The Image in the Water Page 4

  Inside, the sitting room was musty. The flies on the windowsill were mostly dead, but one or two crawled sluggishly over the flaking paint. It was almost dark. Roger did not unpack the car, not even the sheets or his night things. He did not use the double bedroom, but found a couple of blankets for the truckle bed in the tiny room where he had slept as a small boy. He stripped to his underpants and, with difficulty, opened the skylight window, letting in a trickle of rain. He did not expect to sleep easily, and he was right. After half an hour he went downstairs, and found a can of warm beer. On the late TV news the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, elegant but tired, was denouncing the European Union at a press conference in Rome. Roger switched to a channel in which naked bodies writhed in a murky haze. He thought of going out to get the decent TV from the car, but decided not. He was above murky bodies, could not focus on Margaret Thatcher, and outside it was raining hard. He went upstairs again, tossed and turned, thinking of Sylvia, opened a dog-eared Patrick O’Brian novel, eventually dozed.

  When he woke the world had changed. The sun shone; his mind quickly cleared. He was young, and would make a new chapter of his life. He found his father’s old woolly dressing-gown on a peg, and a pair of sandals. The muddy path led past the cottage down through thick beeches to the estuary of the Erme. Once at the shore he jumped off the retaining wall on to pebbles and ran to the river’s edge. The glittering tide was in full flood, sweeping in over shingle, sand and mudflats, lifting the dinghies, washing against the roots of trees, providing a soft hissing background to the cries of gulls, egrets and oyster-catchers. No other human was present, except for an old man exercising two black Labradors on the opposite shore half a mile away. This was Roger’s favourite moment. Would Sylvia have minded the muddy path? Would the water have been too cold for her? Would she have swum naked? Why should these questions now be of any interest? Roger found the deepest, coldest part of the riverbed, shed dressing-gown and sandals and let himself be swept inland, kicking and splashing like a schoolboy, until he came opposite a promontory of rock, where he could haul himself out without too much paddling through mud. He sprinted back along the shore to the dressing-gown and sandals. Minutes later he fried two eggs for breakfast.

  The new chapter continued resolutely. Two volumes of history and a notebook were packed with three peaches in a knapsack. He left behind the new novel which he had bought for Sylvia. He meant to work, swim and sunbathe on the main beach at Mothecombe. Paradoxically, because it was a private day for ticket-holders only, the beach was somewhat crowded. Roger swam once, then climbed the steep westerly slope above the beach, passed through a small copse to the summit of the cliff, and emerged on open turf nibbled by sheep. Below him gulls swept and called. Lower still, silvery waves broke on black rocks. It was the second perfect moment of the day. Roger ate a slightly bruised peach and began to read about Augustus. It required some determination to keep Sylvia far away, but he mostly succeeded. How had Augustus managed to revive the ancient disciplines and loyalties of Rome after the murderous mess of the late Republic? Was there a comparison with the early Victorians and their remoralisation of Regency Britain? Roger threw the peach stone over the edge. The sun gained strength. Roger snoozed.

  He was woken by someone’s presence. The fair young man looking down on him wore white shorts and a scarlet shirt. He, too, carried a knapsack, out of which protruded a German magazine. He spoke perfect English with a slight accent. ‘I am sorry. I did not mean to awaken you.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Roger sat up.

  ‘Permit me to introduce myself. I am Friedrich Vogl, theological student from Heidelberg. I am walking this coast with my girlfriend Anna, also from Heidelberg. Or, to be exact, I was walking. Sadly she has gone away and by bad fortune she has taken the map.’

  ‘Sorry about that – both map and girl.’ Damn, the new chapter was being spoiled already.

  ‘So, can you tell me the way to the beach at Mothecombe? We were told that it is particularly scenic’

  ‘Mothecombe is just a mile beyond that wood, down a steep path.’

  But as soon as he spoke Roger saw a decision looming, the first of his new chapter that involved another human being. He took it quickly. ‘But today is a private day. Mothecombe is closed except to those who live there and have tickets for the beach. However I have a ticket and can take you as a guest.’

