JOHN MARTIN'S TALES

Imagine I am lying on a psychiatrist’s sofa. Totally relaxed. Eyes closed. Ready to open my mind to you.

Your name is Dr Carl Jung and you are the shrink who popularised word-association tests.

You sit on a chair ready to jot down all my reactions and response times.

Your opening word is: ‘mother’.

My response, delivered at the speed of light, is: ‘brewmaster.’

You frown. “Vye do you say zat?”

“Easy,” I say, rising to my elbow. “A brewmaster carefully crafts and oversees the brewing process much like a mother caring for her children.”

“Werry interesting. Let’s try another verd.

‘Fish’.

Once again I reply with frightening speed. ‘Roses.’

“Interesting,” you say. ”Vye roses?”

“Because it unlocks a memory of great trauma in my life.”

“Do you vont to tell me about it?”

I start transferring my burden to you bit by bit by bit.

The year is 1995. Summer. I am living in Tasmania and Katherine, a friend I haven’t seen for 15 years, has asked me if she can visit me. I am cool with this. I know we share a passion for backgammon and booze.

But I am taken aback at her unusual request.

She wants to try fly-fishing.

I knew NOTHING about fly- fishing in 1995.

My only previous experience at freshwater fishing was when I was 17 and a family friend took me fishing for blackfish. The only thing I caught was a cold because I lost my footing and fell into the river.

Heck. I lived in the BIG CITY of Launceston, where the only trout were lying in fish shops in trays of ice.

I had experienced a version of fishing since my dunking but never with the expectations of actually catching fish. It was merely therapy. I had always fed my soul by sitting on a jetty or in a boat, stubby at my side, soaking up the sun, listening to the seabirds and the lapping waves.

But let me tell you: fly-fishing is nothing like that.

Not only do you have to cut a swathe through the bush to get to the river — dodging tiger snakes, leeches and razor-sharp foliage — on arriving there you are expected to continuously cast, only interrupting your frenzy to try out better spots on the riverbank. There is simply no time to refuel your soul or quench your thirst.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Before any of this torture was possible, I had to bring myself up to speed on fly-fishing. Katherine was probably expecting a level of expertise from me that I simply didn’t have.

I need to confess that I cheated.

I hired a fly-fishing coach based at Deloraine, where it snows — though mainly in the winter.

The day we went was in the height of summer — and there was no snow but rain bucketed down.

My cold, numb, sodden hands did nothing to enhance the experience.

Our fly-fishing coach turned out to be a former army sergeant, who was obviously used to barking out orders to recruits and who showed me no compassion when he realised what a wimp I was.

This wouldn’t have been a problem but he insisted we practice casting in his front garden and he wasn’t happy when I hooked some of his prized roses.

War movies make much of camaraderie, brothers in arms, no one left behind, etc.

Well, I want to say this ex-soldier gave up on me. I was dead to him.

When we finally reached the river, he left me to my own devices and took Katherine to a spot upstream.

I did do one token cast but as soon as they were out of sight, I called it a day, sat on a rock in the pouring rain, and waited for their return an hour later. The weather was appalling. The river was raging. I was saturated, cold and miserable.

The day wasn’t a complete shambles though.

Katherine and I went on to get married.