Chaplin & Company Page 9

  At last she reaches it and is out on to the street, where the noise of the bar closes behind her. The cobbles are shiny with rain, reflecting the streetlamp across the road. Odeline puts her hat on, and then takes it off, feeling stupid. And then puts it on again, because of the rain. She opens her umbrella and two prongs stick upwards, leaving the material flapping down on one side. Her upset at the evening, her disappointment at the job, her disappointment at everything, she carries it all in her shoulders, which are braced and raised up, almost to her ears. She walks off down the rain-slicked cobbles. A sad silhouette in an oversize suit and bowler hat, walking crooked as she pulls the heavy box behind, the broken umbrella doing little to keep her dry.

  EIGHT

  The sound is a throttle sound, the sound of an aeroplane flying very low overhead, so hoarse and close that he thinks to duck in case it takes his hat off. The sound doesn’t fade, it just stops. A bloody doodlebug, he thinks. He had better be alert. He holds his breath to listen harder but hears nothing and then gives up and the sound starts again. It is his own exhalation, thick and wheezing from the drink and all the fags. He gets the giggles and his chest slumps off the bar. He shunts forward again on the stool, sets both his arms down to stay upright. The giggles come out like haws, like a donkey laughing at its own joke. I’m a bloody doodlebug, he thinks. I’m a cockadoodlebug.

  ‘Got an air raid shelter, Frank?’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give us a refill,’ he says, flicking the top of his glass.

  ‘Go home, John,’ says the man leaning against the till. The Lock is almost empty now, there are a pair of girls finishing drinks in the corner and a man and woman at the other end of the bar, dolled up like they’ve been somewhere special.

  ‘Okay, I’ll have a rum. Like a pirate. I’ve got enough for a round.’ He pats his shirt pocket. ‘Where you going?’

  The barman has walked off to clear the last of the glasses from the tables.

  ‘Self-service now is it?’ He leans up off his stool and tries to reach the spirit bottles on the wall opposite. The stool tilts and crashes beneath him and he gets his foot tangled in the rungs. Keeps himself up by holding on to the edge of the bar. The stool has got him by the ankle. Get off me, you bloody thing. The foot won’t disentangle itself and he kicks the stool against the base of the bar. The woman at the other end smirks into her boyfriend’s shoulder. Bloody stuck-up bitch, he thinks. And then shouts. That takes the smirk off her face. The boyfriend comes over in his shiny suit.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Fed up of being looked down on by bloody stuck-up women. Think you’re so superior. You’re not so bloody superior. She thinks she’s bloody superior to you, pal. I know that type’.

  ‘Fuck off,’ says the girl. A flicker of indecision crosses the boyfriend’s face and then he steps closer. He is broad and towers above John Kettle.

  ‘I should probably knock you down right now, you little shit. But I’m going to give you one chance to apologise.’

  ‘Babe, he’s not worth it,’ the girl says.

  ‘See, pal,’ says John Kettle, ‘she thinks she’s bloody better than everyone.’ The boyfriend grabs the scruff of his shirt and all but lifts him off the floor.

  ‘Ten seconds, you little shit.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ slurs John Kettle. ‘I’m a doodlebug. I’ll come and blow up your little house and everything in it.’

  The two girls from the corner scuttle out. ‘Babe, leave it, please,’ shouts the girl.

  ‘All right,’ says the barman, coming over and putting his arm between Kettle and the boyfriend. ‘He’s not worth it,’ he says to the boyfriend. ‘He’s a sad old pisshead, making trouble. Not worth it’.

  The boyfriend puts John Kettle down with a push that sends him tripping back over the chair and on to the floor. ‘Crash,’ says John Kettle. ‘The bomb has landed.’

  ‘See?’ The barman taps his head. ‘Just a mad old boozer.’

  ‘You shouldn’t let him in here,’ says the boyfriend, still angry.

  The barman shrugs. ‘He’s been a customer a long time.’

  ‘If he’s pissing off your other customers, you shouldn’t let him in.’ The boyfriend looks down at John Kettle nodding off into his chest. ‘Pathetic.’