  ‘I would not want to—’

  ‘It’s nothing. I was going back to swim anyway.’

  ‘If you are sure?’

  ‘Sit down and eat this peach while I collect my papers.’

  Friedrich stretched long legs on the turf and munched. ‘Is it permitted to throw the stone of the peach into the bushes?’

  ‘It is permitted.’ Friedrich threw.

  ‘You are already a good friend. A peach, a permit for the swimming … Do you mind if I tell you that for me this till now has been a bad day?’

  ‘For me the bad day was yesterday.’

  ‘Ah, really? Perhaps you will tell me. May I tell first? Anna I have already mentioned. I love her and we had the intention to marry. But this morning after breakfast at the hostel she suddenly said she was tired and did not want to walk. I said I would stay with her. She said no, she did not want to walk with me, or marry me, or see me again. She would go back to Plymouth by bus. She paid the reckoning of the hostel and left. It was awful.’

  ‘You had quarrelled?’

  ‘No quarrel, no bad words, even a small kiss the night before when we parted. For me it was – you say thunderclap?’

  ‘Or thunderbolt.’

  ‘Thunderbolt is right.’

  Very well. Fate had dealt him this young man: it must be right to ask the next question. ‘Tell me, Friedrich, had you slept with her?’

  ‘Made sex with her, you mean? No, that would be against the teaching of the theological college, where she and I study together.’ Friedrich paused, and for a second bent his head towards his bare knees. ‘But because you are now a friend, we can discuss intimate things. Our moral tutor says that there can be an allowance for moments of exceptionally strong cause. That it may be better to make sex before marriage than to repress it. I had thought that tomorrow, even today, after our walk Anna and I might discuss this.’

  The confidence was too great to be ignored, the day unrolled accordingly. For Roger it stopped being the first day of a new chapter of his life. It became instead an interlude, unrelated to past or future. He told Friedrich about Sylvia. They walked to Mothecombe, changed into trunks in the cubicles provided and swam in the bay. It was virtually high tide, and not easy to find a space on the sand for sunbathing among the picnicking families. A path lined by brambles, which somehow found substance in the sandy soil, led up across two stiles and a deep lane to the old one-storey school-house of grey stone. They climbed some steps past two magnificently outpouring fuchsias on to the small terrace of a café. Metal tables were decorated with real cornflowers stuck into patterned mugs. Customers were protected from the sun by umbrellas without commercial emblems, a job lot from a country-house sale, in pleasantly faded blue, pink and yellow. Two lively old ladies had converted the schoolhouse. The young men ate pasties, then homemade treacle tart, and drank cider. Roger talked of his childhood holidays there, of the ponies lent by the big estate, of the August bank-holiday cricket match, of the dangers of the fierce tides in the estuary. Friedrich talked of Heidelberg and the vineyards of the Neckar valley, of his father the civil servant, of holidays in Dubrovnik, walks in the Black Forest with his theological tutor. They did not talk much further about either Anna or Sylvia.

  Back at the beach they sunbathed again on firm clean sand just left by the sea. Children were shrimping in the rock pools, then began to play cricket. A small yacht anchored in the bay and a boat came ashore. Fathers built sand castles. The sun held just the right warmth, the afternoon noises round them were old-fashioned, informal and friendly.

  ‘We lay close together because the sand was wet and w
e had only my towel. I cannot remember who took the initiative.’

  ‘Initiative?’

  ‘In holding the other’s hand.’

  ‘Just that?’

  ‘Only that. It sounds silly. Perhaps it was me. I liked him, he looked like St Sebastian, it was an odd day. I had hardly slept, the cider worked. But then, quite quickly, it changed.’

  They swam again. It was the hour when the sun feels hottest, but has passed its full strength. Clouds appeared and a breeze began. One of the families greeted Roger and he introduced Friedrich. His head ached a bit; he felt salty and overcooked.

  ‘Can I ask you something more, Roger?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Can you advise me where to stay tonight? You see, we had planned, Anna and I, to walk all day, and reach the hostel at Salcombe. But that, I fear, is too far for me now.’

