The Narrows

by James Brogden

  Blonde dreaded hair and dirty fingertips scrabbling at the train door. Dead nettles and alien graffiti.

  ‘Impossible,’ he whispered to the sleeping city. It was only when he turned back to the room that he noticed for the first time how much all the LEDs of their various electronic gadgets looked like eyes staring at him. Swarm of zombie fireflies.

  ‘Completely impossible,’ he repeated, as he got dressed into a t-shirt, jeans, and two jumpers.

  ‘Really quite fundamentally unfeasible,’ as he zipped himself into his coat and laced up his trainers.

  But as he eased the door of the flat shut behind him with the barest minimum of key-jingling, he didn’t say anything at all. He just shut up and walked. He had no destination in mind, no goal, nothing except the sudden and overwhelming need to get out of his little box and lost in something vast.

  6 Gramma

  He stuck mostly to side-streets and the back alleys behind houses, ignoring the suspicious stares of cats from atop fences and under cars. Past shuttered shops, across dark playgrounds empty even of teenage gangs at this hour (sat on a swing and scared himself half to death with how loudly its unoiled hinges squeaked). He stopped at an all-night service station and bought a curry pasty, microwaved just short of thermonuclear by a surly garage attendant. Other than that he never saw a living human soul.

  He watched, entranced, as a fox ran across all four empty lanes of a dual carriageway which was usually choked with traffic during the day. It paused for a second to look at him, its breath steaming. ‘Go on, then,’ he said, and it disappeared in a flash of orange fur.

  He stood for long moments behind the back fences of houses, feeling an uncomfortable, voyeuristic thrill at the thought of families asleep and unaware of his presence, or, when lights were on behind upstairs curtains, trying to imagine what could be happening inside in the early hours. Once, years ago, his Mum had read him Raymond Briggs’ Father Christmas, and Andy had been fascinated by a huge double-page illustration of the jolly old fat bloke doing his rounds along a row of terraced houses which were shown in meticulously detailed cross-section, with cellars and attics and everything in between. Comfortably tubby people asleep in striped pyjamas; suitcases on tops of wardrobes, and false teeth in glasses beside beds. He’d loved the novelty of being able to see through walls, like having x-ray vision, and despite his better nature, the fascination was still just as strong. Amongst other things, it explained the appeal of burglary and the smugness of cats.

  He didn’t even realise he was looking for anything until he felt the buzzing in his nerve endings – it wasn’t just his shoulder or even his arm by now, but the whole side of his body – and saw the flight of wide, dark steps leading down through a gap in some iron railings. Next to it a large, clean sign had been erected – so new he thought he could almost smell the sap in the wood and the ink on the paper.

  This property has been acquired by Jerusalem Construction!

  it declared brightly.

  Look out for an exciting new WaterWays Development

  of Canalside Cafés and Restaurants

  and Deluxe Leisure Cruise Moorings!

  At some point in the past there had been a gate, but it lay twisted to one side and half off its hinges in the weeds and rubbish: empty alcopop bottles and shredded carrier bags. The crumbling concrete post was riddled with strange loops and swirls of graffiti. He stooped to look at it more closely but could make out little detail in the darkness. It was impossible to tell where the steps led beyond the first few yards of scrubby overgrowth and darkness – down seemed to be the general idea.

  The compulsion to explore this place was almost physical in its intensity. He leaned forward with his hands braced against the gateposts and peered intently into the shadows, turning his head this way and that to get the benefit of his peripheral vision. Somehow it felt right that this – whatever this was – could only be seen sideways. He listened; the traffic noise was muted, just like it had been in that strange shortcut, but he reminded himself that it was the middle of the night. Without the distraction of being freaked out and panicky, he tried to gather as much information about it as possible without actually taking a single step inside, and he came to the grand conclusion that it was dark, cold, and smelly.