  The girl comes up to them. ‘Come on, let’s go.’ She takes his hand. He hovers for a second and then turns away. The door slams shut behind them. The barman takes John Kettle by the crook of his arm and helps him up.

  ‘Time to go, John,’ he says. He props him against the bar and gives his face a couple of soft slaps. John Kettle’s head rolls forward and then jerks upright.

  ‘What you kicking me about for? I said I’d pay for it.’ He taps his shirt pocket. ‘Forty-five quid,’ he says, ‘in one afternoon. I reckon that’s pretty good. How much do you earn?’

  ‘Not enough,’ says the barman. ‘Come on, out you go. It’s past twelve. Back to your boat.’

  ‘Hold on, hold on, I had a drink coming’, says John Kettle, indignant. ‘A whisky. A risky whisky. Easy on the water.’

  ‘Bar’s closed, John. Go on, back to your boat.’ He steers John Kettle towards the door, supporting him as he stumbles to the right and then the left.

  ‘That fellow pushed me pretty hard, Frank. Should I have taken him down?’

  ‘I don’t know who Frank is, mate, but he’s not here.’

  ‘Frankie?’ John Kettle asks, staring at the barman. He’s found himself looking for Frank a lot recently, after a few.

  ‘Not here, mate,’ says the barman, and gets him out the door. He points him in the direction of the canal and pats him on the back. ‘Goodnight, John. We don’t want to see you in here again tomorrow, all right? Take a day off.’

  ‘Righto,’ says John Kettle, confused. The door swings shut and after a few seconds the lights go out. Goodnight, Frankie. It is a warm night and the street is empty and still after the rain. Puddles in the road shine back at the moon. There is no one about. It is too quiet. His thoughts echo back. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks up the street towards the canal, scuffing his boots on the pavement. Too bloody quiet. A couple of men come round the corner and he stops, lights up, all smiles, ready to greet them. Are they submariners come ashore for the night, like him? But they cross the top of the road and go on, away, and so he raises his fingers to his brow to give them a formal salute. A sign of respect for fellow sailors.

  He shuffles on. He is making his way deliberately slowly, almost sulkily. Going back to his boat: a cold prospect. He’d rather stay up here on the street, where people might pass by. The canal is too silent at night. The emptiness is a magnet that pulls him towards it. Reels him in. Reeling around reeling him in. Dizzy just thinking about it.

  He hears a clipping beat of shoes on the pavement and enjoys it alternating with his own irregular shuffle. Tap tup shhhh tap tup, louder and louder, and then it overtakes him and he gets a flash of bowler hat and downturned face as she passes and who should it be but Madam from the Chaplin and Company.

  ‘Well, what a surprise, so late in the night –’ he stops and tries to say. Her tapping stride does not break for one moment and she walks away from him like clockwork, pulling her rumbling box behind her.

  ‘It’s me, John Kettle,’ he calls after her, taking hold of a lamp post to help himself shout. She turns right and taps down to the canal. He hears the tap-tup echo as she goes under the bridge and then die away as she walks out the other side. It is as if she put up a cold thin wall down the middle of the pavement as she passed, so that he couldn’t be seen or heard. He thrashes out to punch it down. Still the silence, getting louder in his head. Luring him like a bloody harpy. He can hear the wings. Something in him wants to reach out and welcome it.

  He makes a noise in his ear with his finger, and then does it with the other one too. Scratches his head so he can hear his fingers on his scalp. He gets a sudden picture of himself slumped against the railings, itching like
he’s got the fleas. Feels rottenly horribly sorry for himself. He’s feeling: low as a snake. Low as a snake. That’s the phrase chasing round the edge of his head. Low as a snake. Since the visit this afternoon.

  There have been complaints. One complaint in particular. Threatening behaviour.

  The case is being referred – he could lose his licence.

  They’ll be finding a new warden for Little Venice.

