The Last Summer of the Water Strider (11 page)

‘Made him feel foolish. And, as I said, he doesn’t like some of the company I attract. I think that was the real reason he buttonholed me. To truffle-hunt for information. I’m
having a bit of an, um,
event
down here in a couple of weeks, and he’s hoping we’re all going to be dancing naked around the campfire and handing out peyote to minors. Chance
would be a fine thing! He’d love that, because it would give him further grounds for litigation. But I know the rules, and I’ll stick by them.’

‘What if they did get enough evidence to throw you off?’

Henry stared out of the window. His eyes took on a faraway look.

‘I would have nothing, I suppose. This is the only home I have. I can’t just sail it away and moor it somewhere else. Moorings are hard to find, and expensive. Plus I’m sure
this old bucket would sink if you tried to take it anywhere.’

‘My father always told me you had plenty of money.’

‘Raymond thinks I’m Daddy Warbucks. That’s because I have a few old friends in the banking business, and I can raise loans easily enough. Have done in the past, and always made
them pay. So my credit is good. But in terms of real cash, I’ve got next to nothing. I can live here because there are no expenses. I mean, the insurance is fierce – because the
Ho
Koji
is made of wood they say it’s a fire risk, which I suppose is fair enough – but other than that, since I own the lease on the land, there is nothing to pay apart from the
peppercorn ground rent. I live on my wits and what practical skills I have. Also Strawberry sometimes gives me a few coins for letting her sleep in the cabin.’

‘I’ve not seen anything of her recently.’

‘She’s been staying in Bristol with Troy for a while, but she’ll be back. Sometimes she earns a little money – busking or waitressing. She always tries to give something
to me. Which I accept largely so that she doesn’t feel indebted to me. But it’s all hand to mouth.’

‘How about the Karmann?’

‘A gift from a friend. Well, not so much a gift. The man owed me money and he didn’t have any, so he gave me the car. Which was worth about a quarter of his debt. Still, it was
better than nothing. Talking of Strawberry – I understand she dropped in to see you the other day.’

‘Yes.’

‘Something of a compliment. She’s usually slow to “reach out” – as they like to say in California. What did you make of her?’

‘She’s too thin.’

‘Anything else?’

‘She smelled of blood.’

‘Probably that time of month. She doesn’t believe in tampons or sanitary towels. Uses moss or leaves or something. Anything that comes to hand. Tree bark, I shouldn’t wonder.
Unsanitary towels, I call them. She just bleeds. Lets it return to the earth. Claims that menstrual blood is good for the soil.’

I felt discomfited by this revelation. I had very little knowledge of female anatomy or biological processes. My mother and father had never talked about it, and such matters were not mentioned
at school or addressed on television.

‘Anything else?’

‘She looks like she’d break easily.’

‘Now there you’re entirely wrong. Strawberry is very, very strong. She has the most remarkable will-power. Nothing will divert her from her path once she’s set on it. I admire
her greatly, although I certainly don’t agree with all her choices. But then, mistakes are a kind of fertilizer for good decisions, which will come as the seasons change. The thing is to keep
moving forward. The Zen masters say, “Go left or go right, but don’t dither.”’

He checked his watch.

‘On the subject of dithering, I need to be going, and I still have to get changed. Are you coming?’

‘I’m meant to be studying.’

‘Who was it said, “History is bunk”?’

‘Henry Ford.’

‘There you are. From the great man’s mouth. Your lift leaves in five minutes, if you want it.’

This time, I wasn’t difficult to convince. I pulled on my baseball boots. When Henry reappeared he was wearing white linen pyjamas – ‘everyday wear in Rishikesh’. I
followed him out on to the deck and over to the Karmann Ghia. When we reached it, I felt Henry’s hand resting on my shoulder.

‘Can you drive?’

‘No. Well – I can. I just don’t have a licence. I’ve driven my dad’s Anglia round the local gasworks, though. And I stole a car once after my mum died and crashed
it.’

I hoped Henry would be intrigued by this and eager to hear the story of my escapades, but he remained impassive. It occurred to me that Ray had probably told him all about my exploits
anyway.

‘Why don’t you give the Ghia a spin?’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Not at all.’

‘It’s illegal.’

