Chaplin & Company

by Mave Fellowes

  But this morning, her third day aboard Chaplin and Company, she wakes in a very awkward position. Her lower body is on its side, but her chest is twisted round, facing down, and her arms reach up and forward, over her head. Her mouth is open and she is wearing all her clothes, including shoes. Her quilt is on the floor – not next to the bed, but right across the cabin, next to the kitchen counter. Also, it is nearly eleven o’clock. She is shocked at herself. She closes her mouth, shifts quickly to her customary position, clasps her hands across her chest.

  And begins to process the night’s events.

  Curiously, the horrors of the Covent Garden job and the unconscious face of John Kettle do not present themselves as the major events. What happened after preoccupies her more. She is briefly mortified by her crying episode, but then recalls her neighbour’s quiet reaction and thinks perhaps it was not so bad. She reaches for the paper bag on the bed next to her and feels the hard wheels inside. She can’t believe she now possesses original Marceau film. She can’t believe she has met someone who knows about him, even if this person cares more for fiddle music. This is what London is for! This man Ridley is no threat: he is an ally. A fellow nomad. In fact, she feels safer lying in her boat knowing that he is only a few metres away. And, most thrillingly, this Ridley has friends on the Grand Union Canal at Kensal Rise who have gatherings every Saturday night, with music and performance. He said it: she’d be welcome there. This is it, then, her entrée into the city’s artistic community. But at the same time the thought is half terrifying. Who are these other performers?

  Ridley seems to know a lot about the canal. She asked him about steering lessons and he said there was a programme in Camden which gave free training on the community boats. She will go and apply there tomorrow. Free training will be good for the accounts – she can remove money allotted for steering lessons from her expenses column. It will make up for failing to collect her payment from the job last night.

  Last night’s job. She is going to have to register with a different entertainment agency. A proper one. How to go about this? Top Hat Entertainers was the only agency advertised in the back of The Professional Magician that was specific about not catering for children’s entertainment. And the magazine subscription is quarterly, so she doesn’t get the next one until October. But she has to pay back the first instalment of her £774.41 deficit long before then. She has to find proper work. Otherwise she will have to busk on the streets of Covent Garden, like George and the Dragon or the Opera Singers, performing to smoking, eating, distracted shoppers, forced to go round with a begging bowl asking for money. Still, that would be better than being shut in a pub with a pack of drunken, drooling animals. She shivers. Last night was worse than any of the children’s parties in Arundel. She looks down at the knee of her trousers – the darned patch has ripped wider. It is now flapping completely open, showing a whole square of skin. She must have done this kneeling down by the canal. In the rescue.

  She remembers Ridley’s boat, the canal map painted on the deck, and the careful decoration of ivy vine painted round the cabin doors. She remembers the name of his boat, Saltheart. Poetic. The outside was scruffy but what she saw of the inside was handsome and well kept. She looks at her orange carpet squares and the cracked varnish on the walls – unimpressive by comparison. She wonders if she could copy the Grand Union map from her canal book on to the rear deck. And she would like to frame some of her mime posters properly and paint the walls a strong colour. Dark red would be smart.

  She is full of resolve now and swings herself up off the bed, goes into the bathroom and pulls the microphone lightcord. But when she looks in the mirror her jaw drops open in horror. White make-up is still thick at the edges of her face, in her eyebrows and the crevices of her nose. The two Marceau-style red dots are smeared across her cheeks. The only areas of completely clear skin are below her eyes, where tears have run into the greasepaint in dribbly shapes. She looks like a debauched clown. What must he have thought?

  She takes her sponge from the mirrored shelf and squeezes it under the tap, then pulls it across her face until the make-up is gone and her face is gleaming. She blinks, checking the creases around her eyes are clean, and wipes the sponge along the lines of her eyebrows.

  Next she changes into clean clothes: fresh pinstriped trousers, a white vest, her red braces and a waistcoat. She leaves her torn trousers out on the kitchen counter to mend later.

