The Last Summer of the Water Strider (20 page)

I took a deep draught. It was thick, almost sticky, and held the tang of liquorice in its aftertaste.

‘Aren’t you having any?’ I said.

‘I’ll stick with this for today.’

Henry removed the joint from behind his ear and relit it. I inhaled the fragrant smoke.

‘Can I have a toke?’

‘I don’t think your father would consider it very responsible of me to offer my nephew marijuana.’

‘So when did personal responsibility become one of your guiding principles in life?’ said Strawberry.

Henry looked at her steadily. ‘People can change.’

‘Can they?’

‘Aren’t you trying to change yourself?’

‘No. I’m trying to
be
myself. That’s different.’

‘I’m not sure that’s true.’

‘Shut up, Henry. Give the boy a toke if that’s what he wants. Just stop pretending you give a shit about what other people do or don’t do.’

Henry passed me the joint. I took a deep hit on it. I had smoked dope before, several times. It wasn’t a big deal as far as I was concerned. I fought back a cough, leaned against a tree
and inhaled again, deeply, a few more times.

I stared at the smooth surface of the pond, waiting for the drug to take effect. I could see a collection of tiny insects on the surface, with four legs spread like an X, and two small ones at
the front. In the centre was a body the colour and shape of a canoe. The insects were tiny. What fascinated me was that they were walking on water, tiny dimples made in the surface tension by their
thin, spindly legs. Not an easy stride – it was more like twitching, sending out violent ripples, then holding still again, balanced perfectly on the surface. I pointed to them.

‘What are they’?

Henry squinted. ‘
Aquarius remigis.
The water strider, or the Jesus bug. Quite a spectacle.’

I watched as they skittered across the water’s surface.

‘They communicate with each other by the ripples. At least during breeding season. Those ripples are like our words.’

‘I wonder what they’re saying.’

‘Probably praying,’ he said.

‘What would they pray for?’

‘For the water to hold them up, I dare say.’

I took another toke.

‘What do they eat?’

‘Dead dragonflies, among other things. Ugliness consumes beauty. A little-known rule of nature. That’s probably enough, Adam. It’s heavyweight shit. Industrial-strength.
Lebanese black.’

Henry took the joint from me, sucked out a final puff and made as if to throw it into the wood.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Strawberry, rising sharply and grabbing the stub out of his hand. She extinguished it in the lake. ‘Haven’t you been reading about the
forest fires? This undergrowth is like kindling.’

Now I could feel the dope affecting me. A surge of energy pulsed up my spine. My head was buzzing.

We sat there, the three of us, staring at the pool. The light had shifted. It was a shade of crystalline grey now.

Henry was right about the dope. It was far more potent than anything I’d tried before. Waves of disorientation threatened to shift me from my mental pivot. I wasn’t sure if it was
enjoyable or not. I felt on the edge of something, or at a crossroads. As if I could go either way, towards a kind of bliss or a state of paranoia.

The landscape around us appeared to be changing. I felt the ground soft underneath me, and looked down to see grass scattered with daisies. Little yellow faces with white frills. As I stared at
them, transfixed – were they smiling? – something peculiar began to happen. It was as if time had speeded up. It seemed that I could see the grass grow, then rot and fall into the
earth. From the compost more grass grew and decayed and fell.

The trees around me were doing likewise – palpably growing. It seemed suddenly as if everything was in motion, all the time, dying and regenerating. I could see the air move, as if in
waves, and, high above, the spinning of the sun was apparent. It seemed to be darkening in colour, reaching a deeper and deeper red. I felt it would soon turn to black. I was suddenly anxious.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Henry pleasantly.

‘But everything’s changing,’ I said, as the rustle and thrum of the endless life and death around us filled my ears.

‘Let’s swim,’ he said. ‘It will freshen you up.’

He rose and I joined him, unsteady on my feet.

‘Where are we going?’ I said.

‘Where are
you
going?’ said Henry. ‘We each travel alone.’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I said, feeling afraid again.

‘Me neither,’ said Henry. ‘I’m grateful for that.’

He handed me my swimming trunks and I tried awkwardly and unsuccessfully to pull off my trousers. I didn’t have any inhibitions about Strawberry, presumably because of the joint, but she
had disappeared behind a tree anyway to get changed.

‘But surely we’re going somewhere?’ I said, trying to stand on one leg in order to disentangle the other trouser leg from my foot.

‘Why?’ said Henry.

‘There’d be no point in getting up in the morning if there wasn’t some purpose.’

‘Is that so?’ said Henry.

I finally removed my trousers and pulled on my swimming trunks.

‘Yes, that’s so,’ I said.

Henry, who had, without me noticing, taken off all his clothes, indicated the bank of the lake.

‘You can learn a lot from water.’

He reached into his bag. To my surprise, he took a small toy sailboat out of it. I started to laugh. It struck me suddenly as the funniest thing in the world.

‘Mary Poppins!’ I said. ‘Look, Strawberry. Henry is Julie Andrews. Get the umbrella out, Henry. The one with the parrot.’

There was still no sign of Strawberry, however. Henry ignored me and placed the boat on the surface of the water. He took out a small box which had a lever on it and a switch and a small light.
He flicked the switch and the light came on. Then he gave the boat a push. A motor was engaged. It headed off towards the centre of the lake.

‘I find this extraordinarily restful for some reason,’ said Henry. He moved the lever on the box, and the boat responded. Then he turned the boat entirely round and it headed in our
direction. It left a churning wake of milky white water.

‘Isn’t it lovely?’ said Henry.

I had to admit – once my laughter had exhausted itself – that it was, somehow, a beautiful thing to see. I had always liked to fly a kite, and watching the boat gave me a similar
feeling as when I sent up my box kite in the local rec.

‘Do you want a turn?’

I took the box out of his hands and started steering the boat. It made a low puttering sound that was barely audible, but somehow pleasant. I took the boat around in circles.

‘Round and round,’ I said. ‘Round and round.’

‘Going nowhere,’ said Henry.

He looked over at the trees where Strawberry was changing.

‘Strawberry! Are you OK?’

‘I’ll just be a minute.’

‘I’ve launched the boat.’

‘I’m coming. Just wait.’

Henry turned back to me and watched me steer for a while. Then he took the box back. I watched silently. All traces of anxiety had evaporated now.

‘Look at it. What is that pattern of water behind the boat?’ he said.

‘It’s called a wake. Awake. I’m awake!’

‘Is the wake pushing the boat?’

‘It’s just bubbles. Bubbles and foam. Foamy bubbles.’

‘Where’s it headed?’

I gazed at the path the little yacht was taking. It appeared to be aiming for a small section of bank next to a large plane tree, overhung with a carapace of leaves stained the deepest of
greens. I pointed to the spot. As soon as I did, the boat changed direction, suddenly moving away to the west, towards an entirely different spot on an adjacent bank.

‘The boat is determined by the course of the boat. Not by the wake. And not by what you happen to assume is the destination.’

Strawberry emerged from behind a tree. I had not seen her this exposed before. She was little more than bare bones. Her ribs stuck out from underneath the line of her lemon-coloured bikini top,
and her hipbones were clearly visible above the waistband of her pants.

‘Tell him what point you’re trying to make, Henry.’

Henry looked round. I could see that he was as shocked as I was by her appearance. But the expression – was it horror? Fear? – that briefly flickered in his features quickly
disappeared, and he became calm again.

‘It is the now that creates the then, is all I’m saying. All that is now in the past was created in the present.’

Passages memorized from my history books drifted into my head. The buzzing in my head had stopped and now my mind felt extraordinarily clear.

‘The First World War was caused by the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The Second World War was caused by the failure of the Treaty of Versailles. The
assassination of President Kennedy was caused by a lone nut.’

‘Trying to explain the present by the past is refusing to explain it at all,’ said Henry. ‘It’s like driving a car using only your rear-view mirror. People are always
looking over your shoulder to see what you should do. You want the past to tell you what to do. Like children with their parents.

‘The universe began with a now-moment. It began with a big bang. In the beginning was a now. And there have only been nows ever since. The Big Bang is still happening.’

‘Stretches your head,’ said Strawberry, tentatively climbing into the water.

‘Now and now and now and now. Now! Leaving the past behind it. Like the wake the boat. The past doesn’t matter.’

Strawberry was swimming out towards the boat, which was moving in her direction. She picked up a leaf from the surface of the pond and threw it on to the ripples that the boat was throwing out.
The ripples continued to appear to travel outwards. The leaf stayed in exactly the same place, simply moving up and down slightly with the swell.

‘Now. Let’s swim.’

Henry threw himself into the lake and surfaced spitting water and laughing. Strawberry beckoned me in. I jumped, bombing, making a huge splash. For some reason – it might have been the
effect of the joint – I felt closer to Henry and Strawberry at that moment than I ever had to my parents.

I felt weightless. But it was more than the lift of the water. I didn’t know if it was Henry’s words, or the joint, or the magic of the wood. But I had the strangest feeling, a
feeling I couldn’t remember having had for a very long time.

I felt happy.

The three of us swam close together. Strawberry reached out her hand to me, and I took it, treading water. Henry took my other hand, and joined hands with Strawberry. We floated in a circle.
Then Henry let go.

‘The thing is not to be afraid of the depths.’

He dived. I saw his undulating figure, distorted by the moving water, his legs kicking, down, down. Then he disappeared from view entirely.

Strawberry let go of my hand. We didn’t speak. At least a minute passed. Henry had not reappeared.

Strawberry began to look nervous. She started shouting Henry’s name.

But there was no sign of him. Her anxiety transmitted itself to me. I began to wonder if the letter about the houseboat, combined with the effects of the narcotic, had unhinged him in some way.
That he had decided, madly, to end it all.

‘Henry! Henry!’

Nothing. Strawberry looked around wildly. She began to cry.

‘
Henry!
’

At that moment Henry, who must have been gone nearly two minutes, burst out of the mirrored surface of the lake, only feet where from where we were floating. He seemed barely out of breath.

‘The pearl divers of the Pacific taught me that. It’s not as difficult as—’

But he was cut off by the Strawberry throwing herself at him, scratching, punching, screaming.

Henry did not react, absorbing the punches. Eventually she ran out of energy, and Henry held her. She wept silently. Embarrassed, I struck back for the shore.

I wrapped myself in a towel and waited for them to join me. Strawberry began to swim back first. When she hit the bank, she headed without a word back to her changing spot behind the tree.

Henry arrived a minute or so later. He pulled a towel over his shoulder, came and sat next to me.

‘I’m sorry about that, Adam. It was just a silly prank. I thought Strawberry had more faith in me.’

‘You were showing off.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. I’m the most terrible egotist sometimes.’

We sat there silently for a while.

‘Shouldn’t she see a doctor?’ I said.

‘There is no way that’s going to happen. Short of physically dragging her to a hospital, she’s going to go through this diet, whatever it takes. She believes it’s going
to make her not merely well, but enlightened. I’ve tried to convince her otherwise, but she takes no notice of me. Why should she? She thinks she’s exercising her free will, but I think
she’s in the grip of something she doesn’t understand.’

He looked at me, but he seemed far away.

‘What shall I do, Adam?’

I looked blankly back at him. I had no idea what to do. The drug focused my mind to a single, clarifying insight.

I didn’t know a single thing about people.

Henry was looking past me, as if he had drifted off again.

‘I expect she’ll be all right. I thought she was looking a little better today. Don’t you? She’s put on a bit of flesh?’

To me it seemed that she was frailer than ever. I knew Henry knew that too.

‘She had a difficult childhood,’ he said.

He reached over to his cotton trousers, and fished out the letter he had brandished in the cabin. He read through it again.

‘Why do they really want you out, Henry?’

‘People can’t stand the idea of other people living life differently from them. They hate it, because their lives are miserable and they’re envious. It was different ten years
ago. There was a different music in the air. Now we’re retreating back into ourselves. Everyone, everywhere. Into our fortresses. Into our prisons. The prisons we build for ourselves.
It’s the new zeitgeist.’

‘What’s a zeitgeist?’