Chaplin & Company Read online

  The inheritance has given Odeline the means to escape. She thinks London will be her refuge. London understands talent, creativity, individual expression. This metropolis has been a stage for all the great artists of illusion and mime – from Maskelyne and Cooke to Houdini to Marcel Marceau. She wants to be part of this heritage, to walk the streets that her heroes and heroines have walked and visit the theatres where they performed. Finally, released, she will fulfil her vocation.

  And for once be anonymous. Arundel is one of those towns that would describe itself as charming, well-tended, community-minded. There is nowhere more suffocating, she thinks, to an artistic temperament.

  Walking along the canal, she is noticing things with the same intensity she has noticed everything since her mother died: the violent sparkle of sunlight chasing her along the water; the noise of her prop box wheels on the stone-flecked concrete slabs of the towpath, trundle and clunk, trundle and clunk; the clumsy splayed yellow feet of a moorhen perched on the side of the canal. And then suddenly an urgent tinny ringing approaching from behind her – she turns in time to pull herself and her boxes off the path as a cyclist flies past, bent determined over handlebars, all black plastic and metal glinting in the sun.

  She walks a little faster now and as she comes round a bend in the canal she recognises the boat from the advert in her moneybelt. As stated in the letter, it is the first in a line of boats on the towpath side, just short of an arched bridge with light blue railings which gives on to a wide triangle of water where the canal forks right towards Paddington and left towards Regent’s Park. Little Venice.

  The advert described the boat as ‘one of the most handsome houseboats on the water, with an imperial colour scheme, navy blue body with red detail’. Odeline does not like the word ‘imperial’, but thought the colour scheme sounded handsome enough. Of course, what really drew her to the boat was the name. It seemed like fate.

  As she approaches she sees that the boat is less handsome than in the picture, which must have been taken when it was last painted. Judging by its condition, this was some time ago. The red lettering has faded to pink and the paint has blistered and peeled off in patches. Somebody has attempted to cover up these blemishes, but the paint they have used is matt rather than gloss, dark grey instead of navy blue.

  In the picture the boat’s only neighbours were a pair of swans by the bow. Now it is tail to nose with another even scruffier boat which has black smoke puffing out of its chimney, a wheelbarrow and a bicycle tied to its roof, and a dog stretched out on the deck. Odeline does not like animals. The dog, huge, grey and rangy, pulls itself up as a ponytailed man comes out of the cabin, the doors swinging shut behind him. He has muscular arms tattooed with swirling blue lines, and the shape of a bare-toothed serpent’s head screams up one side of his neck. He is holding an axe in one hand and a hessian sack in the other. He looks at her straight and gives a nod which looks to Odeline like the nod of a murderer marking his next victim.

  She walks quickly up to Chaplin and Company and steps around the mooring rope, which is tied to a hook sunk into the concrete of the towpath. There is a gap between the curved bow of the boat and the bank. She looks down, black water is swilling. The tattooed man is still watching, looming. She tugs up the knee of her trousers and places a brogue on to the boat, holding on to the cabin roof as she steps across.

  She turns to yank at the handles of her prop boxes until they land with a thud on the deck. There is a step down to a pair of panelled cabin doors with a padlocked bolt across the middle. Her neighbour’s axe is dangling. She stabs around for the key in her moneybelt, finds it, cracks open the padlock. The doors swing open. She pulls her prop boxes crashing down the step and into the cabin, shuts the doors and pushes across two flimsy locks at the top and the bottom.

  The prop boxes are lying on their sides across the cabin floor. With their handles extended they are almost the width of the boat. Standing with her back against the doors she can feel the ceiling pressing at her hair.

  The cabin is laid out before her. The floor is squares of orange carpet – areas of it below the portholes are bleached yellow. There is a white shelf unit in the corner on her left, and a low armchair on her right, upholstered in orange and brown 1970s fabric, also faded. Varnished wood planks run along the length of the walls and the ceiling. ‘Chalet-style’, it said in the advert. There are portholes set into the walls with short curtains in the same fabric as the armchair, and a set of curved gold lights on each side of the cabin. At the far end, on the right-hand side is a white wardrobe and in the left-hand corner is the kitchenette/breakfast bar: white wall cupboards above a U-shaped counter.

