At the Lake

by Jill Harris

  Jem looked up sharply and met Simon’s warning look. The Lewises’ car had been near the back fence. It must have been Mrs Lewis with Squint in the boat. Why would they tell Mrs Mason a lie? Did the kids know it wasn’t true?

  After lunch Simon asked Rose if she and Tommy would like to come back to Barney’s. He wanted to talk to her some more, but Rose’s face went blank and she said they wouldn’t be allowed to.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Jem. ‘What’s wrong with us?’

  Mrs Mason explained that the arrangement was that Rosie and Tommy would spend the day with her. Simon and Jem were very welcome to stay, too. Would they all like to play the Cluedo DVD?

  But Simon and Jem wanted to talk things over, so they said goodbye and walked home.

  ‘It’s not dangerous if we get in under the fence,’ argued Jem. ‘There are plenty of places to hide in the yard — all the houses for a start.’

  ‘But what say Squint’s there and the dog barks?’

  ‘He’ll tell the dog to go find, and the dog’ll find us and I’ll send him back to Squint.’

  ‘What if Squint follows the dog — straight to our hiding place?’

  Jem looked impatient. ‘It doesn’t work that way. He’ll only follow if the dog keeps on barking.’

  ‘But he might arrive by boat and see our dinghy in the cove.’

  ‘He won’t,’ said Jem. ‘I hid the dinghy this morning, and it was so invisible I had to break a branch to show me where it was.’

  ‘What about if we meet on the track?’

  ‘We’d hear them coming, and there are plenty of places to hide.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Simon, ‘there’s another track that goes in halfway up the main road; I reckon it joins that track from the cove. We might be able to bike along it. Maybe we could just check it out as far as the junction.’

  Jem was pleased. He wasn’t sure when he would get the chance again to row around to the cove, and after what Simon had told him he wasn’t that keen to go back to the yard on his own. He had taken a bigger risk that morning than he realized. Making a fast getaway through the bush would be easier than trying to escape in a boat when the weather might be against you. Besides, the Lewises had an outboard motor on their boat and he would be rowing. He would feel much safer, too, if Simon came and waited for him where the tracks joined. Trouble was you never knew when Simon would turn mean, so doing things with him could be a mixed blessing.

  ‘Let’s explore tomorrow if it’s fine,’ he answered.

  Have I managed to get across to Jem how dangerous Squint is? wondered Simon. Jem hadn’t been at the yard or seen Squint’s face looming up at the window that night. Simon knew with a cold certainty that Squint would carry out his threats. It was far too risky to break into the yard — and, besides, what was the point? Just to investigate a cooked-up mystery? For Jem, it was an adventure. For him, it was deadly serious. ‘Even if the tracks do join up, you’re not to go back,’ he told Jem. ‘Barney said I had to look after you, and he told us to keep away from the yard.’

  Before Jem could answer, they heard Barney’s car coming up the drive. He came in carrying several supermarket bags.

  ‘How’d you get on this morning? Everything all right?’

  He unpacked the shopping and tossed a couple of DVDs to the boys. ‘Hope they’ll be OK. The young chap in VideoView thought you’d like them — and me, too.’ He put the kettle on. ‘So what have you been up to?’

  They sat around the kitchen table eating the spicy potato wedges he had got at the supermarket. It was raining again. ‘Let’s watch the James Bond,’ suggested Barney, and they settled down companionably on the sofa. The villains seem a whole heap safer than Squint Lewis, thought Simon. There’s nothing clever or smooth about him, he’s just plain ugly and nasty.

  12

  Fingers and teeth tied the blood knots

  Towards the end of the DVD the sun came out and shone across the TV screen. Barney got up to close the curtains, but it didn’t make much difference. Jem moved to another chair.

  ‘If you had a flat screen it wouldn’t reflect the light,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you buy a new tele, Barney? Why are all your things so old?’

  ‘Shhh!’ said Simon. ‘Shut up and listen.’

  ‘Because they all work OK,’ replied Barney when the DVD came to an end. ‘Why would I throw them out?’

  ‘’Cause it’s fun having new things.’

