The 14th Pan Book of Horror Stories

THE MAN AND THE BOY Conrad Hill

The dilapidated wooden gate had been replaced by a metal one, strong and trimly painted with red oxide.

Otherwise nothing had changed.

Simon closed the gate behind him and stood hot in the early afternoon sun, looking down the field towards the course of the river. From here one couldn’t tell that the blackthorns and brambles dividing this field from the one beyond concealed anything more interesting than a ditch. An astute observer would, perhaps get a hint of the river’s existence from the little cattle bridge that carved a tiny avenue through the matted undergrowth.

To Simon it all looked diminutive compared with the memory; as if he was looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. Maybe the enormity of the events that occurred here diminished the size of the surroundings but, on reflection, he knew that he was as familiar with these fields and that river as he was with the things that took place within their boundaries on that day so long ago. No, it was simpler than that, and he grinned at his unsophisticated logic; when you’re a child, you’re closer to the ground, therefore everything is bound to look bigger. It all looked small now solely because he himself had grown larger.

Earlier, he had stood on the crinkly stone bridge outside the village struggling with his indecisiveness; balancing the therapeutic motivation that had brought him two hundred miles against a fear of being overwhelmed, retarded by a flood of trauma-ridden memories. He had stared at the water for a long time, until his mind merged with the river, cascading into fragments, tumbling, twisting, pulling his subconscious inexorably downstream to that place two miles on . . . When he had taken a tablet and given it time to transform the indecision into a firm resolve, he realized how ridiculous—cowardly even—it would be to come all this way only to give up two miles from his destination. Nevertheless, he had deliberately averted his gaze as the car approached the field, half hoping that it had altered out of recognition.

But it hadn’t changed. Places don’t change of their own volition; they have changes imposed upon them by people. He smiled wryly whilst developing the idea more tangibly. People change of their own volition, though; change of heart, change of mind, change of outlook . . . Some, like himself, are changed by other people, complete strangers. Twenty-four years ago in this field, by this river, across in those woods, his whole life had been changed in the space of three hours. His friends asserted that it was a change for the better; better for them, maybe, because he swelled their numbers, strengthened their solidarity, helped provide them with the small luxury of group commiseration. But he couldn’t help pondering on what might have been . . . Would he still have been living in that unhygienic, draughty old folly of a house in the village? How he’d loved that house, with its scatterbrained arrangement of unruly walls and labyrinthine corridors . . . Would he have come fishing here for the brown trout every morning before he went to work, as his father used to? What job would he have been doing? Driving a tractor? Weaving baskets? Managing an estate? Making cider? Would he have been a vet or a doctor? Would his parents still have been alive, had they never moved on his behalf to undergo the strain of urban living and to breathe polluted city air? . . . He felt curiously lost and sad, for conjecture had so many computations; so many happy variables of wish and memory that, by comparison, reality could be a state of bitter disillusionment. He tried to define the sad, lost feelings as self pity, but couldn’t quite manage it, so he screwed them up into a tight little ball and threw them back down into his mind for reprocessing into some other emotion. He waited, mentally breathless, for the anticipated turbulence that must accompany his return to this place.

Nothing happened.

His eyes wandered, unchecked now, down across the ragged grass to the darker green of the riverside undergrowth and overhanging willow trees, past the little cattle bridge and on to the far left-hand corner of the field. There it was. His own spot a few yards along from the big corner beech tree, where the float used to skim along on the fast-moving current and sweep into his favourite pool. Something glinted there now. Simon shaded his eyes and could make out the figure of a small boy, the sun flashing on the chrome fittings of his rod as he cast into the invisible river.

Oh, dear Christ, why is there a boy fishing in my spot?

Simon knew it would be hard now; hard to stand here and take all the burning recollections that this place could conjure up; hard to take it all without another tablet, now he’d seen the boy . . .

He took another tablet and the memory came gently.

