At mid-river spangles of light were arranged in long bars, squares or unnamed shapes flashing in endless random sequence. I wondered if Michael had been carried away into that light. If that’s how it happened. I was standing where in previous summers the boy would surely once have stood, helping John.
Parakeets zoomed from the treeline making the alarm cry they made. The dog barked from inside John’s boat. Between these sounds I could hear wood pigeons, softly reverberative, the clicks and caws of the crows. Above the trees, woodsmoke from the camp slowly dispersed. A cooking fire. The smoke rose, was visible and then not, returning as a harsh perfume at the back of my throat. An engine fired into life out of sight.
A motorboat roared into view through the curtain of willows. Behind a high transparent windscreen, the man at the controls, wearing sunglasses and a windcheater, had hair so pistol black it had to be fake. The boat crossed the river, leaving a high wake. Made a slow wide turn and came back, passing our moorings on his port side. The red-headed girl from the garden was standing next to the man, leaning into him as he pointed to different places on the island, her hair a red flag in the wind they made. The man seemed to be pointing directly at John and I, as we stood carefully balanced on the narrow roof of the barge.
I worried that their wash would knock us down if they came any closer.
Alex Kaplan, he said.
Trouble? I said.
Could be, John said.
That the girl? I said.
Alexandra, John said. Yes. But grown.
Somebody tell Gene?
Never pat a burning dog, the old man said.
Kaplan’s boat sped past pirate flags newly raised, and hand-made posters protesting the fee increase. The signs were stuck to sides of boats, trees, wood pylons. All faced the river. Flyers were stuck to the fence surrounding the boatyard as though a great force had passed through the chain-link mesh and iron pickets leaving only these scraps of protest behind.
We watched the large white boat move upstream and out of sight.
Come on, John said.
Together we folded back the heavy canvas. Blackness gave way to bright colour under my feet. The red white and blue paintwork and signwriting John and Vesna had spent years restoring slowly revealed. The boat shone with the thickness of the paint. The many layers applied.
When I climbed down off the boat I could see it all.
Huge white letters on a white outlined red panel against the blue paint of the cabin. Grand Union Canal Carrying Company Co Ltd.
Black outline giving the letters a strong three-dimensional look. Real pop and impact. Underneath the company name was painted the address: Port of London EC3. A smaller red panel painted around a porthole gave the boat’s name as Vesna.
Just below the roof a strip of white signwriting on a black panel declared that the boat had been registered at Rickmansworth. Running the full length of the boat the gunwales were decorated with roses and diamond patterns of red white and blue. The two lower wood panels on the inside of each cabin door had been painted with pink, yellow and red roses on a dark-green, red-framed background. The upper panels each had a painting of a castle near water, the sea maybe, and under a bright blue sky.
There were two water cans painted in the same red white and blue colour scheme as the boat.
She was a wreck when we bought her, John said from the top of the boat.
I saw huge and steady tow-horses pulling the barges, carrying coal and iron castings from foundries. Heard the heavy steady clop of the horses, saw bargemen drinking in cutside pubs. Big horses tied to hitching posts with feed and water. Salt froth wiped away by the barge boy. Harnesses ornamented with brass put out to air, steaming.
More brightly decorated narrowboats and barges emerged from under winter covering. Stella’s barge was painted navy and gold, and was decorated with birds, and images of the moon and stars. There were boats decorated with river scenes, with portraits of family members, dogs, regimental decals. Bands of coloured ribbon flew from the wheelhouse of an otherwise derelict tug. My own boat remained as it had been.
How was your winter?
A reed-like man materialized by my side. The drink on him like a vapour. Dirty, shoulder-length black hair showing some grey. Gold sleepers in his ears. Plain grey waistcoat over a white collarless shirt, thick, dark green corduroys, long white neckerchief loosely tied. Looked like some seventies rocker retired to the country. His shirt was frayed, the neckerchief stained with what could have been blood. Carried a big cloth bag that looked almost empty, the handles twisted around his hand, but I could make out bottles inside.