  Not exactly Narnia, he observed and turned, fully intending to go home. Nevertheless, he found himself on the other side of the gate, surrounded by scrubby bushes. Steps plunged steeply downwards into them, from which the smell of the canal rose; silty and brown.

  It was obvious now that the rubbish was the remains of where some homeless person had recently lived; there was a blanket, large panels of soggy, shredded cardboard, and empty tins. As his feet were picking their careful way towards the steps, something metallic and chain-like glinted in the mud – something with a large leather loop at one end which took him a while to recognise as a collar, because it appeared to have broken apart. He told himself that it had simply perished, snapped, and been thrown away when whoever lived here had moved on, taking their mutt with them… but couldn’t quite shake the impression that it had been deliberately torn open. And the more he looked around – at the blanket which had clearly been slashed in several places, at the tins (not all of which were actually empty), the more he began to suspect that they had not so much moved on as been driven by someone, or something.

  Dead nettles and needles of stone.

  For a walk which was supposed to be clearing his head, this was seriously weirding him out. He began to wonder if he wasn’t still asleep and dreaming.

  He climbed down past the thin trunks of skeletal beech trees to the tow-path and saw the canal gleaming and oily-dark against the orange sky. One thing to be said for the cold: at least the mud had frozen solid.

  Some way ahead was moored the squat bulk of a narrow-boat, completely dark except for one red running-light low down by the waterline. A smudge of smoke rose in a straight line from the conical hat of an old-fashioned chimney. Tourist boat, he thought. Not so odd to see them at this time of year, but this was a bit out of their way. He’d have expected to see something like this moored closer to the bright lights and fashionable restaurants around Gas Street Basin. Still, whatever; at least the laws of nature seemed to be behaving themselves this time. So, bonus.

  Something moved on deck, and a volley of barks shattered the silence.

  ‘Oh, shit…’

  A light appeared in one of the narrowboat’s windows and Andy turned quickly back to the steps, discovering with a weary lack of surprise that they weren’t there any more – he was faced with several feet of tow-path which stopped where the canal continued into a pitch-black tunnel. Can’t go back. Going back just makes it worse, makes it – deeper, somehow. Forward, then, bullshit factor ten and damn the torpedoes.

  He put his head down, jammed his hands deep into his jacket pockets and quickened his stride, anxious to get past but equally determined that he wasn’t going to run. The barking was punctuated by the clashing jerking thud of a heavy chain straining against bolts sunk deep into wood. It came from an area at the front of the narrowboat which had obviously been converted into a kennel. What were they keeping over there? The Hound of the Baskervilles? ‘Hound of the Basket-cases,’ he muttered, and strode on. Absolutely not running. Much.

  As he passed the front, a woman’s broad Black Country voice from belowdecks yelled ‘Spike! For Christ’s sake, shut it!’ A door crashed open, and sudden light from behind threw his shadow ahead of him.

  ‘You! What the bloody hell d’you think you’re up to?’

  Andy kept walking. Whoever she was, she wasn’t going to chase him.

  ‘Stop and answer me you little bastid, or I’ll set the dog here on you!’

  Sigh. This was getting ridiculous. Andy turned around. ‘I’m just walking here, lady. Sorry if it woke your dog up, but…’ The beam
of a powerful torch shone full in his face, and he had to shield his eyes, squinting sideways.

  ‘Walking? At what time in the morning? Pull the other one; it’s got bollocks on.’

  All he could do was shrug helplessly. ‘I didn’t touch your boat, if that’s what you’re worried about. Look, could you just – ?’ He gestured into the glare, which dropped fractionally. He had an impression of short, wild-haired age.

  ‘How’d you get in?’

  ‘Look, I already said I didn’t…’

  ‘Not the boat, boy. Do I look like a fool? You know what I mean. In.’

  In. ‘To… what, exactly?’

  He seemed to be scrutinised for a long moment before the old woman laughed shortly. ‘And there was me thinking you was just playing stupid,’ and she turned to go. As she did so, the sweep of torchlight flashed across a rainbow jumble of graffiti covering the whole side of the boat, which he hadn’t noticed in the dark.

