The Gift – Part 1

Above the Willow the water was channelled between two steep cliff-like banks. The river was forced into a deep narrow stricture that opened out again for a short run before bending sharply around the great tree.

The current was fast and strong as the pent up river surged on escaping the confines of the high narrow banks. During flooded conditions the raging current was a death trap to any small fish unwary enough to be sucked through this chasm. At these times the living was easy for the pike; all they had to do was lie patiently in the slack water below the old tree, waiting for the casualties that appeared occasionally spinning around senselessly in the back eddy.

A winter deluge had seen the river rise – by two feet – three days earlier and the big predators had fed well. Now, as a gibbous moon chequered the ground below the mighty Willow, and a rimy hoar frost bloomed on the trees and grasses the pike lay quietly sated in their lair.

Above the surface of the river the neighbouring water meadow creaked under its burden of frost. The crystalline tussock grass blinking brightly in the moonlit sonata. In the distance the bold outline of a church spire rose up into the blue velvet night sky, dusted all around with twinkling dots of light. Its resident barn owl patrolled the perimeter of the field, the rustling of its unfortunate quarry echoing loudly to the silent hunter through the sharp, uncluttered air.

A town clock chimed four times in the distance; resonating at length in the thin metallic atmosphere. In a cottage on the outskirts of the town a light flickered dimly as though struggling against the biting cold. A boy sat hunched on the edge of his bed, a duvet draped around him like a cape. In the weakening beam of a small pocket torch he strained to read the print of the well-thumbed book on his lap. His eyes widened as he turned the page to reveal an old black and white photograph of the author proudly cradling a gigantic looking pike. ‘Mr B Eley 32LBS 6OZS’ the caption read.

Peter eyed the picture in awe for some time then pointed the torch to the facing page. ‘River Piking’ the title read and for the hundredth time since his mother had bought him the second hand book for his birthday in the summer, the young lad read the text excitedly.

Peter lived with his single mother; a two-hour bus ride away from the cottage, in a noisy thin-walled council flat, in an urban jumble bolted on to the city. His mother had a morning cleaning job for a firm of solicitors’, the owners of the cottage.

The partners had inherited the pretty little cottage, situated in a small town deep in the Derbyshire vales, from a loyal client. Rather than sell the place they had chosen to retain the property as a shared holiday home. As an act of generosity they had allowed Peter’s mother to use it for a couple of weeks in the latter, less popular months each year. In return she gave the place a thorough spring-clean.

This was Peter’s sixth visit, and he adored the place. It had everything a young boy could want. There were rolling green hills of luscious pasture, with steep peaks where you could climb so high above the village that the pretty pink-washed cottages and red-brick houses in the valley below became no more than a scattering of liquorice allsorts in a giant baize bowl.

There were thick bands of mature woodland with huge twisting oaks whose knurled old bark made climbing easy. You could perch in the upper branches amid the last golden leaves and watch the old town bus labouring up the hill two miles away. Or lie back and make pictures of the towering cumulus drifting lazily across the cornflower-blue sky.

In the spurs of the valley twinkling brooks rushed noisily between sparkling quartz boulders threading their way down to the main river. These clean rivers in miniature with their glittering beds of gravel housed a wealth of intriguing creatures, waiting for Peter to discover.

Fat shrimps with their plated, steel-grey armour and endless pairs of flailing legs, coal-black water boatmen that danced effortless ballets on the surface between the waterlogged marginal weeds or the curious stone encrusted pipes that littered the gravel beds and the inquisitive youngster later identified as the caddis nymph.

There were various species of fish to be found in the rocky pools or deeper runs. Sticklebacks, grouchy looking bullheads, minnows, the whiskered stone loach and the mottled brook lamprey, even the occasional finger sized juvenile brown trout.

Peter reached the end of the chapter, his head buzzing with the author’s recounts of notable pike captures and the prospects of the coming day’s fishing. The young lad flashed his torch on the clock. “Still only half past four,” he groaned to himself. Today was to be his first day’s fishing on the river on his own. Without the well-meaning burden of his mother who could see no reason to venture any further than the church meadow stile.

After all, as she would tell him, ‘there’s no need to trample any further through the mud, look at all the fish there are here,’ and with a sweeping gesture of her arm she would send the flashing shoals of dace scattering for cover. The prospect of fishing alone for a fearsome looking pike was mouth-watering, if not a little over laden with motherly restrictions.

He was not to go until it was completely light. He must wear his winter coat and hat and he wasn’t to venture any further along the river than the old willow. Must pack a hot drink-and something to eat, be home before dark and generally agree to adhere to a whole plethora of other rules and sound matronly advice.

Nevertheless, these trifling matters aside, the thought of the big river and its population of toothy giants had robbed him of a night’s sleep and had him now already contemplating a minor infringement of the charter.

Screwing his eyes up to see the smudgy silhouette of the cottage garden, he wondered innocently how anyone could put an exact time on daybreak. Surely there was some margin for negotiation? Anyway he told himself, those negotiations wouldn’t take place until he had returned home from his day’s fishing. To a small boy, contemplating his first encounter with the ‘fresh-water tiger’, that seemed a million careless miles away!

With any vestige of guilt rapidly slipping away Peter gathered his tackle quietly and slipped silently out of the cottage into the freezing moonlight.

The barn owl saw the young figure scurrying across the water meadow and wheeled away noiselessly in an unhurried arc. Seeing the ghostly bird, Peter froze, momentarily startled, and then watched transfixed as the owl melted into the spinney beyond the meadow.

He hastened on toward the water’s edge, picking his way carefully around a frost meringued cattle mire and through the clusters of buckthorn until he reached a stile. Not even pausing to catch his breath which, despite the searing cold, came in hot steamy gasps, he clambered eagerly over the slippery structure.

The river loomed quiet, a smouldering ribbon of gloomy reflection in the weak pre-dawn light. Peter worked his way gingerly along the icy towpath until he reached the giant willow. Either side of the old tree, flattened areas showed where the stretch had seen the attentions of other anglers. The river however, had cut a channel behind the bole of the willow and with no prospect of fishing the far bank there was a large area of slack that could not be reached from either side.

Not, that is, unless you were an adventurous small boy prepared to lug your tackle across a partly submerged willow branch. This formed a crude and rather precarious bridge to the base of the old tree, where a small island of washed sand and shingle sloped down to the river.

Peter eyed his intended crossing point with a little more trepidation than he’d done the day before. Then he’d skipped across the perilous bridge with youthful impunity. In the slippery conditions and gloomy light he felt much less confident. In the interest of safety he decided to sit on his wicker basket and wait for the reluctant dawn to creep a little further over the eastern horizon.

Part 2 soon from Henry