Read Online The Last Summer of the Water Strider by Tim Lott - Free Book Online

gutterings of dusk were encroaching on the aerosol blue of the sky. It seemed I had slept for several hours. I could hear Henry clunking around in the galley. The odd molecule
of Calor Gas drifted up the staircase, reminding me of the camping holidays my parents had compelled me to participate in when I was a child. The sulphurous, fartlike smell brought back thoughts of
wind and rain, cold showers in the morning and long walks across chilly fields and stony beaches in the afternoons.
    I pumped some cold water from the tank and splashed my face. In the light reflected from the river, I looked different from the image that was presented to me every morning in Buthelezi House. I
saw myself as raw, as if a layer of skin had been stripped from my face. I looked young. I never thought of myself that way any more.
    The clunking stopped and a few seconds later, Uncle Henry appeared at the doorway. He was wearing faded jeans, a T-shirt with the emblazoned words FILLMORE EAST and a
pair of battered brown open-toed leather sandals. His hair was slicked back behind his ears. In his hand was a tumbler of red wine, which he held out towards me. I was confused that it was in a
tumbler. In my experience, wine always came served in a stemmed glass, and was never offered to anyone under eighteen.
    I took it and downed it in a swig. I didn’t say thank you. Henry nodded, as if acknowledging something too obvious to be spoken, and informed me that dinner would be ready in about twenty
minutes. Then he left the room.
    Half an hour passed. The sun had fallen very low. There was a deep, hazy dusk. I was reluctant to leave my room. The existence of other people in the world seemed an imposition. I looked through
the window at the dark water, and dreamed of slipping under it.
    I heard Henry’s warm, sandpapery voice calling up to me. I rose, still in bare feet, and slouched my way downstairs into the main room. It was very warm. The table was laid with deep-red
‘ethnic’ ceramic kitchenware.
    ‘Moroccan,’ said Henry without turning round, as if he had sensed the question in my gaze.
    There were silver knives and forks that bore hallmarks and the patina of age. There was a crystal wine goblet in front of one place, and a tumbler in front of the other. Remaining silent, I duly
sat down in front of the water glass. Henry informed me politely that I was sitting in the wrong place – he was the one who was drinking water.
    He brought over an earthenware pot and started to dole out the food. I know now that it was Thai green curry, though I had no idea at the time. I registered that there were leaves in it, and
stared it at grimly. Henry served out his own portion. He replaced the cooking pots, sat down opposite me and raised his glass in a toast. I rather awkwardly raised my wineglass.
    It occurred to me some twenty minutes later – through the haze of several more glasses of wine – that Uncle Henry might be queer. My prejudices informed me that queers liked cooking
and wine and art. He was childless and unmarried. My father talked of him as a womanizer, but I had no reason to think my father’s information in any way reliable. He had invited me, a
seventeen-year-old boy, on to his boat for the whole summer with no obvious motive, other than a professed compassion and out of a supposed respect for a family connection that he had shown no
traces of previously in his life. The attempts to win me over – giving me Ray’s money, offering me cigarettes and red wine – suddenly appeared to me as suspect.
    As I sat there, I became uncomfortably convinced that he was going to try and take advantage of me. I shifted uneasily on my chair, and stared at the French loaf I had been picking at in lieu of
eating my supper.
    Henry indicated with a wave of his hand that I should eat. He had finished his meal and I had barely touched mine. I noticed that his fingers were very long and delicate, displaying several
elaborate rings, more