Summer in the City

by Fiona Collins

  ‘Careful,’ I say, steering Dad to the left slightly. ‘Lamp-post. Don’t want to fall at the first hurdle.’

  ‘I don’t want to fall at all,’ snaps Dad, ‘and I refuse to walk into a lamp-post. What sort of cliché would that be?’

  Is he nervous? I know he would never admit it if he was, but we both know he hasn’t been further than the doctor’s for years. When he had the dogs, he went everywhere. Did everything. Family glue, those guide dogs were. When a lovely lady came to The Palladian and took away our last dog, Folly, on a rainy day one autumn, and she trotted out the door so sweetly and so resignedly, it broke all three of our hearts, but Dad’s shut down that day and we knew that was the end of the little life we had known. He became just a kernel of the man he was before. A man who retreated into his armchair without hope, and no desire to look for it again.

  Not that I can talk.

  ‘Is the Enterprise pub still here?’ asks Dad.

  ‘Yep, still here,’ I say. God, we’ve got a long way to go.

  ‘And the hi-fi shop?’

  ‘Nope, that’s gone. Do you need water yet, Dad?’ I have a small bottle in my bag.

  ‘We’ve only just left the flat, Prue; of course I don’t!’

  He is nervous. I haven’t seen him this snappy for a long time. We both need to chill out, I think. It’s only a seven-minute walk from Chalk Farm tube station to Camden Lock – we’re acting like we’re hiking to John o’Groat’s. In a hurricane.

  ‘Careful, Dad. Single file here.’ Half of the pavement is gone, suddenly, cordoned off with scaffolding. There’s a smooth little manoeuvre we employ for narrow paths, almost like a dance move. My left arm goes behind my back, for Dad to hold on to; he takes smaller steps not to tread on my heels, and we go single file.

  ‘God bless you,’ says an old man as we pass him under the scaffolding.

  ‘Why, thank you, good sir,’ says Dad, all Dickensian. I know he is being thoroughly sarcastic. He’s always had this when he goes out: people blessing him left, right and centre. I’ve forgotten how ‘blessed’ Dad can be.

  ‘OK, you can come back next to me,’ I say to Dad, once the pavement opens up again.

  ‘Keep going straight?’ he asks as he returns to take my arm above the elbow.

  ‘Keep going straight.’

  We walk. Dad taps. My fringe sticks to my forehead.

  ‘Whereabouts are we now, Prue?’ Dad asks after a while.

  ‘We’re just coming past all the tattoo parlours.’ The smell of food is beginning to come our way now; music starts to pump out of shop doorways. I wonder how many times he and Mum walked past these shops as teenagers. How many times they went jeans shopping.

  There’s a set of traffic lights we need to bear right at. As we wait, I spy a retro punk, leaning against the front window of an army-surplus shop. A middle-aged throwback from the 80s. Bovver boots, safety pins, Mohican, the works. He must be boiling. He peels himself off the shop window and slouches indifferently down the road and the illuminated man on the crossing changes from red to green.

  ‘Come on, then,’ I say to Dad, and we cross. It’s immediately busier and we need to slow our step. We start to get jostled a little, as the double act of our wide load takes up too much pavement; my right shoulder and Dad’s left arm susceptible. A man stumbles against us, his hand landing on my wrist.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘We’re here,’ says Dad crabbily. ‘I can smell burgers.’

  Camden is basking in bright yellow sunshine and absolutely buzzing. Spirits are high, sunglasses are on; music is pumping from about six different places – Bob Marley, Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’, Paloma Faith covering the Mamas & the Papas … The smell of meat and onions and spices, of falafel and pizza and burritos, fills the air. There are dozens of tourists, pleasure-seekers and wanderers milling around, all soaking up the atmosphere of a very hot and sunny day in Camden Town, and we slowly make our way through them up to the bridge at Regent’s Canal.

  ‘Describe everything to me,’ says Dad. He’s so terse, I think. He’s enjoying himself even less than I am.

