Tin Man(14)
He brought a radio out to the garden and kept the volume low. He clipped away at the brambles inches at a time and collected the cuttings in an old compost bag as he went along. Jamie leant across the fence and asked if he needed any help. Ellis thanked him and said no, but later Jamie brought him out a mug of strong tea and a plate of biscuits, and he crept under the fence and sat on the bench with him and they talked about rugby.
The stiffness in his wrist and elbow stopped him putting in a full day’s work and come the afternoon he walked what he called the tourist trail into town. Over The Plain and Magdalen Bridge, he cut through Rose Lane into the meadows and smoked a cigarette leaning against a storm-felled tree. Students jogged by and tourists dreamt, and as he got closer to the Thames, he had a sudden desire to be on the other side.
He crossed Folly Bridge, and the University boathouses shone golden in the last rays of the afternoon. The London train departing in the distance, geese, the slap of oars against water. These were timeless, familiar sounds to him.
He was drawn inexorably to the dark shadow of undergrowth that was once Long Bridges bathing place, his and Michael’s place, an ownership that extended well into adulthood. It had been closed these last years and he was surprised how quickly nature had advanced. Still attached to the concrete sides were the steps leading into the water but at the back the toilets were now roofless and filled with rubbish. It was hard to imagine they’d once called this place The Beach, but they had.
That first summer of their friendship, when the temperature nudged above seventy, they cycled down and squeezed themselves in between bodies on the grass. They sunbathed with arms behind their heads, and cooled off in the Thames’ seductive flow. He remembered how Michael had bragged that he could swim, but he couldn’t. He said that he’d read everything about swimming, firmly believing he could trip across words, like stepping stones, to the bank of experience. But he couldn’t. It would take another summer before Michael would learn to swim. But he floated, though. Face down in the river with his arms and legs out wide, and people watched, and sometimes their laughter turned to panic when they saw little sign of movement. Dead-Man’s Float, he called it: a survival position after a long exhausting journey.
And when the afternoon set down its long shadows, back on their bikes they got, still wet, still dopey, and with shirt-tails flapping, they dried out on the saddle in the breeze back to Mabel’s. Summer’s end they were sinewy and brown, and took up a little more space. Summer’s end, they were inseparable.
Ellis looked up. Geese had taken flight towards Iffley and he watched their formation until they disappeared behind the trees. Dusk was creeping up fast and the ponds had turned black and the lowering sun gave way to a deceptive chill. He did up his jacket, stamped back across the damp grass to the bridge and towpath. At the dark edges, puddles shimmered as if starting to freeze and the flues from canal boats smoked generously. Up ahead, rock music blared out from the upper room of a boathouse. A solitary young man on a rowing machine kept stroke to the beat of the music. He was shirtless, his muscles distinct in the artificial light. Ellis stopped. He felt Michael’s presence next to him, could almost smell him, the pronounced vagaries of longing. And he wanted to talk to him about the years they were apart because he hadn’t during the months when he returned. Or those moments from youth, when they raced back to an empty room and nervously explored the other’s body in a pact of undefined togetherness that would later bring him equal shame, equal joy. And those nine eventful days in France and the plans they made then – he’d let them go without acknowledgement, as if they’d never existed, or never been important to him and he never understood why. He had tried to talk to Annie once. She had asked him why he was so angry. She asked him things women ask men, things he wasn’t able to talk about and he didn’t know how to explain, not his confusion nor his discomfort. But he remembered her eyes were soft and open to him and they said, you can tell me anything, and he could have, he knew that even then. But he didn’t. And now here he was, gazing at Beauty Rowing in the Darkness, as dog walkers passed by and students mistook his gaze for desire. All of it was important, he wanted to say. You were important to me, he wanted to say.
They used to come along here as men, often just the two of them. Annie said they needed time together, she always tried to give them time, especially after they were married. She was the one who sensed things had changed, the one who knew Michael was keeping secrets from them. When did you last see him? she’d ask. About three weeks ago, he’d say.
Jesus, Ell, you’ve got to do better with people.
He remembered how Michael and he walked the towpath to the ponds one particular day, and when they got there, they both agreed so much had changed. It was only March, but there was a quiet desolation to the place. Opportunistic flashers came down there now to wank. That’s what Michael said, his grin-sneer lighting up his face. Ellis, however, remembered the desolation more a reflection of their mood.
That was when Michael told him he was leaving Oxford. Ellis said, When? And Michael said, Soon. And he said, Where are you going? And Michael said, Not far. Just London. But you’ll come back? Of course I will, said Michael. Every weekend. How could I not?
And he did come back. Every weekend. Until Mabel died, and then he didn’t. He disappeared into the millions of others who walked those crowded London streets, and Ellis never knew why. He and Annie had an address, at first, somewhere in Soho. But no matter what they sent out the bird came back with nothing between its beak.