  Odeline compresses the handles of her prop boxes and pulls them along to the counter. There are bubbled crescents in the marble-effect surface where it has been melted by hot objects. She inspects the kitchenette. There are more white cupboards under the counter. There is a hob with an oven beneath, and a gas canister inside the next-door cupboard. This connects to the oven on one side and a fridge on the other. But Odeline has come prepared. She’s already bought food that doesn’t require heating or cooling, so she won’t have to rely on the hob, oven or fridge. This will save money: her research has shown that gas cylinders are extremely expensive to replace. £64 plus delivery. Although she has made a note to ask the canal warden about this. He or she may know of a cheaper source.

  She checks the other kitchen cupboards. Their contents are disappointing. The British Waterways advert said that the kitchenette was fully furnished, but the glassware is kitsch and vulgar – tall and plastic with slices of lime cascading down the side – and the crockery consists of a set of eight lime green formica plates, coated in dust. In the end cupboard is a black bin bag full of metal parts. Spearing the side of the bag are some rusted barbecue tongs.

  Opposite the kitchenette is the bathroom and she looks in. It is very small, and very dark. She pulls the light cord, a faux microphone at the end of a gold chain. A bulb flickers on above the doorway, and she sees that the walls, floor and ceiling are covered in black rectangular tiles. Almost directly below the shower head a green lavatory with a cracked plastic lid. There is a matching green sink by the door with limescale trails beneath the taps. Above the sink is a round mirror. Rhinestones are set into the rim and along the edge of a mirrored shelf which is fixed to the wall with ornate gold brackets. There is a border of green around the glass of the porthole. Mould.

  She pulls her head out of the bathroom. At the far end of the boat is a step up to another pair of panelled doors, which must lead out on to the back deck. In the centre of each door is an engraved heart with entwined letters. I and F.

  Odeline looks through a doorway on her right into the engine room. It contains the boiler for hot water, fixed to the wall backing on to the bathroom. There is a single porthole in here, and running beneath it a wooden ledge. The ledge is hinged and Odeline pulls it up to see the engine underneath, an oily bulk of metal spewing out pipes like tentacles. The diesel gauge points at empty. She shuts the lid; she has read the chapter about engines in her British Waterways Narrowboat Manual – but has not quite mastered it yet. She straightens up and knocks her head: the roof is even lower in here. Set into the ceiling of the engine room is what looks like another porthole with the same studded brass frame as the others on the boat. But on closer inspection, Odeline sees it is a compass, with the needle balancing on a brass pin set through the centre of its glass. The back of the compass is stained, spotted paper, with the directions painted around the edge in tiny longhand. It reminds her of the aged face and spindly numerals of her pocket watch. She taps the glass and the needle quivers. It is pointing to east north-east.

  Her legs feel shaky. Must be hungry. She hooks the pocket watch out of her waistcoat and checks the time. Ten past eleven. She will have a snack and then unpack, before doing her first rehearsal session on board her new home.

  In the top of the first prop box is a packet of cereal bars. She takes one
out and unwraps it, and then opens the lower kitchen cupboards until she finds a white pedal bin inside one of them. The pedal doesn’t work and she has to lift the lid herself, which is brown and chewed around the edges. There are two empty cigarette cartons wilting at the bottom of the bin, and no bin bag. She shoves the wrapper in and puts the bin back into the cupboard – she hates the stink of cigarettes. She goes to sit on the low armchair but it doesn’t feel right: she’s too far away from her belongings, and so she gets up and pulls at the fold-down bed. Its legs flick out and it lands with a crash, filling the space. She sits on the edge of the mattress and eats the cereal bar, and then takes a carton of pineapple juice from the top of the prop box, jabs the straw through the foil hole and drinks it in one go.

  Unpacking. She takes the rest of her food provisions from the top of the box and puts them in the upper kitchen cupboards. She puts tins and powdered food on the bottom shelves and all other packets on the top.