  ‘Oh gosh, I don’t know where to start, Dad. There’s just so much! OK, well, to our right is the Stables Market – food stalls and the like, I think. Lots of uneven cobble stones, so I don’t think we can venture in.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘There’re people everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Clusters of tourists. Couples holding hands. Teenagers. A man carrying an Alsatian up the street, over his shoulder.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  Dad tuts and shakes his head. He used to laugh when I described things for him. Sometimes, when I was young, I would embellish them or make things up – for fun – like saying I’d seen a dinosaur or a giant purple sunflower, making us both giggle. As a rebellious teen I would often refuse to describe anything and say ‘nothing’, when he asked me, even in the face of the most rich and abundant visual feasts. Today, I’m doing my best at becoming Dad’s eyes, like Verity said, though Dad is hardly receptive. When we looked at the photos together, he seemed open, happy to talk, for once – now he is as closed again as the photo album itself.

  ‘Oh, and there’s a guy dressed as Elvis, at the orange juice stand.’

  ‘Isn’t there always?’

  We arrive at the iron bridge, turn right at the towpath and go down to the locks. There are sloping flagstones to negotiate; areas of welcome shade. Volunteers are sweeping the lockside brickwork free of dust and weeds; a man is turning the lock of a narrow boat with a giant windlass. I describe everything to Dad as best I can: the canal boats waiting to pass through the lock; the green algae on the undisturbed sections of water; the weeping willow that arcs over the canal and nods in the sun. It’s tranquil here, compared to the street. I came here quite a lot with my friend, Kemp, the photographer. He lived not far from here, in a houseboat at Wenlock Basin. I wonder if he’s still there. He liked to take shots of the water and the weeping willow and the boats, and I would watch him and try not to blurt out that I loved him.

  Dad nods as I speak, his face set and unreadable. After a while we return to the bridge and continue down Camden High Street in the direction of Camden Town tube station, with the milling souvenir seekers dazzled by sunglasses and T-shirts and jewellery and Union Jack paraphernalia crammed below shop awnings under coloured buildings. Dad asks me if the record shop is still here.

  ‘Which record shop?’

  ‘Pete’s Records? The other side of the road.’

  I look. ‘Yes, it’s there.’

  ‘Come on, then.’

  We avoid a pair of chuggers in orange vests and cross the road to the record shop. Dad used to live for music. It used to be in the centre of our Venn diagram, if one existed for Dad and me: a common love, with architecture in the sole portion of Dad’s circle, and absolutely nothing in mine. Dad has been a bit of a Mod since the late 70s, when he got swept up in the revival; he loves all that music and its tributaries. When he went blind in the summer of 1980, it was not long after the film Quadrophenia came out (he’d been to the cinema to see it three times with Jack Templeton), and when it was out on video he’d listen to it over and over again, reciting the dialogue. He had The Who soundtrack, too. Quadrophenia used to drive Angela and me mad.

  Pete’s Records is packed, with reggae music pounding through its aisles. Dad is partial to that as well – the roots of Mod, he says. I feel helplessly out of place in here, immediately. I always have, in Camden. It’s far too cool for me. I used to come with my (short-lived) best friend, Georgina, from school, and when I did, I just used to agree with her about stuff, pretending I liked whatever she liked. Following her into places she wanted to go. Mooching in the doorways she wanted to mooch in. I’ve never had a ‘scene’, but if I did, Camden definitely wouldn’t be it. My female singer-songwriters would fit in very well here, though, with their bare feet and their freedom and their roars o
f confidence; but I am nothing like them. They aren’t afraid of fierce; they aren’t afraid of ugly. I am afraid.

  ‘Ska records, please,’ says Dad. I look around and spot the handwritten sign, suspended from the ceiling. We stand at the correct rack and I leaf through the cardboard album sleeves of hundreds and hundreds of records. Vinyl records are making a comeback, apparently – they survived the CD and iPods and Spotify and iTunes – and video never did kill the radio star, after all.

  ‘Who are you interested in?’ I ask.

  ‘Just read artists out to me,’ he says.

  I leaf through the records. ‘OK, The Selecter, The Specials, this one is by Skarface.’ I hold it up.

