Cover of The Rights of Man and Fish – illus. Pete Field

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a novel by Paul Halas, illustrated by Pete Field and published by AN Editions

Bienvenue, welcome…. So you’re the reporter from La Dépêche…. You speak English? That’s a relief…. Well, I’ve been here – what is it? Four? No, very nearly five years, and my French is still…a work in progress. And of course you want to know about the odd English writer who’s been holed up here all this time.

‘I’m guessing you haven’t read my book? No? Not surprising really, since there hasn’t been a French edition yet. Which means there’s a bit of a story to tell. It may take a little time, and you’ll no doubt end up saying I’ve been talking a load of conneries – rubbish. You’re still interested? Gosh – it must be a very slow week for real news. Anyway—

‘The book is about history…although it’s been described as fantasy, a mishmash of misinformation…absolutely crazy, according to many. Ah, so you’ve read the reviews already. It’s true, quite a few critics have said that, but actually that’s pretty wide of the mark – I’d say it was a chronicle, an account of the stories behind the stories. You see what’s really interesting about history isn’t the bare facts – we all know them – but the back stories…what made historical events take place – that’s what’s so different about the book, and that’s what got people so worked up. But first things first. Let’s take a seat on la terrasse, and can I offer you a glass of rosé? It’s from the local vineyard, and it’s very nice – especially on a day like this.

‘Where to begin? I pitched my first history article – The Battle of Hastings: the true story – to an online magazine called The New Polymath. They were very rude at first, asked if I even knew what the term meant, but then surprise of surprises someone there actually bothered reading it through to the end, and even more surprisingly decided to use it. And that was just the first surprise. One of the readers at a small publishers called Benham Kleber (maybe there was only one reader) saw the piece and thought there might be mileage in it. I think they were really desperate at the time, but they proposed I wrote a book – a real one. Because the advance was so piddling – yes, I mean small, about enough for a trip to the supermarket – they offered me a decent deal apropos of royalties…and the rest, as they say, is history.

‘People always ask me where my outrageous ideas come from, but they’re actually factual accounts and, truth be told, I’m not the real narrator of the work – more an editor or agent or something like that I suppose. It’s all in the book – as written – and that’s where people have so much trouble with it. Many critics simply dismissed it as a Baron Munchausen-type fantasy, which I don’t have a problem with as long as the books fly off the shelves. You’re still interested? Bien.

‘Once you know the whole story you’ll understand why people have a problem taking it literally, and that’s why I don’t give interviews to the British press anymore. Why? Because they always think I’m taking the piss, que je me fous de leurs gueles…. And your average British hack doesn’t have very much imagination.

‘So I’m telling you, it all sounds pretty bizarre. I mean at first I didn’t believe any of this stuff could be for real, but as for anyone else…. Well, you aren’t going to believe me. But you’re still up for it? Really? Then have another glass. Make yourself comfortable. That’s right. This is going to take rather a long time, so I hope you’ve nothing else scheduled for the rest of the day. I just want to make one condition. You’re going to find what I say absolutely outrageous. However mad it all sounds, I’m asking you not to stop me or butt in or we’ll be here until next month. You interrupt me and this tête à tête is over, compris? Very well, if you’re sitting comfortably let us begin—’

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Chapter One

Coote Lake. In which Gisella makes a very dumb mistake and meets Mike

A Saturday afternoon in early July, six years ago. I’d cleaned my flat and done the shopping, and pitched up at a lovely secluded swim at Coote Lake for an overnight fishing session. Coote was a small gravel pit, a club water that not many people fished because it contained such a low head of carp and it had the reputation for being hard. As well as carp there were tench, roach, rudd, perch and pike, but not in great numbers and not particularly large. The club had other larger and more prolific lakes that the majority of its members preferred, which suited me just fine.

It was perfect. A very slight ripple blowing diagonally across the water towards me, a bank of reed mace to my left and a large bed of lily pads about fifty metres out to my right. Magic. I used to fish with only two rods, and anyway the club had a two-rod maximum rule on Coote, so it didn’t take long to set up and cast out a couple of baits. Landing net, carp cradle and weighing sling in position, I erected my bivvie and unfolded my bed chair. The cooking stuff could come out later, when I fancied a brew. Now I could sit back and wait for Mr Carp.

I usually fished single baits, with a small dissolving mesh bag of micro fish pellets for a bit of extra attraction, simply because everyone else used to fire out a load of freebies that could easily over-feed the swim. My baits that day were all of three years old, from a half-empty tub of long discontinued boilies that I’d lost during my last house move. Old the boilies may have been, but they still smelled strongly of fenugreek and maple syrup – Vor-Tex, they were called, a classic bait in their day – so I reckoned they’d still be worth a try.

I guess fishing was my major haven of sanity. Not that I went in for it like many others – spending thousands, snapping up all the latest gear and faddy baits, a slave to the latest rigs, joining the most exclusive fishing syndicates, total tunnel vision, wrecking their marriages. Actually my marriage had gone to shit without my fishing myself out of it. Anne said it was more that I didn’t have any ambition, any get-up-and-go. That I lacked imagination, that I failed to thrill her anymore. That a follicularly-challenged septic-tank salesman who collected old seaside postcards – and not even the smutty ones – evidently did thrill her didn’t exactly help my mental well-being. In addition, the fact that I absolutely detested my job, that I detested pretty well every job I’d ever had, and you start to see why my weekly overnighters at Coote Lake were such a welcome escape. That, and reading history books – pretty well any history books actually – every night till I fell sleep, made up the positives in my life.

