The Last Summer of the Water Strider (31 page)

‘Ashley,’ said Toshack, still looking at me. ‘If I go and look under your bedside table, what will I find?’

Ashley hesitated for a fatal split second.

‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

Toshack grabbed Ashley by the shoulders.

‘Look at me. And tell me the truth.’

She said nothing.

‘Well?’ said Toshack again, waiting for a confirmation of her denial.

Still she said nothing. Now he looked at her desperately. She stared back, her face a pool of tenderness and regret.

‘I love you, Dad.’

‘Ashley, if you tell me there’s nothing for me to find, then I will believe you. Just promise, in the Lord’s name, and the name of your mother, that you’re telling me the
truth.’

Her mouth worked as if chewing on unsayable words, but she could not spit any out.

Toshack’s shoulders fell. There was a heavy silence.

‘We need to go,’ said Urquhart.

He climbed into the driving seat of the car. Toshack took one long, final look at me, then climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. Ash opened the door at the back.

‘No,’ said Toshack through the open window, with a deadly restraint.

She looked wildly around.

‘But Dad, I—’

‘You will stay here, Ashley. You will not leave the house. You will not speak to anyone. You will not try and contact anyone. We will talk when I return. You will have had plenty of time
to clear up any evidence of your transgressions by then. But you will not be able to hide them from God.’

‘Dad! I have lived as . . . I have tried to live as . . . you taught me . . . and—’

Toshack cut her off. ‘Shame on you. For your mother’s sake, shame on you.’

The expression on Ash’s face was no longer a crucible, but a mirror turned inwards that showed, simply, fear. With a final, unreadable glance at me, she turned and walked heavily back
towards the rectory.

I ran for my bike. The policeman called after me, but I ignored him and began pedalling furiously. I pedalled faster than I had ever pedalled before.

There was a short-cut across the fields, if you could negotiate the dry ruts and ditches without coming out of the saddle. I bumped and rocked, panting. I had no idea what I
was going to do when I got there, or if I had any chance of getting there before Toshack and Urquhart. There were roadworks on the single-lane route from the town to the track that led to the
forest and the boat, so it was possible that they would be delayed. But I had to warn Henry, even if it was too late to do anything about it.

I was there in twenty minutes. I had taken my shirt off but I wore an undercoat of sweat. My hair was ragged and drenched. As I pulled up beside the boat, I could see, maybe five hundred yards
away, the police car approaching down the dirt track. I had, at least, got there first.

I started calling desperately for Henry. There was no answer. I had no time to check inside the boat. I began to run towards the cabin. I imagined I had been spotted, because suddenly the siren
sounded. I ran harder, still exhausted from the bike journey. I could hear a theatrical squeal of tyres as the police car pulled up next to the field gate.

As I ran towards the cabin, I called Strawberry’s name. I didn’t know if I wanted her to run or to stay. I just knew I didn’t want to be guilty again.

Toshack and Urquhart could only be seconds behind me now. I increased my pace. The cabin came into view. As I came closer, the front door opened.

It was not Strawberry that walked out, but Henry. Henry, holding Strawberry’s delicate frame cradled in his arms. His skin was floury, despite his tan. He looked up at me but didn’t
seem to see me.

‘Henry! What’s wrong with her?’

He shook his head.

‘I can’t wake her up.’

He carried on walking towards me, not increasing his pace.

Then Urquhart and Toshack appeared, striding purposefully through the edge of the wood and into the clearing. Toshack was still holding his bible. Seeing Henry, both broke into a run.

‘Lay her down,’ commanded Toshack.

Henry looked up and shot Toshack a look of wild warning such as I had never seen. It blazed through the screen of pain behind his eyes.

‘Get away from me,’ he said simply.

Toshak took a step backwards and fell silent.

Urquhart looked out of his depth. But then, very softly, he said: ‘Please put her down, sir. Perhaps I can help her. Please, sir. Please.’ He indicated a soft spot with thick grass
and fallen leaves. ‘There.’

Henry threw one more burning gaze at Toshack, then he sighed and the muscles in his face, contorted in agony, seemed to relax.

Gently Henry laid her among the leaves of the undergrowth. Her face had a certain look, a particular, terrible stillness. I recognized it. I had seen it on my own mother’s face.

