Before this house was a converted barn, centuries before the barn was laid up, before the old military camp was up on the hill, before Cromwell's bedraggled Army trudged from Wash Common past these fields on their way back to Aldermaston and London, before Christ, before there were trees here, before then, rivers of bluewhite ice ground rock into pebbles, grit; mud compounded, rivers ran.
- The gravel diggings are now gone too, save for one rusty tower and the dark pits. One of the pits is a wide, slow sanctuary for birds. There's a low wooden hut, a bike-rack, and inside, thermos flasks, marmite sandwiches, Barbours and binoculars. Another pit contains quicksands, danger! signs, rubble, stubborn thrusting bulrushes. The third pit is Sam's Lake. You won't find that name on any map, but it's Sam's Lake.
- I moved in to Straddle Barn, self-made millionaire workaholic, seven years ago, built offices in the garden, set up earning another million or two. Somewhere on the fringes of my life there was my wife Jenny, and the kids, Zak and Jenny-Two. Occasionally on weekends our paths crossed.
- I had the first warning on an early morning run round the lake, a slight pain, giddiness (I thought I was going to fall in the dark water). I walked home, deciding I had pushed it a bit harder than normal. By ten o'clock I had forgotten all about it. The heart-attack itself came a month later, then the by-pass surgery, then the doctor's orders (ignored) and then the ultimatum from Jenny.
- It was when Jenny said she would go, that was the wake-up call. I sold the businesses, called myself a consultant (at 52 there was no way I could say I had stopped work) and decided to take up fishing. And met Sam.
- Sam Pike was taller than me (and I'm six feet) but wisp-thin, all bone and awkward walking, fragile of body as if he had to concentrate to hold himself together, but sure-footed in the head and with a way of seeing the world, a peace, I could only dream about.
- Sam "looked after the lake", the trout lake, an old gravel pit, the oldest and prettiest, long, dark and deep, surrounded by beech and oak like a Constable picture.
- Fishing in the lake was £10 for a morning, or £15 for the day, or "two trout or four" though if you wanted to sit and pass time you could always throw them back. Fishing isn't about fish, is it?
- Sam was, and had always been, it seemed, "darn t'lake". He was such a fixture that the owner had long since "come to an arrangement" with him and Sam took the payments for half-day and day licences which eventually found their way to the owner.
- Sam taught me how to fish, then taught me how to mellow, to sit there, rain or sun, before the stretch of dark water, to be and not do, he'd say. Dun't allus have t'be doin'. Not allus. And sometimes I'd take a couple of fish for dinner, and sometimes I'd throw them back. It wasn't about the fish.
- He was a neighbour, Sam. He lived in a small terraced house, one of five tied farm cottages, barely one hundred yards from the three converted barns, but almost across a sea or a desert in the way the rich barn owners didn't mix with the people from the cottages. But through our common interest, through fishing, the lake, we grew to an understanding and I liked him, in a severe, reserved, nod-of-respect way.
- I found out Sam had been a soldier (Korea, Cyprus) then worked for the farm, then bought the cottage, did odd-jobs, was night watchman for the gravel workings until the last of it was dismantled. Then he got't workin for man owned lake, and, he said, was till scraping together enough to buy the place. It couldn't be built on so the owner just wanted twenty thousand for Sam take it off his hands. Then one day Sam told me. "I as it, ev'ry penny. Policy matured and the rest in't Post Office."
- The next day Sam's wife died.
- Marjorie Pike was a short-squat woman, not roly-poly but the hard, solid look that charwomen had in the post-war years, red-cheeked, obstinate, a scarf knotted round the head. She had gone for her afternoon nap and never woke up. When Sam got back from the lake his cup of tea wasn't ready. He went upstairs and found her.
- The next day, as usual, Sam was at the lake. He told me about Marjorie, and before I could speak, he told me everything was in hand, and again, before I could speak, he guessed my question and said, "This is my lake."
- I wasn't invited to the funeral, a small, quiet cremation in Reading, but I remember the morning, quiet sunshine. I was sitting there before the dark shine of the lake, taking in the far off reflections of trees, just being not doing when the owner appeared, a brown suit, short of breath, and seemingly desperate for my tenner. I paid up, and he took my money, stuffed it in his top pocket, then stared smugly out over the lake, his hands on his hips. I wanted to pick him up on his lack of sensitivity, but before I could speak he turned away, an odd grin on his face.
- Sam came down late in the afternoon, no rod. He just wanted to sit a while, he said. I stayed for half-an-hour, while it felt right, then took my leave and walked home. I felt low, somehow, and empty. I realised that I was close to Sam in one way but not part of him. The idea that I might put an arm on his shoulder and simply be his friend, just didn't seem possible. That made me sad.
- The next day was breathtakingly bright, sharp sun bouncing off the lake. It seemed as if God was making a point about life going on. Sam took my ten-pound note from me, scribbled in the book, but barely spoke to me. I put it down to his loss, and walked quietly away to my pitch and set up. Only later did I realise he was sitting in the doorway of his hut, reading something, and not at his usual place at the water's edge.
- I got up, went over. "I'm sorry, Sam," I said.
- "Double," he said. "Fifteen year it been. Now he're wanting twice the money."
- "For the lake?" I said. "The owner wants forty-thousand?"
- "Pieces on' silver, more like. Mightus'll be a million."
- I wanted to say something else, but there was still this painful feeling that I was Sam's friend when we were fishing, but we had never stepped further. He just sat there, frail. He seemed so squashed down. I went back to my pitch, limply fished, waited, but my heart simply wasn't in it, so I went home early.
- I had the idea later that afternoon. Twenty-thousand pounds cash from me to brown suit and he could sell the lake to Sam as agreed. I got on the telephone, arranged the meeting, drove over and shook on the deal. Brown suit (his name was Jenkins) wrote out the second letter for me to take back to Sam at the lake.
- I must have got there around four. The sun was lower, deep yellow light coming rich through the trees and the lake was beautiful. The gate was locked, so I hopped over. Sam's spot was just the other side of some bushes, hidden from the track, so I went to where he'd be, muttering something silly, slightly embarrassed. Twenty thousand was really nothing to me, but I felt odd about to tell a white but necessary lie to a man who had built his life on pride and decency.
- "Hey, Sam!" I said as I passed the locked hut, a little too loud, a little falsely. "I was-"
- I never figured out why he left the boots, not clothes, why he would take off those ancient, recobbled boots, but still keep on the old corduroy trousers, the dark-green sweater. Later I thought perhaps it felt wrong to undress, that he might somehow be an embarrassment. But he was gone. The lake surface was sharp, black, impenetrable.
- They dragged of course. They spent a week, divers, white boats and drag chains, but wherever Sam was he wasn't coming up any time soon. I went every day, crouched where Sam used to sit, and waited, waited, but it dawned on me slowly, that Sam was never going to be found. He was too wily.
- I gave Jenkins a cheque for the second twenty-thousand, so the lake's mine now. On a good day I can make forty quid in fees, maybe catch a couple, take them home for tea. But most days I don't bother. I just sit and practice being not doing. It's not about the fish, is it? On quieter days, if I stay very still I sometimes think, out where the lake is at its deepest, something big breaks the surface, but then the water settles.