It rained relentlessly for two whole days after his ninth birthday, thwarting any attempt to use the shiny new rod that his parents had bought for him. He mooned savagely around the dark grey house, frequently pressing his face to the windows, willing old God to blow the leaden, static clouds away. But old God had it in for him personally and didn’t oblige; not even with some heavy breathing. So the rain continued to sheet down monotonously. Simon wished he could get hold of old God and give Him a thump, or even speak to Him on the telephone or something, to inquire whether He ever intended to get rid of the clouds and the rain. If He had plans for permanent rain, well, Simon would sell his new rod—and his old one for that matter—and buy some more rolling stock for his train set. Frustrated by old God’s remote and lofty isolation, he had a word with Jesus knowing that He’d been down here so He’d have a good idea of what it was like when it was raining. No good. Simon sullenly concluded that the whole lot of Them must be on holiday, probably in the sunshine somewhere. Abandoning his attempts to get the weather changed, he concentrated on annoying his mother by getting in her way and asking her stupid questions. The whole campaign culminated in a smashed plate and his mother shouting something about the sooner he was back at school the better.

On the third day he awoke to a low golden sun in the east with a few embarrassed straggler clouds caught naked in a clear blue sky, scurrying to hide in the dull anonymity far in the distance. At breakfast he mischievously asked his father whether he was coming down to the river for an hour before he went to work, knowing full well that the trout wouldn’t take his father’s silly, coloured, artificial flies when the river was in spate. But Simon felt expansive that morning and even offered to lend his old rod to his father so that he could float fish with it. The offer was curtly refused, and his father buried his nose deeper into the newspaper.

Simon could never understand why his father resolutely refused to fish with a float and worm. He said it was unsporting: fishermen were divided into two categories, mechanics and artists. Mechanics used worms, artists used flies. But Simon never caught anything when his father tried to teach him to use his funny, whippy little fly-rod; what was the point of being an artist if you never caught anything? So, when the river was muddy and in spate after rain, his father wouldn’t fish because the trout wouldn’t take his fly. They would take a worm though and, what’s more, the swollen water always brought the big fish up from the quiet meadowland where the river grew wide and deep and lazy, and people paid pounds and pounds to fish. Simon really couldn’t understand him; his mother said he was fanatical, which would explain why he would drive fuming off to work when the river was muddy and not smile again until the water had cleared and there were lots of flies on the surface.

After breakfast Simon dug some worms from his patch at the end of the garden. He was lucky, for the rain had brought some monsters up close to the surface of the soil. By the time he’d finished, his mother had his sandwiches ready and, as she kissed him goodbye, Simon could sense that she was glad to get him out of the house after his recent confinement; nevertheless, her voice still followed him out to the garage with the usual admonitions about not getting muddy and not getting his feet wet.

He waited by the garage doors for his father to reverse the car out before he could get to his bicycle. He felt sorry for his father, having to go to work on a day like this, especially when all the big trout were up-river.

‘Never mind, Dad, it might have cleared by tonight,’ he addressed to the head poking backwards out of the car window, knowing full well that the river would be muddy for days.

‘Don’t fall in,’ his father said darkly to the accompaniment of crashing gears. The car jerked out of the drive and went roaring irately down the lane. Simon sighed at the peculiarities of grown-ups, but decided not to be too hard on his father; mainly because his own misbehaviour during the past two days was still fresh in his mind, although he didn’t feel too badly about that, for he was his father’s son and if father got peculiar about fishing, well . . . nobody could blame Simon for being the same, could they? He scattered his tackle all over his bicycle and set off down the lane, whistling a tuneless lament to his father’s misfortune.

He arrived at the rickety old gate with the butterflies welling in his stomach; the familiar feeling of anticipation so sorely missed for the last two days. Today he’d get the big one. He’d take it home hidden in his tackle bag so that when his mother asked him in her busy, condescending, teatime manner whether he’d caught anything, he’d answer no and adopt a dejected air until she came to sympathize. Then, he’d whip it triumphantly from the bag!

