by Wendy Clarke
Snatching my phone from my pocket, I click on her name. I haven’t heard back from her about my previous message, but it might be because she’s been busy planning her wedding. I know how time-consuming it is to search for venues. For photographers. For dresses. With a pang, I look at the wedding magazines that are strewn across the coffee table. Inside are pictures circled in red pen. Notes scribbled in margins. Scooping them up, I dump them in the recycling bin in the kitchen, reminding myself that it’s not the first relationship to have ended. The last time it happened, I lost so much more. I was strong then and I can be now. Picking up my phone, I tap out a reply.
I want to come. Tell me when.
Six
I feel like an alcoholic who’s had their first sip of wine in years. A warmth spreading through my veins. I smile at the thought of Joanna, and a memory comes back to me. We’re sitting in a math’s lesson, our heads bowed to our work, when she leans across the desk and scribbles something in the margin of my book. When I look at what she’s written, I see it’s the answer to the question I’ve been struggling with. I smile my thanks and she mouths, you owe me, though we both know I’ll never pay her back. Unless you count playing the piano, Joanna is better than me at everything.
The ping of her reply comes so quickly it startles me.
Come on Saturday.
It’s followed by her address.
I stare at the screen, my heart thudding. Saturday. That’s only three days away. Already my mind is racing through the things I should take. The clothes I have that aren’t jogging bottoms or the black trousers and blouses I used to wear for work. Maybe I should go out shopping; get myself something half-decent.
For the first time in ten days, my hurt and anger at Drew nudges aside a little, leaving room for a little frisson of excitement to edge in alongside it. A reminder of what I always feel when Joanna rings. Just thinking about her voice and the smile that never fails to lift my spirits, is helping me come alive again.
It’s as if she knows something has happened. Has found out my world has fallen apart and is going to be there for me just like she’s always been. Joanna’s the only person in this world who knows me well enough to understand what I’m going through. The only one I can bare my soul to. I have a sudden urge to look at the photos of us when we were teenagers. The ones taken on our backpacking trip around South East Asia in the month before we went to university.
The albums are kept in the cupboard under the TV, but it’s only when I slide the first one out that I remember I no longer have the ones I’m looking for. Instead, I go to the computer and switch it on. I might as well see what Joanna’s new place is like.
I don’t know what I’ve been expecting when I type Joanna’s address into the search engine, but it’s not this. The images that jump out at me are like something from a film. Some are of stylish bedrooms with low-level futons and gauzy curtains. Others feature kitchens with shiny black units and integrated appliances – inserts showing close-ups of marble islands, the shiny surfaces of which hold strategically placed coffee makers and glass and steel juicers. But it’s the pictures of the vast living areas that hold my attention. Neutral-coloured walls contrasting with the dark wood floors, the furniture all clean, minimal lines. Their pièce de résistance the floor to ceiling windows that look out over the Thames and the London skyline.
When I click on one of the images, it brings up the developer’s brochure, and I read the brief introduction. New Tobacco Wharf is a renovation of an old tobacco warehouse by Maitland Belmont Developments. It’s situated in one of the last London docks to be redeveloped. Black Water Dock. The name conjures images of pirates and smugglers, and I smile as I remember the Captain Jack Sparrow outfit Joanna had managed to carry off at one of the many parties we’d gone to back in our student days. The beard she’d painstakingly stuck to her chin and the beaded braid she’d fixed to her dark hair.
There’s a small photograph of the developer, Mark Belmont, a serious-faced man who looks to be in his early forties and, beneath it, a picture of the red-bricked warehouse and its surroundings as it was in its heyday in the 1800s. I enlarge the black and white image and see that the area in front of the building is busy with dockers carrying barrels and hauling on ropes. Lining the quayside are ships with tall masts, clusters of wooden barges jostling for space nearby.
