The Canal (19 page)

The first time I ran away from home—after some trivial argument with my brother about football or something—I ran all the way to the canal, eastwards, towards Broadway Market. By a bridge, I found some scrubland that was bordered by a red brick wall at one end. The wall was quite old. It had probably stood there for over one hundred years or more before I finally reached it that day. It stood at the farthest end from the canal. Behind it was a derelict print works that was being used as a scrap yard. I ran through the long grass towards the wall and sat there beneath it with the moss and the damp, breathing heavily, determined never to go back home, before I spotted the old front door that had been dumped there in the long grass. It was still quite solid, having apparently not been exposed for that long to the elements, so I lifted it up and leant the door horizontally against the decaying red brickwork. I thought nothing of disturbing the newly-formed ecosystem in the process and relished my new impromptu den. I climbed inside. It
soon began to rain; I was completely protected from the elements. I felt warm; safe. I must have fallen asleep, because I awoke to voices: two men on the other side of the wall. I can remember what the two men were talking about: they were talking about a woman. I presumed she was the wife, or girlfriend of one of the men.

Man A
: She just took off.

Man B
: When?

Man A
: Last night. With him.

Man B
: Why?

Man A
: Said she was fucking bored.

Man B
:
Bored
?

Man A
: Yeah.
Fucking bored
.

Man B
: With what?

Man A
: With me!

Man B
: With you?

Man A
: Yeah.
With me
.

Man B
:
Fuck
. That’s shit.

Man A
: I know. I want to fucking
kill
her.

I wet myself, I think. I was terrified. My damp trousers biting into my shivering thighs, my skin reacting, tightening, feeding my burgeoning paroxysms of fear. I closed my eyes until they both walked away. Whoever they were, however normal they were, or psychopathic, I didn’t want to see them, or them to see me. It was the wall that saved me from them. It was the decaying, one-hundred-year-old, red brick wall that separated me from them. It no longer exists.

That night I walked home in the dark. I walked into my parents’ house, trying to act as if everything was okay. I was happy when my parents’ combined anger subsided into waves of relief and comfort. After my father had lectured me my mother took me aside. We walked into the kitchen, away from my father and my brother—who seemed to have found the whole episode highly amusing—and the rest of
the house. We stood by the kitchen sink, it was still full of unwashed dishes. My mother began to wash a plate under a tap. She didn’t say that much, and most of it I find difficult to remember, but I do remember one thing, and it has left a mark in me, she said: “
There’s no point in running away. Never run away, all you find is yourself. There’s nothing else to find
.” I didn’t understand her then, all those years ago, and it’s hard for me to understand those words even now—but I think I might. I think she might have meant no matter where we hide, no matter into which hole we choose to burrow, we have to make room for the shadow that always accompanies us—wherever it is we go—revealing to us our true nature: the sheer, undeniable weight of it all. The beauty of it being this: weight isn’t distinguishable by some thing. There is no
thing
. It is weight, the paradox being that it—the weight that envelops us—somehow calms us.

At least I think that’s what she meant. I should have listened to my mother.

The voices above us on the rusting iron bridge became louder, more excitable and energetic. Something was happening up there. They were doing something. At first, they presented themselves, the collective voices, as a continuing, muffled voice, a collective voice that could not be understood, a rising noise of undecipherable syllables and accents, a slight rumpus of varying octaves. Yet, the more intently I listened, each voice began to separate itself from the other, the once homogenous mass of amusement began to filter through, as if I had finally cracked some form of verbal cipher, and I began to pick out and select certain words, each too arbitrary to fit into any context.

“___________________There_____________”

“_____Now___________________”

“___________________Again___”

“__Let____”

“___________________No_”

“________Aim___________________”

“______________Up___________________”

“____Do___________________”

“___________________Missed________________”

It was difficult to understand what was happening up above us. I imagined the redheaded youth to be orchestrating the whole thing—he was leading whatever it was they were doing up there. I wanted them to go away, to leave me alone. I wanted to expel them from my life, or for them to become bored with whatever it was they were doing and walk elsewhere and do something else in the rain, away from me, away from the canal—away from us. But something was occupying them, something had rooted them to that spot above us, something exciting, something that passed the time for them. Whatever it was they were doing.

Their voices began to filter down below the bridge, reverberating between us, within its shelter. I began to detect the beginnings of short, vigorous sentences, followed by little bursts of verbalised anticipation.

“______________There! It’s there!___________________”

“___Do it now, again!___________”

“___You missed!___________________”

“_Up a bit! There! Again, do it again!______”

“_________Let me have a go!________”

“_________Just hit it!___________________”

“________Come on! Give me a go!___________________”

“____No. It’s my turn!_____”

“_________I’ll get the fucker!___ _______”

“____I’ll get it!___________”

“__________Shoot it! There! Shoot it!______________”

“____You’re wasting shots!___________________”

“_____________Give it here!__________”

At first, it sounded like someone being slapped on the back quite playfully. Then it happened again. And then again.

The fourth time that it happened I noticed something dart down into the murky water by my right. At first I thought it was some sort of bird, but it wasn’t. It had travelled at an incredible speed, as when I turned to look where it had entered the canal there was no sign of it. I scanned the water’s surface for any other signs. It seemed as if whatever it was must have entered quite close to the two swans, who were sheltering on the other bank from the rain. As this was happening, the sound of a low-flying helicopter suddenly rumbled, somewhere above, the sound of its rotor blades cutting through the dismal, rain-soaked atmosphere. The sound was quite deafening. It must have been the ambulance service cutting across the city to some accident. It definitely wasn’t the police helicopter as that could be detected by a slower, deeper sound. As loud as the helicopter was above me I was still unable to detect where it was heading to. It soon passed us by. Then, all I could hear was the rain again. I checked the swans: they seemed quite unperturbed, as if nothing was really happening. Their mechanisms and cognitive motors had obviously retired for the afternoon. Then, as I was thinking this, another thing darted into the water at a ferocious speed and angle. This time the big male swan inched nearer to the bank, noticing too that something odd, and possibly dangerous, had happened. Then, all of the voices became unbearably clear.

