The Last Summer of the Water Strider (17 page)

Strawberry got up, found a clean cloth near the sink, then rinsed it in hot water.

‘OK, Adam. Lay back.’

She got down on all fours and started coming towards me.

Vanya said, ‘Is this your big fantasy, Adam?’

‘The kid’s a foot man,’ said Pattern. ‘A foot freak. A pedi-phile.’

I closed my eyes. I was embarrassed, but also excited. First I felt the cloth rubbing me in each crack and crevice. This seemed to go on for some time.

‘Why don’t you just dip it in Dettol, Straws?’ said Pattern.

‘I don’t like impurities.’

‘If there’s any germs left on those tootsies they’ve got to be getting their last rites.’

‘OK, maybe that’s enough.’

There was a silence. Then I felt Strawberry’s lips close around my big toe. I could feel her little teeth nipping at it. She moved her mouth back and forward.

‘Remind you of something?’ said Troy.

‘No,’ I lied.

‘Maybe you should try the little toe, to make it a more, um, analogous experience for Adam,’ said Vanya.

Strawberry disengaged her mouth.

‘I don’t have to do all of them, do I? Not that I mind, Adam. But it does feel a bit unhygienic.’

‘It tickles,’ I said. ‘Really tickles.’

‘Otherwise, I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would,’ said Strawberry. ‘I’ll just do one more.’

She took my little toe in her mouth and began sucking it in and out. I felt myself, to my horror, stiffen under my trousers. She began to moan theatrically, and everyone started laughing again.
I desperately wanted her to stop now, so that my excitement didn’t become visible.

‘OK. That’s my limit.’

‘Hark at her,’ said Troy, pointing to my groin. ‘She’s a big boy now.’

Vanya squealed with laughter.

‘It just tickles,’ I said feebly.

Strawberry took her mouth away.

‘Thanks, Adam. I think I discovered a new experience. Much better than I expected.’

‘Any time,’ I said, attempting to restore my cool, but my voice came out cracked and overstimulated. Strawberry went to the sink and drank a glass of water. I heard her gargle
briefly.

‘OK, one more to go,’ said Troy. ‘Adam, you’ve had your fun. Time for you to put out.’

I anxiously picked up the die, weighing it in one hand. I dreaded drinking the piss. So when I saw it wasn’t a two, I felt immediately relieved.

‘What’s a one?’ I said.

Troy puckered. ‘Guess, sweetheart.’

I quickly leaned over and pecked him on the cheek.

A round of boos immediately ensued. ‘Cheat’ and ‘Not fair’ and ‘Cop-out’ rang in the air.

‘Not like that, sweetheart,’ said Troy. ‘Like this.’

He grabbed me on both sides of the face, pulling it towards him, and before I had a chance to do anything about it, he pushed his tongue into my mouth.

Without even thinking about it, I bit down.

‘FUCK!’ Troy pulled back from me, rubbing his sleeve against his tongue. ‘Shit. I’m fucking bleeding.’ His voice had lost its American twang and now sounded vaguely
Brum.

‘Come on, Troy,’ said Vanya. ‘That was rape.
He
was meant to kiss
you
, not the other way round.’

‘Shit, man, I’d have bit down harder,’ said Pattern.

I could taste Troy’s blood in my mouth.

‘He caught me by surprise.’

Troy was examining the blood on his finger. I saw Strawberry put her hand on his arm, as if to restrain him.

‘Troy, he just got a shock.’

Troy flexed his shoulders back and forth, took a tissue out of his pocket and wiped his finger clean. He stared at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to fling the tissue at me. But then
he seemed to relax back into himself. He dabbed at his mouth once, then delicately placed the tissue in a bin that sat by the sofa.

‘OK.’ I heard him sucking on his tongue and swallowing. ‘I guess I didn’t really give him a chance. No hard feelings, Adam.’

He put out a hand and I took it. Then he pulled my hand to his lips and kissed it.

‘So are you going to do it properly?’ he said. ‘You know. With you being the man?’

‘Come on, Troy,’ said Pattern. ‘You’ve had your tongue in his mouth. He’s traumatized enough as it is. Kid’s only seventeen. Give him a break.’

‘He’s confused,’ said Vanya. ‘Strawberry’s just been plating his toe, and suddenly he’s Truman Capote.’

‘I’ll let you off, kid,’ said Troy. ‘But you don’t know what you’re missing. So – another round?’

‘Once blood is shed, time comes to change games. Who wants to do the weejee board?’ said Vanya.

There was a chorus of approval. Troy went to a cupboard and returned carrying a wooden board with an alphabet painted in a circle around its edge.

‘I don’t know, Troy,’ said Strawberry. ‘Ouija’s a head-fuck.’

‘Well, this girl’s game for it,’ said Troy.

He placed the board on the coffee table. Vanya clapped her hands. Pattern sneered. Strawberry looked uncertain. I took my place next to Vanya. Dusk had fallen, and Troy started to light candles
around the room.

‘I
want to talk to Jim Morrison,’ said Vanya.

‘Only he’s not dead,’ said Pattern. ‘No one ever saw his body.’

‘That should make it easier, then,’ said Vanya. ‘Anyone you want to talk to, Strawberry?’

‘Can you get through to God?’

‘Now he
is
dead,’ said Pattern, deftly fingering a rollie.

‘What would you ask him?’ said Vanya.

‘What was he thinking of, I suppose. How he’d do it differently next time.’

Troy switched off the electric lights and sat down at the head of the table.

Strawberry’s face, in the half-light of the candles, looked hollowed out, afraid.

‘I’m really not sure about this, Troy.’

‘It’s just fun, Shortcake. Remember fun?’

We all laid our fingers on the top of an upended wineglass that he had placed in the middle. Pattern’s finger fat like a chipolata, Strawberry’s fine as the handle of a bone-china
teacup. Troy’s long and powerful, Vanya’s nicotine-stained, nail cracked. Mine, trembling slightly. I did not believe. But then, I wasn’t sure I believed in my disbelief.

A hush descended. The undertow of levity was receding. Each person, I imagined, was thinking about someone dead. The glass remained still.

‘Is anyone there?’ said Troy in a slightly overwrought parody of a medium.

Vanya giggled, but it sounded forced. Strawberry and Troy
shhh
ed her.

Troy raised his voice slightly and raised his eyes towards the ceiling. This time his voice was serious.

‘Is anyone there?’

Nothing happened. We all sat with our hands on the glass in silence for maybe a minute. Vanya coughed. Pattern sighed.

Then the glass gave a slight tremble and shifted a millimetre to the left. It paused, then shunted a few millimetres to the right. Then it started to move slowly, but with apparent randomness,
around the table. It didn’t move towards any of the letters, but made circular trajectories around the central point where it had started.

‘Shit, Troy,’ hissed Strawberry.

‘This is bullshit,’ muttered Pattern. But his shoulders were stiff with tension and he kept his finger on the glass.

‘Shut up!’ said Vanya, now apparently in deadly earnest.

Troy spoke. ‘Who is it? Who is it speaking to us?’

Now the glass begin to slide across the table towards the perimeter of letters. I wasn’t aware of exerting any pressure on it at all. If someone was, it wasn’t detectable.

‘Troy! Are you cheating?’ hissed Vanya.

The glass stopped.

‘No. No, I promise! Shut up! It won’t work if we don’t show it respect.’

After a few more seconds of silence, the glass started to move again, this time apparently indicating letters; but it spelled out only nonsense – A, F, P, W, L.

‘The dude is obviously stoned,’ said Pattern.

Strawberry, Troy and Vanya together issued an urgent ‘Shhhh!’ I remained silent and anxious. I wanted to leave, but didn’t want to show my fear.

The glass kept moving, speeding up. Then it started to go crazy. It darted madly across the board. There was an E. Then it stopped for a few seconds. Then V. I wanted it to stop. I exerted
pressure on the glass to stop it moving. But somehow, Troy sensed it.

‘Adam’s pressing down on the glass!’

‘Adam,’ hissed Strawberry.

‘I’m not,’ I said, releasing the pressure.

The glass started to move, again apparently randomly in the centre of the board. Then it travelled to the perimeter again – this time stopping at E.

The silence thickened. Even Pattern seemed drawn into the ceremony. There was no longer any sign of mockery on his face.

‘What does E-V-E stand for?’ said Troy, raising his face to the ceiling.

‘Anyone know an Eve?’ said Vanya.

The glass did not move. My finger was now trembling discernibly on the glass.

‘Bad connection,’ said Pattern, very quietly.

‘Are you OK, Adam?’ said Strawberry.

I said nothing, but sensed bile heaving in my stomach.

The glass remained at the E. For a minute we just sat there. I began to assume the ‘visitation’ – if that’s what it was – was over.

Then Troy raised his head again.

‘Do you have a message for someone?’

The glass immediately began to move towards YES, where it stopped.

‘Who is the message for?’

The glass stayed where it was.

‘Do you wish to say something to someone here?’

The glass moved away from YES then back to it again.

‘To whom do you wish to speak?’

Again it spelled out EVE. Than an R.

‘Ever?’

‘R. Is that short for “are”?’

‘Ask it what it wants to say, Troy,’ whispered Pattern. Clearly he had started to take things more seriously.

The glass picked out Y.

‘Why? They’re asking why.’

‘No, he’s spelling out “every”.’

‘I thought it was a she. I thought it was Eve.’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

Then the glass began to move again, almost frenziedly this time, at a terrific speed.

U DID IT

And then GILTY

The glass stopped. Then it smashed. Fragments scattered over the table. Strawberry recoiled. Vanya screamed.

I stood up, took the edges of the table in my hands and upended it. The board flew and the glass fragments spread across the wooden floor. Strawberry, Pattern and Troy looked at me in
astonishment.

‘What kind of stupid game is this?’ I heard myself say. My voice was high and tremulous. My head was swimming from the wine I had drunk.

‘Calm down, Adam!’ said Vanya. ‘Someone was probably just playing a trick.’

I swayed slightly, and went to kick what was left of the glass across the room, in fear and fury. As I did, I lost my balance. My legs went from under me, and the world turned upside-down. I was
just about aware of the sharp pain of the impact of my head on the edge of the marble fireplace.

It took me several minutes to come back to consciousness. Strawberry and Troy were leaning over me. My vision cleared, taking in the rest of the room. Pattern and Vanya
appeared to have left. Strawberry had propped my head on a pillow. She was holding a glass to my lips.

‘Are you OK, Adam?’

‘Urgh.’

I felt sick. I took a draught of water all the same.

Troy leaned over me.

‘Did you drink too much?’

‘I don’t know. I guess. Did I faint?’

‘You slipped and banged your head. You’ll be OK. But you’re going to have a bump.’

‘It was a stupid game. Troy, I tried to tell you. Something like this always happens.’

I raised myself up on one elbow.

‘It was the drink.’

‘This is your fault.’ Strawberry looked at Troy accusingly.

‘Come on, Straws,’ said Troy quietly. ‘It was Pattern who thought it would be hilarious. There’s always one who takes it too far.’

‘Pattern?’ I said, my head clearing now.

‘It was Pattern who was pushing the glass,’ said Troy. ‘He admitted it. He thinks we’re all guilty, see. Guilty of everything. The Vietnam War, poverty, inequality, you
name it. He was sending us a message. To “everyone”. The E-V-E was the first letters of “everyone”, but then he lost control of the glass. Sometimes that happens. Not
because of supernatural reasons, but because other people, deliberately or inadvertently, start to exert equal pressure. Then he spelled out an R and a Y but we couldn’t understand it. Then
he found the rhythm again. Spelled out the rest before someone else took control of the glass again. And then he pushed down on it and broke it. For dramatic effect. The gimp.’

‘Is that what upset you?’ said Strawberry. ‘The glass?’

‘No. I thought it was a message. A message for me,’ I said.

‘That you were guilty?’ said Strawberry.

‘What did you do?’ said Troy.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I didn’t do anything at all.’

The next day I woke early, still fragile from my experience with the ouija board. There was a bump on my head like a half-buried ping-pong ball. I couldn’t get back to
sleep and I didn’t want to inconvenience Troy, after nearly breaking his table, by demanding a lift. More to the point, I didn’t want to wait for hours until they woke up –
Strawberry had told me before she went to bed that she liked ‘very long lie-ins’. I decided to head back to Lexham on the bus. I could walk or hitch from there to the boat. I pulled on
my clothes, which smelled of cigarette smoke and incense.

Henry had told me there was a bus on the hour. I could make it if I dressed quickly. But I was overcome by the need to evacuate my bowels. By the time I had finished, I was cutting it fine. I
hurried to the bus stop, half walking, half running. My head seemed to be expanding and contracting with every step, and each growth and diminution was accompanied by a diffuse flash of pain, like
sheet lightning.

As I arrived, I could see my bus receding. After half an hour waiting for the next one, I vomited into the gutter. With each convulsion, it felt like someone was taking a pile driver to my
synapses. It wasn’t until eleven o’clock that the next bus arrived. The driver was heavy on the pedal. I made it back to Lexham shortly before noon.