How different it is to the architect’s design that’s printed next to it. In it, the imposing warehouse containing the apartments looks much the same, but that’s where the similarity ends. Here, the regimented lines of windows, instead of having a view of a bustling dock, now look down onto an elegant area of landscaped gardens and outdoor living spaces. It’s modern. Cosmopolitan. And, when I read the developer’s spiel, I find out that, as well as this lovely area, there’s a gym and a large underground car park for residents.
Clicking through the pages, I come to the asking price. It takes my breath away for the sum is more than I’d guessed – around three million for a two-bedroom apartment. I try to remember the last job Joanna had. Something in telesales I think. Whatever it was, it’s unlikely she’d be doing it now as she was never one to stick to anything for long. Could she really have found something that would enable her to live in such luxury?
It’s only as I remember her breathless words that the answer comes to me. Of course, it must be something to do with her fiancé.
I look at Joanna’s message again.
Come on Saturday.
Finding her number, I phone her, but there’s no answer. Like before, it goes straight to voicemail. It’s frustrating as there are things I need to know, like the best way to get there and how long she’s happy for me to stay, but it’s typical Joanna. With no answer to my questions, I look up trains. There’s no way I’m going to take the underground, but there’s an overground train that runs from Clapham Junction to Wapping which I could take. As I check the times, a yellow exclamation mark comes up; I’d forgotten about the train strikes that are starting tomorrow. With fewer trains running, the carriages will be heaving, and there’s no way I’d be able to cope with that. It’s then I remember that the apartments have an underground car park. It would mean braving the Blackwall Tunnel, but I could drive there.
I type in a message.
Saturday’s perfect. I’ll be there. I can stay the weekend if you like.
Seven
It should only have taken me two hours to get to Joanna’s apartment, but I’d underestimated the traffic: the continuous jams, the roadworks, the constant stopping and starting at lights that always seem to be red. A glance at my petrol gauge shows I’ve a quarter of a tank left. I just hope it’s enough to get me to the end of my journey. Drew would tick me off for not stopping at a garage sooner.
Drew. Over the last few days, I haven’t had time to think about him much. I’ve been too busy deciding what clothes to take, how to wear my hair. From the look of the apartment in the online brochure, Joanna has done all right for herself, and I don’t want to show her up. I try to imagine Joanna in one of the trendy warehouse developments that make up New Tobacco Wharf and fail. This wasn’t the kind of place either of us had imagined ending up in when we’d talked about our futures. During those long terms at St Joseph’s, we’d pictured ourselves living side by side in semi-detached cottages in the country. One with roses around the door. Our husbands would be best friends, and our children would go to the same school.
I look at my bare ring finger. Now it seems it’s only Joanna who will have a husband. A month though – that’s all the time she’s known him. Joanna has always been impetuous, buying clothes without a second thought, deciding within seconds if she likes someone, but marriage is a different thing entirely. Choosing someone to spend the rest of your life with isn’t something to be rushed into. But that’s not the only thing that bothers me. I’d always thought that when she met that special person, she’d want me to meet him straight away. That she’d care what I thought before saying yes.
W
ith fingers gripped tightly on the wheel, the points of my knuckles whitening my skin, I slavishly follow my satnav as it takes me round roundabouts and across intersections, hoping upon hope that it really does know the way. Because if it doesn’t, I’ve no idea what I’ll do as I haven’t brought a map.
Still, the Blackwall Tunnel is behind me now. I’d survived it by turning my music up loud and singing even louder, telling myself over and over that it wouldn’t be long before I saw the circle of light that would signify its end. I hadn’t let myself picture the thick walls of concrete and the press of water above me.
But, now I’m across the river, my troubles are far from over. I must have taken a wrong turning somewhere, and the next thing I know there are signs for Canary Wharf. It’s not where I want to be. There are cars everywhere, and I’m starting to feel overwhelmed. The pavements are crowded with people, men in slim blue suits and women with shiny hair and expensive-looking shoes and bags. When the lights are red, I watch them hurry on their way: successful people who know what they’re doing. Know where they’re heading… or so I believe as I wait with sweating palms praying that the satnav will find me, and guide me on to the correct route, before the lights go green again.
