33 East

by Susannah Rickards

  Charlie said they had no respect. None for anyone but themselves.

  But it was more than that. They just weren’t being taught it somehow and, that made her sad; more so than the loss of her Rust.

  It wasn’t till April that she was walking home and spotted him. His mint, slightly heavy-set frame (with its signature purple stripe and white leather seat) was parked outside the West Library, near the corner of Thornhill Square.

  When she approached him, she realised he had been fixed with a new lock and, as all seasons change, that he had found a new home. Although she’d only toyed with the idea of moving, somehow she knew it was a sign and that it was time for her to look for a new home, too. She placed her hand on the cold metal handlebar and closed her eyes briefly. Then, without turning back, she walked briskly past the square with purpose, a smile curling the corners of her crimson lips, ready to find her new corner of London.

  CITY OF LONDON

  While the City Sleeps

  Angela Clerkin

  The metal is cold to the touch. I haven’t worn gloves. So many times I’ve driven across London Bridge and never noticed that the granite walls have a metal shelf on the top. I hoist myself up, cold palm on colder metal, these black drill trousers don’t have much stretch in them and I think it’s typical that I look so ungainly at this moment. My frozen fingers are gripping tightly to the edge as I peer over and look down. My stomach flips even though it’s not that big a drop into the dark, murky water. Apparently it’s the undercurrent that will suck me under. I take a deep breath.

  I died the day that he did, it’s just that my body kept going and his didn’t. He was only 49. The biting easterly wind is stinging my face and my eyes water. He would have said you’re about to commit suicide but still you have time to stop and complain about the weather. I’m a hothouse flower, I would have replied. And I don’t belong here in this cold city without you.

  I regret having left it until this last possible night. I wonder if cowardice is the right word to describe my inaction. The act of killing oneself requires energy and drive. I used up almost every drop of fuel caring for him and now my tank is empty. I would rather just cease to exist. I want to lie down and never wake up. Why didn’t I choose tablets?

  Tomorrow I would have been 50. This way both of us will always be 49.

  Ethna Carroll’s lover, Sean, died three years ago and she has never recovered. She didn’t believe she would ever recover. Recover a sense of purpose or belonging. The bus driver’s friends fell away while she was being his nurse; his illness was ugly and he hadn’t wanted to share it with anyone else. And afterwards, when Sean was gone, she had nothing left to say. And no-one knew how to reach the unreachable woman.

  I remind myself that I didn’t plump for the tablets because I throw up easily and might inadvertently save my own life. So leaping into the treacherous Thames it is. I stand up and notice how so many new glass-fronted offices have inched their way in between the grand old off-white stone buildings. Bright lights even at 3am St Paul’s to my right and Southwark Cathedral to my left – just the heathen Ethna Carroll in the middle, on the bridge. Piggy in the middle. Piggy about to become bacon. Your jokes are so bad, you deserve to die, I can hear Sean teasing. Only in reality I can’t hear him say anything. Nobody has spoken a word to me in a very long time.

  And then they did. Someone called out to her.

  Ethna had started her shift earlier that night at London Bridge station and driven through the deserted City streets all the way to Friern Barnet. Long gone were the daytime suits worn by lawyers and financiers travelling to and from Bank station. The night bus is all about continuing the party from the pubs and clubs – noisy, bustling teenagers laughing and flirting with each other. The bus driver envied the confidence and bravado of youth, their sense of ownership of the City at night. And it added to her sense of isolation that none of them ever seemed to notice her. The woman who cleaned up their vomit and made sure they got home warm and safe.

  At 3.28am she set off from London Bridge station for her next journey – only this time she stopped half way across the river. She parked in the bus lane and put on her hazard lights to signal the N43 had broken down. With all her strength gathered, Ethna stood on the bridge wall and took a step nearer to the edge, a step nearer to the end. And then she heard a voice calling out to her, ‘Turn again, Ethna Carroll.’ She turned and saw an old man dressed in a cape trimmed with ermine, and holding a cat.