Tuppy Lawrence, he said.
Looking around at all the revealed boats.
Happy New Year, he said.
Could have been forty. Could have been older than me. Tuppy reached down and opened up the bag.
You’re a drinking man, he said, a liquid catch at the back of his throat. The alcohol in the remaining bottles was almost clear, faintly blue.
The old man was looking down from the colourful sculpture of his boat, his long shadow on the path. The lightness of the sky behind him meant that there was no expression on his face that I could see.
The bootlegger closed the bag, looked over his shoulder. Turned back to me. The thin man’s eyes were dirty yellow.
Hadn’t brought so much as a tin of beer from Anthony Waters.
Not anymore, I said.
Tuppy nodded, smoothed his dirty neckerchief, glanced left and right at the decorated boats.
Good luck to you, he said.
White spit had collected at the corners of his mouth. Without looking at me again he moved away along the towpath. In the golden air of the summer afternoon the painted boats were new colour everywhere.
I thought of galas and harvest time. Carnivals. Country shows. Painted trucks, the stalls and rides and carousels. Street parties. Jack in the green. May fairs and May days. The light from the stained-glass windows in the church where I’d said goodbye to Nan.
Stella, a thin brush in one hand, a small tin of silver paint in the other, was kneeling on her deck repainting the face of the moon. She had an even thinner brush between her teeth. The deerhound stood guard while the boy was not to be seen. I made a fuss of the big grey dog.
Terry, Stella said, and smiled, and the little brush fell softly from her mouth into her open hand. When she caught the paintbrush that had, I’m certain, been forgotten in her mouth, this small magical act made her smile like a girl with no worries and no past.
She laid the paintbrushes down on the deck, began to stand and then had to reach for the brushes to stop them rolling away. She angled the brushes against each other so they’d stay where they were, stood up again, stretched. Rubbed the back of her neck, her hand paint-stained, navy and silver, fair hair escaping from the tight plait she’d put it in. The grey dog watched her all the time, and stretched when she did.
You want to help? Stella said.
I’d been drawing since I came to the island but I hadn’t painted anything in months. I picked up the paintbrushes. Slender and electric in my hand.
Sure, I said.
Adam lugged the big piece of board down from the forest, carrying it above his head. Tall as me and twice as wide. Propped it on deck.
You wanted this? he said.
Gave him a fiver for it. Fair.
A bloody fiver, Adam said.
Kettle’s boiled, I said.
Biscuits?
No biscuits.
The paint bubbled and was flaked from its long abandonment outside. But it was good for what I wanted it for.
In the first clear days of summer the three-arched bridge with its moving belt of colour was always there.
Drinking tea, Adam said: Won’t be around for a few days. Me and Gene. Bit of work.
Doing what?
Demolition, he said. Rock breaking.
Gene say anything to you? I said. About the girl?
Gene’s in his own world, t
he young giant said.
John came across from his boat to look at the big board.
What are you going to do with that? he said.
Nothing until it’s bone dry, I said.
Nothing on a boat is ever bone dry, John said, haven’t you learned that yet?
Adam and I carried the board into the sun-filled wheelhouse.
Come on, Adam said from the other end, horse it in there.
Stood the board up. Left it. Things to do.
Not washed my bedding all winter. Soaked the sheets and pillow in a bucket and put them out on deck to dry. Aired the thick blankets and then stowed them away. Swept out and cleaned the woodstove, opened the portholes and cleared the boat of leaves, berry juice and bird shit. Wiped down and polished the woodwork inside. At low tide I borrowed a long-handled brush from John and cleaned the green scum line on the hull knowing it would only come back in time. Even collected some wild forest flowers and put them in an empty coffee jar.
Borrow your stripper? I said to John.
What’s that you say?
Your blower. Borrow it?