  ‘Fun?’ said Barney. ‘Fun! It would be such a waste of time learning to use all the new gizmos.’ He ejected the DVD, put it into its case and pulled the curtains back. ‘It’s turned into a really nice afternoon. I reckon we could do some fishing at the outlet later. Whadda y’think? How’s your arm, Si?’

  Simon grinned. ‘It won’t stop me!’

  ‘We could make a bonfire and cook sausages when it gets dark.’

  ‘Oh, yeah!’ Jem’s eyes lit up. He didn’t much like going fly-fishing with Barney and Simon — it was so boring — but he could build the fire while they fished.

  While Simon put the fishing gear in the boat, Jem helped Barney to organize a picnic. At around five they set off across the lake to the outlet. Twenty minutes later, they were nudging the boat as close to the shore as possible. They waded to the beach and dug the anchor into the wet sand before unloading their fishing gear.

  Further along the beach, water seeped through stony shoals until it turned into a shallow stream puckered by currents along its outside edge. The sunlight slanted in at a low angle, orange-gold, intensifying the yellow-green of the willows and the white frills of water splashing over the pebbles, and glossing the lake blue. Swallows called as they swooped and darted over the stream on the lookout for rising insects. ‘You see that,’ Barney always said, ‘you know there’ll be trout there, after the same food.’

  The first thing Barney did after he had changed into his fishing boots and fishing vest was to pick his way over the stones to the edge of the stream. He turned over several rocks looking for nymphs. ‘So we know what size and type of dropper fly to use,’ he told Simon. ‘Fooling trout isn’t a pushover — they know what the local food looks like.’

  Jem waded backwards and forwards unloading the picnic supplies from the boat. Barney and Simon began the slow, fiddly job of assembling their rods: fitting the segments into one another, threading the line up through the ferrules, clipping the reel in place, and attaching the fine nylon leader to the end of the line. Fingers and teeth tied the blood knots, a nail cutter was pulled from its appointed pocket in Barney’s fishing vest to trim the surplus close to the knots, and finally two long, slender, light rods were leaning against the trunk of a willow, their nylon leaders draped out to prevent them from tangling.

  ‘You did that pretty well,’ observed Barney. ‘You’ve remembered the drill and you’re patient — can’t hurry these things. Next year we’ll have to look at getting you a proper carbon-fibre rod. That old fibreglass one’s a bit clunky. They’re a shocking price, mind you, but you’ve got to have a decent rod. I’ll wait for the sale. Or I might pick up a second-hand one at the end of summer. Bill’s got a way of liberating good gear from one-season fishermen — a nice little earner. I’ll let him know I’m looking.’

  He passed a couple of small boxes to Simon. ‘The water’s not that deep, which is why I reckon we should try a dry fly with a nymph-dropper hanging beneath it. Choose a dry fly for yourself while I have a chat with Jem. Don’t pick anything too small or you’ll never be able to keep an eye on it, especially with the sun in your eyes. And keep your rod away from mine. If you tangle the leaders, I’ll throw you in the lake!’

  Barney wandered over to Jem. ‘Can I leave you in charge of the refreshments? The green thermos is my coffee, and the blue one is cocoa for you and Simon. I see you’ve already discovered the chocolate biscuits. How about we take a break in about an hour?’

  ‘I thought I’d start getting wood for the fire,’ said Jem. ‘Get set up for cooking dinner.’

&n
bsp; ‘Yep,’ agreed Barney, ‘plenty of wood washes up round here. But keep within sight, will you? Give us a call from time to time so I know the lake monster hasn’t got you.’ He put his arm round Jem’s shoulder. ‘You’re a good lad — I know all this fishing stuff’s boring for you. But I tell you what, when you get those sausages sizzling, fishing won’t get a look in with anyone!’

  Simon and Barney took a while to choose the flies and even longer to attach them, but as the shadows lengthened through the willows and the sunlight started to retreat up the hills across the lake, they waded into the stream across the pebbly shoals and began the dance of the fly fisherman: those unhurried, rhythmic, ritualized movements, right arm and rod sketching a high arc to flick the line out and over the stream while the left hand pulled the slack line down and sideways, down and sideways as the floating line drifted downstream. The transparent leaders, catching the last of the sunlight, scribbled against the sky as they whipped back and forth, back and forth, searching for an unwary trout.

