The Last Summer of the Water Strider (6 page)

‘Not exactly the
QE2
, is it?’ said Ray.

He finally killed the engine, exited the car and stretched, with a yawn that I think was meant to convey to me how unimpressed he was by his brother’s strange choice of lodgings. He looked
uneasily around him, and then spoke briskly, as if he wanted to get my transplantation over and done with as quickly as possible.

‘Here we are. Get your things.’

I didn’t move, and continued to take in the scene. Along the patch of dried grass that ran in a wide rectangular strip abutting the mooring were scattered an array of objects – a
rusted metal barbecue, a rattan chair, a few beanbags partly protected by a plastic cover on stilts, and a large rubber mat. There was what appeared to be a generator, which was a relief – I
had been concerned that there might not be any electricity.

A few paperbacks were baking on the ground. One had the intriguing title of
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
, and there was another larger book, about the area of an LP cover, called
An Index of Possibilities.
It seemed to be some kind of popular-science book. There were the remains of a log fire, which was faintly smouldering, and an empty packet of Smith’s
cheese and onion crisps. I could smell ashes and grass cuttings and, perhaps, the river, slightly rotten and fresh at the same time.

Ray was at the boot, pulling out my steel suitcase, the sports holdall and my green shoulder bag.

I hauled out my revision books and notes from the back seat and laid them on the grass. I removed my apple box of LPs. I was worried they might have warped in the heat. The plastic bag full of
ice I had carefully rested on top of them had long since melted. I emptied the waste water on to the ground, then anxiously took out a disc to check – The Incredible String Band’s
Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal.
I held the record at a steady horizon. It appeared to have survived the journey intact. I gently lifted out my portable record player, unstuck the
Sellotape and confirmed that the needle hadn’t been damaged in transit.

I decided to check if Henry was actually in the boat. I would have expected him to hear the car pulling in and come to welcome us, but there was no sign of life. I approached the boat and peered
through the first porthole I came to.

Uncle Henry was sitting cross-legged on a futon. He had spectacles on, round and wire-framed like Mahatma Gandhi’s. He was naked. His body was wiry and brown with a little pot belly. His
eyes were open and he was absolutely still. I tapped gently on the window with my fingernails, but there was no response.

My father was already crossing the gangway, carrying the suitcase in one hand and my holdall in the other. It was very quiet. The only sound I was aware of was the slight lapping of water
against the hull. Under the waterline, it was patched with green slime. Ray started calling out.

‘The charabanc has arrived. Where’s the welcoming committee?’

There was no answer. My father put down my bags on the front deck, then noticed me staring through the window.

‘Is he in there?’ A note of irritation sounded in his voice.

I gestured for him to come and join me. He looked flustered. There were vast sweat patches mapping his armpits.

Ray peered through the window. His face ruptured in distaste.

‘For Christ’s sake. He could at least have made himself decent.’

He knocked on the glass with his car keys. Henry did not move or react in any way. He gave the appearance of being dead, except that his pot belly could be seen very slowly expanding and
contracting with his breath. Beneath his midriff, his cock was substantial. Perhaps this was another reason for my father’s irritation.

My father knocked again, more firmly this time. Some light returned to Henry’s eyes, which had been fixed and blank. After a couple of moments, his shoulders dropped slightly and his eyes
began to move, though his head remained still. His torso relaxed slightly. His eyes focused and his head swivelled slowly in our direction.

Showing no embarrassment or surprise, his face broke into a wide smile, displaying his small, even, rather dirty teeth. He rose from his position and stretched, as if nothing could be more
normal than sitting naked apparently enjoying an out-of-body experience. He stood still for another moment, facing us, as if inviting us to admire his physique.

‘He should put his wedding tackle away at least,’ muttered Ray. ‘Not much to boast about if you ask me,’ he added sourly.

Henry left the cabin via a door to his left. After about thirty seconds he reappeared at the front deck, with a clean white loincloth wrapped loosely around his hips and his spectacles removed.
He beckoned and we crossed the gangplank to join him. Ray marched purposefully while I loped behind.

‘Raymond. Adam.’

