‘Pull, Sonia,’ he cried. ‘Pull. Hold me. Help.’ And I did. I pulled to save his life.
I stop. Look up. Jez has gone away silently, without saying goodbye.
It’s funny, sometimes I think I can hear the river here, though they tell me that is only in my imagination for there are miles of motorway between this place and there. Then the industrial estates and more suburbs before you get to the park, where you can stand at the top on a fine day, encased in green, and hold the whole of London within your sight. Only then do you catch a glimpse of the river, insinuating between the Queen’s House and the ghastly eighties constructions on the other side, towered over by Canary Wharf. It’s still a good walk, down between the spreading cedar trees of the park, past the Conduit House and out through the grand wrought-iron gates at the bottom. You have to cut through Greenwich Market, and then pass the Cutty Sark shrouded in white plastic while it’s being renovated, and only then do you arrive at the river path, where the railings of the old Naval College cast long black shadows like bars across the flagstones. It’s a long, long way away.
It’s usually at night or sometime soon after waking in the morning, before they bring the medicine trolley round, that I think I hear foghorns, long and deep and mournful. For a few seconds I can actually feel the chill river mist on my skin, smell the chemicals rising off the water, and catch a glimpse of light, the way it bounced off the surface and everything was bathed in silver when the moon was at its brightest. Then I can sense the tide draw the river back, and all I thought I’d ever lost is there, suspended in the mud as if it had never gone away.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Tideline would not have been written without the encouragement and companionship of everyone on the MA course in Creative Writing at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, tutors and fellow students alike. In particular, I would like to thank Martyn Waites, Anna D’Andrea and John Davy for reading early drafts, for their contributions and invaluable support.
I am eternally grateful to my friend Suzanne Dominian, whose inspiring conversation helped spark the idea for Tideline in the first place and who has been there throughout.
My thanks also go to:
Everyone at Gregory and Company, in particular Jane Gregory for taking me on, and Stephanie Glencross for her ideas and editorial advice.
The team at Simon & Schuster, especially Francesca Main for all her hard work and insight.
Jethro Pemberton for research on the Buckleys and his musical knowledge. Victoria Rance for help with research and providing a base in Greenwich from which to carry it out.
Pip Tabor and Matthew Hancock for their memories of the Thames in the 1970s and 80s.
Polly, Emma and Jem Hancock-Taylor for accompanying me on river trips, and for fending for themselves when I was too distracted to remember to feed them. Andy Taylor for his unswerving patience and for hanging out the washing.
Thank you to Eliot and Mohammed at the Greenwich Power Station.
I am indebted to Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography for information about the history of the Thames.
The story of the foraging boy in Chapter Twelve is based on the film The Mudlark (1950) directed by Jean Negulesco, based on the 1949 novel of the same name by Theodore Bonnet (1908–1983).
Table of Contents
Half-title page
Author biography
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication page
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Acknowledgements
Tideline Page 29