Don’t say what you’re thinking, Alexandra said, looking suddenly angry. Mike didn’t kill himself. The current was too strong, or he got tangled up or smashed into the weir. Don’t even think what you’re thinking. Not to me or Gene or Perseis or anybody else. Mike didn’t kill himself. He didn’t.
The girl’s phone buzzed in her back pocket. She took it out and looked at it and made a face.
You better go, she said. My parents are on their way home.
I didn’t want to leave her crying, but there were things I needed to do. Other people I needed to talk to.
Red, I said, wake up.
Go out the back way, the girl said.
The girl told me you tried to save him, Nancy Rose said from the riverbank.
Coming from the weir. Dressed all in black on a scorching day. Standing in shade under the tree where her father’s departed goldfinches sang in the springtime.
I was in the open wheelhouse surrounded by salvaged wood and wire. A million years ago, I’d known an old woman named Pearl, who sold felt-tip colourings from her pitch outside a payday loan and money transfer place. Birds and fishes mostly, but other animals if she was feeling inspired, wolves and leopards, lambs and lions. Pearl made her pictures on pieces of stiff card, hardboard, the soft balsa-like wood of fruit boxes, and she made frames from found wire that she would bend to the wood or board. The old woman would arrange her pictures on an old, grey blanket, and sit on a turned-over crate, playing a kazoo and shaking her decorated money tin as people went by.
Ten days since John’s death. The paintings were still up on the bridge, but except for an increase in the number of visitors to the island, nothing else had changed. September was coming and I needed money fast. I was fixing some of my best drawings onto scavenged card. Also made a dozen or so paintings directly onto hardboard. I remembered the poster of the missing girl, Gill, I’d seen the day I left the city, with its border of hearts and birds. I carved a printing block with a pattern as close to the remembered design as I could make it, and used the block to make borders on the pictures. Then I made frames from the salvaged wire. I thought I could set up a pitch outside the boatyard store, where the day-trippers and weekenders gathered to drink coffee before heading off into the forest or a walk along the towpath.
Weekends there were always people on the bridge, hanging over the sides to take selfies with the paintings. That seemed to be the extent of outside interest in the giant portraits. Several times I had seen Perseis in a dinghy before the bridge, looking up at Michael, Anthony Waters holding the little tender steady in the strong currents. One day I came back to the boat and found she had left me a new wildflower crown.
Recognized Nancy from her photograph, despite the extra weight she carried.
Close to my age. Fifty at least. Not a sightseer or a new boat owner thinking of settling on the island. Someone who might be a school head, a business person or even a police officer. A bulky, red-brown shoulder bag that did not match the rest of her outfit. Thought I could see the shape of shoe heels pushing against the fabric of the bag. I saw tight curls, under a plain black headscarf. Hips wider than her shoulders. Thick wrists and ankles. Beautiful hands, slender and manicured. She had her father’s mask-like face, all set up to conceal. But like John Rose, strong feelings showed more clearly than I expect she thought they did.
She was only coming from one place.
Alexandra Kaplan was at the funeral? I said.
She seemed very upset, Nancy Rose said.
She lost her boyfriend in the river, couple of years ago.
She didn’t tell me, Nancy said. The poor child.
I didn’t know where the service had been held. Whether John Rose had been buried or cremated. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know anyone from the island who had been.
The last I saw of the old man was when the paramedics had refused to let me ride in the ambulance with him.
John’s look of wonder, that’s what I remembered. Because of something he’d seen at the end, or for what he suddenly felt happening to his heart, I didn’t know. I didn’t know if it was wonder at all.
Her father is Alex Kaplan, I said. He owns the island.
I’m aware, Nancy said.
She didn’t know her father is trying to evict us, I said.
I’m going to try and help her, Nancy said. It was brave, what she did. She’s finding out a lot of things at once. It’s a shock.
Saw again the girl jumping into the boat like she was falling.