He reached his arms out for my father and this time, despite the precedent of the funeral, my father shrank away. Being hugged by a largely naked man, even if it was his brother, was clearly too
much for him to stomach. Henry held his shoulders instead, at arms’ length. Ray stood there, rigid. After several seconds, Henry allowed my father out of his grip. He looked past Ray and his
gaze fell on me. He winked.

‘The real business of the visit,’ Henry said. He smiled his terrific smile. ‘Hey, stupid.’

‘Stupid yourself,’ I said casually.

‘Can I help unload?’ He ignored the bags on the deck and started striding across the gangplank. Ray and I followed him. On reaching the bank, instead of picking up any bags, he
immediately delved into my box of records. He flicked through them, nodding silently and occasionally tut-tutting. My father went towards the gangplank, carrying my suitcase and sports holdall.

‘Grim stuff here,’ Henry said. ‘Music to slit your wrists to. Or to listen to whilst strafing innocent passers-by. Shame we don’t have a record player.’

Before I could tell him that I’d brought my own, he smiled.

‘Only kidding, stupid. We’ve got a hi-fi that can break the sound barrier. Fifty-watt Wharfedale speakers. Put your heavy-metal thrash on and see how that sounds. Different world
entirely. The bass can shatter tectonic plates.’

He picked up the box of records and made his way towards the deck, while my father sat waiting with the rest of the luggage, unsure whether or not to enter. I slung my Slazenger bag over my
shoulder, balanced my revision materials on top of the record player, and followed Henry.

‘What shall I do with these?’ said Ray, brandishing my suitcase and sports holdall.

‘Put them in Adam’s room. It’s the one with the orange door decorated with crescent moons. Directly up the stairs and right in front of you.’

Henry led us into the interior. I followed, close behind Henry’s naked brown back. His buttocks were clearly visible either side of the loincloth. They were as brown as the rest of
him.

We entered the main cabin, which, to my surprise, was wall-to-wall carpeted with thick white pile, within the soiled forest of which I could see cigarette burns and several tea or coffee stains.
There was a slightly raised platform to the right of me, on which sat a small, unvarnished, rectangular wooden table with four battered iron folding chairs. On the table was a roughly cast
green-glazed ceramic tea set, which my father would have designated ‘ethnic’ since the cups had no handles or saucers and the glaze was unfinished. To the right of the table there was a
small galley area, which comprised a sink with a single tap, a draining-board and a Calor gas hob and grill. Under the portholes on the opposite side was a seating area, simply some low storage
cupboards with flat cushions placed on top of them. As Henry had promised, there was a music system in the far left-hand corner, with speakers the size of filing cabinets.

There was an astonishing number of books piled into the space, some arrayed on makeshift bookshelves, others sitting in teetering piles on the floor. A brief inspection revealed few novels among
the collection. It was largely philosophy, psychology and anthropology. An orange-embroidered kilim hung across one of the walls, depicting, in stitch, an elephant and rider.

Henry started fumbling with his loincloth, which was apparently in danger of coming undone. My father was breathing heavily. Instead of following Henry’s instructions to take my things
upstairs, he put the bags down, grunted and pointed to a paisley-patterned cotton robe that lay in a pile on the floor. Henry made a good-natured apology about losing track of ‘the way things
are done’, dropped the loincloth to reveal his genitals again, and put on the robe.

Now he was decent, he tried to hug my father for a second time. Ray acceded, but remained stiff, his arms pressed against his sides, his eyes sliding from side to side in their sockets. Then he
pulled away.

‘Jesus, Henry. Why are you always grabbing people?’

‘Sorry, Raymond. You just seemed lonely.’

‘I’m not lonely.’

‘I’m sure the loss of Evie must still weigh on you very heavily.’

‘Why have you always got to talk that way? Like you were broadcasting on the wireless.’

Henry shrugged, and his gaze alighted on me again. I somehow wished he would hug me too, but he simply held out a hand. I shook it.

Ray busied himself with the bags again.

‘You’ve had a long journey. Settle down for a moment. I’ll muster a brew.’