  All that could be heard as they gradually made their way downstream from the lake was the hypnotic constant of the water hurrying over the stones. Most of Simon’s casts didn’t go quite where he wanted, but occasionally he managed to send the leader close to the opposite bank where the flax and toetoe massed. Then the fly and dropper would settle gently on the water, no splash or noise, so that they drifted along, fly on top and dropper submerged, at the same speed as the current. When that happened, his spirits rose and he thought, I’m getting it right.

  His eyes were glued on the little dry fly as it floated downstream. Did it falter? Did it take a small dip? Was a trout investigating? Had he got a touch? Was his line about to race away from him with the heart-stopping wheeeeee! of the reel?

  But cast after cast, drift after drift, he had no strikes and the little dry fly made no sudden bobs beneath the surface. After a while, Simon took his attention off the fly, looked up at the green wash of the evening sky, and moved his cold feet around in the water gushing over his ankles.

  Suddenly Barney lifted his rod high, the reel screaming as the line sped away downstream and all was urgent engagement.

  Jem dropped his firewood, picked up the net and scrambled over the stones to Barney’s side. Simon swallowed his disappointment and watched his grandfather’s technique as he played his fish. Up and down quivered the tip of the taut, upright rod, sometimes the line chasing the trout, sometimes Barney reeling it in; but, gradually, as Barney made his way downstream across the stones, the trout began to give up the struggle. Simon could see it thrashing around close to the shallows. Barney didn’t bother with the net, he simply wound the trout in close enough for him to slip his hand underneath and lift it onto dry stones. He knocked it on the head with a stone and deftly removed the hook from its mouth.

  ‘Not a bad size,’ he said as he measured it against his forearm. ‘That’ll make a nice dinner. Glad it’s a rainbow.’ He placed it in the bucket, where it lay shining with iridescent colour.

  ‘It’s a pretty nice fish,’ said Simon, a note of envy in his voice despite his best efforts. He had walked his line down to Barney. Now he wound it in and held the dry fly and dropper out of trouble against the cork handle of his rod.

  The sun had dipped below the hills, and a cool breeze frosted the surface of the stream.

  ‘Time for a breather,’ said Barney. Jem skipped back to his pile of wood and picnic gear and poured the hot drinks.

  ‘OK,’ said Barney, downing his coffee, ‘got that out of my system. We’ll go further down where the stream widens, and I want to watch what you’re doing, Si, especially your casting — not sure you’re keeping your wrist straight enough. Also, once or twice your back casts flicked the stones behind you — that’ll damage the leader and it’ll snap when you least want it to.’ He turned to Jem. ‘We’ll put in another half-hour, Jem. That’s about right for getting a good blaze going and letting it die back for the sausages.’

  The sun had gone and the evening was cool. They pulled on their Swannies and got busy. Jem had done a good job of building his fire and it caught straightaway, sending a signal of sparks and smoke into the fading light. He skewered the sausages onto the toasting forks they had brought from home and laid out the rest of the food. He put Barney’s folding chair at the ready.

  The other two wandered down the bank of the stream where the last of the light gleamed on the smooth water opposite. By the time they couldn’t see the fly any longer and Simon’s arms were sore, the smell of the sausages reminded them it was closer to eight o’clock than seven. They packed the gear away and settled down around the fire to eat dinner and toast marshmallows to finish up.

  Simon felt deeply happy. He forgot about his father. He didn’t give Squint a thought. He conceded Jem had done a good job on the fire — he even said so. The lake, Barney, the fishing: all of it was lodged deep inside at the centre of his being.

  13

  ‘How do we cross it?’

  ‘We want to have a go at biking along some of the tracks,’ Simon told Barney.

  ‘It’ll be pretty slippery after the rain,’ said Barney. ‘Sure you don’t want to wait ’til it’s drier?’

  ‘Nah,’ replied Jem, ‘more fun when it’s slippery. Probably won’t get far anyway.’

  ‘Right,’ Barney grinned, ‘just as long as you scrub the mud out of your clothes, not me. By the way, how did your gear get so wet yesterday?’

  ‘Mucking round in the dinghy in the rain,’ said Jem casually. ‘Looking for kouras under the jetty.’