  ‘French group. Crazy black-and-white illustrated cover?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He nods. ‘Fantastic, fantastic. I’ve read about them. Give it to me.’

  I hand him the record and he runs his hand over it. He reaches inside and pulls the record from its sleeve. Surely Dad doesn’t want to buy anything? He hasn’t used that turntable for years. He skirts a finger over the black vinyl, then slips it back into its sleeve, before handing it to me so I can slot it back into its alphabetical space.

  ‘You should play your old records,’ I say. ‘I’d like to hear music in the flat again. Proper music, not just through headphones, and at a decent volume. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Dad. He beetles his fingers over the top of a stack of records. Back and forward. Back and forward. A woman in green dreadlocks manoeuvres round his cane. ‘OK,’ he says finally. ‘Let’s move on.’

  We shuffle out into the midday throng again, assaulted by the smells and the colour and the sounds and the heat of a busy Camden at lunchtime – the sun on our backs and reggae ringing in our ears.

  ‘Shall we get something to eat?’ I ask Dad.

  ‘No. I’d like to go home now,’ he says.

  ‘What? Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. I want to go back to the flat now, Prue.’

  He has stopped still on the pavement. The milling people tut and swerve round us. A man in a suit and tie flashes me a sympathetic smile. I sigh. This has not been a success. We should never have come out or come this far. It’s too difficult. Dad is too grumpy. Our comfort zone is dangerously out of reach. We’re better in the flat, not talking. We’ve missed most of This Morning for this.

  ‘OK,’ I say, with a huge sigh of relief. ‘Let’s go home.’

  CHAPTER 8

  Dad and I don’t walk back to Chalk Farm. We take the tube from Camden Town underground station – one stop on the Northern Line. Our carriage is fairly empty and we get seats next to each other, Dad’s cane between us and not much else. He is silent, unwilling to talk. I let my eyes roam round the carriage. The guy opposite us is in a Choose Life T-shirt and has headphones on; he must have his volume cranked right up as I can hear what he’s playing. It’s not Wham!, as his T-shirt might suggest, but James Brown’s ‘Get Up’. Three other people in the carriage are tapping one or both feet in time to the beat; I look down and my foot is tapping, too.

  ‘Our own gig,’ remarks a young woman to my right, in a flagrant breach of people-don’t-talk-to-strangers-on-the-tube protocol.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply.

  Dad’s feet do not tap; he is motionless and his eyes are closed until the tube pulls into Chalk Farm station. It’s London: One, the Albertas: Nil, I muse. We gave it a go, but it was a big fat fail, this day-trip lark. We should never have put ourselves out there.

  Back in the flat, I change out of my dress and into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, then go to my chair. It’s a relief to be back, far from the baffling crowds and the noise and the hurricane of life. Here with the window shut and the world outside muffled and at a comfortable arm’s length, I can breathe again. My phone is in my hand; I’ve missed being on it and return to it like an old friend.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ asks Dad, from the kitchen.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  He seems relieved to be back, too. The baseball cap has been put away, probably for good, along with the notion we might ever venture out again. We are home and it’s better if we stay that way.

  Out of force of habit I check my messages and emails. None. I check WhatsApp. Nothing. I’m not sure why I even have the app. I click on to Facebook. My only Facebook Friends are Angela (reluctantly), a couple of people I used to work with at the Conference Centre, and a few from those lacklustre jobs after I was made redundant. Today on Facebook there’s not a lot going on. Duncan in Bookings has a hangover; Florrie from the betting shop wants to know if anyone has seen her cat; Jane at the budget book depot has declared today ‘Worst day ever’ and has received a flurry of concerned ‘You OK, hun?’s, which she is enigmatically ignoring, apart from a solitary, ‘I’ll pm you’, to one lucky enquirer. And Sally Ann from the Co-op has cryptically ‘checked in’ to the local hospital without saying why. Oh, and my sister has a new pair of high-heeled sandals that apparently merit the caption, ‘Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world.’

  ‘What shall we have for lunch?’ calls Dad. ‘I could rustle up a quick chicken parmigiana.’