  ‘Hey!’ he blurted. ‘Wait a minute! Excuse me, sorry, but what is that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That graffiti – all over the side of your boat.’

  The old woman made a show of peering closely. ‘This? Well glory be, it looks exactly like graffiti. Can’t think how I missed it. Thanks for pointing it out; I’ll get it cleaned off first thing in the morning.’

  He was too excited to be put off by her sarcasm. His heart was suddenly beating high in his throat, his nerves stretched like violin strings through his limbs. ‘That’s how I got in – I’ve been following that. I’ve been seeing it everywhere. It’s not just graffiti, though, is it? What does it mean?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, bending and pointing to one of the squiggles. ‘This one means that it’s the middle of the bloody night, and this one means it’s cold enough to freeze the tits off the Mona Lisa…’ She suddenly sighed, as if the effect of being so relentlessly cantankerous was simply too much. ‘Look, I really can’t be arsed with all this. Cup of tea?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You do keep saying that. It’s enough to make a body wonder what you’ve got to be so apologetic about. Bab, you’re not a burglar, that’s plain. I’m fairly sure you haven’t come to murder me in me bed. You’m not ’folk, that goes without saying, though apparently you’re thick enough to get yourself lost in the Narrows – even one that has Closed. Either that or you’re just very, very unlucky. So do you want a cup of tea before you go off and get yourself killed? Think of it as being a bit like a last cigarette, if it helps.’

  ‘Thanks. I think.’

  ‘Just wipe your feet, that’s all,’ she humphed.

  As he passed the kennel in the narrowboat’s bow he could just make out the shape of a large black muzzle lurking below gleaming eyes, and a subterranean growl followed him downstairs after the old woman.

  Belowdecks, the interior of the narrowboat looked like a cross between a junk shop and a medieval apothecary. It was lit by paraffin storm-lanterns which swung gently from the low ceiling as the boat shifted, causing shadows to creep back and forth behind wooden chests, small tables piled high with old magazines, shelves crowded with jars, tins, boxes and jute bags, a spidery old sewing machine, and stacks of mildewed paperbacks. Towards the far end of this long, cramped forward cabin, there was a galley space hung with bunches of dried herbs and dominated by a squat, black cast-iron stove. The old woman drew water for the kettle from a hand-pump, placed it on the hob, and lobbed a few lumps of coal into the stove’s belly. A warm, sulphurous smell filled the cabin.

  ‘Pass me that tin,’ she ordered, pointing. He passed her down a huge old Ovaltine tin, and she scooped several teaspoons of black and fibrous tea into two chipped mugs.

  ‘Not much electricity in the Narrows, I suppose,’ he ventured.

  She looked up sharply. ‘You use that word like you know what it means. An overdeveloped sense of familiarity is a dangerous thing, lad.’ She poured boiling water, frowned into one of the mugs for a moment, extracted something twig-like which she threw away and passed the mug to him. ‘Got no sugar. Sets my teeth off. No milk, either. Best you don’t ask why,’ and she chuckled throatily. ‘Still, this’ll set you right for home.’ She settled into a sagging armchair whose stuffing was metastasising from every seam, and she inspected him over the rim of her mug.

  He sipped gingerly. The tea was scalding hot and tasted vaguely of pea-pods. ‘They visit you, don’t they?’ he asked. ‘The people who travel through the Narrows. The ones who leave the graffiti.’

  She took so long to reply that he thought maybe she had fallen asleep with her eyes open. For a long time here was no sound but the ticking of several clocks and soft clinkering of embers settling in the stove. ‘Tell you what,’ she replied at last. ‘You tell old Gramma here what you think you know, and I’ll tell you when you’m wrong.’