It doesn’t, so I’ve no alternative but to follow the stream of traffic because, even if I’d wanted to, there’s nowhere I could stop. In a desperate bid to keep my panic in check, I turn the air conditioning up to maximum and take long slow breaths.
I’m just thinking that it’s worked when a car sounds its horn, making me jump. I’ve drifted into the lane next to me, only luck making me avoid a collision. Mouthing an apology to the driver, I move back into my lane and force myself to calm down. Soon, my drive will be over, and I’ll be sitting on Joanna’s balcony looking out at the boats on the Thames, a glass of chilled wine in my hand. My nightmare journey reduced to nothing more than an anecdote to be laughed at – as we used to laugh back then about everything and nothing.
The blue arrow reappears on the screen and, reassured that I’m back on track, I continue to snake my way between the concrete and steel office blocks and residential developments either side of me. Dropping down my sun visor to block the occasional flash of sunlight that dazzles from their glass windows.
I pass between colonnaded shopping malls, crawl round huge roundabouts and through grey underpasses that spew me back out onto bollard-lined shopping streets. The only thing to add contrast to this futuristic landscape of glass and steel and concrete are the red buses that follow each other, nose to tail.
At the next roundabout take the first exit.
Thank God.
Relief flooding through me to be leaving this busy thoroughfare, I do as the woman’s voice says, taking the exit that leads me away from the endless shining windows, the colonnaded walkways and the wide road hemmed in by glittering skyscrapers. But, as I drive on, I tell myself that what I’ve just experienced is something I’ll have to get used to over the next few days. From what I saw of the architect’s drawing of the area, Black Water Dock will be as much of a gleaming example of modern living and retail spaces as its sister. Joanna really must have landed on her feet.
The digits at the bottom of the satnav tell me that I’ll be arriving at my destination in twenty minutes, and I start to relax. But, as the minutes count down, I notice a gradual change in my surroundings. The roads are smaller now and not nearly as congested, the pavements edged, not with cafés and bars, but with kebab shops, hairdressers and dry-cleaners. A pub on the corner advertises a steak night on Friday, and instead of the smooth road surface I left behind at the last roundabout, the road is made up of flat cobbles. It’s like I’ve entered a different world, one far removed from the one I’ve just been through.
Passing under an iron railway bridge, just as a train rattles by, I see my first sign to Black Water Dock. Taking a left, I drive through an area of social housing, narrow verandas running along each length of their flat brown fronts. Past a Tesco Metro. A dilapidated bus stop. An electricity substation, its grey fencing barbed with vicious-looking spikes.
There follows a stretch of wasteland where houses have been demolished and, with nothing to now block the view, I get my first proper sight of the river, a brown stripe, the buildings of South London rising behind it. I pass a disused pumping station, and then my satnav tells me I’ve reached my destination.
Slowing the car to a stop and turning off the engine, I look around me. Surely, it’s a mistake. How can Joanna live here? It’s a far cry from the images I saw on the internet: the continental-looking bars, their green umbrellas shading metal tables overlooking the water. The landscaped gardens and courtyards that filled the spaces between the converted warehouses and shiny sharp-edged new builds. I must be in the wrong place. But the sign to my right is telling me otherwise.
Welcome to Black Water Dock
The sign is large. Impressive. But the solid black lettering is half-obscured by the remnants of the blue paint that, at some time in the past, has been thrown at it. As I stare at the words, I wonder, not for the first time today, why I’ve come… what made me so impetuous. I could simply have waited until I spoke to Joanna. Made sure I knew where I was going. Why was coming here so important to me anyway?
Taking out my phone, I ring Joanna’s number. The call tone carries on until her voice tells me to leave a message.
‘Joanna, it’s Alice. I’m at the entrance to Black Water Dock. Where should I go? How do I find you?’
I wait a few minutes then, when nothing happens, I realise that unless I’m going to turn around and drive back home again, I have no option but to set out in search of New Tobacco Wharf myself. Turning the engine back on, I follow the new-looking road ahead of me. It’s covered with chippings, and I have to go slowly to avoid flicking them. It seems to be the only way into the area. My tyres crunch on the stones and, through the open window, I can smell the river. Briny. Seaweedy.
It’s not long before the road I’ve come in on fans out into a labyrinth of smaller ones. They wind between the huge brick warehouses and storage units that line the quayside. The buildings look sad. Neglected. Some of their windows whitewashed. Others broken. Many of the walls are embedded with solid ironwork, evidence of their functional heritage, and a few have rusting scaffolding attached to their faces.
Remembering the black and white photograph on the website, the tobacco warehouse’s blank windows looking down on the tall ships waiting to be loaded, I don’t turn off but follow the road I’m on as it heads down to the river. If only the place wasn’t so deserted. If only there was someone to ask.
When I reach the waterfront, I park alongside a sprawling low-rise building covered in graffiti and get out, shading my eyes. The waterfront is a mishmash of dockside buildings, warehouses of differing sizes and cargo vaults, standing cheek by jowl with each other. But whereas these buildings are in keeping with the area’s maritime heritage, when I look further along the abandoned quayside, I see, in front of a desolate wasteland of rubble, four new-looking developments in all their shining glory. They’re angled in such a way as to represent the prow of a ship, and the deck-like wooden balconies that jut from their sliding patio doors, continue the nautical theme. Leaving the car, I go to look at them – hoping for signs of life – but when I tip my head to see above the sturdy hoarding that encloses them, their windows look back at me. Empty. Silent but for the scream of a seagull that struts the boards of one of the balconies.
An interpretation board attached to the hoarding boasts that Calypso Wharf, the name of the development, and Black Water Dock are the Covent Garden of Dockland. But as I walk back the way I’ve just come, it feels just the opposite. It’s nothing like Covent Garden… it’s more like a ghost town.
When I reach my car, I don’t get back in but walk in the other direction, being careful not to catch my feet in the grass and weeds that push up from the cracks in the paving. New Tobacco Wharf must be here somewhere. I walk past a warehouse with bricked up doorw
ays and another whose empty shell harbours piles of car tyres and other abandoned car parts. I’ve just passed a building with Units to Let printed on a board outside when I see it. Unmistakeable because of the name and date printed across the top line of brickwork. New Tobacco Wharf 1812.
Compared to the buildings either side of it, this one is vast. Its tall, regimented windows staring down at me from a flat red-bricked frontage. It’s imposing. Austere. And, although the building is clearly old, there’s something about it, apart from its size, that sets it apart from the others. It’s a while before I realise what it is. New Tobacco Wharf is the only building in the area that doesn’t look either derelict or unfinished. In fact, it’s magnificent – the brickwork repointed, the wooden window frames newly painted, the paved space in front, with its miniature box hedges in their square planters, freshly swept.
In the middle of the building is a large archway, edged in darker brick, which houses two glass doors that I presume is the front entrance. Going up to them, I cup my hand to the glass and peer inside, gasping at what I see. There’s a huge marble atrium, in the centre of which is an ornate fountain. Even with no water cascading from the mouths of the dolphins that raise themselves up from the base, it’s impressive. At the back of the hall is a shiny lift and, to the left, an unmanned reception desk.
Alongside the door is a brass panel with buzzers. For some reason, I’d been expecting name cards, but there are only numbers next to them. I can’t see the apartment number Joanna gave me. I’m certain it was number thirty. Getting my phone out, I check Joanna’s message to make sure I’ve remembered correctly. Yes, it definitely says thirty. I’m just wondering what to do when I notice, on the other side of the door, another panel mirroring the first. Number thirty is near the bottom, and before I can chicken out, I press the button next to it.