On a Tuesday afternoon, I leave my house and cycle across the city to go in search of fish. I pedal through fenland that smells of warming cow pats and over an iron bridge, like a miniature railway, that’s hung with silk from spiderlings’ early summer flights. I pass the lone lamppost in the meadow where 80 years ago people came to skate in frozen winters, but now cut off from the river’s flood it’s home to orchids and grass snakes. Down a green tunnel, over the rattling ridges of a cattle grid and into the bright open path along the riverside.
Two red camping chairs with recumbent anglers are hopeful signs that I’ll find something. I prop my bike against a tree and find a spot to sit and look. The water is cloudy brown, the surface reflects blue sky and puffs of cloud, and I see nothing below. Overhead a tern follows the river’s path, one way and then back again, squeaking now and then like a dog’s chewy toy. Its pointed wings are swept back, and a black cap hides its eyes that look down for food. It spots something and drops with a splash, then flaps off, swallowing. I spy the tern’s target as a shoal of fish fry sweep into a shallow recess in the riverbank next to me. They have big, dark eyes and transparent bodies. A couple of them are bold and lead at the front, while others trail behind, as the shoal inspects water-filled, muddy footprints in the riverbed, which to them must be like giant craters.
Their motion seems hesitant and alert. Swim, swim, pause. Swim, swim, pause.
As I lean in to get a closer look they flit away and gather around a frond of river weed, apparently sensitive to my presence. They are far less troubled by a kayaker paddling past; maybe their chief enemies are aerial and bankside predators, not splashing waterborne beasts. When the water flattens again, the fish fry rise to the surface and kiss wrinkled circles that expand across the water’s skin.
I walk beside the river, past students with disposable barbecues scorching squares in the grass, past a man in swimming trunks sitting quietly under a low-hanging tree. A sunbathing couple listen to tinny tunes, which male damselflies dance to, trying to impress their mates with shining, sapphire bodies and pigmented wings that flutter like butterflies.
Then, in a clearing in the murky water, I see two fish silhouettes hanging in the current, at least a hand-span in size, tails pointing downstream towards the city. I find a gap in the thistles and nettles, scramble down the bank and step shin-deep into soft mud. The riverbed slopes sharply and I quickly get out of my depth, lunging into water cold enough to steal my first three breaths. My pasty white legs appear whisky-brown through the water and I float for a moment, fiddling with my dive mask, spitting and rubbing to stop it fogging.
It feels strange to sink so low, without the boost of saltwater I’m accustomed to. I’m also used to being able to see further than this. Thick water pushes against the glass of my mask and I wonder if I’ll see anything at all. In the river’s main channel a fish would have to swim right past my nose for me to spot it.
I look across the water surface that’s flecked with fluff shed by the surrounding willow trees and decide to try my luck along the far bank. I swim over a silky bed of waterweed, which wraps around my legs, and I push my way into the overhanging vegetation, disturbing a hidden moorhen and her chick that clamber around at my eye level. A punt comes past, a long way from the city-centre tours, and the man poling it along says to his reclining passenger, ‘There’s a swimmer looking at things.’ I reply with a cheerful ‘Hello!’ and return to my underwater search.
Holding as much air in my lungs as possible to stay afloat, I do my best to keep my feet away from the soft riverbed that will ruin my view. In this quiet backwater, between the submerged branches and roots, the mud has settled down and I can now see at least an arm’s length ahead.
The scene reminds me of snorkelling in a mangrove forest in Madagascar. Twice a day, at high tide the amphibious trees there are flooded, and an aquatic ecosystem swiftly assembles around the looping roots and knuckled trunks. Until then I’d assumed mangroves were essentially all mud and there would be little point looking beneath the waterline. But I marvelled at the water’s clarity, at the silver fish weaving through the trees and the sweeping schools of fry that split and reformed around me. Here, my river view is not quite as clear and it’s far less busy than the tropical forest, but I have the same sense of this liminal space, connecting land and water.
I wait patiently for something to come by, and begin to worry that all the fish are avoiding me. Then, at last, one of them dares to come near and hovers in view, treading the water with undulating pectoral fins. It has large, overlapping silver scales and red fins, including a deeply forked tail. It’s a Roach, a species that ranges across Europe from the Pyrenees to Siberia, but this one, just for a moment, is all mine. With a red-rimmed eye it watches me and I watch back, holding as still as I can in case I hurry it away. I count five sips of water it sucks in that mark the brief seconds we spend together. Then, with a body twitch and a flick of its tail, the Roach slides out of sight, leaving me alone once more, floating in the river.