The Hopkins Conundrum

by Simon Edge

  “It didn’t pitch so much yesterday.”

  “See if the fog has gone.”

  It had. The banks of the estuary were clearly visible now. But the water was swelling and tossing, and the sky was dark with clouds scudding across it in the gale that had blown the mist away.

  By eight o’clock the sea was rougher still. Brigitta was deathly pale and only Aurea wanted breakfast. Henrica went with her to the dining saloon so that she would not be left alone, and found the party much depleted. There was no sign of the Hamms, and Frau Pitzhold was also ailing in her cabin. The stewards swayed and danced as they conveyed dishes from the galley, and the coffee spilled over the sides of the cups.

  Throughout the morning the seas mounted. Brigitta succumbed, and could be heard through the plank wall retching miserably into a bowl. Not even Aurea could face lunch.

  Marta knocked in the early afternoon, to offer flasks of water, fruit from the table and assurance that such gales were normal in December.

  “But you’re unlucky to have it on your first day at sea. I’m afraid it’s because the North Sea is so shallow. It makes the seas rougher. Once this is past, the worst will be over and the rest of the Atlantic will seem calm.”

  After they had prayed, Henrica knew that she must take some fresh air. Aurea offered to join her, and she was grateful for the assistance as they zigzagged through the deserted saloon, grabbing a handrail here and a column there as the motion of the ship forced them into its staggering rhythm. The companion-way up to the deck now seemed a mountainous assault – the kind of mountain that tossed angrily around.

  As soon as they stepped out of the little deck-hut at the top, the wind gathered their heavy skirts and veils and Henrica’s scapular flapped up almost into her face. She clutched the foremast with one hand while trying to hold the garment down with the other.

  “It’s not safe, ladies!” shouted a seaman, woollen hat pulled down low over his weathered face. “You must stay in your cabins when the sea’s so high.”

  “I know, but I must have some air, otherwise…”

  Henrica felt the hot bubble rise in her chest. She tried to gulp it back with a draught of cold air, but it was no good. She put her head over the rail, grateful that Aurea spared her shame by looking the other way. The convulsion was shocking in its intensity, and the taste of stomach acid in her mouth and nose was disgusting. The wind caught the foul stuff and carried it off into the churning spray below. Henrica pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her mouth, then tried to find a clean side of the linen to mop her brow. Even though it was cold, she was damp with sweat.

  She was weak from the forced exertion but at least the nausea had eased. With the urgency of getting to the rail now gone, she saw the seas properly for what they were. Gripping a stay in one hand, she stared in awe at the rolling peaks and troughs that bucked the ship along. If they were within reach of any land, it was nowhere to be seen. The thick grey sky was heavy with snow, and she brushed a sopping flake from her face. This craft that had seemed so large in port was now dwarfed by the watery vastness. Feeling tinier than she ever had, she was grateful that they had God’s protection. But she hoped it did not show a lack of faith to be afraid.

  Conditions were no better by nightfall. None of them had any inclination to leave the safety of the cabin, and they learned from Marta that both their own and the first-class dining saloon were deserted for dinner. Henrica considered starting an introductory English class as a distraction, but she had no more heart for it than the rest of them. Apart from when they knelt to pray, they took refuge under their bedding, hoping that sleep would provide a release and the storm would be gone when they woke.

  Even that small respite was long in coming. The rocking-horse dipping and the creaking of the hull were a far cry from the soothing motion of the previous night, a constant reminder of their vulnerability on the raging sea. She could hear Brigitta groaning and whimpering through the cabin partition. When sleep did arrive, it was a turbulent rest, the movement of the ship and the worry of the passage permeating all their dreams.

  Henrica consoled herself with Marta’s assurance that the rest of the voyage would seem calm once the storm abated. In a week’s time they would be seasoned sailors, looking back on this night and making light of their early terrors.

  In the meantime, God would watch over them.

  Holland, the present

  Adjusting her balance to the rhythmic roll of the ship, Chloe Benson climbs a carpeted flight of stairs to the highest level that passengers are allowed to access and heads towards what she hopes is the front of the vessel. As far as the rest of her group are concerned, she has peeled away in search of a toilet and then to get some air on deck, but it’s breezy out there and she has no desire to set foot outside. Instead, she is looking for a quiet corner where she can get away from the others and have some long-overdue time to herself. Not that she has anything against any of them. She likes them all, as she generally likes most people, and it really hasn’t been a bad weekend as far as these things go. But there’s a limit to how full-on Chloe can be.

  It is quieter already up here, because there isn’t a bar on this level. There are some kids running up and down, and several rows where people have nabbed two or three seats apiece so that they can sleep outstretched. But there are no large, conspicuously drunk groups, which makes a change both from the lower deck and her own experience of the past couple of days. And there, right up at the front, she can see just what she’s looking for: a secluded empty seat in the furthest corner, where she can be anti-social for an hour and no one will even miss her.

  She has spent the last two days on a hen weekend in Amsterdam. Helen, the bride, was Chloe’s best friend in their last year at uni on the south coast and, partly by virtue of their both ending up in Manchester, they have kept in touch throughout the decade or so since. Helen has always had a terror of flying, which for most people would have made a day or two of pampering at a spa in Knutsford or Wilmslow the natural option. But Helen has never done anything by halves, and is particularly unwilling to be outdone by her groom, who has gone on a boys’ weekend somewhere in the Baltics. So, on the Friday, they all take a day off work and drive in a minivan bedecked with pink ribbons and balloons to Harwich, then catch the ferry to the Hook of Holland, and on by road to Amsterdam.

  It is a novelty on the way over not to have to spend hours waiting around in an airport, and travelling the journey mile by mile without the magic of aviation makes getting there feel like a genuine achievement. Since then, they have been on a vodka cruise of the canals, clattered shrieking around the Leidseplein, cackled at strippers in a gay bar and screeched laughing at Helen trying to grab her own pole and join in (not something Chloe could ever condone in her day job as a health and safety inspector) after one too many hash cookies. There has been some pampering the next day at a Turkish sauna, where Chloe has only just managed to avoid getting herself vajazzled along with bride and bridesmaids, followed by more raucousness involving tequila shots. Save for the vajazzle, Chloe has played her part to the full, dancing, cheering, laughing and whooping whenever required, and she has genuinely enjoyed it.

  Half the group are new to her, but she has got on with everyone, even if she’s not sure she wants what they all seem to want. Helen, in particular, is clearly letting off a last burst of steam with furious abandon as a prelude to settling with equal determination into family life with Steve, who works in IT at the same big accountancy firm as her. Having flitted from job to job and man to man in her twenties, Helen has her thirties meticulously planned – kids, schools, house-moves – in a way that Chloe could never imagine herself doing. Steve, by all accounts, is a solid, decent bloke who is nice to children and animals, can bake lemon drizzle cakes as well as strip down an engine, and also finds time to keep himself impressively buff (they have all seen the pictures on Facebook) at the gym. Chloe is genuinely pleased for
them both and is looking forward to the wedding. But she is equally clear that their kind of manicured marital life isn’t for her. The one thing she has learned from the three significant relationships she has had in her adult life – two decent but unfulfilling, one scarily tempestuous – is that she is drawn to misfits, to people who stand outside convention in some way. The only question is whether she falls for another bastard misfit who will make her life a misery (like number three) or whether she will finally latch onto someone who is both decent and exciting.

  For the moment, however, she is exhausted. This return journey in a thrumming, swaying vessel is the last thing she needs after all that tequila, and she would give anything for the relative comfort of Schiphol and Ryanair. But her refuge in the upper bows does at least give her the chance to escape into the kind of luxurious pampering she most adores. Settling in her seat, she rummages in her rucksack and pulls out the volume of poetry that seems all the more appropriate for the journey, because of the North Sea connection, and which she hasn’t had a chance to open until now.

  As she opens it and begins to read, she feels a warming thrill more profound than anything on offer in the Turkish sauna.

  North Wales, the present

  There is a storm in the night, with the wind and rain rattling the windows of the Red Lion in their frames. Tim is fully expecting to find slates torn off the roof and puddles on the floor of the bar when he gets up in the morning. But the sun is out again and, aside from the brimming water butt next to the back door, there is no trace of the night’s weather. From the kitchen window, he can see all the way down the valley to the coast. Some days, this is a view to slit your wrists to, little more than a low stack of grey lateral bands representing sky, sea, hill and vale, more or less blurred depending on whether it’s raining or merely about to do so. But this isn’t one of those days. The sea is an improbable shade of blue, the sun is bouncing off the tower of the stumpy little cathedral in the novelty city (pop. 3,500) that passes for the local metropolis, and he is almost glad he came here. Emphasis on the ‘almost’ – let’s not get carried away.

  Still thinking about Alun Gwynne’s loose ends – so much more annoying when he knows the old boy is right – he goes for a stroll to see if he can get his scheme any clearer in his head. He takes the road up the spur of the hill behind the pub. There are dog-roses in the hedgerows and meadow pipits flitting between the trees. He can see himself getting to like the place, especially if he ever becomes solvent. That strengthens his resolve to make this off-the-wall idea work. It would be genius if he could bring it off, so there has to be a way.

  He casts his mind back once more to that disastrous French holiday. He recalls that Nadine had a guide-book, as well as the preposterous thriller. It was the focus of one of their many arguments that week, with Tim quoting extensively from it to back up his contention that there was nothing too stupid for Grail-hunting conspiracy theorists to believe. After they came home, it ended up on Nadine’s dressing-table shelf, where its spine was the first thing he saw when he woke up every morning. That was until they stopped sharing a bed, in a sequence of events that Tim still finds painful to contemplate. With an effort he pulls himself out of that memory wormhole, forcing his attention back to the guide-book. If he had it in front of him now, it would tell him that the Grail Trailers are not just interested in one particular village in the Dordogne. It is certainly the highest-value location in the gullibility Top Trumps, but the disciples of the creed are also encouraged to visit Poussin’s birthplace in Normandy and the crumbling studio in Rome where the painter is meant to have worked on the canvas that contained all the clues, and where enthusiasts can view the pentagrams and other geometrical giveaways carved into the stone walls.