  ‘Yes please, sounds lovely.’ I come off Facebook and head to Safari to update the news article about Philippa – I have it bookmarked now – and when it loads there’s a new piece of information. A piece of information I read twice.

  On the afternoon of her death, Philippa Helens had been out for an early celebratory lunch in Knightsbridge, on the eve of her thirtieth birthday.

  ‘It’ll be ready in twenty minutes,’ calls Dad from the kitchen. ‘I’m making a side dish of asparagus crespelle.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ I call back.

  I read the short news article for a third time, concentrating on every word. I can hear Dad mumbling to himself in the kitchen over the sound of clanking pans and steam and taps running and things being taken out of and put back into cupboards. I rise from my chair and go and stand at the closed window. A man below drags a tartan shopping trolley into the mouth of the tube station. A pair of teenagers slouch with hands in pockets into the Stop n’ Shop. And I remember a different tube station and the crowds there and I feel incredibly sad for a woman I’ve never met called Philippa Helens.

  I also wonder at what point she let go of the balloon.

  ‘There you go.’

  Dad is behind me, standing at my chair and offering his iPad to me.

  ‘I’m over here, Dad,’ I say, walking back from the window. ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘It’s a list,’ he says, holding out his iPad to me with the ‘Notes’ app open, ‘of all the other places I’d like to go to.’

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘I thought you hated it today, going to Camden?’

  He says nothing and continues to hold out the iPad. I take it and quickly read the list. Primrose Hill, Little Venice, St Dunstan in the East, Covent Garden, Liberty, the Albert Hall, the Shard, Kenwood House and the Albert Bridge.

  ‘I’m really surprised,’ I say. ‘And it’s quite a long list,’ I add, scanning it again. ‘In this order?’

  He nods.

  ‘What’s St Dunstan in the East?’

  ‘A hidden garden. The ruins of a church near Tower Hill. It’s very beautiful.’

  ‘You want to go to all these places?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘I thought you hated going to Camden today,’ I repeat.

  ‘We can try again,’ he says.

  I stare at Dad’s list of places. Some are walking distance. Some are tube journeys away. Can we really head back out there, to all these places? Can we make it there and back, unscathed? Can we be together, father and daughter, for all these trips, and forced to talk, to spend time in each other’s company – properly? I really don’t know if this is a good idea.

  ‘OK, we can do this,’ I say reluctantly.

  ‘Great.’ Dad reaches for the iPad and heads back into the kitchen. ‘Lunch will be in ten
minutes.’

  I watch as he disappears through the doorway. Maybe Dad doesn’t really mean it, this list. Maybe if I don’t mention it again, he won’t either. Maybe he’ll forget about it. I just can’t imagine it, after Camden. I can’t imagine the pair of us walking around London and taking up space in the world, after all this time, like a couple of aliens landed from Mars. It’s too strange. Too far from comfort.

  I sit back down in my chair, click on Facebook again. I want to look up Philippa Helens. Distract myself from lists and proposed trips out and feeling like an alien … Oh, I have a Friend Request. Freddie Whitehorn – a boy I liked at school, who used to catch me staring at him until one time he said, ‘Why are you so ugly?’ and I blushed, and he just laughed and laughed for about five minutes, in Chemistry, until everyone joined in with him … He’s probably taking the piss so I delete the request.

  Philippa Helens … I find her. Her profile is still on here, although someone has edited it to RIP Philippa and added the years of her birth and death. It’s incredibly sad. One hundred and two friends Philippa had, in total. She wasn’t very active – her last post was over three weeks ago: a picture of a sunset that looks like a stock photo. It has a series of comments under it: ‘Cool’ and ‘Where is this, hun?’ and ‘Never mind sunsets! Dating news please!’ – she had replied to this comment with a smiley face. There are only three photos of her among all the posts. The one I saw online, on the news report; one with her in the midst of a group of laughing girls all holding cocktails; and an arty black-and-white shot of her with slicked-back hair and bare shoulders and sort of shadowy branches, like lace, all over her face and shoulders. One of those portrait shots done in a studio, I think. The sort of hideous thing I’ve avoided all my life. It is captioned, ‘Truth’.