‘This is my favourite time of day,’ she said, pursing her rouged lips.
Ridley nodded, his arrow nose pointing down and his mouth pressed shut, and they steered on, past a black-spired church with barred windows, past a shopping trolley marooned on the towpath by the tenement blocks, under a high bridge where children leant over the railings, past a wall with ‘NOT OUR WAR’ scrawled in spray paint, a big peace sign underneath. At the bottom of the wall sat a wide barge with an engine cabin at the back and a long curved bowl making up the body of the boat.
‘What’s that?’ asked Odeline. Ridley told her it was an old coal vessel, now used to pick up rubbish from the canal. ‘But you can see they hardly bother.’ He went quiet again. Odeline agreed. The canals seemed a dumping site for every kind of rubbish and unwanted thing. Earlier in the week a rusted trolley had appeared poking out of the water next to the bridge and it still hadn’t been picked up.
‘So you saw John Kettle,’ she tried.
This seemed to work. ‘Yes!’ he said, turning to her. ‘He was really busy. The heritage boat signs weren’t out but he seemed to be doing loads of work on his boat. He’d redone the lettering, looked much better. And was planting stuff, I think. There were pots and bags of compost on the deck.’
‘Is he still the warden?’ asked Vera, opening her eyes and turning round.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ridley. ‘I expect it’s under review. There’ve been a lot of complaints over the years, but they might give him one last chance.’
Vera turned her face back to the evening sun and closed her eyes once more. It occurred to Odeline that she had never seen Vera still, only ever in action: puffing, pouring, lifting, serving, scrubbing. Even her walk looked like a kind of heaving. Tonight her hands rested in her lap and her expression was lighter than usual. If it wasn’t for her outfit, the zipped-up shellsuit top, skirt and trainers, she would have looked almost majestic.
‘Do you think he’s still getting drunk?’ Odeline asked.
Ridley shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He didn’t look well, but no worse than before. Thinner perhaps.’
‘Stupid man,’ she said. ‘Why can’t he look after himself?’
They went on, past a small park with teenagers sitting around on skateboards, past some prettily kept allotments, past some nice-looking houses with prim gardens coming right down to the water and people sitting out on their roofs. Luminous green mould grew out from the banks here in bulging shapes – it looked solid and walkable as grass. Objects were stuck in it: a half-sunk wine bottle, crisp packets, a football. ‘Duckweed,’ said Ridley. ‘We get this problem in summer.’
They passed an enormously high tower block that looked like something from an awful future. It had a second, thinner tower attached to it, like the twin engine of a spaceship, ready to discard once it fired through the atmosphere into outer space. Odeline imagined the tower block and all its inhabitants on their way up to the moon, faces looking out into space from every window. It was an awesome and terrifying building: the sun moved behind it and she shivered.
She looked down at the bars of music across Ridley’s foot. His big toe was tapping in time to the turnover of the engine.
‘How much does a tattoo cost?’
‘Oh, it depends, on the size, the design. I’ve got a friend who does mine for free. For the art.’ He looked down, lifting his ringed eyebrow. ‘Are you thinking of getting one?’
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Depends where you have it. Bum’s a good place to start. You hardly feel a thing.’ He laughed. Odeline thought quickly of something else to say. She could feel her face burning.
‘Why, why do you have them?’
‘Because I’m always leaving places and I travel light. They’re all the things I want to take with me. Stuff I don’t want to forget. A Chinese Dragon –’ he pointed to the reptile head screaming up his neck – ‘for my martial-arts stuff. The years in Wiltshire’; he touched his chest between the bell buttons: Odeline could see a corner of the map. ‘Favourite tunes, here and here’; he pointed to his foot and lifted his left sleeve to show more notes on his forearm. ‘Unicorn and serpent from my family crest’; he pulled at the leg of his trousers and Odeline saw a set of hooves and a forked tail curling up his calf. ‘Sunset in the Orkneys, here’; he turned and lifted his shirt to show the bottom of his back, keeping a hand on the tiller. There was a wedge of land jutting towards a horizon with a craggy stone in the foreground. ‘Favourite quotes, up here’; he pushed up the right shirt sleeve to show her the rings of gothic script around his bicep. ‘And so on and so forth.’