The rod came away from the crossbar reluctantly, as though it didn’t want to be used after all that time in the shop. Simon let the bicycle fall into the bank and found time to marvel at his action; he would never have done that when the bike was new, funny how you get used to things . . . He resolved never to treat this fishing rod like that, but then he remembered he’d said that about his other one and look how he threw that about now . . . He compromised, resolving never to maltreat this rod until it got old.

He clambered over the gate and jogged towards the river, the wet grass slapping angrily at his Wellington boots. The field dripped and glistened, recovering from the battering of the rain; waiting for the sun to throw down warm benevolence from fingers already probing the tops of hedgerows. At his spot near the beech tree, he examined the water before setting up his equipment. The little river was swollen and opaque—khaki, the colour of his father’s old army uniform. The main-flow was easy to trace, moving so quickly that the water foamed dirty white where it tossed and jostled against impeding banks and large stones. Simon’s favourite pool, sheltered from the noisy, rushing mainflow, was bigger than he’d seen it for a long time; wider, deeper, somehow more mysterious because of its muddy complexion. When the water was pure and clear he could see the trout and dace suspended in the pool, but he had to use the utmost caution for, conversely, they could see him. Today, no one could see anybody else and, provided that he didn’t clump about on the bank, it seemed to Simon that the advantage was his.

He assembled the shining, split-cane rod with fumbling hands. Only after many false attempts did he succeed in threading the nylon line from the reel through the rings. Rigging the float, lead shot and hook required a precise concentration that at the moment he did not possess . . . He despaired of ever getting the shot pinched on to the line, let alone delivering the bait to the fish . . . Finally, he acquired the necessary dexterity by forcibly banishing thoughts of huge fish from his mind, replacing them with a horrifying vision of permanent rain and everlasting school.

Selecting the largest lobworm he could find in the tin, he impaled it on the hook, his excitement tempered briefly by a sobering stab of compassion for the silly old thing as it went rigid with shock at the initial penetration of the barb. But it soon livened up and Simon felt better. He cast the line over the pool, into the turmoil of the mainflow beyond. The float fled downstream until the line checked it and curved it into the quieter water under the bank. From here it moved upstream again, obedient to the remote command of Simon’s reel, gently retrieving the line. It stealthily entered the pool and halted, rocking gently in the centre.

Almost immediately the minnows attacked the worm.

Simon giggled at the float, vibrating and bobbing and swaying around in circles as the greedy little fish tried in vain to nibble at the worm. He imagined their frustration when they found the meal too big to get into their mouths. He knew the pattern well; first one fish would come along, see the equivalent of a giant plate of bacon and eggs and immediately try to grab it all for himself, only to discover that his mouth wasn’t big enough to manage it. He then, no doubt reluctantly, would call up his friends to form a large worm-nibbling force on the principle that only one mouthful was better than no mouthful at all. Presently, the force would collectively realize that the worm was still too large for them, but before moving on to search for smaller morsels each member of the group would violently charge the worm as if to say, ‘We might not be big enough to eat you, but we can still give you a good hiding.’

The minnow activity ceased abruptly in the middle of the nibbling stage. Simon tightened his attention; the little fish had fled before finishing with the worm, which indicated the arrival of something big. The float was motionless. He prayed that whatever had sent the small fry packing could see the worm, hanging isolated in the murky water . . . The heavy quill bucked violently and was still again. To Simon moments like this seemed to hang for ever in a separate section of time. In his way, he could only compare it with the river; the moving current was his normal life, but the still pools were reserved for the special moments, and although the pools and the current were part of the river, they were still somehow disconnected from each other . . . He experienced similar hanging moments every time he fell off his bicycle; the disembodied time between knowing that the fall was inevitable, and the explosive pain of actuality as he hit the ground. Falling off his bicycle, though, wasn’t as nice as waiting for a big fish to bite—but it was still a special moment.

He waited . . . waited for the float to move again.