  Next in the box is her bedlinen, which she takes out and puts in a pile on the middle of the mattress.

  Then her clothes, underclothes, two towels and her mother’s sewing basket and toolkit. She puts these on the mattress as well.

  Then a square, tan-coloured box, big enough to hold four account books, which she slides under the bed.

  The rest of the prop box is filled with books and videos. She wheels it to the front end of the cabin and begins to put the books on the white shelving unit. She starts by arranging them alphabetically by title, as she had done on the bookshelf in her bedroom. Then she rearranges them according to subject – she has bought several new categories of book recently and this will make them easier to find. She starts with her mother’s accounting manuals, then all her illusion books, her books on mime, with a separate shelf for her collection of Marcel Marceau books. Then anything falling under the title of ‘Inspiration’. This includes the videos, which are old recordings of her mother’s favourite silent films. She starts the shelf below with Canals and Waterways books, then anything to do with London life. A book called Behind the Curtain she leaves in its own category of one. She bought it in a rush at the charity shop thinking it was about theatre backstages; it had a white glove pulling back a red curtain on the front cover. But it was a book about Russia, and didn’t mention theatres at all. The woman in the shop wouldn’t give her a refund, so she has kept it (and read it) so as not to waste the money. £4. It is a hardback. She won’t be so foolish as to buy a book again without checking the contents thoroughly.

  So that is the first prop box emptied. She stores it in the engine room. The other stands upright at the end of the kitchenette counter. She flips open the lid and begins to unpack her costume parts and props. She takes out: a black waistcoat and white dress shirt on a wire hanger, hooking it over the rail of the wardrobe; three folded white vests, which she puts on the bed. The bowler hat in tissue paper goes on top of the wardrobe. A roll of posters, packet of Blu-Tack and the turquoise plastic jewellery box in which she keeps her make-up are placed on the kitchen counter. She will put the posters up later. She arranges the smaller props on the white shelves, displayed in front of the books: a packet of coloured handkerchiefs, a bouquet of fake roses, a pair of spectacles attached to a plastic nose and moustache, two pairs of white gloves, a pair of round mirrored sunglasses, a rainbow feather duster, a clip-on bowtie, a white quill, a top hat with no top, four boxes of chalk, a blackboard duster, a ball of string, a false cigar, a fold of false banknotes, a hunting horn, a bottle of black nail varnish, a harmonica. (She is teaching herself to play the harmonica. Half an hour’s practice per day after repertoire rehearsal. She was not accepted into the orchestra whilst at school. But this, surely, was due to her general exclusion by teachers and pupils, rather than a lack of musical flair. After all, a gift for performance must entail an affinity with music.)

  She also plans to teach herself to use her recently purchased roller skates, which she takes out of the box next and lines up at the bottom of the bookshelf. They are metal with yellow leather straps which clip over her brogues. When she saw them in the charity shop she felt like Charlie Chaplin in the toy department in Modern Times. She will have to find a smoother surface to practise on than the towpath, she thinks. The bumpy concrete slabs could send her off course, and she doesn’t want to end up in the canal.

  She leaves the larger props – a gentleman’s cane, a blackboard, a collapsible wooden easel, an umbrella deliberately broken for dramatic effect – inside this second box, which she wheels into the engine room and parks next to the first.

  She feels hungry again and eats a cheese slice at the kitchen counter. The cheese has sweated. Bits of it stick to the plastic. These have to be consumed soon if she isn’t going to use the fridge.

  Preparation for rehearsal, then. She takes the turquoise make-up box into the bathroom and balances it on the mirrored shelf. She lifts the lid and pulls the tiers up and out. Face paints and make-up are in the side trays, toothbrush, toothpaste and dental floss, cleanser, cotton wool and nail scissors in the lower compartment. She won’t bother with full make-up now, but will perform her teeth-cleaning ritual. She does this before every rehearsal. It helps to switch her into the performance mindset.