‘How many do you have?’
‘Far, far too many to count. Even got them on my head, from when it was shaved.’ He lifted up a flap of hair behind his ear to show Odeline more inky symbols.
‘Wow.’
Past the tower block and on, they reached a part of the canal which was built up on either side and backed on to by buildings. Most were padlocked warehouses or high houses of brown brick, their windowless backs to the canal. The blindness of these buildings gave the canal a sinister feel. The towpath was narrow and the warehouses pressed right up to it. Not somewhere you’d want to walk alone.
She was relieved to have seen no sign of the big grey dog, Marlon. She asked where it was, which was a mistake. Ridley whistled and the grizzly shape lifted itself from the roof and picked its way around the wheelbarrow, hosepipes and bits of wood strapped to the top. It hopped down on to the deck. Odeline froze. ‘Sit then,’ said Ridley, and the dog sank down, lying over both of their feet. Vera leant forward to pat Marlon and then went back to her still pose. Odeline spent the rest of the journey keeping herself absolutely still as well. She didn’t want to annoy the dog. She could feel its dirty grey fur touching her ankle, and she wasn’t wearing socks.
At the end of this sinister section of canal they reached a huge supermarket building with a long yellow roof. As they passed it, the canal opened up with trees on one side and a jumble of gravestones on the other which went back as far as she could see. It looked scruffy for a graveyard. They pulled in next to a large orange barge with white lotus flowers painted on the side. It had portholes with split glass, like bifocal lenses, and the bottom sections were flipped open. It was much higher in the water than Chaplin and Company or the Saltheart, as if it had two storeys. As Ridley shut down the engine they heard chatter and noise coming from inside the boat. He asked Odeline to steer in whilst he jumped on to the towpath with the rope. She did it nervously but perfectly and hoped he was impressed.
He led them to the orange boat. As they made their way along the towpath Odeline tried to walk separately from Vera, her shellsuit top and trainers. She didn’t want Vera to ruin her first impression. They came to the front deck and two small girls in identical green tunics ran out of the cabin. Not a children’s party, thought Odeline. Please. The girls looked at the new arrivals and arranged themselves at the edge of the deck facing each other, lifting their arms as a barrier and shouting in unison, ‘Friend or foe!’ Odeline stiffened.
‘We are friends,’ said Ridley, and ruffled the hair of one.
They looked at each other and screeched, ‘Then you may enter!’ and slowly lifted their arms, making noisy creaking sounds, a barricade opening. The three of them stepped on to the boat, down the steps and into a crowded cabin full of adults. The doors at the far end were open and people were sitting on stools and kitchen sideboards and benches running along both sides of the main space. There were bodies everywhere: far less space than on the tiny stage in Covent Garden.
‘Ridley!’ shouted a woman, and it seemed like everyone stood up – and Odeline doesn’t know if it was the rocking of the boat or the confusion of people, but from this point her memories of the night become various and bombarding.
Lying on her sunlit bed, she wants to remember it right. She puts them in order.
She remembers:
A man dressed like herself: in tailcoat, wing-collar and
brogues, but with a white bowtie, who kissed Ridley on both cheeks, introduced as Philip. This man Philip clasping her and then Vera’s hands and going through the names of a group of people sitting and talking at the far end of the cabin. She can’t remember any of the names now. There was the tall blonde actress with plaits around her ears and another brown-haired girl with a fringe and a rectangular mouth who he said wrote poems.
She remembers:
A wall-hanging of the sun shining on a fat buddha surrounded by bright-blue clouds. This was in the corner of the cabin. Pale pink-and-purple crystals hanging from thread like sugary stalactites in front of it, twirling from right to left.
Lace over the portholes and the orange glow of the low sun burning through it.
Being able to stand up straighter than in her own boat – there was air between her head and the ceiling. She put her bowler on and it still wasn’t touching.
