The Canal

by Lee Rourke

  The thing is: I don’t feel real, and yet the space had become a thing to me—to us, I’d thought. That space that we had shared together, by the canal, the whitewashed office block, the rusting iron bridge and the coots, the Canada geese, and the swans … It all seemed such a long time ago now. Such a long time.

  - thirteen -

  I walked down the steps and onto the towpath. I could see her up ahead, walking towards the bridge in the distance. She was walking quite slowly, but still with some kind of purpose. In the canal, to her immediate left, following alongside her were three or four coots; they were after food, thinking she had come to feed them. Up ahead, towards the bridge and the whitewashed office block, beyond that space, I could see the two swans resting by the far bank.

  I honestly had no idea what I was going to say to her; I just knew that I was going to confront her, to ask her if anything she had told me was the truth. I wanted her to look me in the eye and simply tell me the truth. And then, once she had—and I hoped that she would—I would simply walk away and out of her life forever.

  Memories are strange things; I don’t particularly understand them. I don’t understand why they appear, or where they return to. Memories were once real things, but I don’t understand what they are now. Still, it seems now they are all I have. All I have to fall back on, like a series of photographs.

  I remember my mother saying something to me when I was a small child. I had been angry over the death of my grandmother. My mother comforted me after the funeral, in a small room at the back of my grandmother’s old house in Whitechapel. She said to me that nobody dies, because the deceased remain in the memory of the living. She said that that was all I had to think of whenever I became confused. I wanted to say to her then, right there in that small back room in Whitechapel, that even the living have to die—and that memories have to die with them. I wanted to tell her that nobody lives on forever. Well, they can’t. Of course, I never got around to saying this. I controlled my anger and returned to the large room where my family were seated on odd chairs, eating, drinking, and continuing this belief.

  And now? All I have are my memories of this. And soon they will disappear with me, too.

  - fourteen -

  I could feel the wind on my face. The murky water was choppy. I could see the dark clouds gathering for more rain above me, forming as if they had been purposely pushed there, the whole world a fiction. Above me, above her. The first droplets of the downpour—the greasy drizzle burgeoning into heavy globules—hit me as I returned my gaze to her, sheltering under the rusting iron bridge. It was a complete deluge. The rain bounced up from the towpath, back up into the atmosphere, back up my legs and trousers as I quickened my pace towards the bridge. Towards her.

  She eventually looked up at me as I finally approached. She looked mawkish, and like she was sweating, but it was probably the rain. She was obviously embarrassed with herself. We stood next to each other without speaking. I listened to the rain. It was making a thunderous racket.

  I felt like I was in a tent during a storm. I had always loved that feeling: the warmth and security of the waterproof canvas. I had always loved the sound of each individual droplet of water hitting the roof of the tent, one after the other, all at the same time, a cacophony of mini-aquatic explosions. I had always felt safe underneath the canvas when we camped in back gardens as children. I had always hoped for rain: nothing could touch me when it rained. The rain bounced off the surface of the canal. She was leaning against the darkened brick, her whole frame hunched like she was in pain, or bored, waiting for something to happen.

  It was as if all that had taken place—all our conversations, all my following her and worrying—had never taken place at all, no matter how real her grimace looked. That moment, underneath the rusting iron bridge, laid itself out before me, almost as if it was the first time I had ever set eyes upon her. The rain had kept the towpath empty, even the cyclists and dog-walkers had been driven back home. It seemed to be the perfect space for us. A perfect time.

  I said the words without looking at her, concentrating on a clump of earth and detritus that formed a coot’s nest on the far bank of the canal towards a barge that was moored to the left of the rusting iron bridge.

  “Are you real?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Are you real?”

  “Yes. Of course I’m real.”

  “Are you really here? In this space with me?”

  “Of course I’m here … You’re speaking to me, right?

  “Right.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Then, I am real. Just like everything I have told you is real. Just like all of this is real … The canal, the bridge that connects everything, shelters us … the swan over there … Unfortunately, it’s all real, yes. Every minute particle of it …”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Unfortunately, for us—for all of us—it’s all real.”

  “Well, what was all that about?”

  “In the café?”

  “Yes. In the café.”

  “The usual things …”

  “Well …?”

  “Finding our little foothold in the void …”

  “The void?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t understand …”

  “Love … happiness … understanding … All the clichés that torment us, that are supposed to torment us, that we are told to be tormented by … Everything that leads to this …”

  “To what, exactly?”

  “This. Here. Underneath the bridge …”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everything leads to here …”

  “Where?”

  “The bridge.”

  “Listen, I really don’t understand, I really don’t …”

  “This is our moment … everything has found its location …”

  “Because of the bridge?”

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t really understand what she was talking about. It clearly meant something to her, so I made it look like it meant something to me: I paused, I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, my right leg began to shake; I nodded my head a couple of times at moments when I thought it felt I should. She looked at me. I could feel her gaze, her eyes burning into me. I refused to look at her. I concentrated on the coots’ nest ahead, beyond the bridge, next to the moored barge. I refused to acknowledge her, and although I had no idea why, it still felt truly glorious.

