by West Camel
Further down Watergate Street, the green in the middle of the flats opened up. A quick wind blew off it. She stopped again. There, in the middle, she had sat down on the grass on the burning afternoon she had returned from the hospital, maybe only weeks before she first shot up.
She had sat for hours, unsheltered from the sun. Several people had spoken to her, but she had paid no attention. They had formed a quiet, worried ring around her, scared to come near. She remembered the yellow sun-top of one little girl, her face screwed up in the brightness.
Mel had been found, and had come, heavy-footed across the turf. He had touched her carefully. ‘Annie.’ She had flinched and gasped, but he had held on. ‘Annie,’ he’d said again. And she had crumpled against his squatting thighs. The sun was too much then; she had known her skin was burned. And she had known she had lost her baby. Mel’s thick lips had kissed her raw face. ‘We’ll have another one, Annie. And we’ll be married then, alright?’ She had allowed herself to be led into the shade. And she had married him – for that simple tenderness. Just for that.
She turned away and walked on.
The old house was gone; she knew that already. The terrace had been replaced by an inward-facing close: where her front door had been was now a garden gate. She dared to step into the paved area at the back – now fronts. Dad had died just here; collapsed in the kitchen, smashing his Millwall mug, tea puddling under him. Rita had screamed in a way Anne had never heard before or since. After, when the ambulance had left, she had mopped up the tea and felt pain in her pregnant belly. Her mother was probably right – she had lost the baby as she had mopped.
She walked back out onto the road. She was nearly at the end of the street now; she could loop around the green or retrace her steps – both routes led back to the noise of the main road. Or there was the cobbled alley, leading to Watergate Stairs and the Thames, where she and Kathleen had once played games and exchanged secrets. It was an easy choice.
There was rough litter and broken glass in the alley, and weeds pushing strongly between the stones. Here, just a few yards down, between the high, blank walls, Kathleen had whispered the news of her first period, her breath tickling Anne’s ear.
Yesterday, she had insisted she would see Kathleen in the hospital; she had felt a surge of affection that was fixed back here, in this alley, in these few streets. But between her and Kathleen now was so much time, so many people, so many, what? – doings. She let her feet take her further down the alley towards the river; it seemed too difficult to turn back.
At the end, at the top of the stairs down into the river, was a gate she did not recall. It looked new – grey dappled steel. It must have been put up so that kids could not drown in the mud or the river. But when she grasped the bars the gate swung open; there was no lock, just a latch that had not been drawn. Confused, she remained in the alley, looking out at the narrow view. It was peaceful, the tide was out and the beach was invitingly flat, but the steps were steep and green with slime, and the mud was sleek and of unknown consistency. She heard her mother repeating to her, ‘Never go down those steps, Anne, we might never see you again.’ And she had not. But she had done so many more dangerous things since then and survived. And there were stretches of dark sand and pebbles that were safe. She passed through the gate onto the first step.
The slime was thick, so she took one step at a time, but near the bottom her foot found no grip; there was nothing to grab and her weight was carrying her forwards. She muddled the last three steps and staggered onto the beach, only just managing not to fall. A blush spread over her face and down her neck, and heat pricked in her armpits, a mixture of shock and pleasure. She could have tripped and cracked her skull on the steps, fallen unconscious and been woken by the incoming tide lapping into her open mouth. Or been drowned and dragged days later from the river, inflated and blue. But she hadn’t. She was safe, and alone.
She stood quite still. The beach was clearly in the middle of things – a metallic chime drifted across the water from a half-built tower on the Isle of Dogs; a pleasure cruiser rumbled upstream from Greenwich. But she had the sensation she was somewhere remote – the sheet of pale-grey sky, the transparent blanket of river air. It was soothing. She approached the waterline and laughed out loud when it came to meet her, the bow wave from the cruiser pushing between the stones and slipping under her shoes.
A faint flapping made her look up. She was expecting to see a bird – a heron, or a large gull – but it was a boat. She had seen dinghies on the river before, small families of identical craft, but this one was different: the sail was squarer, and the boat was alone.