When it did move, it turned completely on its side, streaking horizontally under the dark water. He was surprised, caught unawares by the nowness of the action; his eyes saw it but his mind was still attuned to the when-ness of anticipation. He recovered and struck hard and fast, feeling the huge resistance of the fish, seeing the top of the rod bend into an impossible curve. He frantically let out line from the reel and the pressure on the rod tip eased as the nylon whipped across the pool. He checked the run, turning the fish round to zig-zag back towards him, hoping, hoping, hoping that he wouldn’t lose it. God, you’re not a bad old God; I didn’t mean it when I wanted to thump you about the rain . . . honestly . . . Let me keep this one and I won’t do it again, God . . .

God must have believed him for the fish was tiring, but still pulling like a train to and fro across the pool, occasionally surfacing to thrash the muddy water into chocolate ice-cream soda. Eventually, Simon brought it into the bank, boggling at the sheer bulk of it. He noticed that it boggled back at him and he laughed aloud, realizing that his elation permitted the ridiculous; fish boggled all the time and this one wasn’t boggling at him any more than it would boggle at anything else . . . He laid the rod down gingerly and knelt down on the edge of the bank, holding the line taut with one hand while he followed it down with the other, past the float and lead shot to the great mouth that lay gasping in the shallows. His fingers closed around the cold, slimy, twisting back of the fish, to lift it on to the bank where it lay bouncing and kicking in the grass. It was easily the biggest trout Simon had ever caught; he calculated the weight at two and a half pounds—a monster for this narrow, shallow part of the river. He knew it was a downstream fish that could only negotiate the river when it was in spate, and he was pleased that he had caught it with a worm from his garden and hadn’t had to pay lots of money and fish with a stupid fly rod like all those businessmen down there. He looked at it lying huge and helpless, green and golden, spattered with dark brown spots; still now except for the rasping movement of the gills. It was so beautiful he knew he couldn’t kill it, but he absolutely had to find some way of showing it to his father, otherwise he wouldn’t believe it . . . He shelved the problem temporarily by popping the fish into his keepnet after he’d removed the hook from its mouth. He looped the string round one of the beech roots poking out of the bank and he sat for the next few minutes watching the fish regain its strength in the water, his heart fluttering each time the dark shape rushed the sides of the net and bent the root in its escape attempts. Simon didn’t start fishing again until the fish resigned itself to captivity and was quiet.

By early afternoon, Simon had caught two more fish, although not as large as the first. The sun blazed down on his back, throwing his shadow out on to the pool in front of him, despite his attempts to minimize its bulk by half-sitting, half-lying on the bank. The sun had dried the world and, apart from the swollen river, there was no indication of the almost-forgotten rain. He had just put a fresh worm on the hook and cast it out when he first saw the man in the raincoat standing at the top of the field by the gate; it wasn’t old Farmer Richardson, or Jack who drove his tractor . . . Whoever it was, Simon didn’t want him clumping around disturbing the fish and asking silly questions, so he quickly returned to his position low on the ground, hoping that the man hadn’t seen him.

The man didn’t move for a long time. When he did, it was diagonally across the field towards Simon’s spot. Simon groaned inwardly and tried to concentrate on the float, although he knew he wouldn’t be able to settle properly until the man had gone. He heard the footsteps come scything through the grass to stop behind and a little to one side of him; the man’s shadow fell on the edge of the pool.

‘Hello, have you caught anything?’ The voice was soft with a curiously high-pitched, sing-song quality.

‘Only three,’ Simon mumbled, neither wanting to sound enthusiastic nor to give the man his full attention.

‘Mind if I have a look?’

Simon shrugged his ambivalence, nodding in the direction of the keepnet. The man gently unhooked the keepnet string from the root, squatting down to examine the sparkling, bouncing fish. ‘They’re beauties, aren’t they?’ the voice sang. Simon looked at the man for the first time and was immediately struck by the whiteness of the other’s face; as if it hadn’t seen the sun for years. It was a strange face, smooth and sleek, and on closer scrutiny, somehow powdery . . . and white, as white as a mask made of flour. And it was the flour that caused the whiteness and made the shadowed parts of the face appear luminous. The eyebrows were funny, too, thin and arched in single lines like . . . like . . . He struggled for a simile but couldn’t find one until his eyes took in the full, red lips that looked freshly painted . . . Clown! yes the man looked like a clown, well maybe not quite like a clown . . . more like . . . like his mother; she had those silly eyebrows and painted lips and those powdery cheeks. But why would the man want to look like that? No, he must be an off-duty clown or something; he seemed pleasant enough, though, in spite of his funny face, but Simon still wished he would go away.

