The Stream

by Brian Clarke

  The last of the swans’ eggs had cracked and opened on the day that the mayfly nymph above Middle Bend hatched, around the time the nymph was still clinging to the rim of his burrow in the stream bed with the currents racing around him and buffeting and jostling him like a heavy wind.

  Ever since that day the adults had stayed close to their young to protect them. When they left the nest together, the cob leading, the cygnets behind and the pen guarding the rear, it was so that the cygnets could get to know their water and practise the skills the law of continuing had given them. They practised controlling how fast they drifted downstream by facing upstream and paddling. They practised turning slowly on the water by hanging one foot down and letting the current push against it. They began to practise spinning quickly on the water by holding one foot down and paddling with the other.

  The cygnets ate drifting nymphs and hatching flies and some of the things that were not to be eaten until they learned better. They ate well of the young shoots of water crowfoot beneath the bright white flowers that swept over the surface and that broke the sunlight into dazzling slips which flicked into their eyes. The cygnets were not frightened by much because of the way the cob and the pen protected them, but they were startled the first few times a dragonfly rattled near their heads and they had a high time lunging and scrambling after the bright blue damsel flies once they had got used to the way they darted and zipped.

  On the day when the President of Cogent Electronics bawled out his Director of Manufacturing and Development for the mess in Milan, around the time SAVE’s publicity co-ordinator was dreaming up the idea of the aerial shot showing hundreds of people lined up on the Frontage and spelling out NO NO NO, the pen heard the cob give his low, harsh rasp and saw him stiffen.

  By the time she had seen the stranger feeding near the mouth of the Tussock Stream and the cygnets had quickly turned and clustered about her, the cob was already gathering himself into himself and arching his neck over his back and was pushing his breast out like the prow of a galleon. It was as if the cob had felt a sudden heat flooding through him and had seen a redness behind his eyes and had felt a blackness as hard as a hammer lock the back of his brain. The cob lifted his wings and seemed to pump his anger into them until they swelled up around him and filled him with menace.

  The cob looked to neither side nor behind. He drove himself down the line of his eyes, pushing down with both feet together, each forward urging making the water surge up his breast, each downward thrust causing it to well up in his wake beneath puddles of domed light.

  Even as he was closing the space between them, the cob saw the intruder uncoil its neck from the water and saw the water gleaming from its head and the strand of water crowfoot dripping light from its beak. Then he saw the intruder look at him as though he were not there and reach under the surface again and pull up another strand. The movement seemed to madden the cob even more. He began to half-run over the surface and half-fly, rocking and splashing with his neck stretched out like a flexing lance.

  The intruder that had come because it needed that place and that had seen the cob charging, was ready. He lurched to one side to avoid the big cob’s rush and turned to face him head-on.

  For a long time the two birds fought, lurching and circling, circling and lunging, all the time beating one another with their wings and trying to climb onto one another’s back and reaching across one another’s neck with their own neck so they could wrestle it under water.

  The intensity of the fight made a silence of its own except for the noise the two birds made themselves and the cheeping of the cygnets and the gossiping of the ducks that spun on their axes. The vole under the alder blinked at the commotion and the bullocks on the bank jostled to get a better view. Waves surged up the banks and slopped into the bays and a long brown slick of weed and silt and muddy feathers and dust clouded the water past Bottom Bend.

  Then, abruptly, the challenge ended. The intruder turned away with his spirit suddenly broken and his strength almost gone. He swam with his neck lowered and his head turned a little to one side so that he could keep the cob in view. The cob surged after him with his neck arched back like a threatening snake and his wings curved upwards and back as if pumped full of triumph. He chased the intruder all the way past Bottom Bend and around the shingle banks to the place where his territory ended near the low bridge.

  For a long time after that, while the cygnets cheeped and the pen stood high on the nest where she could see upstream and down, the cob re-ordered himself and pulled out the twisted feathers that would not go back and put the others back in place and brushed himself all over with the side of his head until he was sleek and clean.