It passed her some way out in the stream, the sailor hidden by the sail, but then the sail shuddered, and the boat turned and came back towards her, closer to the shore. She could see now that it had an old wooden hull and a beam attached to the mast, from which the sail hung. The boat passed her and turned again, coming still closer. And now she could see who the sailor was.
Until then, the boat had seemed delicate and vulnerable on the breadth of the Thames, but now it seemed cumbersome and wilful. That tiny old woman, out alone in that great, clunking thing. ‘Unbelievable,’ Anne murmured, confounded.
Deborah’s voice arrived from across the water. ‘Wait there, Anne, dear. I’ll land.’
She ducked and the sail began a loud flapping and shaking, which died as she brought it down. The boat continued moving until its nose ground into the shingle a yard from where Anne stood. Deborah climbed out, getting her feet wet, and hauled the boat in with a strong tug on a rope, then stood with it coiled around her arm, smiling benignly.
‘Well, Anne, it’s rare I see people on this beach these days.’
‘And I’d never have had you down as a sailor.’
‘I’ve just been fishing. Look, I’ve been very lucky today.’ Deborah leaned into the boat and brought out a net containing several gleaming bodies. ‘I haven’t caught so many in ever such a long time. I’ll have to dry some.’
Sailing; catching fish; drying them… Anne supposed they were everyday things to do, but here, in Deptford, in the twenty-first century?
Deborah dropped the fish back into the boat. ‘In fact, I must get them home before they turn; it’s not so cool today. Would you like to come with me?’ Her look was suddenly searching. ‘It’s near.’
‘What, in the boat?’ said Anne, knowing it was obvious.
It was exactly the kind of thing she should not do. She had vowed to make safe choices. But part of her yearned to be out on the water. She looked at Deborah, who had bent over the side of the boat again and was fiddling with the fish; she seemed capable, assured. Anne rubbed the small of her back, where the ache had been that morning, and almost wished that the gate to the alley would clang and her social worker, her drugs counsellor, her mother – anyone – would appear at the top of the steps, ordering her to get off the beach and go home.
‘Alright, yeah, I’ll come.’ Her body reacted as it did to a hit. She felt she needed a cigarette or a valium to blunt the edge.
‘Help me push him into the water, then,’ said Deborah, ‘and jump in when he floats.’
The effort tested muscles Anne rarely used and the stretch to get one leg in the boat and swing the other over was almost unnatural. And then the bobbing as she lowered herself onto a seat. Her heart fluttered excitedly – she had forgotten the small joy of floating.
‘Aren’t boats always called “she”?’ she asked, as Deborah pulled a few strokes with the oars to get them away from the shore.
‘Mine’s a boy.’ Deborah giggled throatily. ‘Now, we have to move across sometimes; just do it when I do, and duck your head when I tell you or you’ll be hit by the boom.’
Anne almost leaped into the water when she realised she couldn’t just cling to the sides. But it was too late; Deborah was standing up near the mast, her feet wide.
‘Move into the middle of the seat to balance me.’
Anne slid out of her
corner and Deborah made a few quick movements with the ropes, which briefly caught around her body and seemed to bind her to the mast. Then she lowered her small grey bulk and the sail began to rise. Even before it was fully hoist, the wind found it and swelled out the creases. Deborah took her place to steer as the boat began to move.
She’d only just become used to the sliding movement when Deborah called out: ‘We’re going about, so duck under the sail and get over onto the other side … now.’
For a moment, all was flux: the sail flapped loudly, the boat jerked, Anne scrambled across, head tucked, surviving; and already they were moving smoothly again.
Now they were further from the shore, they moved faster. She was instantly stunned at their speed. She grasped the gunwale tighter. The sudden scare triggered that body-wide tingle that always accompanied her first fix of the day. But the tautness in her face, the detachment of her body were from their quickening movement through the air. They were being pulled by an invisible ship – skipping about in its wake.
The wind picked up and their speed increased further. Anne leaned forwards, eating the air as it flew by. Bigger waves formed and the bow left the water briefly, then met the surface again with a slap that made Anne cry out.
