The Canal (14 page)

It made me feel like laughing—that those fearful of flying, unaware of this continuous victory, unaware that they are, in fact, part of something spectacular, within something remarkable, were captured everyday in the sky by people like me, if there are any, down below, wishing they were up there, with them.

It felt peculiar wanting to laugh to myself, on my own, my body beginning to shake.

It felt really strange.

For some reason I knew she wasn’t going to appear at the bench that day, but I waited patiently for her anyway, all day long. I sat there and watched the two swans. I watched the male take off and land over and over again. He did this maybe eight or nine times during the course of the day. It was, at times, an impossible-looking procedure, and there were moments—his mate watching too—when I thought that he wasn’t going to make it, and sometimes I felt like the stretch of canal wasn’t long enough for the feat. At about the second take-off I noticed, directly ahead of me, the man in the whitewashed office block watching the swans, too. He was wearing his grey cardigan again, with a bright red tie and white shirt. He was sitting, his chair turned to face the canal, away from his desk, looking directly at the swans. He seemed transfixed. He watched, along with me, as the male swan, again, prepared for take-off.

I was concerned. The dredgers still hadn’t come and I was worried that the swan might injure itself on a discarded beer can, or, distressingly, the dumped scooter lurking underneath the water’s surface, as it raced across the canal, ready to take to the air. The dredgers should have been there long ago. It was getting quite messy out there, things needed to be shifted, to be taken away.

I continued to watch the swan each time it prepared for take-off. Before he finally took to the air he would gracefully float, paddling towards the far end of the whitewashed office block, away to the right of the bench, down the canal, away from me and the man, about thirty metres or so towards Wenlock Basin. There he would turn to face the rusting iron bridge in the distance to my left. Here it would almost look like he was mentally preparing for the feat that awaited him: staring straight ahead, like an athlete readying
himself for the long jump, before slowly beginning to move forwards, quickening his pace, half lifting himself out from the murky water, impressively, with extreme determination, somewhat at odds with his natural stoic self. He must have weighed about fifteen kilos out of the water. He, the cob, was big. I watched as he gained speed, passing directly by me, almost running, his huge, white wings spread out, flapping. The feathers splayed, like an aircraft’s slats and flaps, and then, his feet still frantically running, though almost as if in slow motion, the swan lifted into the air, after passing underneath the rusting iron bridge. Instinctively missing any of the assorted debris in his path. I watched him gain height, tucking in his legs snugly, and bank back towards the bridge and bench, high above, heading west, following the canal. It was a magnificent sight—like watching the Boeing 767-200s bank across the London sky. I felt that something great had been accomplished. I wanted to shout to him, to congratulate him on his feat. It felt like something more important than life or death.

It was an awkward procedure: the three of us—me, the man in the whitewashed office block, and the swan’s mate—watching this beautiful creature lifting itself out of the murky water and up, away from us, into the air. It seemed to take an age, and at one point during take-off, before it eventually became airborne, it looked like it wasn’t going to happen. But it did; I saw it with my own eyes: the swan, its beautiful white wings exercising each muscle at full stretch, arched, flapping, lifting its bulk into the air, slowly, forcibly, with concentration, like its sole being depended on it, a complete dislocation with the earth, with the ground beneath my feet.

I looked over to the whitewashed office block. The man was looking up at the swan, too, and although the swan was now out of my line of vision it was obvious that he
could still see it. The man remained there, his chair facing the canal, looking up at the swan until it disappeared from his own line of vision, then he turned around, wheeling his chair back to his desk to resume his tasks.

I noticed a rather odd mound of twigs and debris, earth and rubbish near to where the swan’s mate was still resting. I figured this mound to be their nest. It was much larger than anything the coots used. A nest of canal detritus. There were no signs of any signets, but there must have been some on the way. I hoped that there were some on the way. A bird of such splendour and monogamy deserves something in return.

I turned my attention back to the air: the swan in flight, the huge whiteness of it, the hulk of it returning to the canal, its fine wings, feathers splayed as it descended back towards the murky water, stalling against the air, returning back, back to its mate, embracing gravity again.