  It was evening, when the sun was sinking and the stream was flooded with a rosewater light, before the swans made their way along the margins again, the cob slowly leading with his head held high and his hard eyes watchful, the pen at the rear making low sounds that the cygnets answered.

  It was evening, as the stream was flooded with a rosewater light and the swans were travelling in single-file again, when the Inspector sketched out his note about the danger to the two rivers if either were abstracted to supply water to the development. The following day he drafted his advice for the Minister.

  Year 1, September

  ‘remember the Aces?’

  There was a long silence. The Minister signed the last of the letters in the fat ‘For Signature’ folder and slid it to one side of his mahogany desk.

  He looked around the cavernous room in a mock-studied way, theatrically moving his gaze from the great chandelier in the centre of the ceiling down and along the walls, first to the painting of the Battle of Stamford Bridge (colourful but wooden), then to the extraordinary painting by whoever-it-was of the construction of the Forth Bridge (all girders and sky and fisherfolk in smocks), then one by one along the photographs of his predecessors (including the one of Sparshot who, according to the new biography had been a liar and a philanderer, though up there on the wall he looked like a lay preacher dressed for Sunday).

  Then he smiled. ‘At a guess, Peter, that is the first time the Aces have been mentioned in this room. Yes, of course I remember the Aces. It’s all right for Ministers to remember their childhoods. Some Ministers actually had childhoods, you know.’

  Peter Althorpe looked back at his old friend. A long way to come, leader of the Aces to Cabinet Minister, but then the lad who had once lived next door had always been the one who was going to make it big, if any of them did.

  ‘Then you remember the cave. And your remember the sickleshaped stone or whatever it was – the one I found in the river at Stinston Meadows?’

  ‘Of course I remember them. We thought the stone was a fossilised bear’s claw or something. We used to play Stone Age men in the cave at the Frontage.’

  ‘Great days. Great memories. You couldn’t put a price on memories like those.’

  ‘Yes, great days.’ The Minister paused and studied his friend in turn, looking straight into his eyes. ‘Peter – are you trying to say something?’

  ‘The cave will go if this thing goes through. There are going to be lots of small losses no-one’s focusing on yet.’

  There was a pause. ‘I didn’t know. That’s a pity.’ The Minister swivelled in his heavy chair and stood up. He walked over to the high, draped windows that looked across the Thames, shimmering in the heat. It had been the same rainless, baking view for months. Then he turned.

  ‘Look, Peter, I’ve got a job to do.’ He studied the man who had just been studying him. One Earth was not the biggest environmental lobby group but it was one of the most active and probably the most respected. Peter had given it real clout since he’d become Director.

  ‘I’ve got a job to do,’ the Minister said again. ‘I’m as concerned as you are about the valley, the river, everything. Yes – and the cave. It’s where my roots are, for heaven’s sake. But I can’t let any of that get in the way of this decision. Not in a personal way.’
He waved out of the window. ‘What those people out there expect’ – his voice tightened – ‘what the PM expects, is that I’ll do everything I can to get jobs and investment into anywhere I can. I have to deal with the world as it is, not as I’d like it to be.’

  Althorpe stood up and bent backwards with his hands behind his hips, easing the ache in the small of his back. Damned back. ‘I know you can’t. I’m not asking you to let personal feelings creep in. But you’ve seen our input. I’m asking you to acknowledge the real world in everything. If this thing goes through, that place is lost for ever. You know there are intangibles involved in this that are real, even if they’re difficult to quantify. Every decision you’ve ever taken has involved some subjectivity. That’s what I’m asking you to acknowledge, now.’

  Althorpe moved over to his friend and they stood side-by-side, looking out. ‘If we go on at this rate, you know, our kids will end up living in bunkers breathing oxygen from cans and being told what grass looked like. I’m not asking you to veto this, of course I’m not. I’m asking you to alleviate the worst effects along the lines we’ve proposed.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Save the Hangers and the Frontage. Buy our proposal for the tunnel – that’s what I’m asking you to do, bottom line.’