  There was plenty of space and plenty of food in the cottage, and no reason at all why Roger should not invite his new friend to stay the night. But he held back, not thinking the question through, but because an instinct which he did not analyse imposed a full stop.

  ‘There’s a pub at Holbeton. Not far, not bad, not expensive. I’ll drive you there if you like.’

  A pause. Roger never knew if it included disappointment.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘And that’s how it was.’

  ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘I have never seen him again. We exchanged Christmas cards once. Nothing else.’

  ‘Nothing whatever?’

  ‘You are right to ask. Nothing. Not with him, not with any man, any boy. Never.’

  ‘You have heard from Courtauld?’

  ‘Last night, I will read it to you.’

  Seebright found the note quickly.

  Dear Seebright,

  I have received your note and the photograph. I have and will have no comment to make.

  Yours sincerely,

  Roger Courtauld

  ‘You should have e-mailed this to me at once. You know I’m following the matter closely.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Lord Spitz was indeed hot on the trail, telephoning from New York or Toronto several times a day. Seebright sometimes felt that he rather than Roger Courtauld was being hunted.

  ‘So you’re stuck.’

  ‘Not at all. We can publish the photograph and make much of the refusal to comment. Roger’s Guilty Secret.’

  ‘Not strong. He has realised that once he begins to explain and give details he provides a scent for you to follow. He must be sure that there is no scent which others can provide.’

  ‘So we shall find the young German. That will be stage two.’ Seebright hated being goaded. He was being pushed beyond reality. The girl he had sent down to Mothecombe had come back empty-handed. The trail was more than forty years old. The restaurant on the cliff top had changed hands and provided no witnesses. Mr Reynolds, who had sent the photograph, was over eighty, house-bound and surrounded by the photograph albums that seemed to be the only harvest of his life. He was kept alive by the vigour of his right-wing views. He remembered the Courtauld family and their visits to Mothecombe over the years, but had never known them personally. He was too old to remember and too honest to invent any particular of the afternoon when he had snapped these young men on the beach. He had been angry when the girl reporter had offered him ten thousand pounds to help his memory.

  ‘You should have gone the whole hog,’ Seebright had said. The girl had been authorised to offer fifty thousand.

  ‘He would have hit me with his stick.’

  Sometimes Seebright despaired of England.

  He ended the conversation with Lord Spitz as best he could, and picked up the soon-to-be-famous photograph for the hundredth time. He disliked Roger Courtauld on political grounds, but he had come to hate the fair-haired anonymous German with the closed eyes, faint fatuous smile, and damnable anonymity. If he ever found that German he would mercilessly destroy him. He focused on the magazine that lay half concealed beside the towel. They had checked, of course. The magazine was an illustrated monthly published by the Lutheran Church. It gave full and respectable details of youth conferences, expeditions and aid projects across the world. Because it was a national publication it gave no clue of the young man’s origin inside Germany.

  But, thought Seebright, it gave a clue to his interests. How would a young Lutheran spend his time in Cornwall in the mid-eighties? He might or might not make love to a thrusting young Conservative from Exeter University called Roger Courtauld. Almost certainly not, but that was no longer the point. He would certainly have visited churches. Churches, churches, churches. Churches kept visitors’ books. And visitors’ books included a space for addresses. Within an hour the hounds, six of them this time, were back on the trail. Time was desperately short. Of course it was not easy.

  ‘Visitors’ books? What an old-fashioned idea! We threw them away long ago with the old prayer books.’

  ‘We charge two euros for entry, and of course visitors can e-mail comments, but we don’t take names unless they do.’

  ‘Here you are, but they’re falling to bits rather.’

  On the second day luck turned. On the sea, surrounded by caravans, St Peter’s harboured in its cemetery a forgotten minor poet, and dozens of fishermen drowned through the centuries. Holy Communion was held in the chancel once a month. Because they could enter by a gap in the boarding that separated chancel from ruined nave, this service was attended in summer by more swallows than human worshippers. In the vestry, discoloured with damp, was a pile of identical visitors’ books, bought in a fleeting moment of parish affluence from W. H. Smith, with the precious space for a visitor’s address and another alongside for comments.