  ‘I nearly gave up too. I believed I had lost everything, but when I heard my name called I turned around as I was bid. And I’m glad, otherwise I’d have missed my chance to become Lord Mayor of London three times.’ The elderly man smiles at her, his eyes twinkling. Ah! Dick Whittington, she realises. He must be in a pantomime nearby. Ethna is staring but saying nothing so his next gambit is an invitation to come for a walk with him in exchange for the keys to the City. ‘Just a few hours. What have you got to lose?’ My nerve, my resolve, she thinks but doesn’t say. He jangles the keys. ‘You were envious of the kids on your bus and their sense of belonging.’ He walks towards her holding his hand out and she finds herself taking it and climbing down off the wall.

  He was telling her he was the Dick Whittington, born 1352 or thereabouts, as they walked across the bridge and turned right into Eastcheap and right again into Pudding Lane. When he paused to look down at the cobbles, Ethna said: ‘They’re not paved with gold, you know,’ and he grinned at her indulgently.

  ‘This spot was exactly where Thomas Farynor’s bakery stood in 1666. It caught alight in the darkness of night and started the Great Fire of London.’ He tells her in technicolour detail about the flames ravaging the City non-stop for three days, consuming 13,200 houses and 89 churches, ‘including St Michael Paternoster Royal where I was buried. Not that they could find my body when they went searching for it in 1949. They only found a mummified cat where my body should have been.’ Ethna turns to look in the direction of the church, but instead sees the Monument right in front of her. ‘Built by Sir Christopher Wren and dedicated to the Great Fire. It has 133 steps. Do you want to go up?’ he asks her. That settles it, she thinks, he is definitely one of those tourist guides that likes to dress up, get into character and boast enthusiastically about how much he knows.

  He doesn’t wait for an answer; instead the elderly gentleman disappears up the spiral stone staircase. ‘Do you have a favourite fruit, Miss Carroll?’ He calls over his shoulder. . ‘I’m partial to pineapples,’ he continues as he climbs. She is reluctantly following him. ‘The first one I ever had was in 1832 in the City of London Club on Old Broad Street with Sir Robert Peel.’

  ‘This is all a bit out of your era, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ever since I died in 1423 I’ve make an effort to return to my manor once a year, catch up on the City news.’

  202 feet up in the air, and trying to catch her breath, Ethna found her companion sitting on the ground and chatting with his friend Charles, an old black guy wrapped up in a blanket. ‘…Marty lashed out at his new girlfriend a few weeks back,’ explained the homeless man, ‘no sign of him since.’

  ‘Ale and anger, it’s a terrible combination, Charles. Do you know what happened to the girl?’

  ‘Broken arm. Patched up and back out sleeping on the steps of St Stephen’s most nights.’

  ‘It’s a hard city. Hard and ugly.’ said the bus driver.

  Charles looked up at Ethna, a suspicious stare was exchanged, but their common companion introduced them and the frost melted very slightly. ‘Look around you, Miss, at the grandeur and the decrepit, the new and the old living side by side. The stoic, the falling down and the newly born.’ Ethna leaned over the railings and wondered if he was talking about buildings or people. ‘And listen out for the stories carried on the wind by the ghosts that were here before us. Some of it’s ugly I grant you, but some of it takes your breath away.’

  ‘Have you ever seen the beautiful stained glass window over at St Michael’s?�
�� interjected Dick. He winked at Charles who laughed and then coughed, a deep hacking cough.

  ‘The Mayor and his cat immortalised! Just to the right of the front door.’ Charles managed to gasp. ‘He thinks this City is all about him!’

  Dick asked his ailing friend if he had thought any more about going to a shelter, at least until it got warmer. The old man shook his head. ‘Ever since you gave me the keys to the City, Sir, I have made this perch my night-home. I’m in my element with the elements.’

  Charles recounts how he was admiring his metropolis from this vantage point back in the early nineties when he was literally blown off his feet. An IRA bomb blew up the Baltic Exchange where the Gherkin now stands. St Mary Axe, clarifies Dick. Locally known as the crystal phallus, adds Ethna. ‘A tremendous, thundering explosion, and the Monument was actually shaking beneath my feet. I was almost deafened by the sounds of glass smashing, and brick and cement crashing all around. I thought the world was ending.’

