“You’ve been…”
“I’ve got a shift starting at 9 p.m., near Sloane Square. It’s a market. They’re selling the paroles of the pretty girls to rich geezers. Maids. Cleaners, nannies. That sort of stuff. If you’re rich enough, you get to pay less tax if you turn yourself into a company, and if you’re a company you can buy a parole. It’s all sex. I mean that’s why they… but I’m catering. I just clean the glasses.”
“Right.”
Her head bent down, then up, a curious cat not sure if the object before it is food or threat. The more he tried not to catch her eye, the harder she stared until finally his gaze met hers, and she held it with a frown. “We’re gonna talk now,” she explained, cold and flat. “That’s what’s happening. In case you’re wondering. It’s… that’s what happens now.”
He tried to look away, couldn’t, nodded once, mouth dry, and followed her.
Chapter 6
Later, on the canal.
Her name is Neila.
These are the cards that she drew when she did her reading that Friday morning:
Seven of staves, the Chariot, three of cups, nine of staves, king of swords, the Tower, eight of swords, the Fool, the Hanged Man (inverted).
She stared at the layout before her, and for a horrified moment realised she had spread the cards without focusing on a question. There had been something at the back of her mind but then…
On the couch behind her, the man rolled over a little, his head turned towards the wall, the grey light of day shining round the foil circles Blu-tacked to the portholes to keep the heat in, and today there was no fresh blood on the floor.
Neila folded the cards away, returned the pack to the walnut box beneath her bed, put some baked beans on the stove. As they warmed, she went outside and discovered that in the night something had smashed the pots of geraniums she grew on the front of the boat, thin magenta petals spilt across the water, black soil across the deck. She sighed and set to cleaning, and no one passed on the water or on the land.
Once she’d had a tomato plant uprooted and thrown into the canal. She’d found the sodden tendrils of broken leaves bumping against her hull in the morning, and she’d cried, howled almost, like her one true love was dead, and couldn’t stop crying for the best part of a week.
Now she felt nothing. That too was why she’d come to the water, to get from that place to somewhere else.
She put some margarine into the baked beans and ate silently, sitting on a green foldable chair that in summer months she liked to have on the prow so she could read by the light of the fading day. She wondered if she should wake the man, and decided not to. She thought maybe she should give him some water, soak a sponge or something, try to dribble something into the corner of his drooping mouth, but thought he might choke.
She tried calling the local hospital, but the automated switchboard wouldn’t let her proceed without inputting her eleven-digit insurance provider number, so she gave up.
At 3.30 p.m., as the sun slipped towards the horizon, she muttered, “Screw it,” gunned the engine, retrieved her mooring hooks and steered the Hector north, towards Watford and the edge of the city, blue-grey fields to the left, shining black road to the right.
By 6 p.m. the canal was dark, her fingers cold and body stiff, so she went back inside. She had enough gas and water for a hot shower, but the idea of stripping naked with an unknown man in the cabin made her uneasy. Instead she made more tea and, as the man slept, she checked his hands again for truths and signs, and found there nothing she had not found before.
At 8.23 p.m. a cormorant, confused, lost, slams into the side of the canal boat, indignant that its journey has been disrupted by so solid a thing, and at its collision
the man called Theo jerks awake, and for a moment is terrified, and cannot remember his name, and does not know where he is, and wonders if this is what every awakening will be like for the rest of his days.
Clawing, pulling the blanket tight, then flinching, turning away from the pain, another moment of uncertainty as he tries to work out where it comes from—it would be unmanly to whimper at this point but screw it, he’s only just woken and this was not how he planned on finding himself.
A cabin.
If he rolled out sideways his head could touch one wall, his feet the other, at a stretch. He might have to cheat and reach out a few fingertips, but that’s fine. If he lies down lengthwise, the boat can probably fit six or seven of him end to end before it becomes a squeeze. A curtain above his head, purple, with a silver elephant on it, the moon, or possibly the sun, or maybe just a disc of light, rising or setting behind the ambling creature, a log curled in its trunk, lilies crushed beneath its feet. The curtain is suspended by a mesh of elastic rope, a parting in the middle. On the other side of the cabin, away from the sofa, a cubicle closed off from the rest of the boat by heavy plastic doors that fold like an accordion to create a little privacy, concealing a toilet. A tomb-sized cupboard next to that encloses a plastic shower.
Black iron stove, burning bright and loud, with two hobs set on top, one for a kettle, one for a pan. A gas oven too small to roast a chicken. Cupboards above made of laminated chipboard, the handles removed in an act of domestic whimsy, replaced with hand-painted ceramic baubles of blue and yellow. A small stainless-steel sink, a saucepan and cup drying beside it. On the walls of the cabin, little hand-sewn pieces of fabric adorned with blue-stitched cornflowers, red hearts, messages of love. “Believe in yourself.” “Love thy neighbour.” “Life is for living.” And so on. One, circled by a weave of red roses and green thorns, framed and put between portholes, a little out of keeping with the others—“Deal with it, bitches”—in the same carefully embroidered hand. Round portholes covered with handmade foil circles, glued to cardboard and pressed against the glass. A clock on the wall counted away the hours. The numerals were embraced with happy, bounding rabbits. Here, a bunny balancing on the top of the 5, hugging the 8, pressed up against one o’clock in a pose which, once suggested as needlessly sexual, could be nothing else, all innocence gone.
A fold-down slatted wooden table for eating on. The couch he lay on, extending down towards the rear of the boat; more cupboards, installed a little crooked at first, then straightened up through careful addition of nails and wedges. A lampshade above his head on which ducks flew in an endless circle, eyes wide and terrified at the philosophical prison of their flight. Darkness outside, yellow light within, a few bulbs burning in the walls, candles lit on the kitchen counter, floating in white metal bowls.
The man called Theo clings to his blanket, to the back of the couch, to his side, to his head, and can’t quite remember how he came to be here, and as sense returns, for a moment entertains the possibility that he is dead, and the Greeks were right, and the rivers of the damned flow through Hades after all.
Then Neila came through the curtains that separated the cabin from her bed, disturbed by the sound of movement, and saw him, and said, “Oh.”
For a frozen moment they stared at each other and hadn’t got a clue what they were meant to say next.
Then, in almost harmony, he blurted:
“I don’t know if there…”
And she exclaimed, “You must be parched. Tea?”
Two people on a narrowboat, heading up the Grand Union Canal.
Neila makes tea.
She is six foot three, feeling less than her radiant self, wearing furry lion slippers, thick flannel pyjama trousers, a cyan-blue T-shirt, a fleece jumper given to her by someone who was hoping to also give her Jesus. Her hair is turning grey; she hasn’t had a proper haircut for a while, and the cheap DIY dyes turn the long ends brittle. There’s still a red sequin dress in her cupboard, knee-high boots so bright that they dazzle passing traffic. She hasn’t worn either for a long time, and her bum and belly have got a little saggy. Sometimes she feels sad about that, and instantly tells herself to get over such stupid thoughts and appreciate her beauty for what it is. Her arms are strong, her shoulders broad, and she hides both from the gaze of men. Even though she’s tall, she likes to wear a bit of a heel when she goes walking, to change the shape of her calves and the way her hips move. It helps; so does the lipstick.