  The Minister waited to see if there was any more. Then he shook his head. ‘My people have already made it clear a tunnel’s out of the question, whatever the Inspector recommends. It’s out of the question.’ The way he repeated the phrase made the words sound as if they were spoken in italics. ‘The Treasury’s strapped. The Chancellor’s dealing in small change. This has been the deepest recession in twenty-five years, you know that.’

  He turned from the window, walked back to the desk, sat down and looked up. ‘Look, Peter, we’re not near a decision yet. The inquiry’s still sitting, for God’s sake. But I do have to tell you this. If I conclude we can get this thing off the ground successfully and to do that it has to go ahead precisely as proposed, I won’t hesitate. I’ll cut corners if I have to. I’ll make life easy for anyone with an idea and cash to invest.’ He shook his head. ‘I won’t be telling Mrs Bloggs that she can’t have her hip done because we used the money to build a tunnel to save some old bones. I won’t be telling her son he can’t have a job because we decided someone else’s past was more important than his future.’

  Althorpe half-nodded. ‘And you know I can’t accept that, old lad. You know it’s nothing personal but if this thing goes ahead, we’re going to make life difficult down there. The Frontage and the Hangers aren’t the only issues – there are the rivers, the wildlife, everything – but we’ll focus on the woodland and the settlement because they’re visible and uncomplicated and Joe Public can understand them.’ He put out his hand.

  The Minister smiled a wan smile as he stood up and took it. ‘No, I won’t take it personally, Peter.’ He paused. ‘If I were in your shoes I’d be doing exactly the same, sticking with the Frontage and the Hangers. If it’s out of sight it’s out of mind as far as the public’s concerned. If it’s not furry and cuddly or something out of Walt Disney, they don’t want to know.’ He put his arm around his old friend’s shoulders as they walked to the door. ‘Don’t quote me on that, old lad. That was the human being speaking, not the Minister. You know Ministers aren’t human, don’t you?’

  ‘Known it all along,’ said Althorpe.

  Year 1, October

  the young trout that had been born in the gravels downstream from the falls owned a great space in the Cattle Drink. He owned the large stone that had the grubs of the caddis flies all over it and the stone under that and the round stone he had used for hiding under when he was small. He also owned several more stones further towards the middle where the fast water began and three more nearer the bank and a small one behind.

  The young trout owned all the triangles of silt that the water had dropped behind the stones and all the mayfly nymphs that had tunnelled into the silt. He owned the calm places in front of the stones where the current was slowed and deflected. He owned all the small currents that slid around and between and over the stones and all the food they carried and all that lived in the two fronds of water crowfoot including the nymphs of the dainty Baetis flies and the caterpillars of the little black flies and the grubs of the caddis flies that lived in tubes they made from fragments of gravel. The space that the young trout owned was a great space. It was about as wide as a heron’s wing is wide and about as long as a heron’s leg.

  The trout that was more than half as long as the old man’s middle finger had listened well when the law of continuing had spoken. He had driven many other fish away to claim such a space. Sometimes the other fish had made him fight but mostly he had been able to frighten them off by using the threat that the law of continuing had told him to use. When he needed a space another fish owned he soared up a little in the water and looked down at his opponent and flared his gills so that his head looked big and he opened his jaws wide so that they looked fierce and terrible. Weaker fish often gave ground in the face of this threat and much fighting was avoided.

  The trout that owned the space in the Cattle Drink had shaped the stream around him so that it fitted him closely and all the powers of the currents moved through him. He could use the water the way a swift uses air. He could so angle his fins that he could soar and slip and dive without effort. He could so perfectly place himself in the path of a drifting nymph that the water would carry it right into his mouth.