‘I used to fish when I was a boy, but I haven’t done any for years.’ The eyes grew bright and emptied of the present, ready to fill with tears at some faraway memory. ‘But . . . well, I suppose I grew out of it. One does you know . . . grow out of it.’

Simon nodded politely; at the same time he tried to think of a way to get rid of the man now, before he started rambling on about his boyhood, because if he was like all the other grownups, he’d be here for hours and hours . . .

But the man was quiet, just squatting there holding the keepnet.

‘They’ll die.’ Simon’s voice made the man twitch slightly. ‘The fish.’

‘Oh yes. Sorry.’ The man replaced the keepnet in the water, carefully replacing the string on the root. He sat down cross-legged on the bank, gazing into the river. Simon wondered why he didn’t take the heavy raincoat off; he must be very hot sitting there in the sun even though he had the top two buttons undone and didn’t seem to be wearing a shirt.

The man rang long, curved fingernails through blue-black hair. ‘Do you always fish here?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I only live down the road,’ Simon replied, vaguely surprised that he’d found it necessary to qualify his answer. The man nodded, understanding everything, and the red lips parted in a little smile. ‘Nice, nice . . . Nice to be by yourself on a day like this, isn’t it? You are by yourself, aren’t you?’ Simon nodded. ‘Why’s that then, haven’t you got any friends?’ Simon was irritated by this affront to his likeability; the man was implying that no one liked him.

‘Course I’ve got friends; they don’t like fishing, that’s all!’

The man accepted this, nodding and smiling.

‘What about girl-friends? I bet you’ve got lots of girlfriends—a good-looking chap like you.’ Simon was flattered and appropriately derisive. ‘They’re stupid,’ he said. He fussed with the fine, resigning himself to the fact that he wouldn’t get a bite while the man was here talking all this tripe. Why didn’t he go away?

The man didn’t speak for ten minutes and Simon was beginning to see this as a hopeful sign; perhaps he couldn’t think of anything else to say, which meant he wouldn’t be hanging around for much longer . . .

‘Would you like a sweet? They’re wine gums.’ The man had moved closer, cradling a crumpled white bag in his outstretched hand. Simon’s finger and thumb probed the bag, trying to select a single sweet from the warm sticky lumps of twos and threes. The outstretched hand trembled violently an instant before it snapped shut like a trap around Simon’s own hand. He gasped with surprise and pain as the silvery talons sank into his knuckles. The man’s face was different now; the eyes were dancing pinpoints of flame and the sockets were the holes of an incinerator burning within the head. The mouth was twisted but still seemed to be smiling in a crooked sort of way. The lips hardly moved enough to let the words struggle through them. ‘You . . . can have all of them . . . if you come for a walk.’ The lilting voice had gone, to be replaced by lower, harsher tones that grated like Simon’s mother’s saucepans on the enamel sink.

Simon acknowledged that he wasn’t frightened; just confused and perhaps a little worried. The man didn’t behave like any grown-up he knew, but then he didn’t know that many. Why was he trapping his fingers like that? . . . Why does he want someone to go for a walk with him? He must be lonely or something . . . Perhaps he’s mad! . . . No, he wouldn’t be walking around loose if he was a looney, they kept them under pretty close guard these days . . . He decided that he didn’t like the man because he was funny; he was all friendly one minute and then he got . . . well . . . funny. He wished his father were here to tell him to clear off. He heard his voice telling the man that he wanted to stay here and catch some more fish, besides he only wanted one sweet—thank you very much. Perhaps if I tell him my dad’s coming over soon . . . yes, that’ll get rid of him . . . But before he had time to give voice to the thought, the hand relaxed its rigid grip on his fingers, enabling him to extract a sweet and pop it into his mouth. It was rubbery and tasted of Christmas. The man stood up, stuffing the bag of sweets into his raincoat pocket. He was sulky. ‘I’m going, then, if you’re not going to be nice. I don’t see why I should waste my time with ungrateful little boys like you. Besides, I’ve got a long way to go.’ Simon was unmoved by the admonition and he quickly stifled the urge to ask the funny man where he lived. Instead, he said ‘Cheerio,’ turning back to his float with an overwhelming feeling of relief that the encounter was over. The man murmured something undistinguishable and set off across the field towards the gate.