  Dick picks up the ‘disaster story’ baton and tells tales of the Black Death, which killed about 30,000 people in London (and two million in England), around the time he was born in Gloucestershire. When young Richard arrived in London in 1379, seeking his fortune, the streets still smelt of death, disease and bad sanitation. He tells his sceptical audience that even then he had suspected rats carried the disease and that is why he brought his cat Tommy with him everywhere.

  Ethna is half listening to their stories as she continues to watch the snail-like progress of the cleaning truck on the road below, now slithering towards the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street. She’d never noticed before that the majestic building doesn’t have any windows on the ground floor. And next to it are the steps down to the tube station.

  The bus driver remembers her mother talking about the Biltz, and how she and her family had escaped death because her brother had twisted his ankle. They hid under the bed at home one January night in 1941, instead of going to the shelter as usual at Bank station. There was a direct hit and 56 people died in the underground that night.

  Stories carried on the wind by the ghosts that were here before us.

  Ethna felt suddenly cold, she shivered and put her hands in her pockets. Her turned-off mobile phone was sitting guiltily inside the right one. She thought of Gareth, the driver on the next night bus, worried that he might have reported her abandoned vehicle.

  My City guide was halfway down the staircase before he’d called out to me. I smiled goodbye to Charles, and found the going down much easier on my thighs than the going up. We walked alongside some of the remains of the old City wall and happened upon a drunk student pissing against it. Dick told me he had built London’s first public lavatory called ‘Whittington’s Longhouse’, which relied on the Thames cleansing it at high tide.

  ‘Those stories you and Charles were telling – fire, bombs, plagues and disasters – you hardly make a case for me sticking around.’

  ‘It’s all part of the tapestry, Ethna.’

  As he led me through London’s dark alleyways and small winding roads, I was wearing the eyes and ears of a tourist and not walking in the City where I was born, walking on roads my Irish father helped build. Lights twinkled and gargoyles grimaced, I was discovering a night-time wonderland.

  We sauntered through Leadenhall Market, a dark red wrought iron structure that the old man informed me he had purchased for the City back in 1411. It looked more Victorian to me but I wasn’t going to argue. Charles was right; he really does think the City is all about him. I told Mr Whittington that it was now famous for being Diagon Alley in the first Harry Potter film. That made him sneer and I smiled. We saw a couple kissing as they leant up against the butcher’s window. I recognised the woman by her red hair and uniform. ‘She’s a nurse at Guy’s hospital, just over the bridge,’ I whisper to my companion. ‘She often gets on the final

  bus of my shift. I think she lives near Highgate Hill.’

  ‘There’s a monument to me and Tommy on that hill. It’s where I heard the Bow bells calling to me to turn around. Perhaps they’ll put a monument on London Bridge for you?’ This time I sneered and he smiled. He took my hand and held onto it as we left the market, proceeded down Whittington Avenue (of course he drew my attention to the road sign), and onto the deserted Lime Street. I was slightly embarrassed by his gesture but at the same time I liked it. I felt looked after; his hand was coarse, but warm and sure.

  The erstwhile Mayor stopped briefly to talk to a couple of security guards at the ‘Inside Out’ building. The bus driver slipped her hand away from her escort and started to walk around Lloyd’s futuristic structure. She knew how it felt to have all her innards on show. Funny how it looks spectacular on a building but unattractive on a 49-year-old woman, she thought. She should be over it by now but the tears just keep flowing. And her bursts of anger are not attractive. Sean no longer around to tell her, ‘You are beautiful, warts and all.’ Sean no longer around to laugh when she replied with a witch’s cackle: ‘Warts and all!!’

  ‘Now it’s time for victuals,’ her City guide announced as they crossed the road and walked towards Bishopsgate. Ethna launched into a rant about hating insurance companies, the financial traders, and the fat cats who make money from other people. ‘And the security guards you were just talking to are mugs, earning a pittance while their bosses are tucked up warmly in their mansions.’

