I waited for her. I knew that she would eventually appear; I was completely and utterly sure of it. I started to whistle. I forget what song it was that I actually began to whistle but it was something popular and melodic. I didn’t care who could hear or see me standing there, whistling as loudly as I possibly could. Eventually two coots passed me by, both looking at me. I crouched down towards them both, stepping forwards to the edge of the canal. The water around them was filthy. I could smell it. The stench enveloped me. I have never smelt anything quite like it since. It was a seriously disgusting smell, like something was decaying. Like the whole canal was dead. The two coots soon became bored with me when they realised I had no food and they paddled away. I stopped whistling. I watched the two coots, their large feet hidden beneath the sickening slurry. For the first time in my life, at that exact moment, crouched down by the canal, I realised that things — stuff, matter, everything — was absolutely pointless. Everything should be left alone. Nothing should be touched. Because even the dredgers were powerless to halt such unremitting decay.
three
It began to rain. A light, greasy drizzle. It didn’t bother me. I was waiting for her. Suddenly, I heard a strange noise: shouting, instructions, and machinery. It came from the direction of the lock at Wenlock Basin. Pretty soon I saw it: a dredger. It was heading my way. A medium-sized, three-man contraption. I began to laugh. At the same time I wanted to shout out, “Too late! Too late! Turn back! Turn back!” But I didn’t. I wanted to avoid any kind of scene. So I allowed the dredger and its team to slowly, achingly move towards me.
They were cleaning up the silt and sludge, the thick mud from the murky depths of the canal. Anything else they retrieved up from the bottom must have felt like a bonus compared to the shit-coloured mess they sucked up. If anything was found, a portable TV, a mobile phone, or an old boot for instance, one of the three operators would holler at the other two in excitement, each of them helping him to drag the item into their cabin. I looked at the slurry that was being sucked up from the canal. I wanted them to leave it where it was. After longing for the dredger to turn up all this time, I simply wanted it to turn around and go away. They were changing things, disturbing everything. I wanted to tell them that nothing needed to be changed. To leave it there to fester at the bottom of the canal.
I watched as they reached the rusting iron bridge, finding the submerged scooter with no trouble at all. They attached the small on-board crane to it, and the mechanised arm lifted the scooter out from the murky water with considerable ease, separating it from the mud and shit and discarded plastic bags clinging to its handlebars and wheels. It looked like a monster from the deep, like it was about to come back to life and terrorise us all. The dredger team lifted it onto their barge and looked it over, pleased with their find, hoping that it could somehow be salvaged.
I stood by the wall, where the bench used to be. I watched the dredger. It was called The Ducketts. I had no idea what that meant, but I liked the name nonetheless. I wasn’t aware, until that moment, that dredgers had official names, much like a train or a civil aircraft. It had a blue cabin at the far end, with a large lowered deck for the retrieval of debris, its outer rim flat so the operators could walk around it. At the opposite end to the blue cabin was the crane that was used to lift heavier things that had become embedded in the slutch up and out of the water. The dredger was near-filled to capacity, and I remember thinking that it was a real feat of engineering that such an awkward looking piece of machinery could actually float.
I had been waiting for this pathetic moment since I first walked away to my bench, and even though the dredger had finally appeared I still didn’t feel that everything I wanted — the cleaning of the muck and slutch and filth around me — would ever happen. Nothing appeared. All this waiting. Nothing but here. Endless here.
four
Again, I put my head up to the wall to look down along it, to follow its line, this time with my left eye, towards Hackney. That’s how I saw her appear, walking towards me. She was looking up at the sheer size of the wall, looking up at it as she walked along. Slowly. She seemed in a trance, enveloped in a thick miasma. It was as if she was expecting every minute detail of the new structure, every workman’s nail, every angle and board. I watched her all the way, my head resting on the cold wood, all the way to me — or where the bench, our bench used to be. She traced her fingertips along the smooth surface of the wood. She was still caressing it when she finally stopped beside me.
“It’s all gone then …?”
She uttered these words quietly. I knew instantly what it was she actually meant. Our space had shifted. We felt uncomfortable. Awkward and mawkish. We felt exposed. Revealed. I drew my eyes up to look at her fully, lifting my head back off the wall. I felt embarrassed. I answered her.
“They’ve put it up because of us …”
She ignored me, staring up at the wall; then turning to look over to the whitewashed office block … before eventually turning back to me.
“This is no good.”
“What? Here?”
“Yes. Here. It’s no good anymore.”
“Well, shall we go and get something to eat? I know a café not far from here.”
“Yes. I know you do. Okay then.”
“Pardon?”
“The café.”
I was quietly surprised by her answer. My legs felt like lead. I tried to say something to her. I tried to say, “I’ve been waiting for this …” But I somehow couldn’t form the correct movements and positions with my mouth, it opened, but simply wouldn’t do anything. Nothing seemed to work. Eventually I managed to mutter, “Yes.”
So we walked along the towpath. Towards Islington. Towards the Café. The Rheidol Rooms. I felt like an automaton walking along with her. I remember gliding along like I was a machine on autopilot. Like it had all been preprogrammed pre-route.
five
As we walked along the towpath a gaggle of Canada geese joined us, paddling alongside at exactly the same pace, their heads bobbing back and forth in motion. There were seven in total. I counted each one to make sure. Then I noticed that one of them wasn’t a Canada goose at all; it was a smaller, stockier breed, sporting a bright orange bill. She, or he, looked happy, not caring about being different, not bothering about its individuality, happily paddling along. They continued alongside us until we reached Wenlock Basin, where they turned left, away from us, towards a group of people eating sandwiches by a bench below the expensive flats on the other side of the basin.
We walked in silence. I was thinking about the wall, about what they were building on this side of the basin: more expensive flats. People would be marginalised, people would be removed, those who couldn’t afford to stay. It didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem right. All of a sudden it hit me: it felt odd, slightly disingenuous even, that she would join me for some lunch, something that she had vehemently resisted doing with me so many times before.