Your father was dead before I got to the dock, I said.
You tried, Nancy said.
After leaving Alexandra Kaplan, Red and I had got back into the Zodiac. Stayed out on the river. Didn’t want to face the things I had to do, the people I had to tell. Spent most of that time looking at the paintings on the bridge. Kept thinking and I didn’t want to think. Not about Mike or Waters or the Kaplans. Thinking made the pictures, the bridge and the river, completely disappear. Tried to keep the paintings in front of my eyes and the thoughts would rise up and make the pictures disappear again and I’d start over.
Like a man saying goodbye, John hadn’t gone yet.
My hands warmed on the wheel. Made from some anti-corrosive metal alloy, rigid, with a tight protective covering of PVC. The layer was worn, faded, with a very slight give, and as my hands warmed the covering softened and gave a fraction more, and I could feel the places where John’s hands had most often been, and I fit my own hands to those spaces. Believed I could feel the sweat and oil from his hands worn into the wheel.
The last time I saw Nan when she still knew who I was, I told her I loved her. Half a dozen things wrong with her and all of them could kill her. Didn’t look after herself, eat, nothing. Just heroin. Now she was getting the shit for free. White hospice bed. Lost so much weight she looked like she was far away. Ancient-looking slits in her ears where the gold earrings had been taken out. I always said I loved her and she never said it back. I knew she loved me, but she never said so. Took me in. Didn’t have to.
The nurse brought Nan the dinner choices on a slip of paper. Big meals full of carbohydrates, but easy to eat. Shepherd’s pie, fish fingers and chips, trifle with extra custard. Tick a box for what you want. Nan tried to force the pen to the paper. Holding the pen wrong, the paper buckling in her hand. Making bird scratches on the paper. I remember my heart falling out of me. Exactly like that. Falling and falling.
That was when we both knew.
Death came into her eyes. Been hiding under her bed all this time. Now it was in there with her and she could feel it and touch it. Nan looked at me and she could tell I’d seen it to.
Do you want me to do that? I said.
No, she said, her voice thick.
She was always thirsty. I held the plastic beaker of juice. Put the straw in her mouth. Took it out, wiped her mouth.
She said she wanted me to write down something she would tell me. To be read out at the funeral.
I always think it’s a shame that the main event’s not there, she said.
She didn’t go through with it. The idea that she would have to say her last words to me – so I could write them down or otherwise remember them – maybe that stopped her.
I could have asked her questions. About my mum and dad. Who were they and where did I come from? About Nan’s people, the Goddens, and how long they had been in the south.
Farm labourers, train firemen, soldiers. What stories had my people told about themselves. Their rituals and special days. How they sounded when they sang.
Last chance, but questions would have hurt her. Felt disloyal.
I love you, I said instead.
Nan held out her arms.
I love you too, she said.
Pure contact. The back of her head fit into my hand.
I should have stayed with her, but I had to get out of there. I was only a kid.
When I came back to see her for the last time, she did not know who I or anybody else was, and she
did not look human any more. I keep coming back to the colour yellow, when I think of her then. Breathing bones.
Nan’s last words were known only to herself. The last words I heard her say were: I love you too.
Look after the blessed dog, John had said.
Looked down at Red. Panting in the thin shade of the Zodiac’s inflated sides, big thick tongue flopped over her teeth.
I was almost out of fuel.
All right Red, I said, let’s get you some water.
The sun high overhead. The boat wheel hot in my hand. The paintings on the bridge were shining. John Rose was doubly everywhere.
Came back to windhorse prayer flags and Jolly Rogers. Painted banners. Music coming from speakers in the trees. Set up for a feast. Fire pit. A party for the paintings. A victory.
The smile died on Stella’s face when she saw me up close.
What’s happened? she said. Where’s John?
Hadn’t asked John for his help, he wouldn’t be dead. That’s what I was thinking. Thought he was bulletproof. Didn’t see him. Tired old man just about hanging on.
