Russell Hoban - Come Dance With Me

I wasn’t very hopeful but he did actually phone me and said that he’d meet me at The Anchor & Hope in High Hill Ferry, Upper Clapton. With my A to Z I located the pub by the River Lea, opposite the Walthamstow Marshes in E5. I took a taxi there and found him on a bench outside the pub, finishing a pint and looking at the river. The sky was grey and darkening, the wind was cold. Two Hassidic Jews all in black were on the path on the other side of the river, arguing about something as they walked. Their black gesticulations made the landscape seem more still, more bleak. A train clattered past the marshes to the bridge, grew larger, and was gone. Jimmy looked as if he’d drawn the short straw in a lifeboat where somebody was going to get eaten. He finished his pint, shook his head, and said, ‘OK, here we are. Whatever it is you want to talk about, why couldn’t we do it over the phone?’

‘Let me get you another pint. What’re you drinking?’

‘London Pride.’

I got two, came back to the bench, and sat down. ‘Cheers,’ he said without much conviction.

‘Cheers. I don’t feel completely at ease with you, and I thought we could talk better face to face.’

‘Why don’t you feel at ease with me? Because you’re screwing Christabel?’

‘I don’t feel at ease because I’ve noticed that you’re not comfortable seeing me with her.’

‘Are you or aren’t you?’

‘What?’

‘Sleeping with her.’

‘That’s neither here nor there.’

‘That means you are. So what’s on your mind?’

‘She’s gone to Honolulu and Maui and she said it was to do with the past. She seemed not in the best of spirits when she left. I was wondering …’

‘You were wondering what I could tell you?’

‘I feel awkward saying so, but yes, I was.’

‘You feel awkward because if she wanted to tell you anything more than she did, she’d have done it, right?’

‘OK, I felt kind of foolish coming to you but I’m worried about her.’

‘Welcome to the club. Everybody that knows Christabel worries about her. My round.’ He took our glasses and went inside. ‘Thirsty work, talking about Christabel,’ he said when he came back with our pints. ‘Excuse me while I make a pit stop.’ When he sat down again he said, ‘Are you in love with her?’

‘Yes.’ So there it was, out of my own mouth. ‘Are you?’

‘Have been for years but she’s never been interested in me.’

‘But you’ve been married until recently.’

‘So? That never stopped anyone from loving somebody else. You’re not married?’

‘That’s right, I’m not.’

‘Thinking of marrying Christabel?’

It was dark by then. The Anchor & Hope sent out its beams like a beacon for the weary traveller and the street lamp by our bench had come on while I sat here talking to Jimmy Wicks and saying what I’d never said to Christabel. A train chuntered past the marshes with its windows golden in the evening. It grew large, crossed the bridge and the reflecting river, and left a plume of silence behind as it disappeared. ‘I’m superstitious,’ I said. ‘I’d rather not say more about us just now, I don’t want to jinx it. I know that something’s troubling her but I don’t know what it is. She said she’s gone to Maui for a kind of remembrance day. Can you tell me anything about it?’

Jimmy sighed. ‘Did you know she had a son?’

‘No. Who was the father?’

‘Guitarist with a German band, Adam Freund. He’s dead now. So’s the son.’

‘What happened?’

‘Light rig fell on Adam. That was in 1990. Three years later she went to Maui with her son — Django his name was and he was four years old. He fell off a cliff.’

‘Jesus’.

‘Jesus didn’t save. She never got over it.’

‘Understandably. Was she married to Django’s father?

‘He was married to somebody else. She’s had a bad history with men.’

‘What kind of bad?’

‘There were three or four of them who met untimely deaths.’

‘Are you saying that she had anything to do with that?’

‘No, but I think it’s always working on her.’

I nodded and so did he, then we both shook our heads and drank our London Pride in silence for a while. ‘Any idea where she’d be staying on Maui?’ I said.

‘Probably the Pioneer Inn in Lahaina or Rudy Ka’uhane’s place.’

‘Who’s Rudy Ka’uhane?’

‘Just a friend, nothing romantic. He’s a carpenter, made Django’s coffin. The Pioneer Inn always knows where to reach him.’

‘Thanks, it’s really good of you to help me. You’re a good man and I’m grateful to you.’ I grabbed his hand and shook it. He seemed embarrassed.

‘No use being a dog in the manger, is there. I’d really like to see her happy and I wish you luck.’

‘I don’t take anything for granted. I see you’re ready for another pint.’

‘They go down fast and they go through me fast. I’ll be right back.’

I got a pint for him but none for me. When he came back I said, ‘Are you thirstier than usual?’

‘I am, actually.’

‘Have to pee more than usual too?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Might be a good idea to see your GP, get him to test your blood sugar.’

‘You think I’m diabetic?’

‘I think you should check your blood sugar.’ I was remembering my father and the sweetness he couldn’t metabolise. What a lot of blocked sweetness there is in the world!

26 January 2003. Here I was then, with the night to get through and ten years ago on my mind. I’d thought January 1993 would be off-peak for holidaymakers but the Aloha Airlines flight was full, many of them hoping to see whales. ‘I’d like to swim with them,’ said a boy across the aisle to his girlfriend.

‘I don’t think they let you do that unless you’re David Attenborough,’ she said.

Django was craning his neck to see out of the window. ‘Are there sharks down there?’ he said.

‘All kinds of things,’ I said. Such a deep dark blue, the water below us, then a fringe of white surf as Kahului Airport came into view back in 1993. The palm trees were moving a little as if they didn’t care one way or the other. It was a dull day and those trees put a jungly smell in my mind.

Some of the arrivals were being greeted with leis, some not. Bert Gresham had been to Maui and he had arranged for Rudy Ka’uhane to meet us. Rudy was holding a placard that said ALOHA CHRISTABEL & DJANGO in large capitals. I was startled to see Django’s name like that, it was almost as if he’d grown up and gone away. He was quite pleased with it because he could already read his name. ‘Aloha,’ said Rudy, and he hung leis around our necks. Then he explained the honi greeting and did it with Django and me just as I did it with Henry Panawae this night ten years later. The pink flowers of our leis looked edible and they smelled like youth and first love, which seemed a little shocking since they and I had only just met. ‘Plumería,’ said Rudy. ‘My wife grows them at our place. Those are some of our leis that the kids are hanging on people now.’

‘But not on everybody,’ I said.

‘Some of them are ordered before the flight, some people buy them here, others don’t bother with them.’ A very large brown man, Rudy. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and his arms and legs were like tree trunks. He took our cases and led the way to his car, and when we stepped outside the jungly smell I’d had in my mind was the real smell of the place. With a little petrol added.

Django said, ‘This is far away.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it is.’

‘Far-away trees.’ he said.