My father, who was clearly tired, stopped fussing with the luggage and settled himself down at the table, looking incongruous and uncomfortable in his permanent-press suit trousers, grey
easy-iron rayon shirt and staff-discount Hush Puppies. His thin socks were visible beneath the cuff of his trouser legs. Above one of the socks I noticed a little stripe of pale flesh, bumpy like
chicken skin, the sight of which somehow made me sad.

Henry offered him a choice of herbal teas ‘from California’ – camomile, peppermint or liquorice ‘yogi tea’. Ray requested ‘a common-or-garden cup of
char’. I asked for coffee, which, instead of being ladled out of a jar as was invariably the case in Buthelezi House, Henry carefully prepared using a stovetop Italian-style
moka
and
beans which he ground in an old-fashioned mill. Having delivered the drinks, he lit a cigarette from a packet of twenty Lucky Strike, then joined us at the table.

The porthole windows were open, as was the front door. A warm breeze explored the room. A large brown duck waddled through the door, gave a single quack and made a beeline for my father, who
recoiled anxiously. Then the duck – which had a yellow plastic tag attached to one of its legs – altered course and marched in martial style around the carpet as if it had something
pressing to do. It snapped once or twice at my father.

‘That’s Ginsberg,’ said Henry. ‘He sometimes comes and pays a visit if he has nothing better to do. I consider him to be my lucky mascot.’

‘What’s his bloody problem?’ said Ray, eyeing the duck carefully as if it might rush him.

‘He seems friendly enough to me,’ I said.

Henry shrugged. ‘He has his good days and bad days, like all of us.’

‘What are you talking about, Henry? He’s a duck, not some tortured soul. Anyway how do you know it’s not just any old duck?’

‘Because he has a ring round his leg. Something to do with conservation. As for him being a tortured soul, on the contrary: it seems to me that Ginsberg is very much at one with
himself.’

‘You really do come out with some cobblers.’

‘Is he anxious? Is he hungry? Does he have regrets about the past? Or worries about the future?’

‘Probably not, since he’s got a brain about the size of a bloody pea.’

Ginsberg eyed my father with what I felt certain was a degree of hostility. He gave one more plaintive quack, then, still purposeful, waddled out of the front door, his rear end swinging like a
chorus girl’s.

My father, visibly relieved, took a sip of his tea. I saw him making a face as it occurred to him that it was not Typhoo at all. I had noticed the packet – it was a breakfast blend from
Fortnum & Mason.

Then Ray started to talk. It was as if the duck had shocked him into action. He was the most garrulous I had seen him by far since my mother had died.

After talking about the onerousness of his work at the shop, the progress or otherwise of my studies and the chronic back pain he suffered as a result of bending so much to fit his
customers’ shoes to their feet, he began, almost as if he had run out of other things to say, to talk of the funeral. How it had been a disappointment, how the vicar had barely known anything
about my mother, how he wished he’d chosen a more appropriate casket. It was out of character for him – but there was something in the atmosphere on that boat that made people do
surprising things, I later learned.

Also, the place appeared to intimidate him with its threat of peace. The boat seemed held in a corona of deep silence, nothing like the suburban pastiche of quiet, which was perpetually overlaid
by a soundscape of cars, planes, voices and distant transistor radios. Henry listened attentively, occasionally stealing a glance at me. Despite how impressed I was with what I had seen of the boat
and its furnishings, I was determined to remain surly. My coffee tasted black and sweet and earthy, and it made my heart beat fast.

My father gulped down his tea, shifting continually in his chair. Henry sat very still and watched him. He had grown a small goatee beard since the last time I’d seen him. It suited him.
Everything suited Henry.

My father suddenly rose and turned to me. He seemed uncertain as to what to say. Then he touched me on the shoulder, nodded and turned towards the door.

‘I ought to be going.’

‘But I haven’t shown you round the boat,’ said Henry.

‘A boat’s a boat,’ said Ray. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

‘There’s no need to be rude, Dad.’

‘That’s enough from you. I’ll not be taking any lessons in manners from
you
.’

Henry looked mildly across at me. ‘It’s OK. I don’t mind.’

I made no more protest. In all honesty, I was desperate for Ray to leave.