Red was sitting close to me, looking at Nancy Rose. Making indistinct noises every time Nancy spoke.
Your dog all right? Nancy Rose said.
That’s Red, I said, she was your father’s dog.
Nancy looked at me and then looked at the dog. Must have seemed like a marooned wild man, dirty, surrounded by broken wood and wire. The dog did look crazed, mouth open like that, eyes brightly staring. I tried not to say John’s name when Red was around.
My father never had a dog in his life, she said.
Don’t tell Red, I said. You’ll want to see the boat.
I spent the best part of my childhood working on it, Nancy said. Weekends, school holidays when I wanted to be with my friends. Sanding until my fingers bled. Cuts, blisters. Dad kept us working when mum said to stop. Everything had to be done the way he wanted it done, or else. After I finally said no, I never wanted to see the damn boat again.
A dragonfly whirred across the space between us. Nancy stood with her back to the river that shone like stamped tin, doubling the boats and trees, the floating swans set in the water’s shining embrace. Riverbank full of silver coins.
Nancy stepped aboard.
Lightly touched the paintwork at the threshold.
Wait there Red, I said.
The dog followed me in.
I watched Nancy take in the mould. Close enough to register lavender, clean sweat.
Nancy was looking at her graduation picture.
There should be some correspondence, she said, from my mother’s care home. Do you know where he kept his letters?
Rough idea. Chair by the fire. Found it. Bag half full of papers. Handed it over.
She stuffed the papers into her shoulder bag.
Did my father owe any money? she said.
I’d be surprised, I said. More likely that people owed him money. Had to guess I’d say your father died owing nothing to anybody.
Nancy looked at me like I’d come down in the last shower.
You say that knowing nothing about me, she said.
I don’t want to think badly of him, I said.
Then don’t, she said. That’s a luxury I don’t have. He was the man you knew. I knew somebody else. Dad’s own father was a tyrant. Tried to beat the Lord into him. Did he tell you anything of his childhood?
No, he talked about being a sailor.
Dad left Jamaica when he was just a boy, fifteen, Nancy said. Went to Chicago, alone, worked in the stockyards. He talked about the snow. How shocking it was . . . Did he tell you about prison?
No.
He got into trouble. A girl, a shooting.
After he got out he somehow made it to England. Joined the Merchant Navy. The blessed navy, she said, imitating her father’s voice.
Red raised her head from John’s chair.
Get out of there Red, I said.
She stayed where she was. Put her head down.
Do you know about the goldfinches? I said.
We hadn’t spoken in years, she said.
I rubbed the porthole and pointed.
There’s a colony of goldfinches living just there, in those trees, in the spring. Your father used to put down special seed, niger seed, every year, and that’s why the goldfinches come back every spring to the same place. Who knows, it’s a nice story.
I don’t remember any goldfinches when I was a kid, Nancy said.
You have an idea what you want to do with the boat? I said. Somebody would give you something for her. For the paintwork at least.
I don’t think so, she said.
I could see John up early in the dark freezing mornings, alone, clearing leaves and bird shit from the tarp, could smell the wine vinegar from the endless fight against the black mould that was blooming once more on the bulkhead. I could still feel his embrace, the steel wool and woodsmoke flavour of his old coat.
Why not? I said.
Nancy looked at me like I could waste my time but she wasn’t going to let me waste hers.
I don’t have the heart, she said. And I’m too busy.
Doing what? I said.
I’m a children’s lawyer, she said. Beaten kids, abused kids. Runaways, addicts. Children in care, prison, psychiatric hospitals. Kids who are accused of crimes, who can’t afford a lawyer. We don’t make money. We rely on contributions.
