I’d just worked my way down to the Thames Path when I spotted a white skinhead approaching with a heavy duty power tool slung over his shoulder. I walked briskly to intercept him but found, as I got closer, that it was only Uncle Bailiff — Mama Thames’s odd job man, carrying an angle grinder.
‘Wotcha,’ he said. He was stocky, middle aged, but as a solid as a block of stone. He wore a spider web tattoo on his neck and had, according to rumour, arrived at Mama Thames’s house to collect an outstanding bank debt and never left. Lesley had gone so far as to run a missing persons check. But whoever he was before he was Mama Thames’s, she could never discover.
‘All right,’ I said and nodded at the angle grinder. ‘What’s that for?’
‘Access, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘For the grand debarkation.’
Poking out into the river at that point was a wooden pier, a remnant of the time when this part of the South Bank still boasted warehouses and industry. It was solidly built so that even my size elevens didn’t rattle the boards as I followed Uncle Bailiff along it towards the end. The tide was out and I glanced over the railing at the glistening mud. The year before I’d pulled myself ashore not fifty metres downstream. I noticed that a metal railing had been retrofitted onto the pier, presumably to stop tourists and small children from taking a dive. I also noticed that there were no gaps to allow passengers to board, or climb off, a boat.
‘Hey,’ I said to Uncle Bailiff. ‘What do you mean “access”?’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, stooping to pull the start cord — the angle grinder growled into life. ‘It’s only a little adjustment.’
By late afternoon the tide turned. And with it came a river mist that rolled in from the east. The stalls were all in place, but still had their tarpaulins down while their owners stood around chatting and sharing rollups, or at least things I decided to classify as roll-ups for the duration. That’s your famous ‘operational discretion’ at work. The Showmen had arrived while Uncle Bailiff was adjusting the pier. The park wasn’t suitable for a full funfair, so this was a just token presence — a single antique steam-powered carousel and the kind of booth that invites you to lose money three hoops at a time. These too were quiet and shuttered, their owners drinking coffee from cardboard cups, chatting and texting.
Lesley and me met with Nightingale by the stall we’d set up at the point where Upper Ground Street bisected the park, to serve as a command post and lost children collection spot. We even had a blue and white placard with the Metropolitan Police crest and Working Together for a Safer London printed underneath. Nearby I spotted some familiar faces setting up their instruments in the jazz tent. It was going to be a popular venue, I thought, if the weather didn’t let us down. The drummer looked up and waved me over, he was a short Scottish stereotype called James Lochrane.
‘Peter,’ he said and gripped my hand. ‘Your dad’s waiting in the BFI cafe with your mum.’
I shook hands with Max Harwood, the bassist, and Daniel Hossack who played guitar, the three of them plus my dad constituting the Lord Grant’s Irregulars. My dad was making his glorious third, or was it fourth, attempt at a career as a jazzman. Daniel introduced me to a thin jittery young white guy in an expensive coat — Jon something I missed — whose day job was in publicity. I wondered if he was the band’s latest attempt to recruit a brass section until James mouthed the word ‘boyfriend’ behind Daniel’s back and all was clear.
‘Where’s Abigail?’ I asked.
‘Behind you,’ said Abigail.
Through a series of irritating mistakes, mostly mine, I’d been forced to invent a junior cadet branch of the Folly, consisting only of one Abigail Kamara, in an effort to keep her out of trouble. Nightingale had been way more sanguine about the whole thing than I was expecting, which only served to make me suspicious. Given his attitude, I led Abigail over to our little police stall and made her his problem.
She was a skinny mixed-race kid who had a fine range of suspicious looks, one of which she was happy to turn on Nightingale.
‘Are you going to do some magic?’ she asked.
‘That, young lady,’ he said, ‘depends entirely on how you deport yourself in the coming hours.’
Abigail gave him the look, but only for a moment — just enough to make sure he knew that she wasn’t intimidated.
‘Fair enough,’ she said.
Through the mist the sun was a wavering disc kissing the shadowy arches of Waterloo Bridge. I noticed that a fair number of civilians, mostly tourists and workers from the nearby offices, were wandering amongst the darkened stalls. All part of our contingency planning, and not yet arriving in the quantities I was expecting. Lesley noted that many of them were staying in the area of Gabriel’s Wharf where the cafes and shops were still open.
As the sun vanished, the mist grew thicker and I started to wonder when the showmen were going to turn on their lights.
‘Do you think this is natural?’ Lesley asked Nightingale.
‘I doubt that.’ Nightingale checked his watch. ‘Both sunset and high tide are due at around six thirty — I expect our principals to arrive then.’
So we sent Abigail off to get coffee and settled in to wait.
We heard them before we saw them. And we felt them before we heard them — as an anticipation, like waking up on your birthday, the smell of bacon sandwiches, breakfast coffee and that initial glorious deep-lunged drag on the first cigarette of the day — the last of these being how I knew this wasn’t truly my feelings, but something external.
And then a real sound floated out of the dark. Big heavy marine diesels throttled up suddenly as the blunt prows of two large river cruisers emerged from the mist, one on either side of the pier. They touched the embankment simultaneously and stopped. Behind them the superstructures were darker shadows in the murk.
Then the God and Goddess of the River Thames made their presence known.
The force of them rolled in like a wave and a confusion of images and smells. Coal smoke and brick dust, cardamom and ginger, damp straw and warm hops, pub piano, wet cotton and sloe gin, tonic water and rose petals, sweat and blood. The waiting onlookers went down on their knees around us, the showmen slowly with respect, the tourists with looks of utter surprise. Even Abigail went down until she realised that Nightingale, Lesley and me were still standing. I watched her face set into an expression that is discussed in hushed tones wherever teachers and social workers gather together, and she struggled back to her feet. She glared at me as if it was my fault.
The diesel engines stopped and there was silence — not even Abigail spoke. No wonder the showmen were kneeling in respect. PT Barnum would have banged his head twice on the ground in admiration.
Lady Ty emerged from the mist first. By her side was a wiry man with a thin face and a shock of brown hair — Oxley, the Old Man of the River’s cunning right hand.
They stopped at the point where the pier met the embankment and Oxley threw back his head and shouted something that sounded like Welsh but was probably much, much older.
‘The Queen and King of the River stand at your gates,’ bellowed Lady Ty in her best Dragon’s Den minion-cowing voice.
Oxley shouted, or chanted, it’s hard to tell with these Celtic languages, another phrase and again Lady Ty translated.
‘The Queen and King of the River stand at your gates — come forward to receive them.’
I felt a warmth on the back of my neck like an unexpected sunbeam and turned to see a young girl of no more than nine, in an antique silk jacket of brilliant yellow — Imperial Yellow she proudly told me later, and genuine Chinese silk — hair twisted up into a fountain of silver and gold thread over a round brown face with a big mouth set in a Cheshire Cat grin.
She came skipping down the central path, bringing with her the warmth of the sun. The yellow silk glowed, driving back the mist and with her came the smell of salt and the crash of gunpowder and the crack of canvas under strain.