the
fly box
Grampy never had a holiday...
...said he never needed one, said it was all silly notions to go
away on holiday. He was contented with his life and that was that..
Nana would cook the game he brought home, would gut the fish he had caught in the river and light the
fires he had laid mornings for her to warm them on a blowy night. He would
clean the gun he had used that day before he ate and Elli loved to watch...his
hands so sure, knew what to do and the oil he used smelled good...he cleaned
inside the barrel first, put his eye to it and when he was satisfied to its
perfection rubbed the outside to a shine. It glinted in the firelight and when
it was done and put away Elli moved close to him as she knew that he would tell
a story now till supper...he’d tell of all that he had seen that day, about the
dogs that worked with him and dropped the pheasants at his feet, two of them lived
in the house and two in the kennel outside. She loved the little one the best,
the long one with skin too big for him to wriggle out should he get caught in the badger
sett...
Nana cooked hares for the dogs to get all the
meat off and Elli liked a taste of them and although Nana did not like it when
she ate the meat she let her have some as it would not do her any harm. She
burnt the bones in the fire where the sizzled and crackled and spat and made
the flames turn blue...
Gramps would take Elli fishing and he taught
her how to tie a fly and what feathers to collect, tiny beads for balance and
safely put in the slotted box on the mantle. Only Grampy touched the box.
He made all sorts of flies and Elli loved
it when he was at work. Flies for fast water or for foaming or deep...she was going
to do all that when she grew up...she was a fairy hunter now...had her own pink
torch and magnifying glass...and Grampy helped her look for fairies in the
bluebell wood, in buttercup meadows and where dandelions grew...fairies were
quick, they never saw one at all but they knew they were there...
He made a ‘Wooly Bugger’ and Elli loved that word and said it often. She
was a thoughtful little person, spoke well and grew up well and when Nana told
her Grampy might leave them for a while she worried every day...was he really
going away from them ?
Nana said that he was going, taking his Woollies and Montana Nymphs,
with him, the whole box he’d take with Hare’s Ears and Pheasant Tails...Royal
Wulffs for fast water, he tied flies for everything...the Royal with its orange
body and white wings was a real thing of beauty, special, and easy for him to
see when he was fishing...eyes failing and all that...but his fingers were
still nimble enough to tie them all and the fly box was a vision of delight for them both... he would bring it out
when he told her stories about the ways of the river and the fish he had caught
or the fish too large to land that got away with his precious fly...he told of
the heron fishing...’fierce competition,’ he said, how the bird stared into the
water and stood completely still and how suddenly his neck would lunge forward
and the fish was caught, manoevered
head first down the gullet, stary blue eyes...and you could see it disappear,
bulging down the throat...poor fish thought Elli, but she had learned early
that we all ate one another in a way...
...he told of the kingfishers and the
otters and the buzzard high above, of cloudbursts and of lightning storms and
how he watched a vixen bring her cubs to
drink at the edge. He once
heard a bittern call and thought at first it was a cow who bellowed or a stag
that roared and then he saw a movement in the reeds...he told the story of the
warblers there and of the one large chick they fed, ten times bigger than they
ever grew...
Elli always knew that she would be a keeper
just like him, that she would draw and share her love of animals and colour she
had learned at her Nana’s kitchen table where she would dress a bird for Sunday
dinner...
...after Grampy hung the birds in the old
dairy to let the blood run out into an old enamel bowl with chips right round
the edge he’d pluck them when
they’d hung their while, Nana gutted. She slit them open and with slender hands
and tiny movements pulled the innards out, carefully so as not to break the
gall bladder as that would ruin the bird’s meat is what she said, and not even
the dogs would touch it then...the smell was bad for only a moment but the
colours delighted Elli every time she sat and watched with keen eyes! Blues and
white of the stomach, rainbow guts and pink flesh that shone...and then there
were just the wings to do and singe the last fluffy down off the bodies when
she lifted the rings off the stove and held a pheasant or a snipe by the feet
and stretched the neck and carefully singed the birds over the dancing
flames...
Elli would miss all that when she would go
away to Bicton College, a stone’s throw away from the sea and not too far from
Exeter where she would sit in a café in Gandy Street with her books and iPad...talking
with her friends...and sipping lattes...
...the years passed too slowly for Elli...
...for Nana and Grampy too fast...
and
when Elli came home after the last term
away from the college she saw a lot of changes. She noticed that the gun was
not in its usual place, the cabinet was gone and there were no boots by the
back door. She noted that Nana had taken to wearing black...her hair had
thinned, she had had it cut and she looked very pale...there was only one dog
to greet her...the little one, the long one with the merry tail Gramps had always
taken with him to sort the badgers out...
...perhaps he had gone fishing was her
thought and she would run down to the river as she’d always done after the day
at school to greet him, joyfully, laughing , hugging each other and feeling
utterly safe in his arms...
...she remembered the trout trap he had
built in the little brook past the bluebell wood...’no need for flies here,’ he
told her, ‘you just pick’em out of the water, but you had to be quick enough,
he said...you just needed two rocks and set them askew against one other and
where the water flowed the fastest the trout would swim...you just had to be
alert and quicker than the fish...a net would do it too...but you always got your
fish for your supper...
‘Where’s Grampy Nana?’ she asked
uncertain...the clock ticked louder than it did, the pendulum heavy and slow
that she had never noticed...there was a fly buzzing, hitting the kitchen
window with little thuds... ’where are the dogs?’
‘the dogs are gone...Nana said, looking at
her, sad, ‘and Grampy’s gone...gone away... on holiday...
...on holiday?...
...away?...
...Nana nodded...
..we did not tell you, you had things to
finish...’better that way,’ said Gramps...is what he wanted...
...and Elli saw the box on the mantel with
the little brass clasp and a leaping fish painted on the lid...he would never
go anywhere without his fly box...
...he went without the fly box?...
...without the fly box...
Grampy had been contented with his life.
He never had a holiday
He never needed one...
...is what he said...
but
...’he was tired,’ Nana said...
...he was wrong...
...worn out...
and he needed time out from it all..
...he couldn’t wait for you Elli and was
sorry that he had to go but said that you would carry on where he had done...
..the fly box was his treasure then and the
stories that he told...
...yours to have and treasure...
...now