  ‘Or perhaps they are providing for themselves. Perhaps they like their jobs. Or maybe one of them hates it but is planning to resign as soon as he gets his own fashion business up and running. You’d find out more if you actually talked to them.’

  ‘No point.’

  ‘And for your information I was a fat cat, Ms High and Mighty. I made a lot of money trading silks and velvet from Africa and the Far East.’

  ‘I hate you too.’

  They strolled in silence for a while before he asked her if she had been thinking about Sean. Was that why she was so angry? No reply. They continued walking without words. Still holding hands.

  My temper started to cool and I wanted to lighten the mood so I joked about making sure my last meal on earth was a good one. I told him I needed to build up my strength to climb a wall and jump in the river. (That was my best attempt at levity.) My companion said the finest possible eatery was moments away, and just as I started expressing my doubts about the existence of this restaurant he opened the door to Polo’s 24-hour café.

  Rosa, the Italian waitress, threw her arms around the old man, welcoming him back. As they caught up on family news, Ethna looked round the long and narrow café and sniffed the delicious aroma of homemade cooking. The patrons were a lively, chatty mixture of uniformed police officers, late-night party revellers, and foreign visitors still on a different time zone.

  As their food arrived Dick sat down opposite her, ‘Look around, these are your people Ethna; night people, the ones that keep the City going while everyone else sleeps. You’re part of the tapestry – an important part – maybe you just need to pull on the thread a little tighter and bring the people closer to you.’ Ethna didn’t reply, she was too busy eating seafood spaghetti, now aware of how hungry she had been.

  And then Carlo the chef appeared, all smiles, carrying a pineapple upside-down cake with one lit candle placed in the middle. ‘To celebrate the yearly visit of our most valued customer, Mr Whittington, the true Mayor of London.’ Dick blew out the candle, as Carlo sat down with them at the table and served three portions with cream. Ethna listened and watched as the chef questioned the man with the ermine-trimmed cape and heavy gold chain all about medieval London. He showed no signs of doubt that their companion was the real Dick Whittington. She wondered if everyone was in on this elaborate hoax. And then she took a mouthful of the pineapple upside down pudding and suddenly she no longer cared.

  On their way out Dick collected a food bag and kissed Rosa goodbye for another year. This time Ethna linked her arm through Dick’s as they walked in companionabl
e silence. She had missed the warmth of another human being. A couple of girls in miniscule skirts and towering heels shouted from across the road that they hoped the old fella had won the fancy dress prize. Ethna laughed heartily.

  They walked past the Mansion House and as they turned the corner they could see a small shape lying on the steps of a church. Dick gave Ethna the food parcel as he thought the girl might not welcome a strange man approaching her. ‘And be gentle,’ he warned her, ‘she is a wounded soul.’

  As she got closer to St Stephen Walbrook, Ethna saw that the sleeping drifter had her left arm in a sling. She wondered if it was the woman that Charles had been speaking about. Ethna moved the crumpled tin foil, lighter and spoon away into the corner. She checked the girl’s breathing and was relieved she was OK. She laid the food parcel on the next step down and softly covered the young woman with the discarded blanket and stroked the hair from her face. The middle-aged woman sat quietly with the homeless waif and then without waking, the girl’s fingers reached out for the corner of Ethna’s jacket and held on tight.

  Ethna looked up and next to the church door was a plaque commemorating the origin of the Samaritans in 1953. They held their first meetings downstairs in the crypt and their aim was ‘to befriend the suicidal and despairing.’ The bus driver began to wonder if her City guide led her here deliberately and her eyes searched for the guilty party. But there was no sign of him. How long has she been sitting here? Where is he?

  Suddenly worried, Ethna gently extricated herself from the young woman’s grip and went in search of the old man. She ran down empty roads and deserted cobbled streets to no avail – she was furious – and madder still that the pantomime line ‘ten minutes and still no sign of Dick’ popped into her head. Now was not the time for bad innuendo. She stopped suddenly in the realisation that he had abandoned her.