FISHING WITH JACOB
Short Story
By
Gary Bills
Snapper
Nark is the gamekeeper, and the lives of honest poachers have been made a
misery, ever since his Lordship presented him with a Box Brownie camera. That’s
why I call him Snapper; that was not his given name, of course, when he was a
bawling baby at the font; and to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t know his
Christian name, although I can think of one or two suggestions that might be
suitable. These, however, could never be spoken in the presence of ladies, or
indeed, within earshot of a clergyman.
Like most bullies, Snapper prides himself on
being fair. He delights in presenting his victims with a photograph, by way of
a final warning. Ignore that warning, and you are up in front of the
Magistrates, cap in hand. The images Snapper takes are many and varied. He took
one of a poacher’s bike, concealed in a hedgerow. He even took one of a
courting couple, as they rose from flattened grass on private land. (I ask you,
how can flattened grass be ‘criminal damage’?)
In my case, he handed me the photograph of a
uniformed soldier.
That lad is fishing where he shouldn’t be
fishing, among the private reeds, surrounded by the private mud. That spot is
on his Lordship’s pool. It is right next to the boathouse, and I should
know. Snapper reckoned the culprit was
my son, Jacob.
Well, it was no use explaining that Jacob
had been posted to Korea, some three weeks before that picture was developed.
Nark didn’t believe me, and if I loathed the
man before, I hated him even more after that. Nobody jabs me in the chest and
shouts into my face at point-blank range. One day there will be consequences,
you mark my words. There’s doing your job and there’s being a git. Despite my
protestations, Nark warned me - and mine - to stay away from his Lordship’s
pool; and to be fair, although that figure is both distant and slightly
blurred, it does look like Jacob.
I told Nark that it must be another young
chap on National Service, just casting a line at dawn. It couldn’t have been a
picture of my son.
No, there was no need for me to keep that
photograph; but I keep it in my inside jacket pocket all the same. It’s been
there for two years now because, you see, I love that pool. If only I could,
I’d be there night and day. If I couldn’t fish it, I’d sit there, if only for
the peace and quiet.
I often fish that very spot, and usually
Jacob joins me. In fact, we’ll be risking the wrath of Snapper Nark this
evening, because there is a certain big carp we’d love to see on the bank.
Jacob and I will be fishing throughout the
night, as usual, next to the boathouse.
To my mind, we are not poachers. If we catch
that massive old wild carp, we’ll admire it, weigh it and return it. The thrill
is in the pursuit and the joy is in the contemplation. But we’ll have to be
stealthy, as always. In any case, what right does his Lordship have when it
comes to that pool? He’s only passing through, waving his wallet and his title.
That pool was formed when the glaciers retreated, about 10,000 years ago, and I
reckon my family has lived around these parts for about that long. We Owstons
are a part of this landscape. We’ve drunk the waters and imbibed the soil, and
I do think such things matter.
Wordsworth’s my man, if I had to choose any
poet, and he put it rather well – this sense of belonging -
No
outcast he, bewildered and depressed:
Along
his infant veins are interfused
The
gravitation and the filial bond
Of
nature that connect him with the world.
Yes, belonging was my birthright. After all,
a solitary raindrop suggests the possibility of a lake or an ocean. It is only
water, when all is said and done; but water can both diminish and increase.
Like time – like the hours, minutes and seconds, it passes through the gills of
a fish, while that creature breathes and swims, where it has always stirred;
while it dreams through all the secrets it has filtered. It’s just the same
with people, and with families also, if they remain long enough in one place.
The fish embodies the pool and we Owstons embody the valley. It’s as plain and
simple as that.
Of course, those carp were stocked as
fasting food for Tudor monks. They only go back so far, to the waning days of
painted Dooms and ill-lit chapels; and this is even true of the carp we call Leviathan,
after that great big bugger in the Bible. It’s the monarch of the pool and
at least three feet in length. If other species of fish are swimming there,
from earlier times - perhaps a coiling eel or a monstrous tench, as rotund as a
beach ball – well, they must be very strange by now, those fish. Perhaps they
can still recite their Pater Nosters, or else recall a song of passion, heard
from passing minstrels.