  He walks to the bridge and up the arch of it till he’s standing in the very middle. He is looking down the western arm of the canal, away from the Little Venice pool. Under the moon the water is a path of light, leading down to the next bridge and then winding left, with the full-leafed trees protecting and overhanging at either side. The noises from the roads – sirens and traffic on the overpass – don’t touch the canal. It is still and silent. Horribly silent. There are two narrowboats to the left and one to the right; all look closed up, closed to him, a door shut in his face. He takes hold of the railings on this side of the bridge and hauls himself up.

  He doesn’t want to be facing his Peggy May for this.

  NINE

  Odeline has reached the deck of her boat when she hears the flat splash of weight hitting the water behind her. It startles her. It sounds heavy and she immediately has a vision of a swan dropping like a stone from the sky. Do birds die in mid-air? She looks back and sees the water below the bridge disturbed, sloshing against the sides of the canal. In the middle is a humped mass, dark and wet, a glint in the moonlight. It is not a swan. Its shape is oval and it shifts about now in the water. She thinks then that it is perhaps some giant turtle or sea creature, that the splash has been caused by the lashing out of a huge tail. She steps off the deck of her boat on to the towpath, feeling safer on land, but then steps back on as she hears loud barking from inside the boat next door.

  The door opens and out steps the tattooed man. ‘Jesus,’ he says, jumps on to the towpath and starts to run towards the bridge. He is wearing a vest and shorts – and, Odeline notices, no shoes. It is like someone has coloured him in: even in the darkness she can make out the inky shapes coiling his calves. She hears him say it again: ‘Jesus.’ Is he going to wrestle the creature, or save it? She puts her hand to her mouth as he jumps feet first into the water and takes a few strokes to the shape in the middle. He puts an arm over the top of it, seems to be trying to turn it. When he does, she sees a head flop up out of the water and realises: it is a person. A body. Her chest jerks. She lets go of the prop-box handle with her left hand and hears it crash to the ground. Her neighbour is holding the body by its arms, hoisting the head and shoulders up, kicking back towards the side of the canal. ‘Hey. Please. Could you come and help?’ he calls out as he reaches the bank. He looks over to her. ‘Come on!’

  Mind blank, she obediently begins to run. Her heavy, wet trousers flap around her legs and she feels her feet sliding about in the brogues. She gets to the bank and kneels down by the water’s edge, tucking her legs underneath her. She looks to her neighbour for an instruction. One arm, swirling with gothic script, is out of the water, gripping the bank. His hair runs sleek and wet down the side of his neck. He has a thin, aquiline nose which points down like an arrow, pressing his lips together in a line above a dented chin. His features shine like marble in the moonlight.

  He is trying to lift the body up on to the bank. Odeline looks at the heavy wet bulk leant over his shoulder, a humped embrace.

  ‘Just hold him up while I get out.’

  She doesn’t move. He looks up at her.

  ‘If you put your hands under the shoulders,’ he says, ‘we can keep his head out the water.’

  Odeline obeys and puts her arms out. He hooks the body up on to her hands and rests the soaked head on Odeline’s knees. And she is looking down on the face of John Kettle, his mouth open and teeth showing in a grimace, the whites of his eyes visible under not quite closed lids. Wetness has silvered, flattened, elongated his stained beard. His shirt clings to the shoulders and torso and then billows out where it touches the water. A wilted five-pound note edges out of the breast pocket.

  Her neighbour has lifted himself out and is putting a hand under John Kettle’s limp arm.

  ‘Take his other shoulder,’ he says, ‘like this.’

  Odeline does as she is told. They pull up hard and the heavy frame comes dripping out of the water. Paunched stomach, trousers sticking to thin legs and boots that flop outwards as they come on to ground.

  ‘We can put him here, gently down.’ He places his hand under John Kettle’s head as they lay him on the path. ‘Okay, he needs an ambulance.’ He pulls a fabric case from his pocket and unbuttons a toggle at the top, pulling out a mobile telephone. When he flips it open, water trickles out. He presses the buttons but nothing happens. ‘Fuck.’ He looks up. ‘Have you got a phone?’

  Odeline shakes her head.