  And then she looked away.

  The underside of the bridge was covered in years of grime and weathered decay. Streams of rust-coloured water poured down the brickwork of the wall behind us, covering a lifetime of graffiti and scratches and marks left behind from those who had passed under and sought refuge before us. All those before us, who had had their own moments there, too. All those moments that had been acted out beneath the bridge. It was right, somehow, no matter how much I couldn’t understand it.

  On the canal, before the offices were offices, when they were derelict warehouses, debris from another age, when Wenlock Basin was empty of barges and swans, my brother taught me to climb a tree just up from the rusting iron bridge. It’s still there, nestled and towering, by the new wall. Even back then it was a tall, imposing tree, perfect for climbing. All my friends had climbed it; all of them could reach the highest branches, to sit upon and watch the comings and goings of the canal below. I used to stand by the trunk, contemplating how I could get up there with them. I knew I couldn’t do it though. I remember the day my brother taught me to climb the tree. I followed him up, copying each of his movements, placing my hands and feet exactly where he just had, carefully, to the millimetre, slowly, from one thick branch up to the next. He showed me how to rest the weight of my whole body on one foot in order to spring up to the next, whilst reaching upwards with a hand, transferring the weight on my foot into my arm, into my grip on the next branch. He told me that I could never fall. He told me, over and over, th
at it was impossible to fall. I followed him to the very top of the tree without looking down, knowing that if I did it would be over for me. I followed him to where the thinner and younger branches swayed, under our combined weight, where it was possible to feel the gentle sway, the movement of the whole tree. We rested there. Hanging on tightly. He finally told me to look back down, to see how high we had climbed, but I couldn’t. I could only concentrate on the rooftops in the distance. I couldn’t look down to where we had climbed from, because to me the height was monstrous. I could see over most of the maisonettes in the Packington Estate out to the northeast and over towards Canonbury. My brother was asking me, over and over, to look down, to see how high we were. I knew at that moment that I should never have climbed the tree with him, and that I shouldn’t look back down, but for some reason I did. I looked back down, to the ground, from where we had started, and as soon as our height actually registered fully within me I closed my eyes tightly, unable to open them again, and I screamed. I screamed at my brother to help me down from the tree. He told me to open my eyes, so that I could follow him back down. I could feel him begin his descent, slowly, assuredly, asking me all the while to open my eyes and follow him, but I couldn’t. He pleaded with me, but each gentle sway of the branch I was clinging to forced me to clench my eyes tighter together and grip the branch all the more securely. I shouted for him not to leave me, to get back up to the top of the tree with me, but I could feel him moving away from me, back down the tree towards the ground. Finally, he stood at the bottom of the tree, shouting to me to open my eyes. He shouted and shouted for me to trust him, that he would be there for each of my steps back down, that I could do it and there was nothing to be afraid of. He shouted up to me that he was one hundred percent confident that I could actually do it. I opened my eyes, the bright daylight pouring into them. I looked down and soon he began to come into focus. He looked so tiny down there on the ground. He looked so small, like an insect I could crush with my fingers, hold in the cup of my palm or place inside a matchbox. It felt like I could step on him with the heel of my shoe. I looked down at him, he stretched out his arms, assuring me that he would catch me if I slipped. I finally began my descent. He talked me all the way through it: which branches to hold on to, where to place my foot next, et cetera. With each step he became larger, until I hit the ground and he towered over me again, and he picked me up and carried me, up on his shoulders, all the way back home.

  We have never really spoken about the day he taught me to climb that tree. I have always wanted to thank him. I have always wanted to tell him that day mattered to me.

  - fifteen -

  The rain became quite unbelievable. A continuous sheet of water poured down incessantly from the dark, grey clouds above. It was as if the dredgers had planned it, to help clean up anything that they had left behind. But I didn’t want things to be washed away. I wanted things to remain the same. No, I wanted things to begin anew, as if it was my first day on the canal again, my first venture towards it. She could never have realised that this was how I actually felt at that precise moment—and if she did, I know now that she wouldn’t have given it much thought. I often wonder, if she had the chance, if she would have thought about it enough to have done something about our pointless situation? Maybe she would have turned herself in to the police? Or told me that everything was a complete figment of her own imagination?

  I peered from under the bridge. The heavy, cold, droplets of rain hit my cheeks, soaking my face and neck. Most of the windows in the whitewashed office block had steamed up, but the windows that protected the private offices of the office elite—i.e., middle management and above—remained clear and intact from condensation. She was staring into the murky water, watching the rain bounce back up from it. Pretty soon droplets of rusty, dirty water began to fall from the underside of the bridge to pool at my feet. I noticed that the towpath had been stained by it, where each droplet connected back to the ground. Every time the clouds above burst, the brown stain—achieved over years’ worth of downpours—came to resemble the rings of a newly cut tree trunk.