  3 July 1986. Friedrich Vogl, Aventinstrasse 19,

  Heidelberg, Germany

  Friedrich had added in the adjoining column ‘a peaceful haven for thought and prayer’.

  Friedrich Vogl shared with his family a five-room apartment constituting one side of a modern courtyard built across the Neckar from the castle at Heidelberg. He had been glad, though puzzled, to agree to see Jim Scrowl, special personal emissary of the editor of the British newspaper Thunder, in connection with a biography planned to honour the distinguished British statesman and Interior Minister Roger Courtauld. Friedrich Vogl had told the editor on the telephone that unfortunately his acquaintance with Mr Courtauld was of the very slightest, only enduring a few hours. But Mr Seebright had said that any recollection from Mr Courtauld’s early years would be invaluable. Friedrich agreed to give the interview to the special emissary because he had a happy recollection of those particular hours. He had read in the newspaper that Mr Courtauld was contesting the leadership of the British Conservative Party and was anxious to do anything to help his cause. Moreover, the contribution promised by Seebright to his church funds was substantial.

  Jim Scrowl wore his only suit, as befitted a call on a Lutheran pastor. Coffee and sweet cakes were served. But the conversation soon ran dry, as Friedrich had predicted.

  ‘But I never saw him again.’

  ‘You never spoke after that afternoon?’

  ‘Never. He sent me a Christmas card that year and I responded with a New Year greeting from my college.’

  ‘Do you have his Christmas card?’

  ‘Certainly. I found it as preparation for this discussion. I will show it to you now.’

  Scrowl took the card, examined it, and at once put it in his folder of papers. Friedrich made to expostulate, but refrained. He did not know the correct procedures in the literary world. He would have liked to keep the card, but if it would help Roger Courtauld by giving it to this journalist, it seemed a small gift in a good cause.

  ‘You are sure you have never seen or heard from Roger Courtauld since?’ Scrowl knew from his glance at the Christmas card that it amounted to nothing. Disappointment made his tone abrupt.

  ‘Quite sure.’ Why was this man now talking more l
ike a police officer than a biographer?

  The conversation petered out. Professional life had given Scrowl a weakish bladder. Time was short, and he did not want to have to stop on the road back to Berlin. He visited Vogl’s lavatory before leaving, then thanked Frau Vogl for the coffee, climbed rather awkwardly into his car and was on his way. Suddenly he was in a hurry. He needed a confidential landline to Seebright as soon as possible.

  Joe Seebright did not trust Robert Macdowell, knowing him to be lukewarm in the Freetown cause. But he needed his help on a crucial question. Thunder had only one thunderbolt against Courtauld. If the crucial vote of Conservative MPs was on Thursday afternoon, was the thunderbolt best launched that morning, or one or even two days earlier?

  ‘That depends on what you have.’

  They were alone in Joe Seebright’s editorial cubicle high above Canary Wharf. Seebright hesitated before replying. But he had been particularly specific and reassuring to Lord Spitz on the telephone that morning. There was no point in pulling punches now. And in any case he was proud of the coup which he planned.

  He busied himself for a minute at a side table. ‘Come and have a look.’

  On a piece of cardboard he had assembled what Macdowell at once saw was a plan for the front page of Thunder. At the left was the photograph, which he had already seen, of Roger and Friedrich side by side on Mothecombe beach. In the centre was the inner page of a Christmas card dated 1986 from Exeter University. Below the ordinary seasonal greetings Roger Courtauld had written: ‘With all good wishes. I enjoyed our day together and I hope everything goes well with you. Roger Courtauld.’

  On the right was another photograph of Friedrich Vogl, this time alone. Once again he was on a beach, wearing swimming trunks, but this time crouched on his heels and holding out his arms in welcome, a broad smile of invitation on his face.