Against the Tide (3 page)

Nelson nodded. ‘Yes, but –'

‘Well, gentlemen, thank you for your time. I'd like a few private words with Renouf, if you don't mind.'

Phillips clearly did mind but left, trailing indignation.

‘Now, Jack.'

‘Sir, you saw what happened. It's not fair. He was fouling me all the time and the referee ignored it. I had every right –'

‘That's enough. Now calm down.'

I was seething with frustration and determined to have my say. ‘He broke every rule in the book. He even tried to drown me and I'm the one who gets punished. It's bloody ridiculous.'

Brewster laughed. ‘Oh, for God's sake, Renouf, it's not about right and wrong. You were stupid enough to retaliate where everyone could see you. What do you expect? Of course you have to be seen to be punished. You can't elbow someone in the face in front of hundreds of witnesses and be applauded for it.'

‘But, he –'

‘It doesn't matter what he did. If you are going to play the game with adults then you have to learn to take responsibility for your actions. You were in the wrong and you know it.'

I sighed. He was right, Fletcher was right; they were all bloody right. ‘Yes, I'm sorry, sir. I apologise. Thank you for dealing with me –'

‘That's sufficient. You will still be able to swim in the match. Get some training in. Try to get that qualifying time. Now get out of here before I change my mind and feed you to the fish.'

I started for the door.

‘And, Jack, a word of advice. We all make enemies in life, that can't be avoided, but one of the secrets of happiness is to be very careful who you pick as friends.'

That wasn't the advice I wanted. I was about to challenge him when I spotted my reflection in the window. I was nearly nineteen, going on ninety, if some of my friends and relations were to be believed. Perhaps this was a lesson to be learned, but I'd damn well pick who I wanted as friends – not who my father, my uncle, or any other busybody adult felt was appropriate. I swallowed my retort and left.

Phillips was waiting. ‘What did he say?'

‘Mind your…' I bit my tongue. ‘Not much. Just some advice about controlling myself.'

‘Stand up for yourself, Renouf, but don't lose your temper like that. If that had been against Guernsey, we would have been stuck with only six men. For God's sake, we could have lost the match and the donkeys would have laughed their hind legs off.'

I wasn't sure if he really was angry, but we were in the shade so his face wasn't flushed from the sun.

‘Don't believe everything your Hebrew friend tells you. Mr Brewster is right; there is another way. You have to play to the rules; without them, we're lost. Be strong, but play like, like…' he struggled to complete the analogy, ‘an Englishman.'

So there we were, two Jerseymen, whose aspirations should be to act like Englishmen, and one of us was a Jew hater. That explained a lot about Saul's treatment, and about Miko's.

My impulse was to snap back, call him a fascist, spit some of Shylock's lines at him: “
Hath not a Jew eyes…
” Instead, I mouthed the Kipling poem on my bedroom wall. ‘‘‘
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you
”; is that what you mean?'

He grabbed my elbow and leant closer, his fetid breath in my ear. ‘The trouble with you, Renouf, is that you spend too much time with your head up Shakespeare's arse.'

He turned and waddled off, shaking his head. A Strauss waltz floated from the speakers, soothing the ranks of sun-seekers sprawled in deck chairs, reading their Sunday newspapers. Enjoy your holiday – it might be the last for some time, or so the headlines implied.

Saul approached with Rachel. She stopped and peered at me in the shadows. The sun was in their eyes and she had to squint. In contrast to Saul's pale features, her face was tanned. Normally, her eyes were a rich coffee; now, after several dives from ten metres, they were tinged with pink. She fluttered her thick charcoal lashes and smiled.

‘We're wandering along to the beach café for an espresso. Want to join us?' she asked.

I smiled back, noticing that Saul's eyes were still bright with anger. ‘Thanks, Rachel, perhaps later.'

She hesitated. I felt that she wanted to talk to me alone, but Saul tugged her arm. She shrugged, mouthed ‘see you' and followed him towards the bridge. They paused at the kiosk and Saul doffed his hat to me.

Someone punched me from behind. I spun, arching my elbow to strike back.

Caroline gasped in surprise. ‘Christ, Jack. Don't hit me as well.'

