The Fish Market, Split 

I have always loved fish - watching them them dart about in the shallows of the river near The Old School House - tiny silvery torpedoes amongst the river weed - or snarfing them with gusto - the trout lying on the white plate like a sacrificial captive, garlanded with watercress -

I first discovered sea bass in The American Bar - I was slurping bumpers of False Bay Pinotage with Richard - it was an evening in early summer - there were women in tight dresses, smiling at their glowering boyfriends - I could smell salt and diesel oil from the Inner Camber, where the fishing boats were moored -

But in the Fish Market, not far from the Narodni Trg, there was no glamour, only the strange beauty of the dead sea creatures, with their glistening tentacles, or lacy fins -

We saw saw drifts of mussels, their jet black shells marked with swirls of white - we marvelled at the weird shapes of squid and octopus - chunky oysters had ridged, uncompromising, carapaces - the eyes of the heaped up fish were like tiny coins -

We could hear, all around us, prices being shouted out, praises being sung of the stilled, limp, shapes upon wet marble slabs - gnarled marineros swigged from green bottles of Karlovacko beer - old women smoked Yorks, handled their scales with the skill and delicacy of neurosurgeons -

I thought of Michel Faber's unsettling and savage satire, Under The Skin - suppressing a shudder, I walked out, with Anne, into the dazzling noon -