  ‘See you back for lunch, then,’ said Barney. ‘Be kind to your arm, Si; it worked hard for you last night.’

  Simon and Jem biked up the hill. Simon stopped part-way up and got off his bike.

  ‘I reckon we should walk from here — I’m not sure where the track goes in. It’s near a big rimu, I think.’

  They pushed their bikes, scanning the bush at the side of the road. A couple of times Simon laid his bike down to investigate more closely, but they reached the top without finding the track.

  ‘I know it’s there,’ said Simon, vexed. ‘I went along it the Christmas before last.’ He nearly added ‘with Dad’, but a mix of unhappiness and resentment kept him quiet.

  ‘Let’s walk back down,’ said Jem. ‘The opening might be more obvious coming from the other direction.’

  They found it on their second time walking up the hill, not far from a road sign. The bush had completely covered the entrance, and it was Jem, ducking off the roadside to have a pee, who realized he was looking at the beginning of an overgrown track.

  ‘Fluke!’ said Simon.

  There was no hope of biking along it, so they hid their bikes and helmets and set off on foot. The track was far from obvious and the going was hard. Simon marked trees along the way with his penknife. They squelched through mud, and undergrowth snatched and scratched them as they pushed on. At least the track ran along the side of the slope and not up and down.

  They had been going for about fifteen minutes when they heard water gushing loudly. The next moment they came to a torrent which had gouged a channel across the track and plunged steeply through the bush towards the lake.

  ‘This must be the creek that comes out near Glow-worm Grotto,’ said Jem. ‘That’s quite close to the Lewises’ cove. Maybe we’re nearly there.’

  ‘Yeah, but how do we cross it?’

  They stared at the water coursing across the track. It was too wide, rapid and slippery to cross easily.

  ‘What about that tree?’ Simon pointed up the slope to a tree growing on their side of the channel. ‘Could we hang on to the lower branch and swing across?’

  Jem wanted desperately to prove to Simon that he could tackle anything, but he could see he wasn’t tall enough to do it. He was silent.

  Simon let the silence go on. Jem avoided his eyes.

  ‘Well, whadya reckon?’ drawled Simon. ‘Are you game to try?’

  ‘No,’ Jem said mise
rably. ‘I can’t swing that far.’

  ‘You’re just scared,’ replied Simon. ‘Looks as though I’ll have to do it.’

  He scrambled up the slope. The branch was out of reach. Could he climb up to it? But the trunk offered no foot-holds.

  Jem pulled himself up level with Simon.

  ‘The branch is half-dead,’ he said. ‘I reckon if we tie our sweat shirts together we could throw them over the branch and rock it up and down ’til it cracks and falls into the stream and makes a bridge.’

  Simon was forced to acknowledge that it wasn’t a bad idea. ‘Might work,’ he said grudgingly.

  They pulled off their tops and knotted them together, but, try as they might, they couldn’t get them over the branch. Finally, Simon levered a stone out of the root-bound ground. They knotted it into the end of a sleeve and over the branch it went, first throw.

  ‘How do we keep our footing?’ asked Jem. ‘’Specially when the branch falls down. Won’t we fall with it?’

  ‘The minute we hear it cracking we have to let go and crouch down,’ said Simon.

  It wasn’t so easy. They hung on the ends of the joined sweat shirts and tugged the branch up and down, up and down, their feet scrabbling on the slippery slope. Despite the vigorous rhythm they established, and the loud creaking of the branch, they couldn’t get it to breaking point. Simon’s arms, already tired from the casting practice of the night before, ached with the effort, and both boys’ hands were rubbed red. They stopped to recover.

  Simon spoke his thoughts out loud. ‘Why are we doing this? Do we really think there’s something going on at the yard? Are we proving that this is our lake and we’ll go where we like? Or are we getting our own back at Squint Lewis?’

  ‘I don’t see why we can’t look round the house-yard,’ replied Jem. ‘I think it’s pretty nasty to keep a huge, fierce-looking dog to frighten people off. If it’s just Squint Lewis being mean, I don’t see why he should get away with it. If he’s hiding something, then what is it? People round here don’t behave like that, and he shouldn’t either if he wants to live here. And I feel sorry for Rosie and Tommy.’