I have to stop and smile at myself at times.
I have such strange notions! But little makes me smile these days. For every
glimmer there’s a shadow, as my father used to say. Needless to add, he did not
live or die a happy man.
Tonight, - well, tonight I’ll be bringing my
shotgun again, even though Jacob says I shouldn’t. But I know that if Nark
finds us, he’ll probably level his gun and I will certainly level mine, and
only one of us will walk away.
Jacob
and I must have poached the pool on eight occasions since my little
altercation, and it’s down to Nark’s good fortune that he hasn’t come across me
during that time. It’s not that I want trouble, but the man humiliated me once,
and it won’t be happening again. I don’t really care if he has a wife and
child. I suppose I am an angry man. I know that, really; and Nark should know
it too.
This said, I’d rather fish than shoot, even
though I keep my rod and my shotgun together, in the same leather holdall. The
gun is wrapped in an oiled canvas rag, in the front pocket, to keep it
functional and dry.
There’s a wooded slope that leads down to
the boathouse, and that makes it a prime spot for any poacher. At night,
looking down from the path from the ridge, you are effectively staring into
darkness. Looking up, especially if there is a moon, you can see the
silhouettes going by. I’ve seen badger silhouettes and deer silhouettes and
even the odd fox or two, but I’ve yet to see Nark’s silhouette, looming above
me; and if I ever do, I’ll be tempted to respond with two barrels. Even now, as
I settle in for another try, my shotgun is out and beside me, still wrapped in
its oily canvas rag.
Yes, there would be one almighty fuss and
the police would be extra busy for a while. But I would leave no clues behind,
only a little local mystery, soon forgotten.
This said, it’s the fishing we’ve come for,
mainly.
If I close my eyes, I can see a blue-grey
shape, like a flexible torpedo, sliding through the glimmer and the ripples.
Most carp look blue-grey like that, when you glimpse them in the water; but get
one on the bank – their flanks are burnished bronze, edged with silver, at
least in my pool. It’s as if they’re wearing armour, and they might be, for
they swam through the age of jousts and pageantry. They also heard the cries of
homeless monks when old King Henry turfed the buggers out. Some say this place is
haunted and you can still hear them crying out, those monks. I never have. It’s
just a lovely, eerie, secluded place.
Jacob was already set up when I arrived. His
favourite spot is just behind a screen of reeds, so Leviathan can’t see him.
I’ve never known a young man with so much patience. He’s unmoving on his
basket, like a statue being Jacob! But it really is the only way. I try
to be still and quiet too, because we wouldn’t want to scare the carp we’re
after.
It’s really getting dark now! I can barely
see Jacob’s silhouette, just three yards away. Even in daylight he’s hard to
spot, mainly because he’s wearing his battle fatigues, and he blends almost
perfectly into the background.
We are both fishing floating crust, as the
weak light fades. It’s a grand technique, because it’s just a MK IV carp rod
and a fixed-spool reel, a line, a hook and a big hunk of crust. The bait is
drifting on the surface, below the rod tip. There’s no line on the surface,
none at all, because that would be a give-away. It’s a cunning, subtle method.
But will it ever fool Leviathan? Sometimes, I have my doubts.
Do you know, time drags more slowly when
you’re out at night, while sound travels exceptionally well. I’ve just heard
the village bell chiming for eleven. I would have thought it was closer to
twelve; but at least there is more time to enjoy the settling calm. The June
night is overcast, clammy and oppressive. I’d love to light my pipe and keep
the midges at bay with my smoke, but I dare not show a light in case Leviathan
is drawing near. I must be still - as still as Jacob.
Now and then, a crescent moon breaks through
and you can see a shimmer on the water. There’s a curious rocking motion on the
surface by the reeds, straight in front of us, and I know it is caused by a
fish. I can sense it through my bones! But the moment passes and the pool goes
flat calm. That’s often the way when you’re after big carp, and I suppose that
the excitement of such a moment makes up for not catching a thing!
But now I’m alert for a different reason.
Footsteps! Footsteps crunching over last year’s beech leaves! It must be
Snapper Nark. Who else would it be, at this hour?
