• • •
THERE IS NOT A LOT OF POINT TAKING THE trouble to read books that tell you what a place is going to be like. How can you contain a city in a book—the stones, the wood, the tiles, the parks, the people, the memories? You can try for the ambience, the spirit of a place, but you bring most of that with you anyway.
I expected Savannah would be small, quiet, rustic, low-built—squares, benches, old folk. Dear me I was mistaken.
We were ten feet below the street—above us a row of coloured brollies along the railings, and under the brollies a row of white faces. Behind these a market with wooden roofs, and a cobbled waterfront: buildings worn and tall and various like old Bristol, the lights of the restaurants and gift shops vivid in dusk and rain.
We took Jim for a walk along the river, and the Savannah, wider than the Thames at Westminster or the Rhône at Lyon, poured by offering lumps of driftwood, and disappeared into the rain under a bridge hung from webs of white silk. The rest of Savannah was hiding on top of a hill. But first, an oyster bar on the waterfront.
I'll have some of that Bobbitts Double Best, I said, pointing to the illuminated sign four feet long over the bar.
We don't sell that, said the barman.
I suppose the sign is to confuse the Germans?
Or anyone else, said the barman.
Certainly confused an Englishman, I said.
That beer's no good anyway.
Thanks for the advice.
We do a draught Sweet Water IPA.
Tell you what—I'll have some of that draught Sweet Water IPA.
Good choice, said the barman.
Oysters are eaten a great deal in the South. They are bigger than European oysters. On the Intracoastal Waterway they surround you in heaps: on every post, every mudflat, every rock. They hang on to the bottom of your boat and breed in your cooling system. The Americans mix the shells with plaster and build walls and houses and pavements from them, and sometimes they just put them on their gardens. They fry their oysters in batter, and grill them, turning them into chewing gum. They sometimes eat them raw and they taste as if they had died fairly recently, but as an Englishman I prefer to be present at the time.
But these oysters were superb and I said so and the barman brought me another IPA and filled this one much nearer the top.
By our side a pale gentleman in his forties. He was enjoying his oysters but he said that where he came from, horseradish sauce was not served with shellfish, and that seemed to him very wise.
Gregor was first officer on a boat in the port—thirty-six thousand tonnes—a handy size, he said. She was carrying titanium slag. At least he thought it was titanium slag. The crew was Polish, apart from the Indian who did the dirty work. The ship was owned in one country and registered in another and managed in another. Gregor worked for an agency in Cracow. In a day or two his ship would be off round Florida and up the Mississippi to pick up some more titanium slag—at least he thought it was titanium slag.
You had a lucky escape with that Bobbitts, said the barman. We wouldn't sell that rubbish here.
• • •
SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENED TO AMERICAN cities after the Second World War. It was a rotting and a giving up as trade went out to the hypermarkets and malls along the suburban highways and law slackened its grip downtown and property values collapsed. To us the derelict alleys and the vacant lots and the shacks and ruined warehouses still look awful. Elizabeth City had been chaos.
But update this desperate story—now there seems to be a realization that waterfronts are good places to invest, and a remembrance of the brief history which Americans love so much, and an urgency to catch the whole mess before it hits the ground, and an optimism that we can save this place. Nowadays you can look at a waterside city like an ancient statue. It might have a head and a shoulder and a foot missing; it might be stained and rough, but in your mind you can put it back together in its balance, its grace.
Out of the boat and up the ramp and into the covered market. Geoff the hot-dog man came out from behind his kiosk and fell upon Jim, and Marcia on the coffee stall cried out—The little deer, the little deer! Jim licked her ears as she bent down. She had antlers on her head. She put a pair on Jim and they posed together for a picture, Marcia with more enthusiasm than Jim.
Let's climb those steps on the wall and have a look at Savannah, I said. My God, Mon, hang on to me, these open iron rungs give me the vertigo. Watch Jim—don't let him run up—if he falls between the steps he will slice himself in two.