Didn’t take all the old paint off. Wanted a rough surface though why was not a conscious thought.
A day’s work, board was ready.
Had an old metal box of materials. Rabbit-skin glue was dried out, ruined. There was a palette knife. The last good brushes. Some paints but not much.
A cache of old letters from Evelyn Crow, full of praise, promises.
A man patting a good dog on the head.
Never mentioned exact figures.
A long, handwritten note. Called it une lettre privée.
‘. . . you have had to invent for yourself the idea that you are an outcast. This has put more power into your elbow. And indeed it is an immensely sustaining thought for anybody . . .’
When will I be done keeping this fist clenched in my chest my throat my skull?
Crow wanted me to paint what he told me to paint.
Who else believed in you?
I laid the board flat on the deck, and covered the lunar surface with a grey wash of varied thickness. Working fast. I thought about nothing but I saw Michael.
Said to Danny, who was on the deck, watching, white-haired, monkey-faced:
I’m trying to make exactly what I saw when I first came here and looked at the bridge. So that I can feel what I felt then.
As though instructed I painted the floating ovals that were what I saw when I looked downstream, halved in darkness and light.
Nicked Danny’s pastels to make the sequence of moving coloured marks that were so important.
Hey! Danny said. Those are mine!
I went searching in the river mud at low tide. A copper coin worn smooth and aqua green. I couldn’t date it or say what it had been worth. A knife blade or part of a blade, not red with rust as I would expect but midnight blue. Pieces of painted tile.
Stuck these finds on the canvas where it seemed indicated. With a palette knife applied a thick layer of transparent but sparkling acrylic gel. The river.
When it was finished the painting seemed to contain shifting, reflective movement, though maybe that belonged to the place it was made in, the June light, the water, the moving deck of the boat. What’s the use of talking about it?
Aren’t you worried? Danny said.
Danny was one of those evenly proportioned kids whose clothes, new or second-hand, clean or dirty, seemed made for him. I was watching him while Stella was at work. School was all right because there was a bus to take him, and she was usually home to meet him. Summer holidays, Stella told me, kids ran free and everybody, pretty much, watched over the kids. It was when the routine got disrupted for any reason that Stella asked for my help. The boy did not spend any nights away from the island, as far as I could tell.
About what?
Mum said we might have to leave.
The boy reached for the wolf mask. I’d never heard Stella talk about Danny’s father. Nor the boy, and I wondered if he’d been told not to. The boy was holding it all in, his dad, all the things he’d seen and couldn’t talk about. I thought he was a lot smarter than he let on, but I knew nothing about kids. And when I was a kid myself, men were absent or silent, violent or abusive. No exceptions. I said what we both expected me to say.
I’m sure it’ll be all right.
I can’t spare any paint, Stella had said when I’d asked her. We need it.
I thought we’d done the paintwork, I said.
The paint’s for the posters. Against the rent increase, she said.
I’ll trade you then.
You’ve got nothing to trade.
I’ll watch Danny.
You do already.
Let me have some paint for my picture, I said, and I’ll help with the posters. Come on, Stella.
It doesn’t look like the river and the bridge, Danny said, looking at my painting, but it looks like the river and the bridge.
Mate, I said, you’re an art critic.
Where are the people? the boy said.
You want your own board, I said. That it? What about this?
Lifted the board and turned it over.
A poster. The island seen from the river. Straight and tall trees with lush green tops. Painted and decorated boats looking like fairground rides. People doing things. Simple figures coiling ropes, washing decks, playing with dogs. I’d put Danny and the dog on the foreshore, the boy sun-blushed and ice cream-headed.
Thought about being with Nan when I was painting it. We’d been somewhere – can’t remember where – because we were in a railway station tearoom, and we were going home. Nan still herself, me small. Beeswax. Tea in a pot. Sit up nicely, Terry. A window box of Dianthus flowers – what Nan called pinks. Behind Nan’s head a poster. Southern Railway. Beach scene. Golden child playing with a yellow dog on the sand. Blue sea.