  The trout could spot the caddis larvae that built cases of pebbles and sand around themselves even when they were on the stream bed and looked like gravel upon gravel. He could pick off the small, low nymphs that clung to the stones in fast water and he could dislodge the nymphs of the dainty Baetis flies from the plants so that he could take them mid-current. He could slide up and intercept the nymphs that were hatching into flies at the surface before flying away. Sometimes he could even leap up and catch the brown-winged caddis flies that flew over the water at dusk, though often he missed them because the law of continuing had told him nothing of refraction. The trout that had hatched in the place that had the grey stones all around it and the brown stone on top had olive-brown on his back and gold on his flanks and white on his belly. Red spots and black spots freckled his sides. When the sun took the light and melted it over him, it was as though he dissolved in midwater.

  By the time the Inspector had passed his report to the Minister and the President of Cogent Electronics had seen the remarkable technology his researchers had code-named ‘Fairway’, the young trout seemed to be as much a part of the stream as the water. It sometimes seemed that the young fish that angled and darted, splashed and rolled, was water itself in a firmer form.

  Year 1, November

  pretty well everyone in the public gallery recognised someone else there, other than the Japanese who were flying out that evening and the two Germans and the man from Gothenburg who had always wanted to see the British Parliament because of his fascination with the way one tiny country had once ruled so much of the earth. In fact, as Peter Althorpe whispered to Jo Hamilton, it looked a bit like a lobbyists’ club. It looked like a reunion of every lobby and vested interest group that had followed every major planning development over the last fifteen years. Hamilton recognised many of the faces herself. Jim Hampton, of

  Hamptons, was three seats along. She’d learned that Hampton had known the detail about the development before SAVE had even been tipped off. Sir John Plumpton was just to Hampton’s right. Plumpton’s family had owned the Hanger Hall estate for over 300 years. Made a fortune out of farming yet the estate was still in debt, God knew how. Gossip was that if the housing plan went through, Plumpton would make enough to wipe out the debt several times over and still be left with a packet. Keith Arthur, the County Council’s Chief Planning Officer, was directly behind Plumpton. Deidre Weston, who had represented National Heritage at the inquiry, was just behind him. She had put up a pathetic performance, scarcely said boo, yet NH
was supposed to be guardian of the nation’s landscape and birthright. NH were not going to rock any boats just yet, not after the Scarborough business, everyone knew that. But the way they had rolled over on this had been amazing. NH knew their card was marked. They were neutered for the time being.

  Peter Althorpe nudged her and indicated several faces that were unfamiliar. Someone from the National Drivers’ Association over there. Someone from the Road Haulage Confederation alongside him. Both were pushing furiously for the road, of course. Two men in dark suits, the one on the left from Plantains, the civil engineering giant, the one on the right from Greenmount, ditto. And oh, yes, Dame Vanessa Bennett in the corner at the back. She’d just had another letter in The Times.

  The Minister smiled when he looked up from the Government Front Bench. The local media would make it sound as though the eyes and ears of the world had been hanging on his every breath, but there were more visitors in the Gallery than there were Members in the House.

  Yes, he said, when he eventually leaned over the Despatch Box in that bizarrely awkward posture Ministers use to suggest ease, the development would go ahead as planned. Alternatives put forward on some points of detail would offer aesthetic and in some cases practical improvements and these would be incorporated wherever possible. There had been many representations about the site known as the Frontage and the piece of ancient woodland called the Hangers but changes to protect these completely could not be made without creating new problems and incurring unacceptable additional cost. He had, however, accepted his Inspector’s recommendation that special measures be taken to protect both the Broadchalk River and the Clearwater River and their remarkable fauna and flora. Specifically, neither would be abstracted to supply water for the development and quite exceptional precautions would be taken to ensure there could be no pollution. He had been told that archaeologically important finds could be made in the course of the work around the Frontage. He would ensure that moneys from the National Historical Fund were available to house them appropriately in the museum at Farley.