  This is the obvious answer to Alun Gwynne’s point about diving the wreck. The visitors who will make Tim rich are tourists, not treasure-hunters, and they simply need to be pointed in the direction of the compulsory sights. For Tim, the task is to think what their poet might have carved into the walls of his room, what telltale graffiti he might have etched on the back of a chapel pew. There must be something – and if there isn’t, it cannot be beyond a mildly dishonest imagination to make it look like there is.

  But he is getting ahead of himself. The far bigger question is how he is going to transform this crazy fantasy nonsense in his own head into the kind of crazy fantasy nonsense that lots of people believe – or are sufficiently interested in to come and check the place out for themselves.

  The lane curves away to the south now, over the brow of the hill, but there’s a fingerpost on the bend indicating a footpath in the other direction, down towards the sea. Tim climbs over a stile that has seen better days and strikes out across a field where cows, sheep, hens, a few crows and an old JCB are calmly sharing the same pasture. On the other side of the field is a copse which he is almost certain marks the boundary of the big old house, the “seminal college” which was home to their man nearly a century and a half ago.

  He would like to see the place for himself. Having a proper sense of what it looks like will surely fire that imagination and give him some more definite ideas. But when he gets to the end of the field, the path goes around to the right to skirt the copse. After a few yards, there’s a smaller path going into the trees. He follows it for a while, but it soon peters out into thick undergrowth and, as holly branches twang in his face, he realises that he isn’t going to get any view of the place this way. He retraces his steps to the main path and then strikes off away from it, up through the field, in the hope that he can look down on the college from above. But it’s the kind of hill with fake horizons where he can never get high enough, and when he does, he has somehow got on the wrong side of the crest and can’t see the house from there either. Footsore but determined, he goes back across the field in what he imagines is the direction of the lower lane that serves the house itself, scrambling over a wall and snagging his jacket on a barbed wire fence to reach it. Completing a full circle around the hidden place, he makes his way up the narrow lane, past a private property sign and into the drive of the college, where he gets as far as a gatehouse cottage and some outbuildings. He can just about see the grey corner of the house itself, with a row of narrow Gothic-arch windows beneath a slate roof, angular gables and a cluster of towering chimneys.

  A figure appears in the gatehouse door.

  “Can I help you?”

  It’s an old man in a flat cap, a more gnarled and hostile version of Alun Gwynne, with the same high intonation that makes him sound like most of his voice is coming down his nose.

  “Hello there. I was looking for the footpath. Have I missed it?”

  “There’s no right of way here. This is a private road. You’ll have to go back down to the lane and up to the right to find a footpath, if that’s the one you mean,” says the gatekeeper.

  “Really?” says Tim. “To be honest I was just hoping for a glimpse of the house. I couldn’t just…?”

  This is where the old man will take a shine to the charming young Englishman, youngish, and invite him to have a look around, maybe even bring him into his lodge afterwards for a cup of tea and some authentic yarns.

  But the man hasn’t read that script.

  “There’s no right of way here,” he repeats. “You’ll have to go back down to the lane. There’s a footpath down there.”

  Tim holds his gaze for a second, giving what he imagines are puppy eyes. But it’s clear the old boy is not about to relent.

  “Right then, yes. Not to worry,” he says. “Thank you. Thanks very much.”

  Is his foreignness in Wales turning him into the most clichéd Englishman, profusely grateful in circumstances that don’t merit it? But he also wants to emphasise that he has no ulterior purpose, and that he will be just as happy taking a pleasant stroll on the lower footpath.

  In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. He is determined now. He
has to find a way of seeing inside the place.

  On his way back he finds himself wondering what Barry Brook would do. Inasmuch as Tim has ever thought about the author of The Poussin Conundrum, it has always been with loathing. As the peddler of hokum to gullible creatures like Nadine, Brook is personally responsible, in Tim’s view, for some of the worst episodes in his marriage. Now, however, the situation is different. Tim is trying to peddle even more cynical hokum than anything Brook has managed, so perhaps it’s time he thought of him in a fresh light. Oughtn’t he to be Tim’s role model? It’s a depressing thought. Is this how far he has sunk? But the truth is that he and Brook are on the same side now.

  Then it hits him. It’s so obvious, he can’t think why the idea hasn’t occurred to him before. Brook has millions of eager, gullible readers who must be desperate for another instalment of Grail nonsense, yet in ten years or so the author himself hasn’t produced anything. Rather than trying to emulate Brook, Tim should be roping him into his scheme. Brook can then construct the story – which, let’s face it, he will do much better than Tim could – and pass it on to his massive, expectant audience all over the world. If Tim can only persuade him, he will be in business.

  How do you contact celebrity authors? Tim has a vague notion that this once used to be done via literary agents or publishers, but there must be an easier way in this day and age. When he gets home, he boots up his laptop and does a quick search for an author site. There is one, complete with a contact form, but it looks impersonal and the site is probably maintained in a publisher’s office, or by some fan club, and Tim wants his message to reach Brook directly, not relayed via a third party. Then he remembers Twitter. Isn’t that the kind of place where even the richest and most famous people run their own accounts?