“Come on! You can do better than that, man!”

“That was fucking close, innit!”

“I can hit it! I can hit it!”

“Give the thing to me, innit!”

I turned back to her, putting my right index finger to my lips. She narrowed her eyes at me, a little nonplussed if anything. I pointed up to the bridge and then over to the swans. She yawned and looked at her wristwatch for what seemed like the umpteenth time; eventually she shrugged her shoulders again. This time I began to point more vigorously at the two swans, but still she seemed lost in a world of her own thinking. I walked up to her and whispered in her ear.

“They’re trying to shoot the swans …”

At first she ignored me, but then she suddenly turned to look at the swans: nothing was happening, the same rain pouring down, around them into the now quite choppy, murky water. She turned to me, her eyes widening, and stared as if to ask me what the hell I was implying. As she did this I saw over her shoulder another thing dart into the water and this time, for reasons beyond my comprehension, I could actually see what it was, as if I had suddenly possessed the power to slow things down, following its full trajectory into the canal, inches to the left of the male swan: it was an arrow, a short, stubby arrow, like the kind used for crossbows. They, the four youths who had attacked me—The Pack Crew—were shooting arrows at the two swans. They were shooting the swans! I charged out onto the sodden towpath and looked up at the bridge—all I could see was the dark metallic crossbow, resting on the iron railing, aimed downwards, diagonally across the canal towards the swans.

“Now! Pull the fucking trigger, man, innit!”

That was all I heard. I followed the arrow down as it shot towards the large male cob, followed its forty-five degree trajectory down, its sharp point heading directly for its target, twirling around in its perfect balance between
weight and flight. Behind the arrow stood its launching point, the rusting iron bridge, offsetting it at an obtuse angle, the whole situ a discordance of geometry: nothing matched, nothing looked to be in place or how it should have looked. Everything seemed to be unfolding, tearing away from fixed points, as the short, stumpy arrow twirled, darting through the atmosphere, its kinetic energy heightened by the gravitational force pulling it down towards the swan’s neck, where it hit the flesh violently. A sudden blow. Jamming halfway through its neck, just below its head.

For a moment there was nothing, absolute nothing. Silence. Everything seemed paralysed. Everything was unmoving and dead.

Then the swan erupted into a fit of agony, thrashing about hysterically, its enormous, full wingspan arched and flapping, its long neck flailing, bending and twisting to and fro, trying to remove itself from the pain. It suddenly tipped onto its left side, its whole head and neck submerged into the canal, hammering and wriggling like an eel out of water, helplessly trying to dislodge the arrow from its neck, hitting it, over and over again, upon the water’s choppy surface. Then it began to spin around, frantically, like a canoe continually capsizing. Its mate was looking on helplessly, almost motionless except for a series of uneasy movements that consisted of straining her neck out towards him a couple of times, like she was in disbelief, stupefied by the manic scene that was unfolding before her. At one point the swan completely capsized, so it was upside down in the water, unable to regain itself. Blood was visible, covering the swan like bright paint, cartoon-like paint that didn’t seem real.

It was the gaggle of Canada geese that had been paddling themselves up along the canal towards the bridge that made all the noise: a sonorous cacophony that seemed to overtake
everything, each of the geese acting, as it were, as if it was each of them that had been hit by the stumpy arrow. The coots and the moorhens stayed far away, hardly recognising that something was fundamentally wrong. Least surprising of all were the assembled occupants of the whitewashed office block: not one solitary face peered from the line of looming windows, everyone inside completely unaware and utterly engrossed with whatever it was on their snazzy flat-screen monitors: emailing, checking spreadsheets, figures, project plans or on their phones talking about more figures, spreadsheets, emails, project plans, et cetera.

I didn’t notice her rush past me; I was too transfixed by the violent spectacle happening before me. But then she entered the picture, standing on the bank, teetering over, reaching out to the flailing swan.

Before she jumped into the canal, she turned to cast a fleeting look at me. I cannot erase that look from my mind. But how many times have I said that? How many times have I commented on how she looked at me? All I know is that she looked at me and if I knew then what I know now I would have stopped her. I would have dragged her away from the canal, from everything. I would have stopped her.

She moved clumsily, awkwardly, like some weight had glued her to the spot, pulling her towards the canal bed, rendering any fluidity of movement an impossibility. She waded, messily, over to the dead swan. Reaching it, she made a final lunge, stretching with both arms out to grasp it, falling into the water, before resurfacing to hold it, the whole swan in its entirety, breast to breast. Then, struggling as before, she waded back with the swan, labouring to keep it out, above the water, back to where I was standing. She carried the swan in complete silence, steadfastly refusing to allow its limp neck and head to drag and loll through the
water, straining and overly arching her back to lift it those crucial few millimetres above the choppy surface.

I shouted something to her. I cannot recall what it was, but it must have attracted her attention as she momentarily looked up at me again, just the once, to gauge her distance, as she made her way, slowly, back towards me on the towpath. The rain continued to bounce off her, sheets of it cutting into the murky water all about, trickling down the fattened breast of the swan. She proceeded with a blank stare, as if she was up to something ordinary, something she did every other day. It wasn’t a cold look, as such, or without any emotion, yet it left me wondering if she was acting on sheer impulse rather than an intrinsic need to save the swan—but, as I’ve always thought, aren’t all potentially life-saving decisions made on a whim, without caution, and therefore wholly mechanised?