  She will go and thank Ridley for the film reels. She will be a composed and rational version of the night before; she might even make some lighthearted allusion to the make-up. Then she will make her way to the British Waterways building to check for her father’s letter. She gets dressed quickly and checks her appearance three separate times in the bathroom mirror. When she gets to the cabin door she stands for some time holding the handle without turning it. Her heart is beating in her head – it sounds as though someone is rhythmically boxing her ears. When she drops her hand the heartbeat recedes but then throbs louder when she lifts her arm to the door again. She has never experienced this phenomenon before.

  Eventually she twists the handle down and steps on to the deck.

  But there is an empty space by her stern. Ridley and his boat are gone.

  She looks left and right but they are nowhere to be seen.

  The canal is quiet compared to yesterday. The only thing she can see on the water is a procession of swans swimming parallel to the bank. The only things on the towpath are the three tramps, sitting on the bench up by the road, drinking cans with plastic bags at their feet. There is a shopping trolley behind the bench piled high with objects. Odeline can see a tennis racket cover sticking out of the top. The weather is still brightly sunny but all three tramps are wearing several skins of clothing. The one on the left of the bench is in a wool hat – his face and hands are puce, as if the clothes are too tight. He looks angrily sunburnt. The middle tramp is narrower, the top half of his face obscured by the hood of a black cagoule. The third has black skin and grizzled, matted hair that sits like a beret on its head. It. Odeline can’t tell if it is male or female. It has slim ankles sticking out from a belted beige mackintosh. Female?

  The one in the wool hat is looking back at Odeline and raises his can. He begins to sing in a crooning baritone.

  ‘Strangers in the night, exchanging glances . . .’

  Odeline turns away. Is she to be accosted daily by drunkards in this place? She can’t remember seeing one drunkard in Arundel. They were probably cleared off the streets by the prim ladies of the council, put in vans and delivered to Worthing. She is about to step back on to her boat when she sees another figure coming towards her along the towpath. Lumbering, a crabby gait, it is the fat little woman from the barge cafe. She is looking straight at Odeline and her face is pained with effort – in fact she is walking quite fast. She holds her hand up as she gets closer, a greeting or a plea for Odeline to stay where she is, to wait until she has made her hot, heavy way along the strip of towpath to reach her.

  ‘I close the cafe for one minute. I hear there is an accident last night, with the warden. In the canal? I hear the siren,’ she says, and then bites her lips together as if she’s said something wrong. Her accent is thick and clunky, but she speaks English fluidly, not searching for the right word.

  Odeline looks at the woman. Her eyelids droop at the corner of her eyes, so she appears permanently concerned, sympathetic. She has soft cheeks hanging either side of her mouth. They sag over her jawline – and wobble when she talks. ‘Yes, me and Ridley.’ Odeline gestures to the space beyond her boat where his had been. ‘We found him.’

  ‘Is he alive?’ asks the barge cafe woman. She looks emotional. Odeline wonders why she cares.

  ‘I believe so,’ she says, ‘though –’ she is trying to remember exactly what the paramedics said – ‘he was not exhibiting signs of consciousness when we put him in the ambulance.’

  ‘Do you know –’ the barge woman talks as if she is trying
to slow the words down as she speaks them – ‘do you know, if he doesn’t come back, do they send a new warden? And last night, are the police here?’ She wipes her forehead. ‘I’m sorry for the questions.’ She seems exhausted though it is not yet midday. And very hot: she is wearing a heavy floral skirt with tights and trainers, and a zipped turquoise shellsuit top underneath which she is visibly sweating. Even to Odeline the outfit looks strange.

  ‘No, we just called an ambulance. There were no police,’ says Odeline – but then looks up to see, as if she has just introduced him, a policeman, buttoned, and striding in black uniform out from under the bridge.

  The cafe woman follows her gaze and jumps at the sight. She turns to Odeline and grabs her hand. ‘Please can I go in your boat? Please?’ Odeline doesn’t know what to say and looks down at the desperate upturned face and then at the fat little hands holding on to her fingers. She takes her hand back and puts it into her pocket. The woman turns round to the policeman – young, well built, filling his uniform – who says:

  ‘Good morning, ladies. I’m looking for a lady by the name of Vera, a foreign lady, the waitress from the Venice cafe, just beyond the bridge.’