The towers of Canary Wharf, the heaps of apartments, the council blocks, all fled by – great flat sets on the river’s banks. She believed that the boat would take off at any moment and the river with it, the wind pushing them onwards. It was utterly unreal; and she had not felt so real in years.
Deborah’s voice sheared through. ‘We’re going about … ready? … Now.’
But Anne was not quite ready and she ducked and moved only just in time. She felt the boom brush her hair and twisted her little finger grasping for a hold on something. Sucking on it, and taking notice of the banks as they slowed down, she said, ‘This is Greenwich, isn’t it?’ Hadn’t Deborah said they were going to her home, and wasn’t that back at Deptford Creek?
‘Yes, I have one thing I want to do.’ Deborah pushed the tiller away from her and released a rope, so that the sail swung out. The boat rocked crazily, then pitched to one side as Deborah leaned over the gunwale into the water.
Anne re-clenched her newly relaxed guts. This was a terrible error; she was alone with a madwoman in the middle of the fucking Thames, about to be stabbed and drowned. She wasn’t even an addict anymore and she still couldn’t keep out of trouble. She clung to the seat as the boat rolled about. What had made her trust Deborah?
The boat heaved madly as Deborah clutched at a small egg-shaped buoy floating in the water. Anne lurched forwards to stand up. She didn’t know what to do. She could jump into the river, but would she be able to make it to the bank?
Deborah glanced around. ‘Stay still.’
Anne sat back down, admonished.
Deborah was pulling on a tight, wet rope that was attached to the buoy and, after a few moments, a box wrapped in clear plastic came up out of the water. Anne calmed her panic; she was being ridiculous – Deborah was just eccentric: look at her taking a box out of the river, placing it in the bottom of the boat and unwrapping it. She was harmless.
Deborah took her grey cloth bag from under a seat and fumbled around in it, seeming to turn her back slightly, so that Anne wasn’t sure whether she was being shown something, or whether she should look away. Deborah took out a key and a fold of thin paper. She checked inside the fold briefly, placed the two items in a thick plastic bag inside the box, then wrapped the box in its outer covering and wound the rope around it. She dropped the box over the side and it disappeared into the brown water.
Her eyes darted towards Anne. ‘I keep some things in there that I don’t want just anyone to find,’ she said, then took her seat again and the rocking subsided. ‘Are you alright? You look scared.’
Anne released her grip. ‘Yes, it was just the rocking about.’
‘Well, we’re going home now, and we’ll have some tea.’
Anne remained facing Deborah for the journey back to the mouth of the creek, watching her catch the breeze in the sail, paying out a little rope, slightly moving the tiller and closely monitoring the little red pennant jittering at the mast top.
Between the tall banks of the creek the wind dropped and their speed was slower. Everything seemed to smooth and Anne let her tight back slacken. The sights she had seen as a child, leaning out of train windows or over Creek Bridge, she now saw from below. The creek walls seemed vast from the boat, their heavy, sodden wooden buttresses making a constant effort to stop the banks collapsing. The dance school lay like a slice of coloured glass among the dregs of old industrial sheds, and buddleia sprouted from the tops of the walls and any dirt-filled crack. A bird swept down in a delicious curve from a branch and caught something up from the surface of the water.
Deborah rose and, for a second, Anne thought she was going to jump into the creek and that would be it: Anne alone in the boat. But she took one steady step to the mast, released a rope and the sail rushed noisily down.
‘Here we are,’ said Deborah, and pushed at the tiller with her tiny foot, so that they glided towards the Deptford bank.
Anne wondered where ‘here’ was for a moment, then, looking up, saw a door and a bow window jutting out from above the creek wall with just a ledge in front of them, and no way in from anywhere but the water.
‘Is this your house?’
‘Yes. Do you like it?’
Anne did. It fit slimly between the younger warehouse buildings on either side; their heavy, pale bricks seemed about to crush it. She looked at the slime under the windows. ‘I don’t remember ever seeing it from the bridge.’
‘No, you won’t see it from there.’ Deborah threaded a rope through a ring in the wall above her head. ‘Right, we’re moored. I’d normally have to wait for the tide to get high enough for me to climb out, but now you’re here, we can help each other.’