  I was sitting on the cold, linoleum floor, looking up towards the hole where the water was pouring in. I was mesmerised by it. I realised that things weren’t as they seemed, that things could happen and change. I realised that things could suddenly begin that you never thought imaginable. I could be imparting wisdom from the present onto the past, as this is how I see things now, I’m not sure; I do know that it seemed absurd to me that instead of fixing the hole my mother and father placed a large cooking pot directly underneath the leak, collecting the water and then pouring it away, down the sink, when the pot was nearly full. They seemed content with this repetitive activity, as if the hole didn’t matter to them (even though it must have mattered to them, as the leak was eventually fixed). They didn’t seem too fussed. In fact, they found the whole scenario quite amusing, my father especially, laughing as my mother rushed into the kitchen every now and again, breaking from her crossword puzzle, to empty the near-full cooking pot. I was sitting by the pot, watching the long stream of water pour through the hole and down, in one constant stream, into it. I loved the sound it made, the perpetual trickle that, at that time to me, seemed infinite. That sound still penetrates my memory.

  The leak fascinated me because I couldn’t fathom where it was coming from. I knew it came through the hole, but beyond that I was empty of ideas and understanding, although I knew it had to come from somewhere. I couldn’t understand why all that water would appear from a little hole in the ceiling of my parents’ kitchen. A hole, a crack, a fissure in the ceiling, it seemed to me as if I was witnessing some form of magic: that something was pulling all that water down from the sky above, down through our ceiling, towards me, so I could delight in the sound it made. And then I realised there was no room above the kitchen, the kitchen was an extension attached onto the house after it had been originally built. There must have been a hole in the roof, and the water was being pulled down from the clouds above. It was rainwater being pulled back down to earth, through our roof, into our small kitchen. This revelation thrilled me.

  Where did all that water go to? When my mother poured it down the sink, down all those pipes, down again through the subterranean sewage and water networks beneath our feet. I understood enough to realise that it didn’t disappear. I wanted to know exactly where it was going, where it would end up next, the water from my ceiling. Surely it all had to end up somewhere? Surely it still can’t be continuing its journey away from me? Surely it must have come to some sort of stop? Settled, in some form or other, somewhere? But why should these thoughts, these little, annoying thoughts matter to me? Surely I should let them wash over me? I truly feel they are of no use to me now. No use at all. Yet, they persist, pouring into me.

  She was squinting. It looked like she was trying to focus on something that wasn’t there, something invisible down by her feet. She began to kick her shoes into some loose gravel.

  “We could have seen all this coming, you know …”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s all so obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Is it? What is?”

  “This is …”

  She looked up. She began a long, drawn out yawn, scratching her left cheek at the same time. When she had finished the yawn, which seemed to last far longer than necessary, she looked at me, through me, nowhere in particular, before she continued.

  “It’s all over.”

  “What is?”

  “This is …”

  “What do you mean by this?”

  She shrugged her shoulders, child-like and unconcerned, but I knew she shrugged not out of ignorance, but out of some desire for me to understand. It was better for her not to say anything, or not too much, in the hope that she could continue. Eventually, after taking some time to bite her nails, she began to talk, this time with a little bit more clarity.

  “He’s married, you know.”

 
“Who is?”

  “Him … Him, across there, in that office block, that stinking office … He’s married. But not to her, not to that woman, his colleague from the café. No, he’s married to someone else.”

  “Oh. Him.”

  “Yes. Him. He has children too, two daughters. I’ve seen him with them. I know where they live. I know what she, his wife, does. I know everything there is to know about them … With their perfect life that isn’t perfect, him acting like it’s the most natural thing in the world, you know, that’s how bad he is, a walking male cliché. He acts like he’s doing nothing wrong. He swans around that stinking office in his expensive clothes that are a little too tight for comfort, he swans around that stinking office without a care in the world. But I know who he is. I could change all that. I could change all of it. He doesn’t even remember me … We have already met, we have spoken to each other before today, you know …”

  “Where? When did you speak?”

  “We have spoken before, briefly. He placed his hand on my shoulder … He tried to comfort me.”

  “When? Where?”

  “Yet … that moment, the moment we shared, he has no recollection of it now … He doesn’t want to remember, he has blotted me out of his life … He chooses to ignore who I am, what I did … What I did to change things in his life …”

  “What!?”

  “When I chose to kill his father. When I took his father from him … Has it taken you this long to work it out? A cliché as grand as this?”

  “Where did you speak to him, his son?”

  “At his father’s funeral.”

  “You went to the funeral?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?”

  “I sat on the back row in the church, near Old Street. On my own. Looking at the coffin, with him inside, all alone. The family mourning his death, openly, repeating the patterns and action of the mourners they had observed before them as children. I could see him, the son, ahead, sitting up at the front, next to his wife. During the ceremony, I think it was Catholic, he turned around to look at me three times. I knew that he had noticed me … He must have been wondering why I was there … A friend of his father’s maybe? A friend of his mother’s? But that didn’t make sense to him. I’m too young, too different from them … Maybe he thought I was someone connected with the church? You get that don’t you?”