He had gone back to the place where he used to fish but it had all changed there. As though, overnight, someone had come in and put up notices on fencelines and gates, had posted signs—‘No Unauthorised Vehicles’—‘No Right of Way’—‘Private Road’. As though it had happened that quickly, when of course who knew how long the notices had been up, and the fences. It had been years since he’d been back to the estate and the river, and it would have been occurring slowly, no doubt, all this. The owners could have done anything to the place in all the time since the lodge had been left closed up and with no keeper since Johnny had left. And that had been long enough ago. 

And where had they ended up, anyhow, Johnny and Sarah? And why hadn’t he kept in touch with them, that he might have known? He’d thought about that, sure enough, while he’d been driving up that morning, coming in off the back road, had wondered then about the keeper and his wife and about the care they had taken looking after things here, the land and water, and why hadn’t he bothered to find out where they’d gone? 

But there was a lot you’d think he might have done that he hadn’t. And as he’d come in along the old way, over the first hill, and the second, all that had been in his mind, his carelessness. Cresting the second hill and with the land laid out ahead of him, pale green and grey and marked all over with thin lochs and burns and rivers… Thinking about the way he’d learned not to bother about anyone, to ask after them, or think about them; the kind of man he’d become. That had been in his mind, sure enough—yet it had only been later, when he’d seen the first sign, that the boy in him had risen up and he’d felt wretched then, at the sight of it. For he had known himself at that moment to be the boy again, not the man, and he’d had to stop the car. 

There had been no signs in the past, no gates. There’d been no fences, even, when some might have said you could have done with a fence, maybe. A fence might have articulated the shape of the country, its distances, when there’d been only ever the river running along to the left as you were coming in to give a sense of direction. There’d always been the lovely turn and different colours of the river. The parts where it was deep or still or broken into falls and then dropping down, and the parts where it widened out again with little beaches carved out at the edges, and the wild thyme that used to grow up against the water there, and the heather and the sound of bees in high summer… He had always known where he was here. And being back again, as he’d decided to come back and have a look at the place after all the years away, to be near the water, that he might hear the sound of it running over the rocks, stilling, then taking up again… How all this had come in upon him when he’d stopped for a while after opening that first gate and had stood and listened. 

Then he’d driven on.

Gate or no gate, sign or no sign, it had been good to be back. To be remembering the water, to be near it and thinking about fishing again, and about the clean black colour of the river with its peaty gold in the shallows but rich and dark where it was deep, it had been reassuring, yes, it had. As though an easing, somehow, of all that had gone on in the time he’d been away. He’d got out of the car at a second gate and had scanned the sky again for weather. Now, he’d thought, it would be fine. 

The first gate hadn’t been closed, despite the awful sign, ‘No Vehicles Beyond This Point’ This second one, though, he’d had to undo. There’d been a bit of a fuss with it, two bolts, but he’d managed to pull the thing open and fix it back after him – and though he’d felt the wrench of having to do that, open and close a gate that had never been there before, he’d decided by then he wouldn’t let himself mind about it. He’d become that boy again, you see? Thinking about the fineness of the day. About a beautiful fish that might be somewhere there in the river, lying deep and still in a dark pool, as though waiting for him…

And it had been true, hadn’t it? That nothing else had seemed to matter to him then?  As though, that day, he really was making the first steps towards recovering something he’d thought he’d lost? For sure, for the first time in a long time, he’d had these thoughts as well starting to come into his mind – about the past, and how he had spoiled things. Not knowing, in the end, and never knowing, the right thing to do – but only knowing instead the many ways you could make yourself sick, over the years, taking the easy way out, always the easy way. And how that had worked on him, weakness. That there’d been pleasures, oh yes, alright, pleasures. But that he’d allowed himself to do the things he’d done. All that. Become that kind of man. Someone who had forgotten about what it could be like to be here, with the murmuring comfort of the river and land to hold him, to be the boy whose father had taught him, as Johnny had, about this place and how it could keep you safe. 

These thoughts were in his mind for sure, and more… As he’d got out of the car and started walking the three miles or so along the estate road to where his favourite part of the river would be waiting for him, walking by then in a kind of dream, further and further… To find himself at yet another huge gate, and this time barbed wire had been wrapped right around the gatepost and across the top of it, and wound through the gate also another kind of vicious razor wire. The notice there had said simply ‘Warning’. As though, even if you had been able to get open the great industrial-sized weight of the thing and go through it, you would have wanted to. 

But how he had wanted to.

*

‘Pretty Ugly’ is out now. Buy a copy here (£13.99). 

Kirsty Gunn embarks on an autumn tour for the book next month, including a combined book event and terrarium workshop in London on 1st October. Find further details below.