‘That didn’t stop you before, apparently. Anyway, it’s not illegal in my field. I own the lease on everything from here to the fence.’ He gestured towards the enclosed
perimeter, maybe half a mile away. ‘Beyond that, guess who the land belongs to?

‘The government? The Church?’

‘You’re close. Wesley Toshack. God knows how many acres he’s bought up around here. I’m like a little sore, a pimple on the chin of his empire. He doesn’t like it.
Cut off his access to the river, where all the most valuable land is.’

‘Valuable for what?’

‘House-building. This stretch I hold the lease on is one of the few patches of soil on the river suitable for construction. For some weird topographic reason, this part of the river seems
immune from floods. He could make a fortune if he could get hold of the land. And there would be nothing to stop him if the lease was rendered invalid. He’s tried to buy me up several times.
That’s why he never quite gets round to threatening me. Because he thinks he can schmooze me. But I won’t sell. It’s my home. Also there’s the matter of
Strawberry.’

‘What’s Strawberry got to do with it?’

‘As I said, she lives here. She has nowhere else to go. And I’ve kind of adopted her. She visits Troy, but that’s on his good will. See that patch of trees? Standing a little
higher than the rest?’ He pointed to a line of beech trees around a quarter of a mile from the mooring. ‘Behind that is her little shack. No running water or electricity. Really just a
shed. But it’s dry, and livable in the summer. There’s a bed in there, and a primus stove for cooking and heating water. Strawberry’s been ensconced there since the spring –
that’s when she came over from America. I keep asking her to come and stay on the boat. It’s very isolated out there. But as I said, she’s stubborn. She wants to get back to
nature, she says. If my boat isn’t back to nature, I don’t know what is. Not close enough for her, though. She cultivates a vegetable garden, although all it’s produced so far is
a couple of potatoes, a carrot and a handful of radishes. So much for the properties of menstrual blood on the soil.

‘She sits in there and reads or meditates. Plays pat-a-cake with the ducks or fondles the trees. I’ve heard her talk to the flowers. God knows what she was saying. Really. Good kid,
though. Smart in her way. But she’s a fruitcake. Guess it comes from growing up in California. The fruitcake state.’

I was only half listening, so enthralled was I by the prospect of driving the car. I climbed into the driving seat. I understood that manipulating the clutch was the hardest part, so I felt with
my feet for it. But there were only two pedals.

‘It’s an automatic,’ said Henry. ‘Just an accelerator and a brake.’

I pressed my foot gently on the accelerator. The car lurched forward. Henry laughed as we both flew backwards. I tried again, more gently. This time, the car inched ahead.

I moved the wheel to the left slightly, and the car began to move towards the field gate. I pressed the accelerator again. We started to move at about five miles an hour. Without asking for any
permission from Henry, I began to accelerate. He said nothing. All he did was reach up and crank a handle above our head. The sun roof creaked open. Air and light poured through the gap.

I stopped in front of the gate. Henry got out. I expected him to take over, but he simply opened the gate so that I could manoeuvre the car on to the empty track. Henry shut the gate behind him
and climbed back into the passenger seat. We were off his land. I glanced at him, still presuming he was going to take over. But he said nothing, just looked straight ahead.

Surprised by both my recklessness and Uncle Henry’s indifference, I pushed the accelerator a little harder. Now we were moving along at twenty miles per hour. Henry began to hum a tune to
himself. I recognized it as an old song, Donovan’s ‘Sunshine Superman’.

It was several minutes before we saw another car. I had reached the road proper and needed to give way. A blue Ford Escort drove cautiously across our path. I raised a hand in acknowledgement,
enjoying the gesture for its premonition of the privileges of adulthood.

The country road stretched away in front of us. A warm rush of wind splayed my hair in front of my eyes, and I found enough confidence to brush it away, leaving me momentarily one-handed on the
wheel. Henry remained unconcerned. He seemed to believe absolutely that I was able to drive, and his belief somehow made it possible.

He reached over and put a cassette on the 8-track. It was something from the early sixties – ‘Surfin’ Bird’ by The Trashmen.

I did something I hadn’t done for years. I let out a whoop. Henry began to join in the chorus.

‘
Papa ooma mow mow, papa ooma mow mow
. . .’

I couldn’t help but join in. Together we made a ragged harmony.