  ‘Okay then. They visit you, that’s why your boat’s covered in their graffiti. It’s like signposts or something. Breadcrumbs in the forest. Chalk-marks in a maze.’ He was thinking aloud now, working it out as he went along. ‘Maybe you’re not always here – this is a boat, so maybe you move around, but they visit you anyway for, what, safety? Shelter? Tea?’

  He paused, waiting for a response.

  Silence.

  ‘I knew it! I knew it! And the Narrows. They’re – what? Wormholes?’

  She snorted in disgust.

  Maybe it was the excitement, or the fact that he’d been out walking for miles in the sub-zero early hours, but he felt a sudden and painful pressure on his bladder. ‘Um, sorry about this, but would you mind if I used your…’

  She waved him to a door on the other side of the galley. ‘Be my guest.’ As he got up she added. ‘It’ll be the tea. That’s nettles for you.’

  At her words he was seized with a sudden dizzying sense of the Pattern coalescing around him, like the moment on a fairground ride when all the forces of motion and gravity cancel each other out and for a breathless second you float, weightless and frozen out of time. When the sensation faded, he found himself in what was surely the smallest of smallest rooms, relieving himself into an ancient vacuum-pump toilet and reading, inches from his nose, the old commandment: If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat.

  For the first time he felt as if he might be getting close to some answers. Even if the old woman told him nothing else, her very existence confirmed that at least he wasn’t imagining the whole thing. She might very well be as mad as a box of frogs, but that didn’t change the essential fact that this was real. With a whole constellation – no, galaxies of questions orbiting in his head, he pumped the flush and opened the door.

  The biggest dog he had ever seen in his entire life sat in the passageway outside. It bared yellow canines at him and unleashed a growl which he felt through the soles of his shoes. Drool spattered between its forepaws.

  Behind it, Gramma was dressing herself in a huge coat and a woollen beanie. ‘Now don’t you go being foolish enough to annoy my Spike, there,’ she warned. ‘He’s not a bad dog, but he’s very protective of me, and if you try to move out of there he will make a mess of you. Quite a big one, I should imagine. Don’t doubt that for a second.’

  ‘But… I don’t…’

  She sighed. ‘I know. You don’t. Neither do I, for what that’s worth. You’m not a bad lad if I’m any judge of character, but the plain fact is it’s not down to me. Good people are dying – my people – and here you come swanning along all big-eyed and asking questions, and walking where there’s no way you can walk. Do you understand that? The place where you said you got in, there is no way in. It shut weeks ago. So then you’m either lying, or you can do something nobody else has ever been able to do. You’re a problem, lad, and I’m not clever enough to sort it out, so I’m taking you to those that are. You just sit tight and don’t do anything si
lly. You mind my Spike. He’s not a bad boy.’

  She disappeared towards the narrowboat’s stern and a few moments later, he heard its diesel engine grumble into life. The boat lurched slightly as it began to move, and he sat down on the toilet seat, feeling utterly confused and helpless. Spike remained rock-solid on his feet – the big muscles in his shoulders and chest working. He was absolutely fucking huge.

  Andy couldn’t believe he’d just been kidnapped. This was just too surreal. People didn’t actually get kidnapped in the real world; they had dinner with their in-laws and arguments with their fiancées and went to work the next morning. Of course, neither did people travel around the city through strange gaps in the world, but somehow that was so strange that it was, bizarrely, easier to accept than the prosaic reality of being kidnapped on the loo by a mad old bat in her narrowboat.

  Escape: that was people did when they were kidnapped. They tried to escape.

  His options were few. There was no window as such, merely a small frosted-glass panel about six inches square. He’d seen a couple of movies where characters defended themselves by setting light to aerosols, but he had no lighter, and all he could see in here was a thick hand-towel, an evil-smelling toilet brush and a tube of haemorrhoid cream. It would be funny if there weren’t a dog the size of a small horse staring at him. Spike was a good dog, though, wasn’t he? And what did good dogs like to do? Why, good dogs liked to play games, of course. Games like fetch.