Dialogue: The humiliation of a man who would be king for a day

By JOE BENNETT

I am the king. With rod and fly and a brain bigger than a fish's brain, I am the king. I rule the trout. There are many trout. Most I never see. My landlocked eyes are no match for their camouflage, their intimacy with the stones and the current and the lodges beneath the bank.

But I saw this one, a grey ghost on the riverbed, swaying to feed on invisible things. Rapt as a hunter I watched it, watched it feed in innocence, then tossed it a clumsy imitation of the invisible things and saw the fish dart to its right.

It takes and I whoop. It vees downstream, impelled by alarm, distancing the threat, but I am the threat and I'm linked to the fish by a line and a Trojan hook. I am the king.

The fish, its first panic done, turns upstream to breathe. I wind it across the current. It bores away again, desperate for distance between itself and the force that impels. But the force stays with it, insistent. That force is me and my brain and my arm and my song of triumph, as primitive as sex.

It runs again. I turn its head, swing it back across the flow, the pliant carbon fibre tip of my Korean rod arching simple against the sky. I cannot lose this fish. It is well hooked.

I am the king. I look about me for a place to beach the fish. Some 15m downstream the water laps to flatness on the stones.

I ease the fish towards it, let it run again. This can only end one way, and end it does some minutes later with three fat pounds of bronze brown beauty flapping on the stones, drowning in air. I could kill it.

I wet my hands and find the hook among the needle teeth and lift the fish back into water, cradling it, its head upstream to let it sense its element.

I feel the fish revive. It wriggles sleepily, it writhes and it is gone. I am the king. I stay there on the bank awhile and peace returns. The sun bakes the stones.

Californian poppies, as orange as the 70s. A raucous pair of black-fronted terns plunge and plunge into the pool below me.

To the west the mountains, tourist white against a postcard sky. To the east the hills with a mane of cloud like beer foam. It's the best of this country and I am king and I am happy.

I am wearing no watch. But sun and hunger tell me it is time to join the others at the car. They will have caught more fish than I but I don't care.

As always I've come further up the river than I realised, intent on the water. Returning downstream the river looks different. To recognise the water I have to turn around and see it as I saw it some hours earlier flowing towards me, promising and virgin.

We parked the car by a bend under a single conifer that stood dark among the willows. I see the conifer first and then the bend and the river splitting into rapids where I lost a fish three hours ago. It jumped and broke me. The car has gone.

I feel a sudden tiny surge of fear. I check again. So many places on the river look the same, but here's the tree, the bend, the rapids. I've been too long. My friends have gone to look for me. They'll soon be back. I sit to wait. The sun feels fiercer on my legs. I sit and wait. I wait an hour.

The only noise is water. Flies perch momentarily on my arm. I flick at them. A pied stilt lilts through the air, its pink legs streaming out behind, its body shaped like a shallow dinghy, then lands as delicate as thistledown, and picks for food among the stones along the water's edge. I am hungry. I wait. I toss pebbles, killing time.

My brain begins to conjure possibilities of broken cars, of dire emergencies, of watching darkness fall. I've got no sweater and no food. I'm maybe 30km from any houses. I've got a lighter. Can build a fire.

The thought is comforting, but I am not the king. The sky looks vast. The land is bare and hostile. I think perhaps I ought to try to catch another trout for food.

I hear the shout, look up and there a 100m away is Paul. Relief surges like triumph. I jump to my feet.

"So where you been?" asks Paul.

I tell him. He laughs. I laugh, too. The car was parked just a kilometre downstream. So many places on the river look the same.

"Let's go," he says.

"Yes," I say, "let's go."