‘Really?’
‘You’re Rey Michaels’ lad …’
‘I’m his nephew, yes …’
‘Well, of course …’
‘Yes, well …’
‘Excuse me …’
He takes me to the other side of the bar and through a door into the back office. We sit down at his desk. He offers me a whisky, good Scottish stuff, cool as you like. I want to tell him that his actions are just like actions in films I’ve seen — the way he slouches in his chair and pulls the bottle of whisky from a drawer underneath his desk — but I don’t, instead I nod and watch him pour my drink. He hands it to me and I slouch back in my own chair just like him. The whisky burns the back of my throat, it starts a beautiful fire inside me.
‘It was sad … What Rey did … I liked him. He was a private man, kept himself to himself … You know, not that many people came to visit. I knew nothing about him, really, only the things he wanted me to know … I liked that about him, I even admired him for it. There’s so much space in this world, yet most of us feel restricted, like there’s no scope for another perspective, trapped in the moment, one to the next … With Rey, it didn’t seem like that, not to me, it seemed like he had all the space he wanted … then, you know, all this … He was a good man, I think, underneath it all …’
‘I never really … We didn’t see much of him, I guess …’
‘Whatever his problems, you know … Whatever was going on inside his head, in his life for him to do that, you know …’
‘I know … It’s hard to imagine …’
‘He would come here … He’d sit in the corner, reading a book, something about the stars and the planets, he was into all that … Sometimes he’d talk into his phone, but not like a conversation with someone, just into his phone, like he was recording his own voice … He had all the new gadgets … I don’t know what he was saying, he’d just speak into it, you know, discreetly. Some people thought it was odd behaviour, but I didn’t. I liked it, it kept people in here on their toes, they thought he was talking about them, keeping an eye on them or something, but he wasn’t … but what were they to know, eh? If he wasn’t doing that, he would sit there reading his books, he was always doing that, obsessed with the stars, he was. He has a huge telescope at his caravan they say, did you ever see it?’
‘I can’t remember ever having … maybe this is a new thing … I haven’t seen him in such a long time.’
‘…’
‘…’
‘Here … These are the keys … I own the site he lived on, so I have spares.’
‘Oh, thanks …’
‘Do you know where it is?’
‘I’ll find it.’
‘Number 27 … The address is on the key ring. It’s not far … Give me a call if you have any problems.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
‘Right, I’ll get back to that lot outside.’
‘Yes.’
I walk back into the bar after Mr Buchanan, leaving him to serve the man in the Dr Feelgood T-shirt another drink. Before I leave I buy four bottles of strong cider. I figure I’ll need more to drink once I’m inside Uncle Rey’s caravan. The barmaid looks at me pitifully as I hand her the money. I shake my head when she offers me the change. I thank her and walk to the door; just as I step out into the cold air, the smell of iodine and salt in my face, I hear Mr Buchanan wish me luck from behind the bar. I turn round to thank him, but it’s too late, the door has already shut behind me.
caravan 27
At least it’s stopped raining now. I walk up the grass verge and along the sea wall, with the jetty on my right, in the direction of Thorney Bay. The wind seems warmer walking this way, blowing in from the estuary along the water, up past me, following the oil tankers and container ships as they plod towards Tilbury in the opposite direction. I stop just before I reach the caravan site to watch a large container ship pass by. It takes about ten minutes. The whole of the estuary and its immediate surroundings must be reverberating with me. I wonder what all the fish must make of it? It must affect them, such a tremendous force echoing through the water and the earth below it, all the way down, shaking everything in its wake: my feet, the sea wall, the Lobster Smack, Mr Buchanan, the caravans, the entire island.
The caravan site is surrounded by a perimeter fence topped with huge, ugly rolls of barbed wire, running its entire length. It looks like a prison yard. The early evening light doesn’t help, and the lack of sufficient street lamps only heightens the all-round miserable mood of the place. I walk down from the sea wall and all the way around it to the main entrance. At first I want to turn back, but then I think of Uncle Rey: what he did, what I have come here to do. So I continue towards the main gate where I can see a small wooden hut with a light on. There’s a shoddy-looking sign on its door: ‘SITE OFFICE’. A man is sitting inside reading a crinkled copy of the Sun. He’s young, younger than me by a mile, but his face seems old: his eyes look like two oyster shells, and his skin is tough-looking, battered and bruised, weathered in all seasons like a fisherman’s. He looks up at me. His face is expressionless; all manner of emotions could be pouring through him for all I know.
‘Mr Buchanan’s just phoned. Number 27 is just over there, back towards the sea wall. It faces the wall. The generator is on, you’ll be pleased to know, but you’ll have to pay the ten-pound fee, of course. We’re running it, you see, so that you can use the caravan in comfort.’
‘Thanks, here.’
I pay him the money and leave him to his newspaper, walking out of his office without saying anything else. I can hear him shout something to me, something about ‘contacting’ him ‘should there be any problems’. I shake my head. Why do people always say these things? I make a decision not to use the main gate, if I don’t have to, again. I wave my hand, hoping that he might see this and read it as some kind of acknowledgement. I leave it at that.
It takes me longer to find Uncle Rey’s caravan than I expected it to. They all look the same, for a start. This, coupled with the fact that many of them aren’t actually numbered, making it difficult to determine the layout of the site. In fact, I stumble on Uncle Rey’s caravan by accident, just as I’m about to break my word and walk back to the small hut at the main entrance. It’s a sorry-looking thing and I half wonder how Uncle Rey managed to live in it for so long, pretty much the majority of his adult life. But he had, seemingly choosing this God-awful place deliberately, as if to ridicule himself, or persecute himself, even: a constant reminder to him that his life was meaningless.
Looking at caravan 27, it makes perfect sense to me: just the way it looks, the way it feels, how it sits there, all dishevelled and broken-looking. Though I didn’t expect it to have been painted dark green, thick with brushstrokes like an oil-painting. Nor did I expect it to have its own fenced-off, scruffy garden area, complete with garden shed. A big shed, too, like a workshop: the sort of shed media types have built in their gardens. It looks incongruous next to the brutal barbed wire on the perimeter fence and sea walclass="underline" a proper den of solitude and tranquillity, a man’s castle, where he can retire, sheltered away from the world in peace. I can see Uncle Rey right here, before I even open the door. I can see him pottering about, sitting in his shed, watching the sun set behind the sea wall, looking out through the barbed wire. It feels really odd.
The door has seen better days. I could force it open without the key if I want to, but I don’t. The first thing that hits me is the stench: a musty, earthy smell that seems alive, like something is growing inside. Which is odd, as it’s a place of death: Uncle Rey’s suicide. I run inside holding my nose and open all the windows, leaving the door open, too, hoping the cold sea air will start to clear through it all, eventually expelling whatever it is that’s causing the smell. I stand in the middle of the room, holding my breath, taking it all in: the complete and utter mess. Ordered chaos reigns supreme: tapes, records, books, newspapers, videos, DVDs, radio equipment, magazines, stacked in every available space, huge towers of information, which look like they might topple over if I move. My first thought is: I’m going to fucking kill Cal. Followed by: It’s much bigger than I thought. And it is; it’s a huge caravan. I exhale slowly. The living area is huge; offset from it is a kitchenette; and beyond that there is the bathroom and master bedroom. I’m surprised, I thought it was going to be dingy, way too small for me, but it’s actually big, bigger than my poky flat in Islington even. At least it seems like it is. The living space and the bedroom certainly are.