Angela, the owner of the boat, hair piled up on her head with the two small girls attached to her skirts, also kissing Ridley on both cheeks. ‘You brought friends, how wonderful! Help yourself to nibbles –’ she waved her hand at the tray of pastries being carried around by one of the identical girls.
Odeline watched this Angela taking Ridley’s arm and smiling at him. She had wiry eyebrows in thick commas across her forehead.
‘Is there a schedule for the performers?’ asked Odeline, but Angela had already turned away. She had a lotus flower tattoo on the back of her neck, coloured with violet petals and voluptuous green leaves.
She remembers:
Someone thrusting a plastic cup into her hands filled with ice and an amber liquid which burnt cold on her lips.
Vera taking a sip from her drink and closing her eyes for a second. ‘Rum and ginger.’
Ridley touching plastic cups with her and then Vera. He had found a place for them to sit on a bench by the door, and then went over to the other end of the cabin to sit on another bench next to Philip-in-the-tailcoat. She couldn’t hear what he was saying over there because of all the noise from other people, but he was much more talkative than he had been on the journey. Vera started talking to the rectangular-mouthed girl about her poems. The girl was showing her a book with her picture on the back. Odeline was being softly pressed by Vera into the corner of the cabin and wriggled to get more room. ‘Sorry,’ said Vera, and moved up.
Odeline took another sip of her drink. Sweet and pungent. It made her nose feel as though it was going to start running. She looked down to check that the white handkerchief was in her breast pocket. She might need it. She took another sip.
She had not been this close to this many people in a confined space since being in a classroom at school. It felt strange. Her mind flipped inside out like an umbrella in the wind and new thoughts started to blow about. How must she appear to all these people? Did she look superior to them, or stupid? How should she sit in order not to look stupid? No one was talking to her – were they intimidated or had they not noticed her? What would they make of her performance? Did any of them know a thing about the art of mime? Or perhaps they were all experts? She looked down at her frayed cuffs and the hands with their pink nails and caramel fingers. Her skin was a shade darker than anyone else’s here. Did being different mean she was better than them or worse?
The small girls knocked past her as they ran back upstairs. ‘Friend or foe!’ she heard from the deck.
A grizzled voice replied, ‘Foe.’
‘Overboard!’ came the shout, followed by shrieking. A rugged old man came down the steps with an accordion. He had badger hair: black and silvery white. Ridley stood up to embrace him.
As the badger-haired man played his accordion the woman Angela stood and people shifted themselves to the far end of the boat to give her room, squeezing on to the end of benches, sitting on each other’s laps. She began to dance with hands on her hips and her skirts opening out. Wisps of hair flew out as she spun her head. Her lace-up boots clipped round and round to the beat of the music. She was Toulouse-Lautrec’s dancing barmaid. The children linked arms now and spun round fast. A two-headed monster in a green tunic. Ridley slapped his khaki trousers in time to the music. Philip and the actress clapped. Vera nodded her head. And on Angela went – round and round and round. Odeline felt fuzzy and hot-nosed. She wished they would all keep still.
After the music the actress with the plaits stood up and announced: ‘Juliet’s last speech!’ The room cheered. The actress then spoke loudly, with a pained look and for a long time, and ended with a stab to the heart and a death rattle as she sank back into her seat. Ridley was smiling. Angela leant forward to clap, and the room ignited again, applause and cheers and chatter. Odeline had another sip of her drink and squeezed her nose to make sure it definitely wasn’t running.
Next the rectangular-mouthed girl got to her feet and the room stilled. She read a poem very quickly without looking up. Odeline can’t remember any of it.
Then the man Philip had stood up in his outfit: a fitted version of her own. Vera’s eyes closed and her fat little hands fell open on her lap as he sang something from the opera.
Odeline closed her eyes as well and she felt the voice soar inside her, like when she heard the singers in Covent Garden. She felt his voice collecting all the feelings from the bottom of her stomach and carrying them upwards. She could feel the boat rocking and Vera’s heavy breathing next to her. Philip’s voice continued to swirl around her until it reached its climax. There were more cheers and congratulation, and then slowly the room fell quiet.