  ‘This is her,’ says Odeline, stepping aside. She doesn’t want to be held as an accomplice in whatever this woman has done. This is turning into the most eventful twenty-four hours of her life. Is she about to witness an arrest?

  The woman has her head down. ‘Miss Vera,’ starts the policeman, ‘we have a patient in intensive care at St Mary’s Hospital. Do you know a John Kettle?’

  Vera nods her head, still keeping her eyes down.

  ‘And you are aware that he was taken to hospital last night?’

  She nods again.

  The policeman takes a notepad from his jacket pocket, flips open the cover and reads as if from a script.

  ‘Mr Kettle was brought into hospital unconscious and in a critical state. He claims not to remember the circumstances leading up to the incident, and it is not certain whether it was a genuine accident, whether someone else tried to harm him, or indeed whether he tried to harm himself.’ He looks up. ‘Do you follow me?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ says Vera in a quiet voice.

  ‘However, Mr Kettle denies trying to harm himself, and there is no evidence to suggest that this is anything but an isolated incident as a result of overdrinking. He has completed a psychiatric assessment and is due to be discharged, on the condition that he is escorted home by a relative or friend and enters an approved alcohol programme. This will be followed up by a visit from social services. There being no close family, he has named you as an acquaintance or neighbour who would be able to collect him from hospital today, and to sign the discharge form.’ Here he makes a writing gesture with his hand. ‘Would this be possible?’

  Vera looks up. ‘I can’t do the forms,’ she says, making the writing gesture back.

  ‘Well, perhaps your friend here could come with you?’ The policeman nods to Odeline.

  ‘Me?’ says Odeline, horrified.

  ‘I can’t leave the cafe,’ pleads Vera to the policeman.

  ‘Could your friend here keep an eye on the cafe then, while you’re away, and you could get the hospital reception to help with the forms? It is you he’s asked for. He is said to be in a fragile state.’

  ‘Okay,’ Vera shrugs, eventually. ‘I can go.’

  ‘I am not working in that cafe,’ says Odeline.

  ‘Well, the whole thing won’t take long anyway. Only took me ten minutes to walk up from the hospital to here. Why not go after the cafe closes, Miss Vera. And perhaps your friend here could then assist you with the forms. What time’s the cafe close, please?’

  ‘Five o’clock,’ says Vera.

  He unclips a pen from his uniform pocket and twiddles it over his fingers down to the notepad. ‘Okay, ladies, so can I report back that you will both be there to discharge John Kettle from the Victoria and Albert Wards at St Mary’s, Paddington, shortly after five o’clock. And he’ll need some clean clothes. I believe his boat is open, so if I could leave you to arrange that?’

  Vera nods imperceptibly.

  ‘I am under no obligation to collect that man from hospital. I refuse to go,’ says Odeline.

  The policeman takes off his helmet. He has short blond hair and a precisely squared jaw. His eyes are sky blue and look directly into hers.

  ‘Madam, this gentleman has suffered a nasty shock. It would be very much appreciated if you could assist this lady in bringing him home. I suspect that is the best place for him. He has, I understand, been a little distressed at being kept in hospital. If you could find it in yourself to help, it will take under an hour of your day.’

  He keeps his crystalline gaze fixed on her. Odeline finds herself shamed and nodding.

  At five o’clock Odeline is leaning on the railing opposite the barge cafe while Vera locks the doors. The day has been a failure. There was no letter from her father in the pigeonhole at the British Waterways building. She knocked on the office door, but the officious woman inside said she was unable to answer any enquiries about lost letters as post wasn’t her department. She gave Odeline a number to call for General Enquiries. Odeline, irritated, had requested to make an official complaint about the state of her boat. In her opinion, British Waterways misrepresented the vessel. The woman had given her a form to fill in. Tawdry, wrote Odeline, in her stick letters. Shabby. Bathroom unsatisfactory. Portholes grubby. She remembered the promising description in the advert. Poor paintwork, she wrote. Highly personalised interior. No traditional fittings. Disappointing decor. MISLEADINGLY ADVERTISED. COMPENSATION DUE. Odeline promised to visit the office daily to check the progress of their response, and slammed the door.

