Philip Hensher: King of the Badgers

KING

OF THE

BADGERS

PHILIP

HENSHER

To

The

Gang:

Bertie

and J.B.

and Sam

and Rita

and Ralf

and Julia

and Yusef

and Jimmy

and Marino

and Renaud

and Richard

and Alan again

and Lapin again

and Professor A

and Dickie Heat-Hot

and not forgetting Nix (Hi Nicola!)

and Mrs Blaikie (with love from Rufus)

and Herbert who said it’s all quite laconic once

but especially and always and once more for my husband

and really just to say to all of them and probably some others too

What

Fun

It’s

All

Been.

COVER

TITLE PAGE KING OF THE BADGERS PHILIP HENSHER

DEDICATION To The Gang: Bertie and J.B. and Sam and Rita and Ralf and Julia and Yusef and Jimmy and Marino and Renaud and Richard and Alan again and Lapin again and Professor A and Dickie Heat-Hot and not forgetting Nix (Hi Nicola!) and Mrs Blaikie (with love from Rufus) and Herbert who said it’s all quite laconic once but especially and always and once more for my husband and really just to say to all of them and probably some others too What Fun It’s All Been.

BOOK ONE BOOK ONE NOTHING TO HIDE That bowler-hatted major, his face is twitching, He’s been in captivity too long. He needs a new war and a tank in the desert. The fat legs of the typists are getting ready For the boys and the babies. At the back of my mind An ant stands up and defies a steam-roller. GAVIN EWART, ‘Serious Matters’

NOTHING TO HIDE NOTHING TO HIDE That bowler-hatted major, his face is twitching, He’s been in captivity too long. He needs a new war and a tank in the desert. The fat legs of the typists are getting ready For the boys and the babies. At the back of my mind An ant stands up and defies a steam-roller. GAVIN EWART, ‘Serious Matters’

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

FIRST IMPROMPTU

THE OMNISCIENT NARRATOR SPEAKS

BOOK TWO

THE KING OF THE BADGERS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

SECOND IMPROMPTU

TWO HUNDRED DAYS

BOOK THREE

NOTHING TO FEAR

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PRAISE

OTHER WORKS

CREDITS

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

NOTHING TO HIDE

That bowler-hatted major, his face is twitching,

He’s been in captivity too long.

He needs a new war and a tank in the desert.

The fat legs of the typists are getting ready

For the boys and the babies. At the back of my mind

An ant stands up and defies a steam-roller.

GAVIN EWART, ‘Serious Matters’

Last year, at the hot end of spring, in the small town of Hanmouth on the Hain estuary, a rowing boat floated in the middle of the muddy stream. Its stern pointed inland, where the guilty huddle in cities, its prow towards the ocean, five miles down the steady current. There, all our sins, at the end of all the days and weeks, will be washed away. The boatman dipped his oars deep. There was something thoughtful in the repeated movement. The current was running quickly, and his instructions were to keep the boat where it lay, in the centre of the slow flood, the colour of beer and milk.

‘Most of my customers,’ he said to his single passenger, ‘want to go to the same place. They want to be rowed across the estuary to the pub.’

‘What pub would that be, then?’ his passenger said, with a touch of irritation. He was a man fat in rolls about the middle, the top of his bald head wet and beaded. His gingery-white hair shocked out to either side, weeks away from a respectable haircut. A life of taxis, expense-account drink, and hot greasy lunches had marked him. Bachelor; or divorced more like; let themselves go in the circumstances.

‘It’s the Loose Cannon,’ the boatman said. ‘It’s over there, behind you. You can see the lights. On the spit of land where the river Loose meets the Hain estuary. It’s a joke, a sort of joke, the name of it.’

The man did not turn round to look. Never been in a boat before. Thinks he can drown in two yards deep. His right hand gripped the boat; the left was on the camera about his neck. At his feet, a black case, halfway between a briefcase and a suitcase in size, was laid carefully flat.

‘Easier to get there this way,’ the boatman went on, between his strokes. ‘At the end of the spit. Between the estuary and the Loose. Car park’s near a mile off. Easier to get me to row them across from Hanmouth jetty.’

‘Nice pub, is it?’ his passenger said. Taking an interest at last.

‘Old pub,’ the boatman said. ‘Very. Just that and the lock-keeper’s house over there. Not called the Loose Cannon properly. Someone’s joke. On the licence, it’s the Cannons of Devonshire. Been called the Loose Cannon as long as anyone knows. As long as I’ve been here. Because of the river, there, the one joining the estuary.’

On the ramshackle jetty, ten feet long, the girl with the cropped hair stood where they had left her. Two more heavy cases were at her feet. In the mid-evening light, her features were indistinct. She was an outlined shape, a black silhouette in the deepening blue, a watching upright shadow.

‘You want to go there?’ the boatman asked.

‘?’

‘To the pub. To the Loose Cannon. Most of my customers—I go back and forth like a shuttle in a loom, most of the summer.’

‘No.’

‘There’s nowhere else to go, if you’re crossing the estuary.’

The passenger gave the boatman a brief, city, impatient look. ‘Just what I asked for,’ he said. ‘I want you to row out into the middle of the estuary and keep the boat as steady as you can for twenty minutes while I take some photographs. That’s all.’

‘You’d get some nice snaps from the Loose Cannon lawn,’ the boatman said.

‘Wrong angle. Too high.’

‘That’s a lot of trouble to go to just to get a nice holiday snap or two,’ the boatman said.

The passenger said nothing. The boatman paused, and let the boat float a little downstream, swinging as it went. This was the time of day he most admired. A daylight wash at one end of the sky, behind the far hills, and at the other, the beginning of a warm blue night. The moon was like a fingernail paring, hung above the church, flat on its back. In the half-light, the blossom of the fruit trees in the gardens shone out; the stiff little white flowers on the horse-chestnuts in the churchyard were like bright candles; over a wall, a white-flowering clematis poured and mounted like whipped cream. The disorganized up and down of the town’s gables, house-ends, extensions and rooftops started to be punctuated by the lighting of windows. Here and there curtains were being drawn. The lights of a town like Hanmouth shone out across water for miles at night.