Cristina and I drove into El Port de la Selva late afternoon looking for a place to have some lunch. At the place that we tried first – a nice place on the first floor of the building and with a long terrace facing the harbour – they told us quite nicely that the kitchen was closed but that we might want to try El Café de Espanya a few hundred metres on from them. We followed their instructions and ambled over to the place. The staff received us with warmth and gestured for us to occupy a corner table, perched over the narrow strand of beach and facing the channel that leads into the marina. Around and behind us; a number of tables occupied by a few small groups of patrons chatting quietly amongst themselves over something cold. Before us, the harbour scene; all the elements to the composition bobbing about placidly in the gentle swell – masts like slow metronomes – and all this to the accompaniment of steel rigging slapping aluminium, a sound that makes me think of half a dozen peas being shaken gently in a tin. Just to our left were two beached rowing boats. The  narrow beach stretches on for another twenty metres, past another bar before it runs into the concrete jetty that stretches out into the harbour. Four young boys, with their fishing rods, sat facing us with their legs dangling over the side whilst they gazed into the water. I imagine they were about ten years old. From where we sat, the late afternoon June sunlight seemed to cut them into darkened silhouettes.

We ordered a couple of beers and a few tapas and settled into our seats to take in the view. Between sips of our cold beers we discussed our weekend and some of the photos we had been taking. The kids by now had jumped off the jetty and were wading about in the water that came up to their knees. I stabbed at the Pulpo a la Gallega, popping a juicy morsel in my mouth, and watched one of them reach into the water and pull out a rather large octopus by its head. The four of them began to giggle and chatter excitedly as the lad held the squirming animal at arms length. I felt rather sorry for the creature, watching it struggle to free itself from the child’s grasp. I know octopi are clever and sensitive creatures and their intelligence has been likened to that of a household cat. We watched them for a minute or so, mopping up the last slices of tentacle from the plate, as we muttered our feelings of sympathy for the desperate little thing. I gestured to the waiter to ask him for another round of beers and we turned back to talking about other things.

The yelping and splashing about behind me and slightly to my left got progressively louder before I noticed that everyone’s attention around us was now focussed on what the kids were up to. I turned back around to see that, like a pack of little wild animals, they were tossing the creature around to their squeals of delight. Octopi have sharp beaks rather like that of a parrot and every time one of them reached into the water to pick it up I rather hoped it would nip them hard on the hand. It was clearly still alive as its tentacles wrapped themselves desperately around their arms each time they pulled it out of the water. A few of those around us were laughing but others were less amused. I suddenly felt a flash of anger. “This isn’t right” I said to Cristina. “I’m going to speak to them”. I stood up from my chair, jumped off the terrace onto the sand and marched over to where they were with clenched fists and feeling red in the face. They were quite oblivious of me as I turned to face them.

“Chicos!!! Que coños están haciendo? What the hell do you think you are doing?”

They froze. I glared at them for a moment.

“What you are doing is barbaric.” I paused…

“ Now that you have caught it, if you plan to eat it, then kill it. But kill it now…with a hard blow to the head. Otherwise, let it go. What you are doing is cruel. Think about it!”

I looked at each of them in the eyes and they all averted my gaze except for the boy who was holding the octopus. He glared straight back at me. Not with defiance but rather with a look of utter indifference.

“Yes sir. Perhaps in that case we should put him back where we found him.”

I looked at all four of them in turn again before nodding my consent to the boy. With this I felt my shoulders relax and as I walked back along the beach I caught myself making that “humph” sound my father makes when he has given someone a piece of his mind.

As I got back to our table and sat down I looked over to see that the boy was still looking at me. He then turned and flung the creature with all his strength in a high arch over the jetty. I think I heard the splash as it hit the water on the other side. The four of them hopped back up, out of the water, collected their fishing rods and sauntered off languidly out of sight into the streets behind us.