I exhaled sharply and turned to face her, my pulse racing.

She twitched one of the blonde tresses from her forehead. ‘Well, have you been suspended for your brutality, my little angel, or have they given you a medal for thumping the poor foreigner?'

I shook my head. I needed to get away, needed some distraction. A few hours with Caroline would be good. I also needed to start taking it less seriously. ‘He deserved it. If he'd carried on marking me like that, we'd have had to get married.'

‘How splendid. Do tell me more.' She looped her arm into mine. ‘You can give me all the sordid details on the way.'

‘Way? Where?'

She dragged me along the bridge. ‘ To the hospital, silly. I've arranged to pick up our friend and take him back to his hotel and you're coming along to apologise.'

Why should I apologise to the Dutchman? It was his bloody fault anyway. I jerked her arm back as we reached the gate and pulled her into the rail.

‘What's wrong, Jack?' There was concern in her voice now as she looked enquiringly at me.

I stared out over the beach, seeing only shades of grey, oblivious to the sprawl of near naked bodies and children screeching about on the sand.

I felt her hand on my cheek. Her voice was soft. ‘I think you're feeling a little guilty, aren't you?'

I sighed and nodded.

‘You're also realising that you are not as innocent as you were a couple of hours ago.' Her hand caressed my ear. ‘That was brutal, Jack. Cold, calculated, murderous even.'

I didn't respond.

She turned my head to face her. ‘I think you've grown up a bit this afternoon and it frightens me.'

I stared back. We might only be eighteen but we had shared so much, had been as intimate in body and thought as I believed possible. How could she know me so well when I didn't really understand myself? I shrugged, helpless for words, desperate for her to change my mood.

Her light blue irises, also red-rimmed, from plunging fifteen feet underwater, expanded as she smiled. ‘Do you remember when we stood on this bridge before that first party at Saul's and you made me pour that decent bottle of claret into the sand?'

I grimaced.

‘Yes, you bastard. I can't believe I let you. I should have hit you over your thick head with it. And all because you don't approve of drink.'

‘We didn't need it. Of course, you didn't know Saul then. If you had, you would have realised that his parents keep enough alcohol in their apartment to float the
Queen Mary.
'

‘I really didn't understand you then. I'm not much wiser now. Jack Renouf, you are a bloody puzzle.'

I grinned. She had lifted my mood. ‘Come on then, Florence Nightingale, let's get this over with.'

4

Feeling more relaxed, I hugged her, conscious of the soft warmth under her thin dress and the seductive power of her perfume. Sometimes, when we were alone in the house, Caroline raided her stock and amused herself by making me apply
eau de cologne
and
parfume
to various intimate parts of her naked body. This testing of my “nose” was one of her favourite games. I usually had difficulty identifying all the ingredients, but I could recognise jasmine and guessed this was her current favourite, Coco. Whatever its composition, it was sufficiently powerful to shift thought processing from my brain to a less inhibited part of my body.
Get the Dutchman out of the way,
it pleaded.

She'd left her father's Bugatti, a 57C drophead coupe, in Roseville Street, just across the main road.

‘Come on, Jack. I'll make sure he doesn't eat you.' She jumped into the scarlet roadster, pressed the starter and had the eight cylinders roaring a fortissimo chorus in bottom C before I could close my door. She dropped the clutch and bounced onto the crown of the road, jerking me back into the cream leather seat.

I gritted my teeth. The bonnet was long and the front mudguards so sensuously rounded that even I had difficulty seeing the road. She was a good six inches shorter than me and her Ray-Bans, with their rose-coloured lenses, couldn't have helped as we charged through the empty streets to the General Hospital.

She pulled up alongside the entrance in Gloucester Street and pointed towards the granite façade. I started to protest but she shoved me out and ordered me to get the “casualty” while making her only use of the rear view mirror so far, to reapply her make-up and fiddle with her hair.

I returned a few minutes later, struggling to keep the grin off my face. ‘He's already been collected I'm afraid. The hotel sent a car.'

‘Damn!' Caroline thumped the wooden steering wheel. ‘Get in. We'll go and see him at the Palace, then.'