  On the way back to her boat, across Edgware Road and along the streets of Maida Vale, Odeline had felt as if people were deliberately ignoring her, just as they had in Covent Garden. In Arundel people’s eyes would linger on her, they would look her costume up and down. But when she scanned the pavements on her walk home from the British Waterways building, she realised: she wasn’t the most startlingly dressed. She watched the shopkeepers and market sellers as she walked by. Their gaze passed over her quickly, lingering instead on the barely clad, the girls in cropped tops and cropped shorts, the ones in big sunglasses making a noise. Perhaps people would notice her if she was wearing her new yellow-strapped roller skates, wheeling and spinning down the pavement. But these pavements were crooked and bumpy, filled with hazards, and there were cars zooming along the roads. It would be as dangerous to practise here as on the towpath.

  Back at Little Venice she’d gone to the telephone box by the bridge to try the General Enquiries number. There was a new foam carton in the bottom of the telephone box, with half a baked potato in it. The whole box stank of tinned tunafish and Odeline had to hold the door open for the best part of a minute before going in. Once inside she picked up the receiver and reminded herself of her courage last night in making the 999 call. She dialled and reached an answering machine. And then tried two more times, still getting the answering machine. The payphone did not return her money. The three calls cost her £1.80 in total.

  Ridley’s boat was still gone. She went back on board Chaplin and Company and ate some jelly squares for lunch with a carton of tropical fruit juice. She decided then to mend her trousers, and took out her mother’s sewing basket, opening it on the bed. In the padded underside of the lid were rows of needles and pins arranged according to size, and a clear pack of ‘O.MILK’ nametapes. The reels of cotton were in rows around the sides of the basket, in the middle were scissors, thimbles and an unstitching device on top of squares of cloth. Odeline picked up the squares. They were all black and white: the thick black cotton of her suit material, the fine white cotton of her shirts. Clinging to one of the black squares was a wiry reddish hair.

  The sewing was not as straightforward as she had envisaged. It took almost ten minutes to thread the needle. She sewed a patch on to the tro
users and then had to unpick it when she realised it should have been sewn to the inside. Her stitching was loose and ugly and she did the knot too tight at the end, so the patch was slightly bunched.

  She spent the remainder of the afternoon rehearsing, although her concentration was continuously disrupted by the flashbacks of the bald sweating man in the Hawaiian shirt, jeering up at her, the sound of fists pounding the table, the eyes looking down the length of her, boring through her suit. She also found herself listening out for the engine of the Saltheart, but to no avail. Eventually she gave up for the day, and went over to the barge cafe at four forty-five.

  When she arrived the last customers were leaving. As they walked away a pair of pigeons fluttered down on to the table to peck at their leftovers. ‘Shoo,’ said Odeline, rattling a chair to scare them off. Pigeons were so pushy and ill-mannered. The towpath was busier now, with cyclists jangling by and some children in school uniform sitting on the bench making a noise. Vera came out and started pulling the tables over to the barge doors, stacking the chairs on top. It looked like hard work and, after standing watching for a minute, Odeline had walked over and helped with a few. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t like she needed to. When they had finished, Vera had turned and said, ‘Thank you’, in a very warm way, and patted her arm. Odeline had found this embarrassing and went to lean on the railing.

  Now Vera is bolting the doors shut. She has to fasten one door from inside and then comes out and pulls the other one shut. ‘Okay,’ she says as she turns the key. ‘Shall we go and find the clothes?’ They walk over to the first of John Kettle’s boats, the Peggy May. The tarpaulin is fixed at the front but folded over so that most of the back deck is open. ‘I think this is the one he lives on,’ says Vera. Odeline looks at the boat and its stained tarpaulin in disgust; she has no desire to set foot on this odious man’s property.