I didn’t know what to do so I asked her.
“Are you hungry?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Why?”
“Would you like to come for a coffee and a bite to eat with me? … I know a café just up the road from here … The Rheidol Café.”
“No.”
“Oh … Are you sure? You look like you …”
“Yes. I’m sure”
“Okay.”
She didn’t look up at me once. She stared steadfastly ahead towards the flat-screen monitors. I felt stupid. I tried to get up from the bench — but I couldn’t. I was rooted to the spot. I felt small and quite insignificant. She suddenly turned to me.
“But, please, don’t take this personally. I just don’t feel like drinking coffee, or eating, or anything. That’s all. I’d much rather remain here.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you sit here?”
“…”
“I said, why do you come to this bench each day? I told you why I did. You should tell me. It’s only polite.”
“…”
“Are you not going to tell me?”
“…”
“Are you not?”
“…”
She remained silent. I should have gotten up from that bench there and then, maybe walked back to work — but I didn’t. I simply stayed with her. It felt right. Staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. Pretty soon a swan appeared. It was probably the same one I’d noticed earlier — a magnificent creature. Beautiful in every way: so clean, so poised, stoic and aristocratic in movement. It was easily the biggest swan I had ever seen — not that I’d seen that many in my lifetime. I remember wondering why it had chosen to reside on the canal. Surely there were better places in London? Why hadn’t it found itself an idyll in Kensington? Or in the suburbs? Why this grotty, uncared-for, stinking canal? It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. She seemed not to notice the swan; she seemed in a trance, completely elsewhere. I didn’t want to disturb her but I felt compelled to tell her. I couldn’t help myself. I should have left her alone.
“Have you seen him?”
“Who?”
“The swan … There?”
“How do you know it’s a he?”
“He’s big. It’s got to be a he.”
“Well, he … she … whatever … is beautiful. Truly, truly beautiful.”
We didn’t need to say anything else. The late afternoon sun was beginning to settle. I was aware that it was probably time to go, no matter how much I wanted to stay. I wondered who came here at night. There must have been those that did? The owners of the barges lived on the other side of the canal to the right of the whitewashed office block, beyond the iron bridge. They lived private lives in a secluded enclave of lone barge owners with their own rules and etiquette. They were probably happy. I wondered if she was happy. She didn’t look happy. I wondered where she went at night, whom she slept next to, whom she trusted. Did she feel safe? Did the world smother her? I wanted to know.
It seems that boredom is not really that removed from desire. It seems that they are, in fact, the same urge more or less: the urge to do something. It seems that the same common denominator underpins them: existence. And existence is essentially prolonged boredom. Desire is boredom. These urges remain with us even when the body begins to deteriorate. When the body is past its best these urges still seem to remain. They remain until the last breath. We are driven by urges we can’t really explain. None of it can be explained. This, it seems to me at least, is the sheer beauty of boredom, and, more importantly, existence: It is all-powerful, more powerful than anything we can imagine.
I can’t remember who got up from the bench first, but it was probably me. We didn’t say goodbye to each other. I don’t even think we looked at each other. We seemed to go, to move away from the bench, the canal, each other. I didn’t like the idea of being on the canal at night. I had a sudden, horrible foreboding that something sinister could happen — and if it was going to happen, then it would probably happen there, when the light starts to fade, by the banks of the canal, as night began to emerge. I remember walking away, through Shepherdess Walk and up through the estate. The streets seemed to be deserted, just the orange hue of the street lamps hanging over my shoulders to guide me. I looked back — I was positive it was her, walking along behind me. It seemed odd, as she usually headed up the canal towpath towards Hackney; she never ventured into the estate. I immediately turned left onto Arlington Street and stopped. I waited for her. I could hear her footfalls as she approached. I stood out of sight, leaning against a gate to a maisonette, waiting for her to pass on the other side of the road. She didn’t see me. It was definitely her. She stopped to cross the road, looking both ways. I waited until she did and then began to follow her. After a minute or so of following her I realised that she must have known I was following her. It was obvious to me that she could sense my presence. As she got to the corner of Prebend Street she was approached by a group of teenagers. I stopped. It was the same bunch from earlier that day, I’m positive; the same group that had gathered around me on the bench. Even though their hoods were up I knew it was them. It looked like they were asking her for a light. I watched as she threw up her arms, indicating to the gang that she didn’t have the means to light whatever it was they wanted lighting. I hung back. I didn’t want them to see me. That was the last thing I wanted. She began to walk away from them. They started laughing; one of them shouted something to her which caused the rest to fall about laughing even more. I was sure it was the lad with the red hair, but, again, it was hard to distinguish each of them from one another due to their dark clothes and hoods — due to them acting as one homogenous teenage mass. Then they turned and began to walk towards me. I turned on my heels and headed across the estate towards St Peter’s Street and up towards Essex Road. It was a bit out of my way and not the route I necessarily wanted to take but I didn’t want them to see me — surely things would have gotten nasty. They would’ve recognised me, and under the cover of the darkening streets I would have been at their mercy.
nine
It was raining. I momentarily considered not walking to the canal, to my bench, to her. But I did. I couldn’t resist. I had been sitting on my unmade bed all morning, staring out of my window, looking at the multitudinous rooftops of Hackney. I watched the pigeons mostly, as they went about their business only to be distracted by the civil aircraft coasting along up above them. My room sat directly underneath the flight path to Heathrow Airport. I watched the planes pass by my window, up above, in the rain. The grey cloud was a perfect backdrop. A plane seemed to pass by every two minutes or something. I counted something like fifteen Airbus A350-800s and about five or six Airbus A310s. The planes that crashed into both towers in New York were Boeing 767 200 series, wide-body, aircraft. They were big planes. I’m pretty sure none of the Airbus A350-800s were, in fact, Boeing 767s.