The Last Summer of the Water Strider (25 page)

‘Hi, stupid.’

‘Hi, stupid.’

‘How about a swim?’

‘Sure. Why not?

When we came out of the water, both Strawberry and Troy had left. Henry and I towelled ourselves down.

‘Are they angry with you?’

‘Most of Strawberry’s anger is reserved for herself. As for Troy, he’s never angry for long. Underneath his untrammelled materialism and irreducible rascality, he has rather a
sweet nature. I find him frustratingly likeable.’

I threw my towel down and put on a robe.

‘Uncle Henry?’

Henry sat down naked. I made an effort to avoid looking at his genitals.

‘I don’t get all this. I don’t get the set-up. In fact, I don’t get you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘My dad said you’d done all these things. I found some of the things he said hard to swallow.’

‘“Things”?’

‘Is it true that you knew The Beatles?’

‘John and George better than the other two. But yes, I know them.’

I duly noted the present tense. Henry got up and put on his robe and gestured that I should follow him back to the boat. Once we had boarded, he reached into one of the cupboards that was built
into seats in the main room. He found an old biscuit tin, speckled with rust spots, and rummaged around. After a few seconds he brought out a black and white photo. Sure enough, there was Henry
with John Lennon and George Harrison in a bar somewhere, holding bottles of beer and wearing flower garlands around their necks. They were all toasting the camera. John had his arm around
Henry.

‘That was in Rishikesh. I was getting drugs for them,’ Henry said matter-of-factly.

‘You were a drug dealer?’

‘A very good one. Honest. Dependable. Personally abstemious. It’s a rare quality in that trade. Of course, that’s all way behind me now.’

He put the photo away and closed the cupboard.

‘I’ll show you the rest of my gallery before you go back to London. Right now, I’m famished.’

He began clattering around in the galley area. Outside, darkness was gathering.

‘You want something to eat?’ He inspected a few cupboards and the fridge. ‘I could make
pasta all’amatriciana.
Or I have some very good lamb cutlets.’

‘I’m not hungry, thanks. Tell me about what happened in the church. With the bible? Telling people to wash their mouths out when they said the word “Jesus”.’

‘Such a fuss over nothing. It’s no different from saying, “When you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” The point is not to mistake the map for the territory. The
symbol for what is being symbolized. That’s all I was saying. It was a kind of joke. Not everyone has the same sense of humour as me, it appears.’

‘How did you even get to know Wesley Toshack in the first place? You don’t seem like natural soulmates.’

Henry popped the cork from a bottle of red wine. He poured a glass for me, but took only water for himself.

‘I only became friends with Wesley last year. We bumped into one another in a pub in Lexham. I have a doctorate in Divinity, and him being a man of God, we got talking. He learned that I
had once been an episcopal priest in America.’

‘You were a priest?’

It occurred to me, not for the first time, that Henry was a fantasist, despite the photographic evidence of his friendship with The Beatles. His life seemed too improbable to be fully
credible.

‘I had my own chapel in Chicago. It was very popular with the public. Congregations were busting down the doors to get in, whereas before my arrival church attendances were ailing. We
tried out all sorts of new things. Theology was a very exciting field at the time.’

Henry told me how he had run the church using religious influences from a variety of different traditions. There had been chants and dancing, rituals borrowed from Hinduism and Buddhism, prayers
and hymns, candles and incense. The Catholic Mass had been appropriated for its air of mystery. It had been, according to Henry, ‘a radical experiment in pluralistic spirituality’. It
turned into – again, according to Henry – the most popular church that the diocese had ever known. From half-empty pews, there were people queuing outside. The parties Henry held after
the services became legendary.

But Henry’s excessive liberality proved to be his downfall. Drugs and drink began to make appearances among the congregation, the former in a semi-sanctioned attempt to enrich spiritual
life. Sexual contact between the congregants was given the stamp of approval.

It didn’t take long for a newspaper exposé to get under way. The bishop who ran the diocese grew tired of the controversy surrounding Henry’s activities and made it clear that
if he didn’t resign, he would be defrocked.

It was shortly afterwards, Henry told me, that he went to India. He spent years there, travelling, dealing, living on the road. Then he returned, lived in a squat in Chelsea for a while,
spending much of his time looking after a friend who was seriously ill. It was the friend who owned the houseboat. Henry supported him with what was left of the money from his drug-dealing days,
then the friend died. He left the boat to Henry in his will.

Henry refurbished the
Ho Koji
– which had been entirely decrepit – and came to live in it, but it turned out he had also inherited legal complications. The lease, Henry
admitted, was riddled with difficult and problematic terms which strictly controlled the behaviour of the residents on the boat – since the freehold on the land belonged to the Church.

I steered Henry back to the story of the burning bible.

‘It’s not easy to explain. I think there was a breakdown in communication about what I was going to be talking about at the service. Wesley knew I was once an ordained priest. He
also knew that I styled myself as a radical theologian. I just don’t think he thought through what that meant. But I genuinely didn’t mean any offence.’

‘You didn’t mean any offence by burning a bible?’

‘I was trying to demonstrate the difference between faith and belief.’

‘What is the difference?’

‘Belief is about crawling into a hole and pulling the hole in after you. Faith is crawling out of a hole and pulling the space out after you.’

‘I don’t think I’m out of my gourd enough to know what that means.’

‘I think I am expressing myself perfectly clearly. I merely suggested that there should be a very respectful burning of bibles once a year, to remind us all that for all the beauties and
profundities of Christianity, we shouldn’t get hung up on it as the final version of reality. It is simply a clue.’

‘That’s when people walked out?’

Henry paused.

‘That’s right. Wesley was unhappy – as you might expect. Ashley, on the other hand, was incandescent.’

‘Ash honestly didn’t seem all that bothered when I talked to her about it. Although she did think you were rather rude to her father.’

‘What Ash is and what she says are very different things, I suspect. I don’t mean any disrespect to her. I know you’ve become fond of her. But that is my experience.’

‘He’s forgiven you, you know. Wesley.’

‘Is that so?’

‘He sends his best wishes. Says you’re welcome at the rectory any time.’

Henry shook his head.

‘I genuinely believe that Wesley would utterly destroy me if he had the chance. A chance that he’s looking out for all the time. Furthermore, his daughter would do a jig on my corpse
while whistling an accompanying tune.’

‘But why would he pretend to forgive you?’

‘Because pretending is what people do,’ said Henry. ‘I’m going to attend to the chops. Sure I can’t tempt you?’

‘I’m fine.’

It seemed that the subject was closed. Henry resumed clattering in the galley. I returned to my room. A picture of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand stared up at me from my open textbook on the desk.
Lacking anything better to do, and aware that I had been tardy about my revision that day, I began reading about Gavrilo Princip’s assassination plan.

Only it seemed he didn’t have much of a plan. On the day itself, another of his associates from the Black Hand – or the Young Bosnians – had thrown a bomb at the carriage
carrying the archduke through the streets of Sarajevo. The archduke then, against all common sense, instructed his driver to take him to hospital to visit an Austrian officer injured by the earlier
bomb, rather than abandon the procession immediately. The driver took the intended original route in error. Realizing he had gone the wrong way, he pulled up to reverse – and stopped right in
front of Princip.

Princip, seizing the opportunity, turned his head away so that he couldn’t even see his target, and, with a gun that he was ill-trained to use, killed both the archduke and his wife
Sophie, with two shots – something the most brilliant and highly trained assassin might have struggled to do.

Circumstance and luck. The whole history of the twentieth century resting on a series of accidents. I wondered if my own life was simply fluke. And what a relief it would be if it was.

B
y late afternoon the next day, Henry was more or less fully prepared for his ‘Vibrations and Polarities’ lecture that evening. There
were smells of garlic and curry powder spicing the air. Oil burners heated three metal trays containing vegetarian curry, lamb stew and chilli con carne. There was an earthenware pot of dhal, a
paper plate of brown rice and a huge potato salad, dressed with sour cream and chives, in a Tupperware box.

Arranged beside the main dishes on a trestle table were ceramic cereal bowls filled with crisps and peanuts, along with piles of paper plates, disposable beakers and plastic cutlery. The wine
was Spanish, and of rather poorer quality than anything Henry had ever offered me. There was a jug of beer that he proudly claimed to have brewed himself. The rank, raw odour turned my stomach
slightly.

I had helped, laying out the plates and cutlery, setting up the table. I put out condiments – mainly Indian chutneys – along with bottles of wine and soft drinks. I threw scatter
cushions in front of the blackboard Henry would refer to during his talk. I had also set up the sound system outside, trailing an extension lead from the generator. Henry had supplied a microphone
ready to be plugged into the amplifier. He was worried that not everybody was going to be able to hear him.

‘How many people are you expecting?’ I asked as I rearranged the scatter cushions, trying to get them into some kind of order that was neither too symmetrical nor too chaotic.

‘I don’t know. Maybe thirty. At least twenty. I’ve got a modest reputation around here.’

‘You have a following?’

‘Perhaps that’s too concrete a description. A reputation, perhaps.’

‘A reputation as what?’

‘A spiritual entertainer, you might say. Others would say a genuine fake.’

He laughed, and added another pinch of something to a simmering copper pot.

‘I’d be inclined to agree with them.’

Henry whistled tunelessly to himself and attended to final details – straightening the paper tablecloth on the trestle table, laying out some napkins, testing the PA. He spread a few
blankets in the spaces between the scatter cushions.

The event was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. At six, Henry lit a pile of logs and kindling for a fire, which blazed cheerfully a few yards to the right of the blackboard. At six-thirty the first
visitor arrived. He was a middle-aged man who looked a thoroughly improbable candidate for the lecture. He was clean-shaven with oiled hair, and was wearing heavy leather shoes beneath rather shiny
grey trousers.

‘Mr Templeton?’

He was stretched and tense, as if he carried struts and wires within that had been adjusted for maximum torque.

‘Yes, I’m Henry Templeton,’ said Henry, stretching out his hand. The man took it and shook it briskly.

‘I’m from Lexham District Council.’

‘How delightful.’

‘Fire and Safety,’ said the man. ‘As you know, there have been a lot of forest fires recently. We just wanted to make sure that regulations were being followed.’

‘You’re not here for the talk?’ said Henry.

‘Not exactly. No, I’m here to make sure it’s all in order. May I ask to see your licence?’

‘Licence?’

‘For public gatherings of more than twenty people, you need a licence from the council.’

‘Oh, I understand,’ said Henry. ‘You’re Wesley Toshack’s man. His stooge.’

‘I’m an officer of the council. Not of the Reverend Toshack.’

‘You know of him, then?’

The man looked shifty.

‘I know of Wesley Toshack, yes.’

‘Fancy!’

‘I’m just here to make sure everything goes without a hitch. My name is Pritchard. Now. Do you have a licence?’ He took a notepad and pencil out of his pocket.

‘No, I do not. And I do not need one.’

Pritchard made a note on his pad.

Henry opened his arms in a welcoming gesture.

‘Well, since you’re here, you can help yourself to some food. There’s plenty.’ He waved towards the table.

‘As for the licence – that only applies if there’s an entrance fee for the event. Otherwise it is, legally speaking, a private party.’

‘There is an entrance fee, Mr Templeton. One pound, I believe.’

‘That’s not an entrance fee, it’s a voluntary contribution. It is my pleasure to feed these people. I would not be much of a host if I did not offer them something to drink.
This is simple hospitality. The voluntary contribution is not for profit. It’s simply a matter of covering my costs.’

‘Do you have a licence to sell alcohol?’ said Pritchard.

‘I’m not selling alcohol,’ responded Henry, now glancing around him as if losing interest. I saw that he was looking towards the gap in the willow trees, where more people were
arriving. ‘There’s a few glasses of wine on the house. The donation is to cover soft drinks and food. Hey, Strawberry!’

Strawberry had emerged from the curtain of willow branches. She was followed by Pattern, Vanya and Troy, walking arm in arm.

Henry turned back to Pritchard.

‘I can recommend the dhal. The Maharishi Ji gave me the recipe. Excuse me. I’ve got to circulate.’