Lee Rourke - Vulgar Things

‘What’s going on?’

‘The usual … It was pandemonium last night, apparently …’

‘What?’

‘Two gangs … guns, knives … Eastern European … Bloodbath, about three or four dead, including two women … All this over some money and girls, I reckon. Turf war or something, people smuggling …’

‘Women? …’

‘There’s talk of sex trafficking …’

‘Laura …’

‘What?’

‘…’

‘Fucking … This place …’

‘…’

I walk away from the empty flat. I feel numb. I shouldn’t have come back. I shouldn’t have gone to the pier to try to help her. I should have made sure she was okay. I could have done something about it like phone the police. I could have changed her mind. I had it in me, I should have done something when I had the chance. I tried, I tried, but it wasn’t enough. I looked into her eyes. I spent too much time looking, when I should have acted, without words, without my pathetic gaze. That’s what I should’ve done.

moving away from me

I walk along the pier, all the way to the end, to the bell. I look up the estuary, out from its gaping mouth. I want her to be here, gazing out at it with me. I wish there had been some mistake, like she got the times wrong, or something, but I know that it’s just wishful thinking. A large container ship comes into view beyond Shoebury Boom, just on the horizon. It gradually grows bigger, inching towards me, along the estuary. I’m in awe of its power, its stature. It amazes me how it keeps from toppling over. Its presence is immense as it slowly moves towards me. It looks unmovable, like nothing can touch it, that it can do anything it wants. It takes a good twenty minutes to reach me, until it’s parallel with me and the end of the pier. I reach out with my stick, as if I can simply touch it. It’s colossal, gigantic. It’s like a miracle before my eyes. I quickly turn around, to see if there’s anyone else near me, but the end of the pier is empty. Even the fishermen below seem to have disappeared. I’m in awe. There it is: that rumble now, that deep, deep, constant thump thump thump thump thump of the engines. I can feel it in my toes, reverberating through the sea, the sea bed, the mud, the stanchions; it’s reached me finally, that beautiful, almost inaudible rumble that makes my whole body tingle.

The ship doesn’t take that long to pass my line of vision, beyond the pier, towards the island there and on through to Tilbury. It seems to be moving away from me much quicker now, far more quickly than it took to arrive. Everything seems to be moving away from me; everything seems distant again, too colossal to pull back, to shift; everything is moving, except me. I’m stuck, it seems, watching it all slide away.

nothing can be deciphered

I walk back along the pier for the final time. There’s no reason for me to return now. There’s nothing for me here in Southend any more. It’s all been taken away. I walk through the streets, my stick clicking at my heel. Everything is sounds, voices, buzzing around me, nothing is distinguishable, nothing can be deciphered, everything is cryptic, it makes no sense to me, nothing is recognisable, words pass me by, sounds whorl inside my head, but they puzzle me, there’s nothing I can do with them, they fizz inside me, disappearing, ending in a pffft , filtering through me, passing through me back into chaos. I can’t stop any of it, no matter how hard I try. It all becomes interference, static, a cacophony; a looping, rising madness that I can’t stop. I shut my eyes, trying to force it all out of my head, but it doesn’t work. I feel it’s something I was once receptive to, something in which I had no choice, I simply picked it all up somehow. I simply let it all flow through me, picking out the bits I needed, that’s all I could do with it. That’s all I can ever hope to do with it. Now, it’s simply noise.

speak quietly

Now the island is quiet. People pass me by in silence. I head to the southern side of the island, towards the jetty. I want to sit there, to watch some more ships glide by. Listening for that rumble, watching, waiting finally to leave things behind. As I walk past the huge oil containers just off Haven Road I spot the man in the Dr Feelgood T-shirt walking towards me, about one hundred yards ahead of me. He’s spotted me too, as he’s already waving at me. I wave back with my stick. It doesn’t take us long to reach each other.

‘You’re still wearing it, then?’

‘…’

‘The T-shirt …’

‘Oh, yes, the T-shirt … Uncle Rey’s … yes.’

‘Those were the days, you know.’

‘Sorry …’

‘Back in the seventies … back in the days of the Canvey Club … When life was new, angry, when we had bullets to bite …’

‘I can imagine …’

‘I knew him, you know …’

‘…’

‘I knew him …’

‘Who?’

‘Rey …’

‘Oh.’

‘I saw him … I was with him the night before … You know …’

‘Oh …’

‘We drank whiskey looking up at the stars through that telescope of his … He was in a terrible state, but I had no idea … you know … that he was planning something as horrible as he did … We drank and talked all night …’

‘What did you talk about …’

‘You …’

‘…’

‘We mostly talked about you …’

‘…’

‘I knew it was you … When I first saw you, off the train … I recognised him in you immediately …’

‘Oh …’

‘You know … He …’

‘I have to …’

‘No … Wait … He …’

‘He wasn’t a good man …’

‘He worshipped the ground you walked on … You have to believe me …’

‘It’s too late, though, isn’t it …’

‘He wanted things to be different …’

‘He slipped away from me, out of view … His life is meaningless to me.’

‘Yours wasn’t to him … in fact, you’re the only reason he went on, the only reason he remained … He lived in hope … That’s what he said to me … He lived in hope that you’d accept him as your father, that’s what he said … That’s what he wanted to tell …’

‘Well … He had a funny way of showing it …’

‘There’s no right way of …’

‘…’

‘He wanted you to accept him …’

‘…’

‘He wanted you to acknowledge him as more than …’

‘Just stop it now … He’s gone, no trace after tomorrow … for good … As much as you know him, as much as all the time you spent with him, listening to his bullshit, you never could, or will know him as much as I do now …’

‘But …’

‘But what?’

‘He … He said something …’

‘What?’

‘He knew you’d come again, he wanted it to be that way … He …’

‘What?’

‘He said … “Tell him, tell him to speak quietly and to carry a big stick … that’s all he’ll need.” That’s what he said … He said it’s a quote, but I’ve forgotten who he said it’s from. He told me to tell you this, he kept repeating it over and over …’

‘Do what …’

‘Speak quietly and carry a big stick. That’s what he said.’

‘I don’t … I don’t think I understand …’

‘That’s all he said to me, he made sure that I remembered the quote … He knew how bad my memory is, so he told me over and over, so that I’d be able to remember …’

‘For this moment?’

‘Well, yes … I wanted to tell you in the pub, or visit the caravan, but you were always talking with Robbie …’

‘Here … In the middle of this road?’

‘That’s all he wanted to tell you …’

‘On this wretched island?’