Unclouded.

Pure.

Urquhart leaned over and gave her artificial respiration. Doing it expertly, nothing like the muddled attempt I had made on my mother.

He cleared her mouth of any possible blockages and moved the lower jaw forward and upward. Then he placed his mouth on hers and pressed, creating a leak-proof seal, and clamped her nostrils
closed with his hand.

‘No,’ said Henry simply.

Urquhart was red-faced, perspiring.

After a minute there was no response from Strawberry.

Another minute, nothing.

Urquhart breathed into her, pulled away when her chest expanded, maybe twelve times per minute. Every time he reared back, he put his ear to her mouth to see if he could hear her exhaling. At
the same time he gave her regular chest compressions, fast, maybe one every second.

‘We need to get her to hospital. Now,’ he said.

Henry picked her up, still a dead weight, and we began to hurry back to the car. When we arrived, Henry laid Strawberry in the back and joined her there, her head on his lap. Toshack went to get
in the front.

Then I saw Strawberry’s eyelids flicker and her chest begin to rise and fall. But still her eyes did not open.

Toshack hesitated, then meekly stepped to one side and let me in instead.

The car started. Just before it pulled way, Toshack leaned down to the open window where Strawberry was cradled in Henry’s arms.

‘You did this,’ he said. ‘It was you, Templeton.’

Henry didn’t look up from Strawberry’s face.

‘I’m sorry I robbed you of the chance to be a saviour, Wesley.’

The engine roared and we drove away. I looked back and saw Toshack straighten up and begin to walk to back in the direction of the town, alone.

S
trawberry remained in a coma for two days at Bristol Royal Infirmary. Her eyes flickered open in the early afternoon of the third day. Henry and I
were waiting by her bedside.

Her first words were woozy, but distinct.

‘What the fuck?’

‘Susan,’ said Henry. ‘Susan. You’re with us.’

She closed her eyes again, and fell asleep.

Then the nurse moved us out of the room and called a doctor to conduct an examination. We waited for fifteen minutes until the doctor, a tired and tiresome-looking man in late middle age with a
lofty Roman nose, a spotless white coat and an air of casual superiority, finally entered the waiting room.

‘You’re the father? Is that correct?’

‘I am,’ said Henry.

‘And you are?’ He gazed at me from the summit of his formidable nose.

‘I’m her . . .’ It hadn’t occurred to me to think of Strawberry in these terms before.

‘I’m her cousin.’

He looked back at Henry, an expression of faint disapproval passing across his face like indigestion.

‘This girl has been sorely neglected. I think you know that I have had to pass the information on to the relevant authorities.’

Henry stood up. He towered some several inches above the doctor.

‘The “authorities” know all about it. The “authorities” have it in hand. Doubtless I will be hung, drawn and quartered for allowing her to make her own decisions.
So be it. I am a wicked man. Let’s all agree on that, shall we? Now. Can you tell me – without the pious lectures – is she going to be all right?’

‘I don’t think there’s any need for that kind of tone, Mr Templeton.’

‘
Doctor
Templeton. And I don’t give a tuppeny damn whether you think there’s any need for that kind of tone or not. I want to know about the state of my
daughter’s health. That is your job. So please, could we waste no more of our time? Thank you.’

The doctor’s face took on a fresh layer of pomposity, but it was clear he was not used to such dressings-down. He took refuge in inspecting his notes. Without looking up he started
speaking.

‘Your daughter should make a full recovery. If she is looked after properly, and if she abandons this ridiculous so-called “health” regime that she is clearly addicted to . .
.’ He paused to let the weight of these words sink in. ‘
If
she is looked after properly, there is no reason she shouldn’t return to full health.’

‘Thank you, doctor.’

‘I have to tell you that I believe that the neglect this girl suffered—’

‘Thank you, doctor. That will be all.’

The doctor paused, as if deciding whether to press home the point. Then he said, ‘What kind of doctor are you anyway?’

‘I’m a doctor of Divinity. Is that relevant?’

The medic gave Henry a hard stare.