‘But why? Why do you want to drag me up there?'

She looked up at me, the bright spots on her high cheekbones shining through the rouge, crimson lips pouting in disdain. ‘Jack, you know you have to apologise to him. I saw you smiling as you got out of the water. You didn't lose your temper. You planned that and you must make amends.'

‘What?' I kicked the tyre in disbelief. ‘You were the one who shouted out “Do it!” You wanted me to hit him.'

‘Don't be so bloody stupid. I most certainly did not. You must have imagined it. Perhaps it was someone else who called out. Rachel, perhaps?' She looked witheringly at me. ‘You are so crass sometimes, I almost despair of you. I thought you sportsmen were supposed to be gentlemen. Now, are you coming with me or do I have to go and apologise for you?'

My friends wondered why I put up with her. Perhaps they were right, but she was so different, exciting, unpredictable and challenging. Yet, she was surprisingly vulnerable. I never bragged about how far we went, in contrast to my friends who kept a score of their, often imaginary, successes. That was private, between the two of us, besides which, no one would have believed me.

‘Dear Jack, you look like one of your precious cows waiting to be milked. Are you coming with me or are you walking home?'

We glared at each other – my anger threatened to overwhelm what little sense remained. I looked away. There was an iron cannon in the park across the road. Perhaps I should go and kick that instead. It was probably more malleable than her self-belief. Sod it. Did I really want to end it here, now, over a bloody Dutchman? I turned back. She was still staring at me but her lips curled into a hint of a smile. Was it triumph or understanding? I was sure that, before the end of this crazy day, our relationship would be resolved, one way or another, but not here by the side of the dusty road. I clambered into the car and stared straight ahead.

‘Oh for God's sake, put your brave face on and stop sulking.'

We found the Dutchman stretched out in a rattan chair near the eastern end of the sun terrace. He seemed to be asleep and bore few marks of my attack. Caroline coughed. Kohler's eyelids fluttered but there was no other reaction. She nudged me with her elbow.

I grimaced at her and croaked, ‘Excuse me.'

The Dutchman slowly opened his eyes and, for a fleeting second, I saw confusion, bordering on panic, in their grey depths, then he was awake. His lips spread wide in a friendly grin and he raised his arms above his head.

‘I surrender. Please, no more.'

The voice was relaxed, only the slightest suggestion of an accent. He turned to Caroline and opened his eyes in a rather obvious gesture of appreciation. A cold wave of apprehension sucked at my insides.

Caroline cued me. ‘We've come to apologise, Mr Kohler.'

He looked surprised. ‘Rudi, call me Rudi. But there is no need.' He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is only a game. There is little damage.' He pointed at his left eye. ‘A slight swelling and a cut inside my lip,' he rubbed his jaw, ‘a little soreness –'

Caroline interrupted. ‘But you were unconscious. We were all worried.'

Kohler leapt up. ‘Look, no damage. Fit, as you English say, as a fiddle. I was only briefly stunned. The team needed a replacement so I stayed “injured”.'

I knew I had knocked him out and that he must still be in some pain. If he wanted to pretend otherwise to impress Caroline, what could I say?

‘Anyway, enough of this nonsense, I was more in danger from the cold water.'

Caroline laughed. ‘That wasn't cold. You should start training in May when its only fifty-five degrees – that would make your teeth chatter and your testicles tremble. Isn't that what you told me, Jack?'

I mimicked Kohler's relaxed tone. ‘Fortunately, my dear, that's one pleasure you will never have – trying to warm up your frozen balls.'

He smiled through her silence. ‘Well this is all very jolly – perhaps it is time for you to join me in a drink and tell me all about yourselves. I must say, I am honoured by your company.' He caught the eye of a waiter hovering in the distance and signalled him to approach.

We found comfortable cane chairs by the side of the pool. Caroline and Kohler sipped overdressed cocktails. I nursed a Coke.

‘So you have just finished school, Jack. What do you do now?'

‘He's got a place at Wadham College, Oxford, haven't you, dear?' Caroline patted my arm in imitation of my mother, though there was irony in her tone.