  ‘We’ll have to use the phone box,’ he says. She nods her head and straightens. He has dark, deep-set eyes and a steady gaze. He pushes the wet hair off his face and she sees that he has two thin gold rings through his left eyebrow.

  ‘You know the one by the bridge?’ he says, pointing.

  She nods and sets off, tripping over her feet as she runs up the ramp. The phone box is fetid, the floor thick with cans and food wrappers. Obscenities have been scratched on to the wall and the telephone itself. She picks up the handset and presses 999, but finds it hard to speak to the voice at the other end. She can’t think of the address but eventually manages to explain where she is. ‘The Lock Inn,’ she says, seeing the name of the brick building lit up on the other side of the road. When she puts the phone down she looks through the glass of the telephone box down to the canal. Her neighbour is bent over the wet mass of John Kettle’s body, breathing into him and then turning his head to listen.

  When the ambulance arrives for John Kettle he is breathing but not conscious. Odeline stands by dumbly as her neighbour explains how they found him. The ambulance drives away, blue light flashing, and her neighbour rubs his face with his hand. He looks over at her.

  ‘You okay?’

  She nods.

  ‘We deserve a drink, I think,’ and the line of his mouth widens into a thin smile.

  She nods.

  He heads for his boat. She thinks she probably shouldn’t get on to a stranger’s boat but finds herself following him and stepping on to the front deck between a dogbowl and a pile of stacked wood. There is no space for the prop box, so she leaves it prostrate on the towpath. He asks her to excuse him while he changes into dry clothes. When he opens the cabin door the grey wolf-like dog comes up the step to greet him.

  ‘This is Marlon,’ he says, turning to Odeline, who has stepped back to the edge of the deck, ready to jump down on to the bank. ‘Okay, come in then, boy,’ he says, pushing the dog’s shoulder gently back down the steps.

  As he clicks the doors shut behind him Odeline’s legs go numb and she sinks slowly down to sit on the side of his boat.

  John Kettle’s face, calling 999, and the ambulance people asking questions: it’s taken her back to six weeks before, to the night her mother died. The world is scrolling madly in front of her eyes as it did then. She hears again the groans coming from her mother’s bedroom, and again tries to ignore them. She had been in the middle of rehearsing. She remembers wishing her mother would be quiet, but then feeling uneasy when the groans became louder.

  These were new noises. Usually her mother went to bed silently: the most Odeline heard were the sounds of the chain rattling across the front door and the mug of hot chocolate being placed on the bookshelf outside Odeline’s bedroom. But for the past few nights Odeline had opened her bedroom door and found no mug of hot chocolate on the shelf. All the lights were still on downstairs and she’d hear the groaning. And that final night it was worse. Much worse. Louder than ever.

  She remembers going into her mother’s room. She sees again the image of her mother’s pale moony face, waxed with perspiration
, the roots of her hair dark with it. Her mother’s eyes, usually impassive, darting around desperately. Her eyebrows twitching with surprise, as if trying to decipher a conversation only she could hear. When Odeline suggested a doctor, her mother’s head switched left and right on the pillow, and so Odeline just sat with her, a straight dark figure on the side of the bed, still in her tailcoat and trousers.

  Her mother was calmed by this. The groans quietened and her eyes, though glazed, fixed on Odeline. Odeline had felt a tug at her sleeve and looked down to see her mother’s fingers pulling a red silk handkerchief from the cuff and laying it over her daughter’s knee. When she looked up her mother nodded at her, very faintly. Odeline picked up the handkerchief with her right hand and stuffed it into her left fist, only for it to disappear when she opened her palm. Her mother nodded again. Odeline produced the handkerchief from behind her ear. Her mother screwed her eyes up in delight. She tugged the handkerchief on to Odeline’s knee again. Odeline repeated the trick. Her mother smiled, her lips pale. She pressed her finger into Odeline’s leg. Odeline stood up and pretended to straighten her other sleeve, pulling a red rose from the cuff. She mimed surprise. She looked at her mother, who blinked back, mirroring the surprise.