‘Apparently not. I imagine that you can come and collect your daughter in a couple of days, after we’ve completed the appropriate tests. If you phone the hospital they will let you
know the details. But she’s a very lucky girl. Very lucky that there were some people, other than her father, prepared to take an interest in her health. I bid you good day,
Doctor
Templeton.’

Henry was silent on the drive back to the boat. In fact, he had been more or less silent since the day Strawberry had been taken from the cabin to the hospital. He had not
issued recriminations against me, or railed against the Toshacks. In fact, he had shown very little emotion at all, continuing to work on his book and keeping to his normal routine.

When we were close to the mooring, without looking at me, he said: ‘It’s all over.’

I said nothing, merely kept staring straight ahead at the road in front of us.

Henry nodded, as if in confirmation of his own thoughts.

‘They’re bound to award the court order against me. I can muster all the legal defences I want, but what underlies the whole action is the question of whether I am a responsible
citizen. They object to my unconventional lifestyle. That’s what’s at the root of it.’

‘Are you a responsible citizen?’ I said quietly. ‘Or a responsible father?’

‘I understand that you wish to judge me,’ said Henry. ‘I understand that you blame me. But you don’t understand how hard I have tried to help Susan in the past. I
wasn’t prepared, as Toshack was, to simply bully her into a hospital. Perhaps I was wrong, I don’t know. But I passionately believed I was doing the right thing. And if you don’t
stand on your beliefs, what are you? A straw in the wind.

‘I have nothing now, you know. I will lose my home. They will take Susan away from me. It’s over. And do you know something? I’m not sure that I really care. There are mansions
in the mind, Adam. I can find comfort there.’

‘You need money to live.’

Henry looked vague.

‘I have a great affection for Mr Micawber. Something will turn up, I dare say.’

We arrived at the boat and Henry, having embarked, immediately returned to his book. I spoke to him only once more that day, to ask him how it was going.

‘It’s almost finished. A few more days. I’m pleased with it. Yes.’

It suddenly occurred to me that I still knew almost nothing about the book.

‘What’s it called?’

‘At the moment it’s called
Book
.’

‘You can’t just call a book
Book
.’

‘Why not?’

‘I still don’t understand what it’s about.’

‘And you won’t until you’ve read it. Which I very much hope, one day, you will. But if you want a simple answer, it’s a book about why the world doesn’t make any
sense. And before you ask, “Why doesn’t it make any sense?” – well, that’s what I spend the book trying to explore.’

I was none the wiser. I left Henry to it, wondering, not for the first time, if he was deranged, or someone living out his life on a higher plane than the rest of us. During all the time
Strawberry had been in hospital, although unusually quiet he had betrayed no other signs of anxiety. It struck me as inhuman. Or, possibly, more than human.

The day of the county court hearing reminded me of the atmosphere at Evie’s funeral. Henry packed up all his paperwork for his defence. There were reams of the stuff.
Most of it he could fit into his briefcase, but the remainder had to be stuffed into a plastic shopping bag.

There was time to visit Strawberry before the hearing. She had been given the all-clear, and was sitting up in bed. She informed Henry that she had given up the diet completely, and was happily
scarfing any of the vile hospital food that was put in front of her. She had not accepted that she was misguided in following her regime – she was, on the contrary, somewhat proud of herself
that she had taken it so far. But she finally recognized that there was a time to stop. The poisons, she declared, had left her body. The coma was their last gasp.

She nevertheless seemed to have grasped, at some level, how close she had come to death, and this had had a moderating effect on her formidable will-power. She now talked of acceptance, of
‘going with the flow’, of bending with the wind and living a balanced life rather than an ascetic one.

Before we left for the court, she handed Henry a letter.

‘Look at it in good time before the hearing,’ she said. ‘And then read it to the court. Please.’

We drove the last few miles in silence. Henry, dressed in not even his best suit, turned to me and smiled once or twice, but it was clear he had already resigned himself to the outcome.

The court itself was within an ugly 1960s concrete building, already showing signs of staining from the weather. The interior was no more attractive. The small room where the hearing was taking
place had little of the majesty of justice. There was pine cladding behind the judges’ bench, and below the level of the bench, where the litigants and the public sat, there were long narrow
tables with single sofa-seats, all clad in some nasty veneer and black plastic. There were plastic beakers of water on the tables and a coat of arms above where the judge sat.