Philip Hensher - King of the Badgers

‘Busy this time of year anyway,’ the boatman said. ‘Always busy. People like to come out for the day. For an afternoon. For an evening. Very historic town. Third most picturesque town in Devon, it won, four years back. Don’t know who decides these things. Thomas Hardy came here for a holiday as a boy. You know who Thomas Hardy was?’

‘Yes,’ the passenger said. ‘We did him for O level. I got a B. You’re not from round here.’

‘No,’ the boatman said. ‘You never lose a Yorkshire accent. I’ve been here twenty years. Won’t start saying “my lover” to strangers now. And before that on holiday, every year, since I was a boy, almost.’

‘Like Thomas Hardy.’

‘Like Thomas Hardy. I worked for a steel firm in the north, thirty years. Got laid off. Firm went under. Got a good pay-off first, though. I was a manager. Good job. They said they’d see me all right. Madam says, “Let’s move somewhere we want to live. Hanmouth, that’s the place we want to be.” She was the one who loved it, really loved it. “You can do anything,” she said, “turn your hand to anything. Lot of old people in Hanmouth, very glad to have someone change a light bulb for a couple of pound.” She died five years later. Cancer. Very sudden. Never get over something like that. She wanted to be buried in the churchyard, but they don’t bury anyone there any more. She’s in the city cemetery, like everyone else who’s dead. Still go to pay my respects, every Saturday. Is that so strange?’

‘Just here,’ the passenger said. He opened the camera case hanging from his neck. It was a bulky black object, with a black hole where the lens should have been; not like the pocket-sized silver digital jobs people had these days. The boatman pressed against the seaward current and, fifty feet out in the estuary, they were as steady as a rooted waterweed.

The photographer bent down cautiously, and opened the case at his feet. The boatman could smell his perspiration. In the case, there were three lenses, each resting in a carved-out hollow, and there were other devices the boatman could not have named, each in its specific and bespoke place in the charcoal-coloured foam. The photographer lifted the middle-sized lens out, shutting the case with the same care, not making any sudden moves. It was as if there were some unappeased and hungry beast in the boat with them.

‘I’m seventy now,’ the boatman said. ‘You wouldn’t think it, people tell me. This keeps me fit.’ It was true: his wiry arms had lost flesh, but still pulled firmly; his heart, he considered, beat slowly in his narrow chest. He had kept his hair close-shaven in a way that chimed with the way some young people kept it, though it was white now. ‘There was a boatman before me, there was always a boatman. Running them as wanted from Hanmouth pier to the Loose Cannon. The old one, he’d taken it over from his father, forty years back. Had sons, they weren’t interested. One’s a lawyer in Bristol. Not a full-time job any more, ferryman. Hadn’t been for years. I took it on. Keeps me active.’

‘You must know everyone in town,’ the photographer said.

‘Strange lot of people in Hanmouth this week. Don’t know them, never seen a one of them before. Never seen it so crowded. That little girl. I don’t know what they think they’ll see, though. Won’t see her. She’s missing.’

‘Human curiosity,’ the passenger said. ‘There’s no decent limit to it.’ He raised his camera, and quickly, with a series of heavy crunches, fired off some photographs.

‘Five pounds over, eight there and back,’ the boatman said. ‘Could have put up the fare this week, I dare say.’

‘I thought we agreed a price,’ the passenger said. ‘You said thirty.’

‘There and back in ten minutes is eight pounds,’ the boatman said. ‘To the middle and stay there as long as I say is thirty. Have you got permission from Mr Calvin to be taking photographs?’

‘We agreed a price,’ the passenger said.

‘Oh, yes,’ the boatman said. ‘We agreed a price. I can’t do you a receipt, though.’

‘That’s all right,’ the passenger said. ‘I can write my own receipt. There’s no law that says people need permission to take a photograph of a town. Whatever your Mr Calvin says.’

The boatman lifted his oars and kept them in the air; in a second the boat drifted ten feet seawards.

‘Keep the boat where it was, please,’ the passenger said.

‘Mr Calvin, he’s keeping a register of all the press photographers. A lot of them. A hell of a lot. Keeps it nice and tidy, Mr Calvin says. Shame about that little girl.’

‘Did you know her?’

‘No,’ the boatman said. ‘I don’t know as I even recognized her when I saw her face in the papers. There’s twenty thousand live in Hanmouth and surroundings. You don’t know everyone.’

He pulled hard at the oars, keeping the boat steady and parallel to the shore. They’d been out twenty minutes, he saw. Over half an hour and he’d start charging an extra pound a minute; it wasn’t this bugger’s money he’d be paying with. He kept an eye on his watch, worn on the inside of his wrist in good maritime fashion.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘There’s those who won’t pay the five pounds. If they run off, I don’t chase after them. I phone Mike at the Loose Cannon and he takes the fare out of their change. Not much they can say to that. One lad says to me, last summer, “Five pounds? It’s only over there. I can walk that.” Thinking about low tide, he was. The estuary at low tide, I can’t row across, but they can’t wade across, neither. “No thanks, it’s not deep, we’ll walk across, doesn’t look like much.” I said, “Fair enough.” Fifteen yards out, he were up to his thighs in mud, couldn’t go forward, couldn’t go back. The estuary, it’s got its own mind. It shrinks and it quivers. The ducks walk on it; they’ve got webbed feet. He was in his trainers. I was in the window of the Flask, watching him. Come out and chucked him a ladder in the end. Went out making a hell of a din. Come back quiet as church mice. They only do that once. This town needs me.’

In the rich riverine gloom, the photographer held the machine to his face, and fired off more shots, taking no account of the boatman’s story. From here, there was a low and extensive view of the Hanmouth estuary front, the lights in the windows shut off against the night. At the jetty, the crop-haired girl had sat down, her knees raised. Her thin body in its tight boyish denim made a geometrical figure. A half-illuminated line of smoke rose from a concealed cigarette beneath the raised knees.

The boatman pulled against the current, and the boat held quite straight. On the jetty, another figure had joined the photographer’s assistant. He was talking softly to her. The low voice travelled across the water, and from the sound of it and the narrow-shouldered shape of the man, the boatman recognized Mr Calvin. He’d have something to say to a press photographer who hadn’t made himself known.

‘This for a newspaper, then?’ the boatman said.

‘Something like that,’ the passenger said, continuing to photograph.

‘It’s been five days,’ the boatman said. ‘We’ve been under siege, it’s been like. Everyone being asked, all the time, have you seen the little girl, do you know her mum, what do you know about her dad. Just to go to the butcher’s or the bank. I said to one, “If I knew anything, I’d go to the police, I wouldn’t be telling you.” And you can get photographs of Hanmouth anywhere, on the Internet, lovely sunny day. You won’t get much in this light, I wouldn’t have thought.’

On the jetty, the small figure of indeterminate sex waved largely, as if she had a full-sized flag at a jamboree. Calvin, if that was who it had been, had gone. The swans and geese, misled by the wave, checked their paths and swam towards her. They were spoilt by feeders here, and took movement for the promise of generosity.