  The sink taps are squat and modern; there is a stripe of limescale beneath the hot tap running all the way into the plughole. She turns the cold tap and water shoots out in spurts. She bends. Toothpaste on brush, she lathers for sixty seconds, spits and lathers for another sixty. She can hear the water trickling down the pipe and out of the side of the boat. Toothbrush back into the box. She takes out the dental floss dispenser and pulls off a short length. Bares her teeth and flicks her head up to find the left incisor, where she always starts. Her elastic lips are stretched wide and she can see both rows of teeth. She tries not to show them when she has to talk to people – they are in good condition but not as straight as she would like, and she considers them too messy for her face. They point slightly inwards, towards the back of her mouth, and are huddled together, hiding behind one another. She thinks this looks weak, vulnerable, retreating.

  She flosses each gap once and then shuts her mouth. Closed, it is much smaller than you might expect, having seen it at full stretch. It is diamond-shaped and neat. She approves of it. The bow of her top and bottom lips is repeated in an upturned nose and pointed chin. Her skin is the colour of a tea biscuit. There is a speckling of dark freckles across her cheekbones.

  She blinks.

  Her eyes are the heaviest objects in her face. They are the eyes of a tragic heroine, she thinks. A forlorn clown.

  She blinks again.

  Her eyebrows are arched and black and there are four tiny crossed hairs in the centre. She used to pluck these for neatness but no longer does so (she thinks they add to the symmetry of her face).

  Up close, her hair is black and brushlike. It juts out from each side of her head like the cap of a mushroom.

  ‘You have arrived,’ she says to her face in the mirror framed by rhinestones. Her voice is old-fashioned – clipped, learned from the heroes and heroines of the Saturday afternoon films.

  ‘You have arrived,’ she says, keeping her mouth small, lips covering her teeth.

  ‘The adventure begins.’

  TWO

  Now leave Odeline for a while and move further up the canal. Past her tattooed neighbour, unfazed by her coldness, who places another log on the bench at the edge of his deck and raises the axe over his shoulder to split it. The axe sticks near the bottom of the log and he cracks the halves apart with his hands, which like his arms are decorated, marbled, filled in with ink, and chucks them into the sack at his feet. Go past him and the next two boats leading up to the bridge, where white-haired couples are sitting out on their decks, reading or listening to their radios in the sun. Past the boat filling up from the water pump near the bridge and the three bristly, rough-skinned figures drinking from cans and leaning over the blue railings looking on to the towpath, singing a low song. A
nd I’ll be in Scotland before you. One conducts with his can as he sings. For me and my true love. They are bulging figures in layers and layers of filthy clothes. Go on under the bridge, which is low and nesty underneath, and then out into the triangle of water.

  Now the towpath widens. Go past the dark green barge with a wide double doorway. There are people sitting at tables on the stretch of towpath outside. A small plump woman rushes to collect plates of leftover salad and sandwiches, carrying them into the shade of the cabin, where she empties them clattering into the sink and puts the dishcloth under the cold tap to cool the back of her neck with. Water trickles down the back of her aertex, right down to the elastic waistband of her skirt. She puts the till receipt on to a metal tray and makes her hot, heavy way outside again. She has short, flat, lifeless hair, the roots are dark with sweat. She nods thank you to the customers, who have left a ten-pound note under the salt cellar and are picking up their bags to go.

  Opposite the cafe is an island with a beautiful willow tree whose branches brush the water. The island is a refuge for canal birds; moorhens and ducks weave in and out of the branches to build their nests underneath. But keep to this side of the water and follow the customers as they walk off down the towpath, along the Paddington arm of the Little Venice basin. The towpath bends to the right, and here are a pair of heritage boats. They’re not narrow boats but old schooners, maroon and oval-shaped with sails rolled round the masts. The sails haven’t been unfurled for over forty years, when the boats were off-duty toys at the naval base at Plymouth. They were towed up to London by a tugboat belonging to the grey-whiskered, blue-capped man leaning an elbow on the side of the second schooner, the Phoebus. He is the canal warden for this stretch of water. There are three or four children on the deck of the Phoebus, peering into the cabin, and he is giving his usual spiel. Come a bit closer to hear. His voice is thick and his vowels are rounded, seasoned, fermented: