‘Listen to me,’ says the lady beggar to the man topping up his Oyster. ‘I don’t know how I am going to get home, worse yet I’m alone and I have to feed my baby.’

‘Sorry,’ he says to her and me, next in the queue. He hurries a ten pound note into the machine. The machine spits it out, almost into the begging bowl of her hands.

He snatches the note up crossly, smooths a palm across the face of the Queen.

She turns to me, ‘Please? I don’t know how to get home. Worse yet …’

Where did you learn to speak like that? I wonder. You’d get a job on the phones at my work, no worries. Vicky’d love you. I’ve been looking too long at her instead of the Oyster machine so it asks,

‘Do you require more time?’

She opens her mouth into a wide grin; flash of gold tooth in mouth of brown, treasure hidden in seaweed.

‘Please…’ her every syllable is clear and enunciated. You’d probably do better than me, always getting in trouble for my flat, broad Australian accent. Do better than Anastasia from Poland for saying her y’s as jays and Cece from France for the melody of her English. She sighs, I select ‘pay by card’, half-listening to the soliloquy.

Her fingers, so crusted with filth, dance by her mouth; her short nails hacked down to the quick like that remind me of my Dad’s. His broad hands worn from holding the rod, from too many fish hooks snarling into his palms, from oyster cuts, from bait and salt, fishing line and fags.

The first time you met my Dad he was cutting his nails with pliers.

‘Hi Poppi darl,’ he said, not looking up.

‘Dad, this is Emma.’ We stood there in our matching school dresses, matching pony tails, holding matching folders, your scrawny brown legs, my mozzie-bitten pink ones.

‘G’day,’ Dad said with a nod.

We tried to be very quiet in my room.

Later after you left he asked, ‘Your mate an Abo?’

I looked at him square. ‘She’s a fuckin’ mermaid.’

That’s what you’d said the last time someone asked ‘What are ya Emma? Asian or what?’

The begging grubby hands make the universal symbol for ‘food’ then ‘money’ and then ‘baby’ like I’m deaf, like I might need a sign language explanation because I’m a bit ‘special’ when actually she’s the one asking strangers for money and I’m the one who’s on her way to work, contributing to the economy and society via my taxes and okay maybe it’s not the greatest job, offering technical support to people who can’t manage their daily deals and are struggling to book a discount cream tea in a three star hotel or a nail treatment but it’s six quid an hour and I am not the weirdo here.

She rolls her eyes and sighs. ‘Look’ she says, and raises her eyebrow like she’s better than everything. She lifts up her filthy top: the collar is wet, like it’s been chewed but by who? (dog? her? this alleged baby?) Her breasts are like wholemeal buns. She squeezes one and the hard pink nipple dribbles milk onto her sticking out rib. She has a tattoo (daisy? starfish?) near her belly button.

‘See it is for my baby,’ as if I was the one who forced her to show her tits to explain.

‘INSERT YOUR CARD NOW,’ says the machine.

God, everyone is so demanding.

Finally, finally Your oyster card has been topped up appears on the screen.

‘No,’ I say to the breasts, to the soft brown skin, topped with a pink bud and a milk bead.

On the train, I remember when you told me they were called areolae that time at the beach, and I thought it was the rudest word I’d ever heard. Much ruder than cunt which you also taught me. Then you popped yours out of your bikini top and stood there as the waves rushed round your ankles and the tide came in.

‘Can you reach yours with your tongue?’ you asked. Then you lapped at your own breast and I stood very still, thinking if I moved all the waves inside of me would rush out.

I get off at Hackney Central and walk towards the ‘office’, which is actually a storeroom full of phones above a Londis.

Today the sun only just catches the top of the gold fish tail that erupts from the roof of Wally Herbert and Sons seafood stall.

‘Morning lovey,’ says Wally Herbert, or one of the sons.

I nod morning back, turn around for the last glimpse of the fat golden fish caught in the net of Hackney Road. I arrive at our cubicle to Anastasia meowing at me and brandishing her hands. She’s had her nails done, each tip now a tiny kitten face, each with its own lolling pink kitten tongue.

‘Are they not so cute?’

The kittens enter data all day long, the typing made excruciatingly loud as they pounce on the keys.

By the time I pass Wally’s again, the fish tail is black against the dark blue sky, lit up gold by the flash of bus headlights.

He’s putting prawns in a bag for a tiny old woman with his big red meat hand.

He sees me. ‘Well well well, that time of the week again innit! Fish Wednesday.’

I nod. The old woman shuffles away stooped over and low to the ground and I correct my spine. My shoulders creak from being crouched over the phone all day.

‘Snapper’s good.’ He points to the last two red fish. They stare up dumbly next to the cockles and whelks and other bits of British sea food that I’ve never eaten. It all seems so tiny and full of shell compared to the enormous mussels shining with mother of pearl insides, those huge oysters Dad would shuck, whistling The Ballad of Moreton Bay standing up at the sink. Then both of us sitting wide legged on the couch, holding half a lemon each, then easing those babies out and sucking them down.

You on the beach doing the twist in the sand, buried up to the ankle making the pipis come up then chucking them in a red bucket with a blue seal on it. ‘Pipis for my Poppy.’ You held my hand and we ran along the beach to your house, empty because your Granddad had gone bush for a bit. You cooked them for me in cream and sloshed a bit of wine into the pot and into my mouth from the bottle. I kiss your cheek, ‘Thanks Emma.’ You move so I’m kissing your mouth, grazing my lips across your lips and back the other way. You taste like the sea and coke lip gloss. ‘You’re welcome,’ you grin.

Wally or son of Wally’s hand is the same colour as the red snapper. He picks the fish up and thuds it onto the paper. He turns round to the gut the fish, bones it, fillets it; his knife glints against the dark sky. He chucks heart and guts into a bin full of odd fish parts, spines, rotten bodies, octopus tentacles. He is quicker than Dad, but not as neat. Sometimes a vessel, red for blood or brown for stomach is left in the fish and I have to wash it out at home.

‘Can you wrap the tail for my—

‘—for your cat I know, my lovey.’

I wonder if the cat’s out of the bag. If he knows that the cat is imaginary.

He wraps it up anyway and hands me both parcels with a wink.

When I get off the train, she’s there again of course. A little way down, standing outside the Iceland. She’s asking for money in her posh voice from people weighed down by cheese cake, pan pizza, one hundred Indian starters for five pounds and children.

‘Ain’t got no money,’ a man says with a kid on his shoulders and a hand full of hamburger patties. He’s not aggressive, more perplexed, like why would you ask me? Is it not obvious that I have no cash?

She recognises me, grins her pirate smile, ‘As you know, I’m having some trouble getting home.’ She gestures pointedly to her breast, in case I’d forgotten. I hand her the bigger parcel, because, like Dad’d say, it’s good to know when you’re beaten.

‘Hope your baby likes fish.’

She laughs, her mouth a wide rock pool.

Walking home I feel lighter, relieved that I don’t have to go through all the rigmarole of cooking the fish. I buy a pound’s worth of chips to celebrate and get full on.

Then, like every week, I sit at my desk by the window and can’t see any stars. I unwrap my fish tail and you come back to visit.

You stand there, ocean behind you, naked and proud. ‘Come in Poppy. Come on! No one’ll even see.’

I hold the tail where it’s been hacked off from the rest of the fish through the softest part of the back bone. I brush my hands over the slick mohawk of a tail, against the grain – messing up the fishy hairs – then righting the grain again.

I hold the fish tail up to the window and it looks like it’s diving into all the lights of London: red scales sparkle against a black sea of sky. My tears look like milk from a breast, like pearls from an oyster.

‘Don’t worry,’ you say, ‘I’ll swim across to you.’

About Rosa Campbell

Originally from Sydney, Rosa Valerie Campbell is a 28 year old writer based in London. She has just finished her first novel and is enjoying writing short fiction, poetry, reviews and work for theatre. Her work has appeared in published in Voiceworks, Cellar Door, The Letters Page and others. Her immersive theatre works What I War Today: A play about Primark was put on as part of Futurespark Festival and The Fortress was part of Big Noise Festival. Her poetry is being showcased at Noted Festival in March, 2015. She loves hot strong coffee, her new rucksack and artistic collaborations, so do get in touch.

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