Стивен Бут - Drowned Lives

She was growing more angry as she spoke, and I could only lower my eyes and fidget nervously. ‘So naturally, he would have taken your failure to show up as your considered answer to his plea. He thought you’d snubbed him, that you’d rejected his appeal outright. Perhaps he was convinced in the end that you knew who he really was and you were turning your back on him, that he was still unwelcome in the Buckley family after all those years. That you, too, saw him as a traitor. It must have been a very bitter blow.’

Monks took her arm, and urged her away towards the door. But Caroline couldn’t resist one final, wounding shot. ‘My father had pinned his hopes on you, Christopher,’ she said. ‘And you let him down. It must have been his dying thought.’

The cold air outside the pub did little to clear my head or stop my hands from trembling. The encounter with Caroline Longden had left me shaken. The depths of her animosity had been undisguised, and her words had bitten deep. On such an occasion, there was no way to answer back, no words I could use to justify myself. I could only bite my lip and hang my head, and get away from the confrontation as quickly as possible.

Now I stood on the edge of the canal basin, staring blankly at the Swan Line boats, letting the wind numb my face and dash the occasional burst of spray on my feet. The bright colours of the boats seemed to blur in front of my eyes, green merging into white, and red into green, like a nauseous kaleidoscope.

I realised it had been a bad mistake to come to the funeral. I’d felt alone and shunned from the moment I arrived on the landing stage at Hopwas. Apart from the boaters who’d spoken to me, the reaction had been an attempt to freeze me out. The Chaplins had seemed afraid of me somehow. And Caroline openly despised me. I knew myself well enough to recognise the beginnings of the maudlin phase that followed too much alcohol. I was starting to feel very sorry for myself.

‘Excuse me.’

I turned at the sound of a voice and saw a woman. Now, she certainly wasn’t on the boat. I would have noticed her. She was small and dark, with glossy hair and a way of moving in her short black skirt that was very distracting. She was staring at me curiously.

‘You’re Chris Buckley, aren’t you?’

‘That’s right,’ I said, feeling the grin slip onto my face a bit too readily. The wine had numbed my lips, and I was afraid that I might be leering. ‘The very same.’

‘I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you.’

‘Here I am. Talk away.’

She looked around at the mourners still leaving the pub. ‘Could we walk on a little way?’

There were people further down the towpath, so we walked to the footbridge at the head of Junction Lock to cross to the Coventry side. The bridge moved slightly as we stepped onto it, and our footsteps reverberated on the iron plates.

‘I understand you’re a bit of an expert on the waterways,’ she said, pausing in the middle of the bridge to gaze out over the water. Her words were almost an echo of something Great-Uncle Samuel had said to me the first time we met.

‘Not at all. In fact, today was the first time I’d been on a narrowboat.’

She frowned, slightly puzzled. ‘But surely...’ she said. ‘It is true, isn’t it? I mean, you are finishing the book for Samuel Longden?’

Beneath us was a narrow drop between sheer brick walls covered in blackened moss and dripping with water. The wine had made me a little unsteady on my feet, and I was glad of the rail in front of me. As I looked down into the chasm, I instinctively reached out to clutch it for safety, afraid I might tumble into the murky water. I was unfamiliar with the height of the rise in locks on the Trent and Mersey, but this one looked particularly deep from where I stood. The space between the walls seemed barely wide enough for a narrowboat to pass through. Anyone who fell from here would brain themselves on the unyielding brick before they ever hit the water.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The famous book.’

I forced my feet to move, and within a few paces I’d crossed the bridge and was back on solid land. A path rounded the corner of the house and followed the line of the Coventry. Lily, Excalibur and Billabong were ahead of us. Billabong had a thin trail of smoke rising from its funnel, indicating that someone was on board. I imagined it must be pretty cold living on a narrowboat during the winter. Cold, and inescapably damp.

‘I don’t know about famous,’ said my companion. ‘Not yet anyway.’

‘Do you have a particular interest?’

She smiled apologetically. Her smile was everything I’d hoped it would be, full of life and subtle promise. ‘Perhaps I should introduce myself,’ she said. ‘My name is Laura Jenner. I know Andrew Hadfield.’

‘Ah. So I suppose you already knew about the book before I mentioned it in there.’

‘Andrew told me, yes. It’s an interesting story. About you and Samuel Longden, I mean. Meeting up after all these years. But Andrew wasn’t certain whether you were going to go through with the project.’

‘I wasn’t sure myself when I spoke to him.’

‘But you’re sure now, are you?’ she asked seriously, as if the answer was important to her.

I thought of Caroline and her contempt for me, her refusal to discuss the book. There was no reason why I should worry about her feelings on the subject. Whatever I did would make no difference. Then I remembered the Chaplins, and their reaction to the mention of the book. I already had a chance to visit them on Saturday to talk about it. Not only was I committed to the book by the promise of Great-Uncle Samuel’s money, I’d already started my research.

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘That’s good.’

But just when I expected her to explain why, she went quiet and said no more. She stopped at the swing bridge, and put her hands on it to try to move it, but didn’t have the strength. Her hair swung across her cheek and emphasised the impression I’d got when I first set eyes on her face outside the Swan.

‘I’ve seen you somewhere before, haven’t I?’ I said.

‘God, that’s an old one.’

‘No, really. Was it at one of the restoration sites?’

She looked at me strangely, pushing the hair away from her face. I noticed a faint scar that ran from her forehead into her scalp. ‘It might have been, I suppose.’

‘It’s funny, though. I think I would have remembered the occasion. Your face is one I wouldn’t forget.’

She smiled sceptically. No doubt she was used to getting compliments from men all the time, but I couldn’t help it. Laura was dazzling me.

We’d reached a section of towpath opposite Fradley Wood. By unspoken agreement, we turned and began to walk back again towards the junction.

‘Or have I come across you somewhere else? Where do you work?’

‘I’ve been working as a researcher for a television company in London, but I’m in between jobs at the moment.’

‘I know how it feels.’

‘You too? The worst thing is there isn’t even anything useful I can do to keep my hand in, rather than sitting around idle while I’m looking for work.’

‘I see.’

She looked at me, concerned at my pained expression. ‘Are you all right?’

The truth was that the pressure of the alcohol was straining my bladder. Though I was reluctant to part from Laura, I was going to have to slip away before there was an embarrassing accident.

‘I’ll have to pop back inside. Will you wait a minute?’

‘Sure.’

I tried to sneak unobtrusively through the pub, hoping not to be noticed by the last few mourners lurking near the bar. But I failed badly. I was in the gents, feeling the flood of relief against the porcelain, when I heard the door open and sensed a threatening presence just inches from my back. There are few places you feel so vulnerable as standing at a urinal, and the intimidating growl in my ear made me almost splash my shoes.