The swan finally landed. I looked over to the whitewashed office block: he was working, head down, still at his desk, staring at some papers, some files. He had forgotten all about the swan, the spectacle. He was back at his desk. Working. He had missed it.

It had felt like an entire age had passed me by since I wrote my letter of resignation. I still didn’t regret it as such, but I wished I had written it better. Its composition was far too rushed, too abrupt, too haughty. It wasn’t really me. I wish I had explained things better. Clearer. I tried to re-write the letter many times one afternoon, but the page remained empty. It was an impossibility to me. It felt like my arm, my right arm—I was writing this letter, or attempting to write
this letter, in longhand, in a spiral notebook—consisted of lead, pure liquid lead running through its veins, filling up its bones instead of marrow. I couldn’t even lift it to the page, I could just about grasp my black Pilot V5 Hi-Techpoint 0.5 pen. That was it. Nothing. No matter how hard I tried to re-write that letter I failed to do so. It was a complete impossibility.

I was unaware of what time it was in the morning; time just seemed to be dragging me along. I was walking to the canal. I couldn’t remember what day it was. It was probably midweek. The light was odd, a mixture of shadow and slanting, piercing shafts of yellow. Rainclouds were forming. Nonetheless, those who were walking to work along the towpath seemed to possess a far more agreeable and upright gait than usual, despite the ominous gathering above. Gone were the bent backs, the downward glances and dishevelled postures. Now there seemed to be direction and purpose to their collective footfalls. Even the cyclists seemed more positively energised, thanking me for moving aside as they trundled by, actually adhering to the suggested
two tings
rule. I walked along, observing the reflections in the murky water, until I heard a helicopter overhead. I looked up to see it hanging there in the distance, above Islington. It was dragging beneath it a huge advertising banner for some airline. I tried to measure the size of the banner by using the façade of a block of flats to my right as a gauge, but it proved to be impossible due to the differing perspectives. I was finally happy with it simply being huge: a huge advertising banner
hovering up high above me. Happy that I was untouched by it, that it wasn’t interfering with me, that it was, simply, distant. Below me, by my feet, I could hear the canal lapping against the concrete bank.

I noticed it immediately and felt crushed. I felt like an insect must feel: its life being squeezed through its exoskeleton underneath the weight of a boot, then consciousness slowly fading down into the dirt and the filth. It was quite hard to fathom what was happening at first glance. All I knew was that the bench was no longer there.

In its place stood a man-made wall, consisting solely of large wooden boards. It stretched as far as I could see, all along the right-hand side of the canal. A lone construction worker was painting it white.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t know where to look. I couldn’t sit on the bench, as the bench had disappeared somewhere behind the wall—if it even existed at all anymore. I looked to where the bench used to be, or where the wall now occupied the space in front of it, towering over me, all eight or nine feet of it. It didn’t make sense to me. I looked for her. I couldn’t see her. There was no sign of her at all. I stood by the wall. I felt stupid. I was highly visible against it. It loomed above me. It made me feel small—something I’m usually not aware of. My right leg began to shake. I didn’t know what to do. I was feeling like a house cat must feel when walking into a recently refurbished home.

I rested the back of my head against the newly painted wall, not really caring if it was still wet. I noticed the workman who was painting it down the far end, towards Islington,
looking at me for a short while before putting his wet roller back up to the wall to continue his laborious chore. He must have momentarily wondered what I was doing there, leaning against his newly painted wall for no apparent reason. I turned fully to my right, putting my right eye to the wall so I could look all the way along it towards Wenlock Basin and the trendy developments there, the Victorian warehouses and Georgian rooftops peeking above the trees of Islington in the distance. It seemed that about four cranes had sprouted up from the earth over night, each assigned to a specific purpose, each lifting and moving things up into place. The murky water was shimmering in the odd light, with dark patches of black cut and spliced into geometric patterns that moved forwards with purpose, mirroring the progress being developed on either side. Buildings that had once dwarfed the surrounding area were soon to be dwarfed themselves by the newer gleaming structures appearing like fungi from any available space. The canal was disappearing, its bridges and towpaths would soon be widened and extended, the towpath would morph into an ‘urban space’, the bridge into a resting point, a platform to view the new lifestyles on show. I hated it all. I really hated it all. And the sad thing, the thing that began to rankle deep within me, was that I was powerless to stop it.