Five minutes passed and the man was already forgotten; gone for ever into the motionless heat of the afternoon. The float was becalmed on the shimmering, stagnant surface of the pool, not even a minnow bothering to disturb the lethargic tranquillity of the underwater dead hours. Simon had given much thought to the phenomenon of the dead hours; that time of day between two o’clock and five o’clock when the fish wouldn’t bite, or at least only on rare occasions. His father knew about it but for some reason wouldn’t commit himself to a definite explanation mainly, Simon thought maliciously, because he didn’t really know but didn’t want to admit it to Simon. His own conclusions about the dead hours were that fish, instead of sleeping during the night like everyone else, were probably active, thus needing some sleep during the day—which went to show just how stupid fish really were! His father laughed when he propounded this theory to him, which made him angry; after all, his theory was better than the none-at-all ones of the Old Man. And furthermore, if that ridiculous clown of a man hadn’t come along when he did, Simon might have caught another fish before they went to bed for their afternoon siesta. Now he had to sit there and hope that some sleep-walking, sleep-swimming trout would take the worm . . . Se examined his hand where the man’s fingernails had dug into the flesh. The marks had almost disappeared although the knuckles still tingled slightly; stupid so-and-so . . . wonder why he wanted somebody to go for a walk with him . . .

A kingfisher zipped past, heading upstream. Simon, busy comparing it with a multi-coloured, low-flying aircraft, didn’t notice the shadow rising on the water in front of him until it had completely obliterated his own little dumpy one. At first he was puzzled by the new shape on the pool, then he knew what it was, and he didn’t like it one little bit.

The man had come back.

He must have circled around the edge of the field in order to come in directly behind him, quietly, so quietly that Simon hadn’t heard the footfalls in the grass. He pretended not to notice the man behind him, but the shadow increased, not in height but in breadth, growing wider and wider, engulfing the whole pool in the darkness of it. Unable to control his curiosity, Simon turned round to look. At first sight, he thought the man had turned into a bat . . . a monster bat with outspread wings . . . His knowledge of reality battled with the fairies and fantasies of his infancy . . . Impossible, the man hadn’t become a bat, it wasn’t possible, like Father Christmas wasn’t possible—Dad said so. Why was he standing like a bat then? . . . He stared at the top of the towering figure above him, screwing up his eyes against the strong sunlight; the head looked normal enough, if a little distorted by the sun’s rays flashing around the hair. Simon’s controlled gaze moved downward and to the sides of the figures, where the reason for the bat-like appearance was immediately apparent . . . The man was holding his raincoat wide open with his hands, which was a strange thing to do because he wasn’t wearing any clothes—except for two short trouser legs fixed to the bottom of the raincoat.

Simon’s perplexity and fascination provided him with a calm exterior; a denial to everybody but himself of the fear seeping slowly into his mind. When the man gave out a screeching, high-pitched cackle, the fear exploded, spiralling upwards along his spine to every part of his body, like high voltage splinters. He scrambled to his feet and started to run, forgetting his fish, his new rod, all his equipment, everything to get away from this man. He found his feet making running motions, but he was being drawn inexorably backwards by the hand gripping the back of his neck. Another hand spun him round, crushing him against the naked body under the folds of the raincoat, suffocating him with the smell of sweat and perfume. The man forced Simon’s head up towards his own and tried to speak but the lips struggled in vain to form words that emerged only as bubbling saliva. Simon fought.