I saw a pigeon in the road in front of us. It stared at us insolently. As we closed in, it didn’t move. It was too late to brake. I was certain I was going to hit it. Panicked, I swung and
crashed into a small, shallow ditch at the side of the road.

Henry and I rocked forward and back again with the impact. Neither of us was wearing a seatbelt, but the ditch I had deposited the Karmann Ghia in was soft and grassy,
cushioning the impact. ‘Surfin’ Bird’ continued jauntily, if unsteadily. Henry remained silent. The motor had cut. I waited for the inevitable explosion of anger.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘The pigeon. I didn’t see it in time.’

I had heard glass smashing as we made impact; and some other sound, harsh, grating, had seemed to
suggest that metal had been bent and paint had been scraped.

Henry still didn’t say anything. Instead, he indicated for me to move over. I climbed awkwardly out of the car – the door was obstructed by the wall of the ditch – and he took
my place. He started the motor. It seemed to be running smoothly. He put the gearbox into reverse and eased the car back on to the soft shoulder of the road. From where I stood, I could see that a
headlight had been shattered and bent out of shape, and the chrome bumper was contorted into almost a right-angle at the end where it had struck the verge.

Henry, leaving the car idling, moved back into the passenger seat. Then he nodded to me to resume my place behind the steering wheel.

I got back into the driving seat and looked once at Henry, who nodded. Amazed at his insouciance, I started the car moving again. A new track had begun, ‘Louie Louie’ by The
Kingsmen. The sun and wind once more in my face, I could see Lexham approaching in the distance.

‘Nice of you to be so concerned about the pigeon,’ said Henry. It was the first time he had spoken since the car had veered off the road. It sounded not, as I expected, that he was
controlling his temper, but that he was utterly unconcerned by the damage I had done to his beautiful car.

‘Aren’t you angry?’ I turned towards him briefly.

‘Keep your eyes on the road.’

‘But . . .’

‘I have no right to be angry. It’s my responsibility, not yours. Why should you know how to drive? You didn’t ask me, I asked you.’

‘But I messed your car up.’

‘That’s the past. Nothing I can do about it now.’

I considered this. What he said made a lot of sense. But it was hard to imagine my father, for instance, taking a similarly philosophical point of view had I pranged his Anglia.

‘So you find it pretty boring down here,’ said Henry.

‘Sometimes,’ I admitted.

‘If you’re sufficiently bored, I’ve got a thing on Saturday. In Bristol. You might want to come.’

‘What sort of “thing”?’

‘It’s called the Mind, Heart, Body and Spirit Fayre. They’ve held it for the last five years. I usually put in an appearance. Mostly rubbish and nutcases, but there’s
space for some serious stuff. I like to think of myself in that category. I’ll have a stall. It’s relatively painless. You could help. I’d pay you.’

‘What would I have to do?’

‘Nothing much. Keep me company. Hold the stall while I go for a cup of coffee. Help me load and unload. You might meet some interesting people. Don’t worry if you don’t want to
do it. I can manage by myself.’

I felt the weight of duty on me, a weight I had experienced every day at Buthelezi House. I said nothing.

‘Strawberry will probably show up. She likes you. She told me so. She does a bit of singing. Picks up a few coins. And she reads palms. Badly, so far as I can ascertain. But it’s all
simple fun.’

Still I said nothing.

‘I don’t want you to do it for me. Honestly. I don’t care. But I was rather hoping Strawberry and you might find something in common. I think she’s lonely, though she
would never admit it.’

‘She only lives a few hundred yards away.’

‘She’s proud. Likes to believe she’s self-sufficient. Nobody’s self-sufficient, though, are they? Anyway, it’s no big deal. Forget about it.’

He seemed genuinely unconcerned and I could tell he wouldn’t hold it against me if I decided not to come.

‘Can I think about it?’

‘Certainly. You might even find it interesting. Sometimes I think you are capable of finding things interesting. Other than yourself, that is.’

The sting of the implied criticism must have shown in my face, because Henry held his hand up, palm towards me.

‘I don’t mean to put you down. I still find myself the most fascinating thing in the world. There’s nothing wrong with self-absorption. It’s the only first-hand
experience we have of what people are like. But I like to make room for other matters too. Only because it pleases me, you understand. Not out of politeness, or duty.’