Now we were looking across a moat to the second-floor back of the old waterfront buildings—tall and stained, with bridges to more gift shops. We turned to cross a thin park, and then blasting traffic, and we were in Paris. The traffic was Paris, and the height of the buildings was Paris, and the trees were right if you lose the Spanish moss.
Over the road the golden dome of the town hall and in a wooded square the Greek pillars of Episcopal Christchurch, then the main shopping street, with clothing shops, restaurants, empty windows. Half a block away rotten alleys: stained multi-storeys. It was raining all over the world.
WE FOUND A NARROW AWNING AND JIM SETTLED under a table. A gentleman sat down at the table alongside. He was youngish, rather roughly dressed, with an earring and long hair. My father was in England in the war, he said. He was a navigator on the Flying Fortresses.
My God, I said—they were losing 70 per cent of their crews.
He was never attacked by fighters, said the youngish man, but he said over the target was the longest thirty seconds of his life. The flak was terrible. I was an accountant, with Deloitte. You know when Enron the energy company and Arthur Andersen went down it devastated Chicago—thousands and thousands out of work. Arthur Andersen employed a hundred thousand people, and Enron twenty thousand.
Bunch of crooks, I said, Arthur Andersen.
Oh yes, said the youngish man, but it was Enron, of course, that did for them. Andersen were Enron's accountants and they went down with them. Kenneth Lay was the Enron Chief Executive.
He died just before he was sentenced, I said. Only sixty-four, but it is hard to grieve for thieves and liars.
It was the right move by Kenneth, said the youngish man, in the circumstances. As it happens I too have had business problems—I had an excellent business model but I couldn't support it with enough cash. It is all a question of cash, you know, as now when I was planning to buy a cup of coffee.
You would like me to buy you a cup of coffee? I asked.
Sure, said the youngish man.
Delighted, I said.
I took out the wad of notes in my back pocket and gave it to him. It was four dollars, and I wish it had been more.
What a nice man, said Monica.
THAT NIGHT I WAS ON MY MOTHER'S LAP, UNDER the stairs. The engines roared in and out and the bombs whistled and the earth flinched. My mother was afraid. The gas from the meter smelled sickly. The stairs were not much protection and with any luck we would have died quickly.
One and a half million civilians were killed by bombing in the Second World War. Most were women and children under five. Did heaven look on, and would not take their part?
The individual terror and suffering was as great for the boys and men who dropped the bombs. Randall Jarrell the poet was an instructor in a bombing school—
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream
of life,
I woke to black flak and the
nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret
with a hose.
MOST OF THE TIME WE HAD BEEN ABLE TO SEND and receive e-mails from our laptops. Jim has had a letter from seven whippets in France, said Monica, and a picture.
The picture showed three generations of brindled and white whippets. Three dogs at the front, standing square, ears half folded, looking sli
ghtly off-camera, attentive, proud, and three bitches a little smaller, ears less tidy. Right at the back a small face peeping over another dog: looking at the camera, ears down, anxious.
Monica replies to the letters we get for Jim, because I keep forgetting I am a dog.
A second letter to Jim—
I'm Simon, the little whippet hiding behind the others on the left in the family photo we sent you. I can't believe that we have had a message from such a very famous literary whippet—we will keep it for EVER and EVER.
My daddy and some of my half-brothers and sisters are also quite famous because they are all show or working champions. I'm not famous because I had a very difficult birth and was deprived of oxygen so I'm a bit different. People think I am still a puppy but I will be nine in January. I look at things my own way and prefer to stay at home when my family go out for walks. Here is a picture of me in my football jersey—I am very good at doing things with my ears.
The picture showed a skinny little dog with long legs standing not quite steady, holding a soft toy in his mouth. His ears were in full flower. Simon had been chosen for the Christmas card, and he didn't seem to mind, though he had a strange and puzzled look. It was enough to break your heart.
In Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, General Charles de Gaulle lies next to his beloved daughter Anne, who had Down's syndrome. When she died he said Maintenant elle est comme les autres—now she is like the rest.
MONICA AND I BROKE OUR FAST, AS WE DO once a year, on a bag of macadamia nuts and a glass of whisky. As we got off the boat it was hot but it was raining, so I was wearing my Breton sailor's cap and yellow oilskin coat, and Monica her waterproof jacket, and Jim his orange raincoat that he keeps trying to jump out of.
It rained and rerained, and then rerained again. This was no patter puffing the dust and tapping the bushes, this was rain, man, real rain, white as surf in the air and clear and sparkling where it flushed and rampaged over our ankles.
Only the US Army can save us, said Monica, and Colonel Frank Williams III came along the waterfront in a white car.
It is a privilege to meet you, yessir, said the colonel, and your dog there in the back, what a well-behaved dog. I have rarely seen such a fine and well-behaved dog. A happy Christmas to y'all. We are now going down Interstate 95—the route to Florida.
Colonel Frank Williams III was a tanned, strongly built chap in civvies, and he smiled a lot, and seemed rather shy. He seemed also to be calling me sir and that made me feel odd because he was a colonel and I have never been considered officer material. But this was the South and perhaps everyone calls everyone sir. Perhaps he calls his soldiers sir. Perhaps he calls the waiter sir—and I am sure that if you tried to mug him he would address you with the greatest respect before he struck you down.
An hour later we turned off the road on to a track and then off the track and into a forest. We were in the alternative world of Tree, where there was no importance attached to air, or light, or space—what mattered was bark, and muscular limbs five feet thick, and a foot of leaves on the ground and all the air extracted and replaced by hanging moss and hot rain. This was a place you had not seen since your mother told you that fairy tale from another country, where there were witches.
A long low white bungalow, a dog hullabalooing in the porch, Martha, the colonel's wife, blonde and smiling, and someone who no doubt would have been Frank Williams IV were she not a beautiful young woman called Laura.
Jim walked into the sitting room, pissed on the Christmas presents, and threw up on the hearthrug.
YES SIR, SAID COLONEL FRANK WILLIAMS III. Your friend Colonel Mac and I worked together a lot. He told me he was a Stone Master Marathoner. He organized getting hold of the property we needed to do our jobs and I was artillery. It was a terrible place—I was cold every day. And the Bosnians and the Serbs and the Croats—such poverty, and such hatred. They would be friendly together during the day and set bombs at night. Yes, I missed home a lot. Now I run the army programme in Georgia for disadvantaged young people—we have a high success rate and 20 per cent join the army. I have done that for twelve years and will retire soon. We are pleased to have Mac's friends here—we like to have visitors for Christmas Day.
Martha was a gentle lady, though in her bosom the pioneer flame still burned. When she and Colonel Frank were first married they lived in a waterside house (it is hard not to live in a waterside house round here) and were much troubled by rats. One day Martha opened the drawer in her dressing table and a rat ran out. She picked up her husband's service revolver and shot it between the eyes with a single round.
Soon we will go across to my father's—Frank Williams Jr, said the colonel. But first, do go and check out the dock on the creek—it might help break your journey.
I went out with Monica and Jim and realized this was not just a lost residence in the woods—fifty yards from the front door were creeks and the yellow grass. Jim raced and jumped among the leaves and twigs on the wet lawn. That dock would be lovely, said Monica—we can break our journey here and it will help make crossing Georgia possible. I have been so worried—the marinas are too far apart—we are slow and there are not enough daylight hours. And you leave all the planning to me and sit drinking IPA all night.
I don't have a planning mind, I said. I am an artiste—I am divergent.
Degenerate you mean, said Monica.
Colonel Frank came out—How many acres have you got here? I asked.
Seventy, sir, he said.
