably ask something stupid like a year’s supply of dog food for the local animal shelter. New rods or ticket, ticket or new rods? Damien’s mind was spinning now. Ticket, new rod, new rod, ticket….?
“TIME UP – CHOICES MADE!” thundered the voice.
Damien’s mind cleared immediately, as did the mist. He spun around, left and right, the spirit had gone too; he shook his head hard, had he dreamt all that? He looked down and in his hand was surprised to find that there was an envelope, he carefully opened the flap and inside was an airline ticket for a return trip to India, he closed his eyes, shook his head even harder and pinched himself.
He opened his eyes again and the ticket was still there. He looked round and saw Donald beaming back at him with what appeared to be a rod bag in each hand. “And just what have you got there?” asked Damien as it certainly didn’t look like 200 cans of dog food. “Well laddie, I saw these in that catalogue you left lying around, they look to be just the thing for a spot of mahseer fishing up the Brahmaputra”
Donald didn’t get to finish his sentence as in one move Damien thrust the ticket in Donald’s hand and snatched the rods away. Damien started rambling, “But you’re not going to India you old coot, you said you can’t afford it, and as you can’t afford it, why didn’t you ask for a ticket? And anyway, I asked for the rods, that stupid spirit thing just got them mixed up.”
“No, laddie, I asked for the rods; I heard yesterday that I’ve got my travel and accommodation for India all paid for. Apparently a newspaper got wind of the planned reunion and is going to cover it as some sort of human interest story, so I asked for these rods to…”
Donald’s voice trailed off as he looked at Damien’s hand, the rod bags had started to go limp, and then they fell over in a cloud of dust. He then looked down at his own hand and as he did so the ticket turned to confetti and the pieces fell to the ground and melted away like snowflakes.
Damien and Donald stared at one another for a few seconds, and then Damien broke the silence, “Just what the hell happened there..?” Donald rubbed his whiskery chin, and replied, “It was you laddie, the spirit said ‘No Transfers’ and you did.”
“NO, NO, NO!” shouted Damien, “It’s not me, that stupid spirit got things mixed up, I’ll get it back.” He grabbed the lamp and stated pumping furiously…
“You weren’t listening laddie; the spirit said it was only allowed out every forty years.” Strangely, Damien didn’t find Donald’s pearls of wisdom very helpful as he pumped the lamp so fast it was surprising that it didn’t self-combust, but to no avail.
Damien slumped back in his chair shaking his head and even Donald’s conciliatory words that ‘you don’t miss what you’ve never had’ were lost on him. Even telling him how proud he was of his nephew for asking for the airline ticket couldn’t make up for the fact that Damien had those rods in his hands for the briefest moment.
A dejected Damien went inside his bivvy, dragged a bottle of port from the hamper and set about trying to wipe out the memory of what had just occurred, even though he had trouble believing it had happened in the first place. The rest of the evening passed without incident, Damien’s baits weren’t troubled and his alarms didn’t break the silence at all, unlike his snoring.
Donald’s stargazing didn’t go to plan either as the relative warmth of the evening had been brought about by dense cloud cover, meaning that the hoped for celestial display passed by obscured and unobserved.
By mid-morning the following day Damien had had enough and he and Donald packed up in relative silence, no mention was made of the previous night’s events, neither knowing quite what to say about what had, or maybe hadn’t, happened.
When they got back home, Damien literally chucked all of the tackle back into the garage, he had just finished unloading and was stacking up the chairs when he noticed a small white triangle sticking out from under his chair seat.
Frowning deeply, he pulled it out slowly…to discover it was the empty envelope that the airline ticket had once been in…