He fought the desperate battle for survival, succumbing absolutely to the panic that permeated every fibre of his being. He kicked and yelled and sank his teeth through the stubble of hairs on the man’s chest into the flesh beneath until the blood poured warmly and sweetly into his mouth, overflowing past his chin, down on to the man’s stomach, down . . . down . . . He heard the man crying out with the pain, but felt no easing of the pressure on him; instead the man increased his grip, crushing . . . smashing . . . grinding . . . strangling Simon into darkness . . .

He recovered to find himself being half-carried, half-dragged across the cattle bridge into the back field. He started shouting again, to have his voice promptly cut off by a hand that squashed the lower part of his face. The man had found his own voice and was repeating mindlessly the same words over and over again. ‘Don’t struggle or I’ll hurt you. Don’t struggle or I’ll hurt you. Don’t struggle or I’ll hurt you . . .’ His voice seemed to correspond exactly to the rhythm of the shambling gait.

The wood in the back field, normally so cool and resentful, now became a place of indescribable terror as the man, disregarding the thorns and nettles stabbing at his nakedness, dragged Simon through the undergrowth with demoniacal energy.

It was in the sheltered secrecy of the little glade, amidst Nature’s orderly, related construction of trees and birds and grass and insects, that Simon gave up fighting the man. He passed the next two hours observing, through the pain and degradation, the cavortings of his own naked body and those of the man with the bloodstained chest.

Old Farmer Richardson found him, unconscious, bruised and bleeding in the wreckage of his clothes.

In the ambulance, he remembered waking up and seeing a great crowd of people, all pushing in on him, stifling him, crushing him . . . He thought he saw the man disguised as a policeman and he screamed silently until he found reassurance in his father’s face and the feel of his arm round his shoulders. He wanted to tell his father about the monster fish in the net and the rod—he had to tell him about the rod—but Dad wouldn’t listen because the words wouldn’t come. In the end, a man—a friendly man with glasses and a white coat—floated him back to sleep with, a big needle . . .

So there it was. The rest of it was anti-climactic, predictable almost; the doctors and the policeman all asking questions, questions, questions . . . Oh, he’d told them everything they wanted to know, everything that he could tell them, except what it was like. He couldn’t tell anyone what it was like, only he, Simon would know that . . .

His father came regularly to visit him but his mother never did. According to Dad, she had the ’flu during the week that Simon was in hospital. It wasn’t until much later that he found out she’d had a nervous breakdown. Apparently she blamed herself for what had happened because she’d never warned him about strange men.

When he came out of hospital, he went back to the field once more with some policeman for a reconstruction or something like that, but he never went again after that. Funnily enough, he never went fishing again either; he never knew why, but he just . . . well . . . seemed to grow out of it. Anyway, they’d moved to the city as soon as his father had been able to sell the house and fix up a new job, so the opportunity didn’t arise, except occasionally his father would try to persuade him to accompany him to some far-off lake in the country for a day’s fishing. But he never went and in the end his father stopped asking him.

He wondered about the man. He wondered what had happened to him after they’d caught him. Oh yes, they caught him; Simon had to give evidence against him. He looked quite normal in the courtroom. Apparently he was ill, sick in the mind, poor man. They sent him to a prison where he could have treatment. Simon wondered if he ever got out, if he was still alive even . . .

He was pleased with himself. He’d done it after all this time; admittedly he’d needed a tablet to help him with the memory but, now it was over, he felt buoyant, strong and self-sufficient. It was almost good to be back, as if he could start again from that point, twenty-four years past and find another, simpler direction for his life.

The boy! . . . He’d forgotten the boy, down there fishing in his spot. Oh, Christ, the boy . . .He controlled the rising panic admirably with a blast of derision from his new self-confidence . . . Why, he’d solve that problem when he came to it!

It was hot and heavy standing there in the sun. Time to make a move. He undid the top two buttons of his raincoat, grateful for the small relief of air that circulated over his sticky chest. In his pocket, his hand firmly pushed his box of tablets underneath the bag of wine gums.

He walked towards the tiny figure half-sitting, half-lying under the beech tree.