I reach for my shotgun. Now, I’m unwrapping
the canvas, as silently as I can...
I can see him! Nark’s silhouette is on the
little ridge. The moon’s breaking through again, and there’s no mistake! I’m
raising the gun and I’m eager to cock the two hammers... But I’m stopped by a
hand on my hand. Jacob must have crept up without me noticing him. I can’t see
his face properly, but I can make out that he’s shaking his head,
vigorously.
I lower my gun, but now we are in a proper
pickle! If I could stop breathing, then I would, because Nark is standing
there, listening and looking. Why doesn’t he do something – say something? But
now Nark is moving on at last... tramping away in his Harris tweeds and heavy
boots. He couldn’t see us and he didn’t want to come down the slope to
investigate, even if he had his strong suspicions. Perhaps the man is afraid of
dark places? Now, that would be an amusing tale to tell!
It’s less amusing that I have to pack up
early, well before dawn. I can’t risk the chance of Nark returning, perhaps
with his bloody mastiff dog.
Back home, I find that Louisa is waiting up
for me. She’s in her pink nightdress by the kitchen stove; a mug of Ovaltine is
in her hands.
“No good then, Maurice?” she says. Her eyes
are red-rimmed.
I
shake my head. “No good, Louisa,” I say.
Then she asks me, quietly - “You had your
gun with you, again?”
“I did, Louisa,” I say, “and I had a clear
bead on Nark, but I let it go... only because Jacob stopped me, just in time.”
I hear a big sigh that I’m supposed hear.
She clears her throat.
“Maurice,” she says, “don’t you think it’s
time you should see Doctor Arthur, about all of this? A private word, that’s
all I mean...”
“Never! Never!” I say. “Nark will get what
Nark deserves...!”
“But Maurice! Maurice! - when that man
brought the photograph here – the one that upset you so much – how could he have
known? How could he have known that Jacob... Well, - how could the man
have known that?”
I’m
shouting. I’m shouting at Louisa -.
“One day after we had the bad news... when I
was grieving like I hardly know how! One day after the telegram came! - and
Nark comes here, - he comes here with his fucking photograph, and the bloody
man won’t have it! He just wouldn’t have it!”
“But he soon calmed down, Maurice, didn’t
he? - after I explained? And afterwards, his wife sent us a card, and flowers.
They’re decent people, really...”
“But I’m still angry, Louisa! I can’t bear
to think of Jacob being there – in his grave, in Korea! It’s a place we’ll
never see... but at least Jacob is still fishing the pool, with or without
Nark’s permission!”
Louisa has set her mug down, on the stove.
She is crying and wiping her eyes -
“Oh, dear me! - Oh, dear me...!”
“I am sorry, Louisa.”
“Maurice, you listen to me, carefully.
You’re not to go to that pool again. It isn’t good for you. It isn’t
good for us, you understand? I don’t know how much more I can stand of
this. It is time – it is high time to re-join the real world, and to set all
this aside.”
I’m shaking my head. “That I can’t do,
Louisa. You see – you see, if the real world is a place without Jacob, then I
want to be in the world I’m in, thank you very much!”
There’s a long silence. I’m scared. I’m
really scared that Louisa will leave me. But she has another suggestion.
“Very well, Maurice Owston,” she says. “Go
fish your pool, if and when you want to, and then come back to me; but only if
you’ve left that gun at home. You are not to take it! Not anymore! You
understand me?”
I nod my head. “I promise, Louisa,” I say.
I suppose I am still angry, and I always
will be angry – with Nark and with the world; but a promise given is a promise
made, and I will surely keep it.
As Wordsworth expressed it, better than I
ever could -
There
is a comfort in the strength of love;
'Twill
make a thing endurable,
Which
else would overset the brain, or break the heart.
If I still have Louisa, I will be all right.
Everything will be as fine as it can be, in the end.
Yes, - true enough, I know there will be
days when the pool will be calling me back, even while I’m ploughing the fields
and I cannot get away. But at least I’ll have this photograph to look at,
whenever I need to see it.
It’s a blurry, haunting image, when all is said and done; but what it shows is clear enough, I’d say.
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