My God, seventy—that's quite a plot! I suppose you could sell some of it for development and make a lot of money.
Yes, but then it has gone. There is the island as well of course—and some other land.
How many acres do you have?
Eight thousand, said Colonel Frank.
FRANK WILLIAMS JR LIVED FOUR MILES AWAY. Christmas lunch was rather like Bubba's Thanksgiving because there were about twenty people and it was a buffet. In fact it was very like the Thanksgiving except this was Georgia, among the woods and the creeks and the yellow grass, and the atmosphere was formal, even dynastic. The event turned peacefully around Frank Williams Jr, white-haired, benevolent, seated central to the action. Jim slept in a corner and got up now and then to do some fawning.
The live oaks with the moss are mainly around the houses, said Frank Williams Jr. The rest is pines. I look after it all. When there is harvesting or replanting we send for the paper company and they do it. When I was eighteen I was in the Third Infantry Division. We landed in North Africa and went through Italy, and then we landed on the French Riviera and headed north and I was wounded at Colmar. I was lucky—they fixed my knee and I played tennis for forty years. I will never go back to Europe—most of my buddies were killed.
There was no turkey in the buffet, but there were shrimps that looked like stage shrimps and crunched and melted, and dips from the dip-shop that had won the known universe dips competition for the last five hundred years. The pecan pie was treacle tart with roast pecans on it. That pecan pie will always have a place on the buffet table of my memory.
They are so hospitable, I said, so kind.
Yes, said Monica, even when Jim misbehaved.
Anyone can be hospitable to easy guests, I said, but when you walk in and piss on the Christmas presents and throw up on the carpet and they are still kind and welcoming, that's hospitality.
GEOFF THE HOT-DOG MAN AND JIM WERE wrestling in an ecstasy of farewells and Marcia came over to join in from her coffee stall. We had to leave the River Street mooring because a party of boats was coming and our last few days in Savannah would be spent moored under the Westin Hotel, the five-star cliff over the river. They should give us the bridal suite for that price, I said to Monica.
We had a cup of coffee and waited for the tide to go slack, and finished the box of cream doughnuts the dockmaster had given us, and the pecan loaf from Marcia. The dockmaster may not have known much about docking narrowboats, but he knew his doughnuts. Geoff the hot-dog m
an had given us nothing but love, but that is worth a few doughnuts, even cream ones.
The tide slackened. We looked to see if any container ships were on their way. They are taller than the houses and longer than the streets and as they go by there is plenty of time to read the names—Bremen Express, Ym Tiansin, Safmarine Houston, APL Turquoise, OOCL Los Angeles. Their bridges are nine storeys high, and there are fifteen hundred containers on the decks. From time to time they give out a sour and plangent bellow, like the devil farting.
I love to start the engine and get moving again, even for a few hundred yards, and we swung out from the wharf and wrote an S in the river and moored against the pontoon under the Westin Hotel, next to an empty sport-fisher a hundred feet long.
Jim was allowed in the Westin, and we walked the polished floors and the carpets among the Christmas trees with their bows and lights and settled in the bar. The hotel has more than four hundred bedrooms but today it seemed almost empty. The public areas were wide—block-like corners and square spaces and flat quiet colours. Nineteen forties, early fifties, I explained to Monica—same vintage as the Buick Roadmaster—I'll check the year with the barmaid.
The hotel was built seven years ago, said the barmaid.
Post-modern, of course, I said to Monica—can deceive even an expert. But very nice. Bit of a change from McClellanville, with the slimy ladder up to the wharf, and the lavatory in the paint shed.
I HAD BOUGHT A BLAZER WITH BRASS BUTTONS and a pair of flannel trousers and Monica wore jeans and a pretty T-shirt and her silver sandals and we arrived with some panache at the hotel restaurant on the second floor. We had a gin and dry martini at the bar and the barman asked me if I would like another and I said Yes and drank it and felt I had been hit over the head.
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