Gradually, I noticed two colourful signs that had been riveted onto the freshly painted wall. I could see that both signs were repeated further along the wall at exactly the same height, maybe four or five times in total. The first of these signs read:

creatingthrivingcommunites

It was written in an everyday font like Helvetica or Impact, all the letters lower case and set as if it was one
continuous word. But in case anyone thought it
was
one word, the designers of the sign had coloured the word
creating
in green and the word
thriving
in red; the word
communities
was left black. I figured that each of these colours must have been deliberated over for some time by whichever design team worked on this sign. I figured that the word
creating
coloured green must have been designed that way in order to symbolise an organic and eco-friendly environment and the word
thriving
coloured red must have been designed to symbolise vibrancy and action. I felt that the word
community
was left black because the new, young professionals were yet to move into the proposed properties that were about to be built, so there was no way to judge which colour might represent them. The second sign, which was much bigger—an obvious
death knell
to the existing residents of the Packington Estate—read:

Phase 1 will include 127 new affordable homes for existing residents in a mixture of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments in two 6-story blocks overlooking the Regent’s Canal and a terrace of 3, 4, 5 bedroom houses.

The second sign was more practical; there was no colouring; there was no need for it to dazzle any passing pedestrian. It merely conveyed the inevitable. I looked at the top of an existing block of flats from the Packington Estate. Now matter what the new sign said, these new flats were not going to be affordable to the average resident of the estate. I wondered what they thought about all this. I wondered if the designers of the sign had thought about how all this was impacting on the original residents.

I waited for her. I knew that she would eventually appear; I was completely and utterly sure of it. I started to
whistle. I forget what song it was that I actually began to whistle but it was something popular and melodic. I didn’t care who could hear or see me standing there, whistling as loudly as I possibly could. Eventually two coots passed me by, both looking at me. I crouched down towards them both, stepping forwards to the edge of the canal. The water around them was filthy. I could smell it. The stench enveloped me. I have never smelt anything quite like it since. It was a seriously disgusting smell, like something was decaying. Like the whole canal was dead. The two coots soon became bored with me when they realised I had no food and they paddled away. I stopped whistling. I watched the two coots, their large feet hidden beneath the sickening slurry. For the first time in my life, at that exact moment, crouched down by the canal, I realised that things—stuff, matter, everything—was absolutely pointless. Everything should be left alone. Nothing should be touched. Because even the dredgers were powerless to halt such unremitting decay.

It began to rain. A light, greasy drizzle. It didn’t bother me. I was waiting for her. Suddenly, I heard a strange noise: shouting, instructions, and machinery. It came from the direction of the lock at Wenlock Basin. Pretty soon I saw it: a dredger. It was heading my way. A medium-sized, three-man contraption. I began to laugh. At the same time I wanted to shout out, “
Too late
!
Too late
!
Turn back
!
Turn back
!” But I didn’t. I wanted to avoid any kind of scene. So I allowed the dredger and its team to slowly, achingly move towards me.

They were cleaning up the silt and sludge, the thick mud from the murky depths of the canal. Anything else they
retrieved up from the bottom must have felt like a bonus compared to the shit-coloured mess they sucked up. If anything was found, a portable TV, a mobile phone, or an old boot for instance, one of the three operators would holler at the other two in excitement, each of them helping him to drag the item into their cabin. I looked at the slurry that was being sucked up from the canal. I wanted them to leave it where it was. After longing for the dredger to turn up all this time, I simply wanted it to turn around and go away. They were changing things, disturbing everything. I wanted to tell them that nothing needed to be changed. To leave it there to fester at the bottom of the canal.