She opened her eyes to find Ridley asking if she wanted to perform something. Panic. Her prop box was still in his boat! She swivelled her head around, looking for a way out. But everyone was looking at her, expectant. A cabin full of faces waiting. No, she thought. I am not prepared. I have to set up. Every single illusion in the repertoire requires props. It will take at least thirty minutes to prepare. And even then, I cannot possibly perform in such a small space. But without planning to, she had stood, as if someone had yanked her up with a string. Like a rag doll she dropped her head and her baggy sleeves hung at her sides. She could feel the cuffs in her curled fingers. She was a scarecrow, a straw man, a puppet. Wait. Wait. She thought of Marcel Marceau’s face and the wide-eyed blankness of it. Wait. She thought of his colours, his black and white and red. Wait. She thought of his spotlight on stage and the circle of light. Yes. The circle of light. And she began to move. She became the mime.
She remembers:
Saying ‘Bip, the Birdkeeper’, without remembering to keep her mouth small.
Uncovering the cage and seeing the bird, its yellow and green feathers. A wonder. Her eyes rejoice.
Bending her head and listening to the bird sing. Her ears rejoice and rejoice.
Opening the door of the cage and letting the bird hop out on to her finger. Making an O of delight with her lips. Her heart rejoices.
Letting the bird fly and come back to land on her finger. They bow to each other. Hello, little bird, hello, little bird.
Flinging her hand up and letting it fly again, the little bird, this time flying higher and further away, making circles in the sky. Watch it soar, watch it turn, before it comes back to land on her finger.
Stroking the tiny head and cradling the light-boned body in her hand. Feeling the soft feathers almost invisible to the touch. Feeling the heart beating, tiny drumsticks knocking inside the tiny frame.
Lifting her finger to whisper to the bird. Looking at it, looking at the little bird and leaning her head towards it. For one last time. Her heart is sad.
Throwing her hand high into the air. Watching the bird fly away. Watching it out of sight.
Sending her arm across in a wave – but it is gone.
It is gone.
The bird is gone.
One tear of sadness. She follows it down her cheek with a finger.
She remembers:
Sinking back into her seat. A moment of quiet and then the whole cabin is applaud
ing. Looking up, all the faces are smiling at her. The two girls in green have come to sit at her feet and are clapping with their hands in the air. ‘More! More!’ they cry. They are looking up at Odeline the way her mother used to, eager and open-faced. A hotness floods the back of her eyes. Her mouth turns down. Her mother was the only person who ever clapped for her like these people are clapping. Still they are clapping. Her mother leaning forward to clap after every trick and holding her breath for more. Her moon-faced mother, shining up at her. Her mother’s pale-blue eyes that could speak so clearly and ask for one more, one more, and seemed to say each one was even better than the last and how proud, how proud.
This memory is an ambush, it catches in her throat and bends its way upwards. Odeline cannot do any more – she hangs her head. Her chest is heaving and hot tears are filling her eyes and spilling out. Her nose is now very definitely running, streaming, and she grabs for the handkerchief, presses it to her face. Vera beside her squeezes her arm. ‘Very good, Odi!’ she is saying. ‘That is very good!’
She remembers:
Hearing Ridley beginning to play his fiddle, moving the bow forward and back over the strings. Steadily forward and back. As he played she felt herself calm. Forward and back. It soothed her. The upward motion of tears inside her weakened. She hiccuped once and then they stopped. Looking up at all the faces, they had turned to watch Ridley. The woman Angela smiled at her, calling the two girls back over. Vera asked if she was okay. Odeline nodded and turned to watch Ridley play. Decorated forearms, wrist poised, fingers long and dexterous.
At the end of his tune, he let his arms drop. And then lifted the fiddle again, nudging it under his chin. He tucked his bow between his knees, smiling over at her and Vera, and then looking around the group. ‘People might know the words to this.’
He began to pluck, fingers moving in a wave over the bridge of the fiddle – a sad melody. Vera’s hand tapped at Odeline’s leg, ‘Oh I love this one.’ Ridley played two rounds of it and then took the bow from between his knees. To Odeline’s horror, Vera’s voice joined the bow then, as it began to move across the strings.
Chaplin & Company Page 17