Anne looked at the wall and saw no steps or ladder. ‘And how do I get home from here?’ Her panic was rising again.
‘You see those metal rungs?’ Deborah pointed a few yards upstream. ‘You climb up those and there’s an alley that runs beside the warehouse. It comes out right behind the estate.’
Anne leaned back, saw the gap where the alley was and her fear receded. But Deborah slung her grey bag and the net of fish up onto the ledge, saying, ‘Do you want to get up first, then you can help me?’ and Anne realised she still had to get out of the boat safely.
She took a breath and grabbed the corner of the ledge, hauling herself up. Something sharp dug into her knee as she scrabbled to push herself upright, but she made it with less of a struggle than she had expected.
She turned; Deborah had already raised herself halfway and her hand was outstretched. Anne grabbed her wrist and, momentarily, she was back at the swimming pool with Kathleen and Mel – someone could pull you into the water like this, or you could let them fall; it was a game, but it was about trust too. Deborah was heavier than she looked, and Anne thought she might really lose her grip; she leaned back, her arm stretched tight. And then Deborah was standing on the ledge beside her, both of them a little flushed.
‘I feel worn out now!’ A laugh escaped Anne’s throat.
There was no key; Deborah simply lifted the latch and the door glided open into a long kitchen with a large wooden table in the centre and an iron range crouching in a nook in one wall. Deborah immediately put her fish into a deep stone sink under the window and began to wash them with water from a plastic bottle.
Anne was still standing in the doorway, so Deborah beckoned her in with a flick of her head, ‘Sit down while I do this, and then we’ll have some tea.’
‘Are you sure? I can go home if you’re busy.’
‘I’m very sure. It’s lovely to have someone to be with.’
Anne sat down at the table and looked about the room. It was brimming with objects. Every shelf was filled with jugs and cans and dishes and bottles. It was not clutter though: i
t reminded her of her grandmother’s cupboard under the stairs.
She stood up. ‘Shall I make myself useful and do the tea?’
‘Go on, then. Fill the kettle from this bottle, and poke the fire a bit. Put some more wood on if you need to.’
The black range was a little daunting and the poker was surprisingly heavy. The heat from the fire swept over Anne’s face when she lifted the hot plate to push the pieces of wood in. But she didn’t burn herself or put the fire out, and the kettle was on and hissing. She found the milk jug and cups, and was beginning to think she was in a play or a game, until she opened the tea caddy and found a modern box of round tea bags kept fresh in foil wrapping. She looked over at Deborah, who had strung a line across the wide fireplace and was hooking fish to it. Anne shrugged and poured the tea, relaxing into the incongruity.
When Deborah had finished with the fish, she took a swig of tea, picked up her bag and led Anne up the staircase at the back of the kitchen. Upstairs was also just one room, with the bright day entering through the large bow window. Two chairs were placed either side of it, in a way that reminded Anne of a chat show. As she sat down, she noticed Deborah’s bed at the far end, large and wide and half-obscured by a screen. Outside, the railway bridge and new, white, footbridge were just visible; she could not understand why she would not have seen the house from a train. She leaned so as to look directly down. The tide was full now and the boat nearly bumped against the front door.
‘What if it floods?’ Anne realised she was thinking out loud; something she did more and more these days.
‘It rarely happens; but, you know, you lose some things, it’s just part of life. I lost some tapestries once. They were very valuable.’ She said the last words carefully, then looked out of the window to somewhere above the buildings on the opposite bank. Then she turned back, ‘I have loads of other pieces though. Would you like to see them?’
Anne nodded, and Deborah began rummaging in a large chest under the window, pulling various pieces out and placing them on the floor or her lap, creating a little landscape of fabric. Within a few seconds, Anne found herself enveloped in its smell: the dense pungency of an overgrown garden, shot through with dusty spice. It was almost too strong – she wanted to open the window and let the fresh air temper it. And then it occurred to her that this was what it was all about. This was why Deborah had found her on the beach, why she had shown her where the key was kept, why she had brought her to her hidden house. She wanted to show Anne her treasures. A little girl with a new friend. And she realised Deborah had not yet asked her a single question about herself.