Of course people should have ambitions in life. After all, at that time I was still only in my mid-thirties, but all that corporate ladder stuff never seemed to be for me. It was as if the very first rung was way out of reach, and I couldn’t be arsed to make the effort anyway. Maybe Anne was right. What did float my boat, what really did quicken the pulse, was the idea of catching Mrs Lopsided, a common carp of stunning proportions for such a modest lake. Mrs Lopsided was probably a myth, but the tiny handful of people who claimed to have spotted her (the biggest carp is usually a she) said she swam with an odd sideways list. They also said she weighed thirty-seven pounds, which puzzled me slightly because she’d never ever been caught. But it was all hearsay and rumour; every water has its own folklore and legends, and ninety-nine per cent of the time they’re bullshit. So why did I fantasise about catching her? A reluctance to deal with the real world, perhaps….

As far as I could tell I had the lake to myself. Apparently its days were numbered. The whole area was down for development, into a new ‘village’, or yet another expansion of Springhampton more like – too bloody bad for the green belt – and it was only being held up by a lively local protest group and the few councillors with any shred of integrity. A lake on the critically endangered list seemed to be putting the regulars off – but me, I was only too glad of the peace and quiet.

The droning of insects in the late afternoon heat was making me dozy, when the peace and quiet were rudely shattered by one of my bite alarms trilling. I almost fell off my bed chair and made contact with the culprit, which tried to dash for the reeds. I stopped it, as it wasn’t that big. Then it suddenly bolted diagonally back across my swim and before I could regain all the slack line it embedded itself in the only weed bed in that part of the lake. Bloody typical!. I applied steady pressure and slowly but surely a clump of the weed detached itself and I was able to winch it bit by bit into my landing net.

When extracted from the weed the tench – of course it was a tench – went 5lbs 10oz on the scales. I’d hoped it would make six, but five-ten was pretty respectable – especially for Coote. Never underestimate a tench; they fight dirty. It had proved one thing, though: the fish appeared quite willing to chomp three-year-old baits.

I slipped it gently back into the water, rebaited and cast out again. I was fishing both lines a few metres apart, in a slightly deeper gulley a little way short of the lily bed. Tight to the reed-mace bank would’ve been a good spot too, but casting to the pads I’d be able to use a couple of poplars on the skyline as night-time markers for later on when I’d be casting in the dark. It very seldom ever gets pitch black at night, and the silhouettes of trees make ideal points of reference, so you can put your baits where you’re aiming to. Sort of, in my case.

That lovely drowsy feeling again. The gentle buzz of insects. Then the lengthening shadows and fading light, moths replacing damsel flies, bats replacing swallows. The mosquitoes didn’t bother me. I reckon when you spend a lot of your time outside you get some kind of immunity to the little bastards. And then my mind turned to food – lunch was a long time ago.

I’d brought a tin of ravioli for my supper, supermarket own brand of course. Tell me it isn’t exactly the same as the pricier bands…. Well if it isn’t I still bet no one can tell the difference. Strange how I never get bored of tinned ravioli, but truth be told the effects of the open air and ravenous hunger mean taste becomes somewhat secondary. The only problem with heating up my evening meal was the prospect of getting my arse off my bed-chair. Strange how inertia sets in, even when one could eat a horse.

Then, in a fraction of a second, I was on my feet. My right-hand bite alarm bleeped – once, twice. Then it was silent, though I could still see my line twitching slightly. It was probably a little roach or rudd pissing about with my bait, but there was just a chance the culprit was a crafty big fish trying to eject the bait without launching into a full-blooded run.

Very gently I raised my rod – and felt something very solid. I wound down and, fully expecting hell to break loose, had the odd sensation of not fighting a large, angry fish, but pulling in what felt like a supermarket bag filled with rice pudding. While pumping the fish in, I slipped my landing net into the water in readiness to greet whatever it was I’d hooked. A big bream? Were there any bream in Coote? Then the fish, which by now I could tell was seriously big, knee-tremblingly big, decided to lend a hand. It swam straight towards me and right into the waiting net.

‘Fuck me, it’s Mrs Lopsided!’ I gasped.

‘I do detest that name,’ said a distinctly female voice. It was the kind of voice you associate with a forty-Gitanes-a-day habit and jazz-singing in a Rive Gauche nightclub. The husky, slightly Gallic voice belonged to the carp. ‘My name happens to be Gisella.’

Whatever I’d expected to happen, this wasn’t it. There was absolutely no one around. It can only have been the carp that had spoken to me. My legs turned to blancmange and I sat down on the grass.

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Paul Halas, the Arts and Lifestyle Editor of Ars Notoria and co-founder of AN Editions, is a writer of Jewish heritage whose escape from 1970s hippidom was the discovery that he could invent stories. He spent forty years contributing to various Disney magazines and books, as well as a variety of non-Disney comics, books and animated films. He has recently finished the second edition of his book The Rights of Man and Fish which was recently launched at the Chapel Market Tavern On March 6th and is working on his next book: The Sarah Chronicles. Halas is a self described Humane Socialist.