By the time you read this, I won’t be here. Hush now. I’m not ‘going to Belgium’. This Pchum Ben I’ve booked three weeks of Me-Time aboard a Liberia-registered beam trawler to join the infamous Murmansk-Spitsbergen sturgeon muster. It’s a notion I’ve been woolgathering since childhood: the sting of gale-smacked salt on my cheeks as I stuff them with snus. A hearty cod mulligan at the end of a long haul, whipped up by an avuncular yet somehow sexy ex-legionnaire with an uncanny resemblance to Jean Reno. Sat round the wireless whittling scrimshaw and listening to the shipping news with Ronnie, the bosun’s cat. Chunky cream cable knits. Lashings of rum. From the brochure I understand that my real-life shipboard adventure will be somewhat more taxing. On the MV Nanjing Pluck there’ll be just me, the doomcrack of icebergs calving as the polar caps melt us all to hell, and 18 trainee deckhands from Norway wearing thigh-high rubber wellingtons. So not much Me-Time, then.
In an effort to outfox impending midlife entropy I’ve embarked on a personal rewilding project that includes this jaunt to points North: I’m thrilled to my Stubings to be setting sail for the high seas. But my Life Partner isn’t as ecstatic about his first mate leaving CharmingVille for so long just to chow down on puffin or circumnavigate icy bollards or some such with a bunch of steam-breathing Yngwes. For the seven years we’ve been together, we’ve spent just two days apart. Actually I was watching TV and he was sleeping off a rice-wine bender in the next room and time got away from us. But we’re having to think for three now that we’re saddled with our partially-abled furry albatross, The Bunster. So mainly because I’m bigger than him, my heart’s captain gets the short straw and stays behind to tend the needy Long John lagomorph. To help them make it through I’ve been up till sparrow’s, freezing 21 days worth of microwaveable casseroles, grown a pot of dill and there’s a case of Bombay Sapphire chilling in the vegetable crisper. Odds on neither will notice I’m gone till I’m back and unpacking 30 kilos of salted Minke cheeks on the lounge-room floor.
Hubster’s the strong silent type, with a romantic bone not instantly visible to the naked eye. I’ve come to accept empty vases on Valentine’s Day, though he does take out the bins every Tuesday night and I can’t say fairer than that. But I know my upcoming absence must be sinking in somewhat because for the very first time he suggested we overnight at Kep together. He even organised the car. Maybe I watch too much Law & Order – and I do; don’t judge me – but the suggestion of a romantic trip away was so out of character I looked for any concealed weaponry and/or the scent of bitter almonds in the curried-egg sandwiches he made for the trip down. All clear. Miracolo. So last weekend we left our furry faux child thrusting manfully at the chesterfield and eating his own poo and went to Kep for 24 hours.
Our driver, Lot, put up with an unacceptable number of shit jokes about his name once the license-plate game had palled. We managed the journey without hitting anything. Excellent. And then, voila, we’re there. The weather was rather dramatic, so we repaired to the relative shelter of a seaside crab temple.
Have you ever seen a windspoon? I never had until then. As my burly hammocked arse gently grazed the floorboards in a post-prandial nap-fest, I lapped in and out of a warm Angkor reverie, listening to the ardent bicker of two rambunctious geckos getting on each other’s tit-end in the palm-thicket roof above. Considering they’re really just tiny flesh tubes with no teeth (though admittedly supernatural suckery feet), those little buggers can wake a person right up. I was about to launch an immaculately Hoovered crab shell in their direction when I noticed a dirty old rice spoon tied to a bit of string under the eaves on the sea side.
We were all stumped, including Hubster, my erstwhile oracle of Cambodian-ness. The waitress said they protected against storms and calmed the wind. I don’t believe in that stuff, but admit it was quite blustery out – enough to blow the White Lady’s skirt right off her dimpled bum. In our little sea shanty, we remained fully clothed and unruffled. A while later we hauled ourselves into the Camry and headed for the hotel. Tucked away in my overnighter was my own personal windspoon, gifted me by the crab lady: a humble plastic talisman to protect me from whatever the Barents might have on its briny mind.
All aboard and see you soon, me hearties.