There was a long strange time after Nan died, and I was out on my own, a runaway, sixteen, when I would dream that I’d killed somebody. Didn’t matter where I slept. Park, doorway, sometimes an older woman’s bed. Spent a summer under a pier. Waking inside the dream as a killer, a murderer on the run with this terrible secret I thought everyone could see. Trying to get to Nan’s door and never making it before the cops grabbed me. A door that got knocked down pretty soon after I left to make way for a car park, so the place I was trying to get to no longer existed.
Are you all right, Mr Godden? Nancy said.
In the small, dark, moving space, portholes and other unknown openings, invisible gaps in the structure of the boat, allowed criss-crossing light rays of different dimensions to enter the cabin. Nancy stood looking at me from the centre of these golden bars, as if they were coming from her, and not the world outside.
Yes, I said. I’m all right.
I got what I came for, she said. You want the boat Terry, you’re welcome to stay here.
She looked again at the mould-threatened photo of herself.
She took the picture from the wall, turned it over. Read something on the back that made her put her hand to her mouth. She put the picture into her shoulder bag with her father’s papers. Looked around the boat once more.
I thought I would feel different when this day came, she said.
I’m very sorry, I said.
She went outside and I followed her broad outline across to my boat.
The small study I’d made of John, for the bridge paintings, was among the material I’d brought up to the wheelhouse. Thought I could make some copies of it to sell outside the boatyard store.
Wait a second, I said.
Grabbed the portrait, put it back in its bubble-wrap sleeve.
I made this of your dad, I said.
Nancy looked at the picture, gently touched the puffed-up plastic. Saw her go in her mind from what she was looking at, to the giant portraits on the bridge that she must have seen, but had not asked about.
It’s amazing what you can do when you have so little to go on, Nancy said.
Is there somewhere I can reach you? I said.
Anthony Waters, or Brady Millar, wearing a red cotton thread around his wrist, put the keys under the counter.
The Red Thread was the name of a late-night drinker that came and went thirty years ago. Word of mouth. Couldn’t tell you where it was. Greek bloke who ran it – called himself a poet, drank all day, died – said it was named for the thread Ariadne gave Theseus. To help him escape t
he labyrinth after killing the minotaur. Theseus later deserted her, and Ariadne died or ended up with somebody else. The minotaur was a prisoner in the labyrinth, that’s what I remembered, like the bloke in the bar. He’d painted a load of red lines around the place that went nowhere.
You taking over the old man’s boat? Waters said when I went into the boatyard store to take back Mrs Whitehead’s keys.
You going to talk to me about moving in on what isn’t mine? I said.
Man could smile. Bulletproof. Protected from the evil eye.
New quarter payments are due in a few weeks, he said. Whatever boat you’re living on by then.
Just make sure she gets the keys, I said.
Left the boat as I found it. Full gas, firewood, bilges pumped.
Paid Waters for a big roll of rubbish sacks, and left.
Red waited outside.
Waters had set up a few picnic tables and Perseis, wearing a clean black apron, was bringing coffee to a young couple. She looked better. Saw me but don’t think she remembered who I was. The thread around her wrist was older, a paler red.
The narrowboat was dark and cramped. Much smaller than the lifeboat. I missed the light in the wheelhouse, but that was all.
First day, in the galley, on two deep shelves behind a home-made curtain, I’d found a supply of tinned food and dried goods. Cans of sardines and pilchards, fish paste, corned beef, tinned tomatoes, kidney beans, hot pepper sauce, sacks of brown rice and red lentils. Chocolate powder, tins of peaches, condensed milk.
There was a short wave radio transmitter and a waterproof folder of emergency numbers and call signs.
A couple of hand-held fishing lines on their spools, an old tobacco tin full of old but rust-free hooks. Sat with John a few times when he was fishing.
What you after? I’d said to him.
Anything, the old man had said.
John kept a well-stocked tool box, and he had a battery radio, a bunch of chemical light sticks and a back-up Primus stove. Found a big, three-quarters full bottle of Johnnie Walker, which I wrapped up without looking at more than twice and put back where I found it.
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