hear it on the wall.’
‘I’m coming up.’
‘Go to the steps!’ I shouted.
The indistinct forms of swans bobbed against the dark water. I felt the cold brick of the wall press against my chest. A bell struck twelve in the almshouses, followed shortly afterwards by the
bell from St Alfridges over in Greenwich. The two were always slightly out of synch.
‘The tide’s too far up. I’m climbing back up the chain.’
‘That’s mad. The wall’s too high! You won’t make it. Go to the steps!’
I heard the chain creak and clank against the wall as Seb clutched the vast iron links down below. I stretched my arm out into the abyss. Could feel the beat of my heart against the cold of the
wall, the frozen ring of steel under my hand. At last I felt hair, Seb’s warm head. My hand moved instinctively across it, cupping the perfectly shaped top of his skull. I caught his hand,
pulled him back up and over.
‘Fuck that,’ he said. ‘I’d like to follow them but we’ll have to wait till it’s warmer. We can nick a boat. Or we’ll build a raft. Follow the swans
upstream to Jacob’s Island. Wherever it is they go. Hide out there.’
‘It’s dangerous, Seb.’
‘Or over there, to the Isle of Dogs.’
The dark side of the river was a forbidden zone, where the black windows of grim warehouses stared across the water, and chimneys belched toxic fumes into the contaminated night sky. Dry docks
and crumbling landing stages hid who knew what diseases and fetid rubbish. I’d been warned not to wander onto the other side. Not to go into the foot tunnel alone, that the Isle of Dogs was
dangerous. Not to ever try and row over there either. When the tide turned, the incoming water met the outgoing: the two tussled and produced currents that were unpredictable and lethal.
Seb said they couldn’t stop us. They were always trying to stop me doing this, doing that. They were always telling me I was too young. He told me they treated my spirit the way ancient
Chinese people treated a girl’s foot. Squashing it into a shape that was too small so it would never grow or develop naturally.
‘You and me we know the river, we can deal with it,’ he said. ‘And as soon as it’s warm enough we’re building a raft and rowing away and no one will stop
us.’
And Seb’s plan sat in my heart, as Jez does now, a warm secret, like a cygnet curled into a hidden place under a wing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tuesday
Sonia
I’m on the 386 to my mother’s. It’s one of those days when the whole of London’s being dug up to have drains restored or cables put in or burst pipes
replaced. The city’s bowels are being dragged into the open, its entrails exposed. There’s a whole world down there under the pavements and tarmac, not just the tube system, but warrens
carrying electricity and gas and water all over the city, and sewers and tunnels and cellars and basements and drains. Whole chambers and underground rivers. Rats too, and worms and things called
cave spiders. Bones and blood and rotting corpses. Most of London’s plague victims lie under the turf of Blackheath. The land here is riddled with bones. What we see as we go about our
everyday business on the surface is just the fragile tip of a vast graveyard.
This morning there are roadworks everywhere and the traffic crawls along. I think about getting off at the next stop and taking a short cut across the park but just as I get up to do so, the bus
jerks into motion. A veil of rain sweeps over the trees in Greenwich park, beyond the white colonnades of the Queen’s House, and I can see Seb and me running up the hill, up through the rain
in the empty afternoon, laughing at the shared thrill of being chased. Who were we running from?
We were looking for the small red-brick house that sat mysteriously locked at all times, incarcerated in its own little barrier of iron railings. A cold rain spat into our faces as we ran,
releasing a scent of soil and dead leaf. Seb
‘I’m coming up.’
‘Go to the steps!’ I shouted.
The indistinct forms of swans bobbed against the dark water. I felt the cold brick of the wall press against my chest. A bell struck twelve in the almshouses, followed shortly afterwards by the
bell from St Alfridges over in Greenwich. The two were always slightly out of synch.
‘The tide’s too far up. I’m climbing back up the chain.’
‘That’s mad. The wall’s too high! You won’t make it. Go to the steps!’
I heard the chain creak and clank against the wall as Seb clutched the vast iron links down below. I stretched my arm out into the abyss. Could feel the beat of my heart against the cold of the
wall, the frozen ring of steel under my hand. At last I felt hair, Seb’s warm head. My hand moved instinctively across it, cupping the perfectly shaped top of his skull. I caught his hand,
pulled him back up and over.
‘Fuck that,’ he said. ‘I’d like to follow them but we’ll have to wait till it’s warmer. We can nick a boat. Or we’ll build a raft. Follow the swans
upstream to Jacob’s Island. Wherever it is they go. Hide out there.’
‘It’s dangerous, Seb.’
‘Or over there, to the Isle of Dogs.’
The dark side of the river was a forbidden zone, where the black windows of grim warehouses stared across the water, and chimneys belched toxic fumes into the contaminated night sky. Dry docks
and crumbling landing stages hid who knew what diseases and fetid rubbish. I’d been warned not to wander onto the other side. Not to go into the foot tunnel alone, that the Isle of Dogs was
dangerous. Not to ever try and row over there either. When the tide turned, the incoming water met the outgoing: the two tussled and produced currents that were unpredictable and lethal.
Seb said they couldn’t stop us. They were always trying to stop me doing this, doing that. They were always telling me I was too young. He told me they treated my spirit the way ancient
Chinese people treated a girl’s foot. Squashing it into a shape that was too small so it would never grow or develop naturally.
‘You and me we know the river, we can deal with it,’ he said. ‘And as soon as it’s warm enough we’re building a raft and rowing away and no one will stop
us.’
And Seb’s plan sat in my heart, as Jez does now, a warm secret, like a cygnet curled into a hidden place under a wing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tuesday
Sonia
I’m on the 386 to my mother’s. It’s one of those days when the whole of London’s being dug up to have drains restored or cables put in or burst pipes
replaced. The city’s bowels are being dragged into the open, its entrails exposed. There’s a whole world down there under the pavements and tarmac, not just the tube system, but warrens
carrying electricity and gas and water all over the city, and sewers and tunnels and cellars and basements and drains. Whole chambers and underground rivers. Rats too, and worms and things called
cave spiders. Bones and blood and rotting corpses. Most of London’s plague victims lie under the turf of Blackheath. The land here is riddled with bones. What we see as we go about our
everyday business on the surface is just the fragile tip of a vast graveyard.
This morning there are roadworks everywhere and the traffic crawls along. I think about getting off at the next stop and taking a short cut across the park but just as I get up to do so, the bus
jerks into motion. A veil of rain sweeps over the trees in Greenwich park, beyond the white colonnades of the Queen’s House, and I can see Seb and me running up the hill, up through the rain
in the empty afternoon, laughing at the shared thrill of being chased. Who were we running from?
We were looking for the small red-brick house that sat mysteriously locked at all times, incarcerated in its own little barrier of iron railings. A cold rain spat into our faces as we ran,
releasing a scent of soil and dead leaf. Seb
Similar Books