I put black letters over the happy picture. Letters thick and hard-looking as prison bars. Read them from a mile off. Save our island.
What do you reckon? I said to Danny.
It’s cool, Danny said.
Think your mum will like it?
She’ll love it!
She did like it. Smiled when I handed it over. When she saw there was a painting on the other side, she looked at me in a different way than before.
You hear anything yet? Stella said. From Mrs Whitehead?
No, I said, she must still be overseas.
The dog wandered into view.
Shit.
John!
Bloody dog was covered in paint.
Stella laughed. Danny was curled up on my deck, crying he was laughing so hard.
Did you know she was there? I said. Did you paint her?
The boy couldn’t answer. The painted dog was trying to lick the tears from the boy’s face and he was laughing all the time.
What do you think you’re doing boy? John shouted. Who told you to paint my dog?
Had the letter from Mrs Whitehead for a few days. Anthony watched my face when he handed it to me. Don’t know why I didn’t tell Stella. Made no difference. I couldn’t afford to pay more, and there was nowhere else to go.
John couldn’t stand the seabirds shitting on his bright paintwork. The gulls that came upriver were large, heavy birds. Big thump when they landed on your boat. The birds stomped around and left shit everywhere. Real brutes, with ugly pink feet they used to grab any bream or perch that came too close to the surface. John kept up a vigil.
Wore a carpenter’s tool belt fitted out with cleaning materials that doubled up as weapons to use against the birds. A water spray that the old man would fire at the gulls to keep them off, or to clear away any shit that made it through his defences. The old man had different kinds of cloths for glass or paintwork, little tins and tubes of polishes, and he spent hours of every day trying to keep Vesna clean. Bird shit that he hadn’t spotted, and that had hardened to the paintwork, enraged him. Wrapped the edge of a long handled chisel with gaffer ta
pe so that he didn’t mark the boat when he scraped off the shit. Watching birds congregated over and on the boat, and John would wave at them blindly with his chisel. There was one huge, smug-looking and malevolent bird who seemed to take pleasure in dive-bombing John, raining shit, then backing up just out of range.
The old man never got close to the gull but never stopped trying.
Summer. More and more strangers on the island. Friday night they’d come. A screen of yachts and cruisers tied alongside our boats, an hallucinated white mass. Late-night parties. Raised unfamiliar voices. I wouldn’t have been able to describe an individual.
John’s dog began to look to me if not for instruction then for company. What she didn’t like were the seabirds. Kept out of their way. One night she stayed on my boat and puked and shat everywhere.
Something she’d eaten. Dead animal. Stink woke me up. Cleaned up the boat best as I could. Nearly puked myself.
Fuck’s sake!
Shouting at the dog. She backed away like I was going to hit her. Shivering. Had to talk to her a long time before she’d come back to me.
Hey, I said, it’s all right sweetheart. I’m sorry.
The dog had chunks of puke and smeared shit in her fur. I stank too. Refused to get in the small shower with me. I picked her up, my back screaming. She was scared and ashamed, and trembled in my arms. Panting from deep in her chest.
It’s all right, I said, it’s all right sweetheart.
Bright moon on the foreshore. Waded into the river, carrying the dog. She kicked against me but I held on tight. The water was freezing and shining black. The muddy river bottom sucked at my feet and threatened to unbalance me. I sang softly to her. When the water was above my waist I let her go. We swam, our heads above the water. The dog swam with her head back, her dilated eyes fixed on me. She swam in a wide loop and returned, her wake a shining circle under the moon. Claws scratching and leaving marks that were sore for days when she climbed back into my arms. Together we went to bed wrapped in all the blankets I could find. I heard her dreaming in the night.
When are you going to give this dog a name? John had said.
How’s that my job?
The Painter's Friend Page 7