Canvey Island

by James Runcie

  ‘It’s a twin-cylinder sixty-horsepower screamer, Martin. Goes like the wind. Terrifies the parishioners.’

  Claire’s mother lit a cigarette. ‘Sometimes my husband thinks he’s Lawrence of Arabia. I only hope he doesn’t come to the same end.’

  We were interrupted by the girls coming back from their tennis. They were laughing about their partners, and as soon as they started on the news of the day it became clear that the family felt most at home when speaking to each other in some kind of code. At times it consisted entirely of acronyms and Claire had to provide a whispered running commentary. Amanda said that Victoria’s partner was NSIT (‘not safe in taxis’) but at least he was RGL (‘reasonably good-looking’) whereas her current admirer was simply NPA (‘not physically attractive’) and it would have to be a PBJ (‘paper-bag job’) if there was going to be any progress.

  We went for a walk to the village and drank a couple of pints in the pub garden before returning home to change for dinner. Claire kissed me on the landing and only stopped when she realised that her twelve-year-old brother was spying on us. ‘Go AWAY, Jonno.’ She apologised and said she would see me later but I couldn’t think how it would be possible to make nocturnal visits over creaking floorboards.

  When we came down to help with the final preparations for dinner Claire’s mother beckoned me into the kitchen in order to open the wine.

  ‘Come on, Martin, make yourself useful.’

  This was a family that never appeared to have had any problems. No one had ever died as far as I could see, at least not recently, and they had all booked their place in heaven long ago. They were continually at ease, laughing and interrupting and looking forward to summer garden parties, musical evenings, fêtes and cricket matches. It didn’t occur to them that there was any kind of life outside their own.

  On the Sunday morning Claire’s father preached on the subject of contemporary morality. He began by quoting St John’s account of Jesus’s farewell to his disciples – ‘No one shall rob you of your joy’ – and spoke of the ultimate bliss awaiting those who put their trust not in the world but in the divine.

  It was difficult stuff, taking on the sorrow and the mystery as well as the joy of love, but as soon as the service ended the mood lightened. At the parish breakfast no one appeared to pay the slightest attention to anything Claire’s father had said. It seemed that the service had been something everyone had to get through simply to reach the coffee. The lady parishioners choreographed their cups, saucers and buns and were called by old-fashioned names like Veronica, Margaret and Patricia. Most of them were in love with the vicar.

  The Sunday lunch that followed was not the traditional roast but grilled asparagus and mushroom risotto with an apple and celery salad. Afterwards there were to be the first strawberries from the garden. It was a world away from Vi’s boiled ox tongue.

  ‘You should never eat anything you’re not prepared to kill yourself,’ Claire’s father was saying, ‘isn’t that right, Celia?’

  His wife explained. ‘In this family, Martin, we think there’s enough killing in the world as it is.’

  ‘Martin likes fish,’ said Claire. ‘His father is a fisherman.’

  Matthew Southey smiled. ‘And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishers. What is the quotation, Amanda?’

  ‘“And he saith unto them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” ’

  ‘Well done, my little cream puff.’

  They began to talk about cricket and the game Jonno was due to play that afternoon. His father offered his advice: ‘Every day you should look at the weather and think: “Is this a bowling day, heaviness in the air, a bit of moisture in the pitch; or is it a batting day, a clear sky and a pitch that’s true?” What do you think, Martin? Today, would you choose to bat or decide to bowl?’

  ‘Bat, I suppose …’

  ‘No suppose about it, I would have thought. And what do you plan to do when you leave university?’

  ‘Don’t start interviewing him, Daddy,’ said Claire.

  ‘I don’t see why I can’t. So many people these days are living a DNB kind of a life.’

  ‘DNB?’ I asked.

  ‘Did not bat.’

  ‘Well,’ I said.

  No one shall rob you of your joy.

  ‘I thought I’d make a start by marrying your daughter.’

  Claire’s father wondered whether he had heard me correctly. ‘Aren’t you supposed to talk to me about it first?’

  ‘Well, I thought I’d ask her. I don’t mean to be rude. I thought it might be more appropriate.’

  ‘And have you?’ He examined a piece of risotto on his fork.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Bit sudden, isn’t it?’

  Claire’s sister Victoria laughed. ‘You’re discussing this, in front of all of us, and you haven’t even checked it with her?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. I’m sorry. Claire, will you marry me?’

  Her mother interrupted. ‘You don’t have to answer, darling …’

  ‘Yes,’ Claire said. ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘Well,’ said her mother. ‘This is a bit of a surprise on a Sunday morning.’

  ‘It certainly is,’ said the vicar. ‘Are you sure about this, Claire?’

  ‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what to say.’

  Claire smiled. ‘That must be a bit of a first then, Daddy.’

  ‘I suppose we had better congratulate you,’ said her mother. ‘Matthew, you know where the champagne is? Didn’t the doctor give you some after his wife’s funeral? We might as well use it up now. Seems as good a time as any.’

  Matthew Southey rose from his chair. ‘It won’t be cold, of course.’

  ‘Oh, I think Mummy’s already provided the ice,’ said Claire.

  Violet

  You wouldn’t call Claire thin, which was a bit of a surprise after Linda, especially since she was a vegetarian. You don’t see many plump vegetarians, do you? I thought Martin liked the skinny type, but now he’d gone for someone much more, well, voluptuous, I suppose, although she hid it well enough. We’d noticed the engagement ring: an emerald. It went with her eyes and matched her hair: very Irish. On a good day you might even have mistaken her for Maureen O’Hara until she opened her mouth and that posh English came out.

  ‘This has all happened very quickly,’ I said when Claire was safely in the bathroom. The taps were running so I knew she couldn’t hear us.

  ‘But when you know,’ Martin replied, ‘you know. Wasn’t it like that with Uncle George?’

  I wasn’t having him change the subject as quickly as that. ‘Your father’s worried it won’t last,’ I said firmly. ‘He’s concerned.’

  ‘I don’t need his concern.’

  ‘You’re both so young, Martin. You should listen to him. He knows a thing or two.’

  ‘And what does he think is wrong?’

  ‘We only want what’s best for you,’ I said. ‘We’re just trying to help.’

  Len came into the room with a bottle of beer. ‘Class. That’s what we’re worried about.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Martin said, stubborn as ever. ‘You don’t understand.’

  Well, thank you very much, I thought.

  ‘Have you met her parents?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course I have.’

  Martin was so abrupt that Len had to cut in. ‘And what does her father do?’

  ‘He’s a vicar.’

  ‘A VICAR?’ Len said. ‘Every time I see a vicar I think I’m about to die.’

  ‘Is he going to do the wedding?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s going to give her away.’

  ‘How touching,’ I said, fetching the Babycham from the cocktail cabinet. I wondered if Claire was pregnant. Perhaps that would explain it.

  ‘I like a bit of a party,’ I said, �
��and it’s about time you settled down; especially after Linda and everything …’

  ‘That was a long time ago.’

  Long time! It was only a couple of years. ‘Have you told her?’

  ‘Why should I do that?’

  ‘Might be polite.’

  Len tried to help but it didn’t come out right. ‘Sometimes I think you’d have been better off with Linda.’

  I could see that things were getting a bit difficult so I went to check on the fish pie. Martin hadn’t told me about the vegetarianism until it was too late so I felt a bit embarrassed but Claire did have manners, I will say that for her. She said she’d be perfectly happy with the vegetables and some bread and cheese.

  While in the kitchen I kept an ear out for the two men talking. Martin was getting quite shirty.

  ‘Why are you telling me this now?’ he was saying. ‘I don’t love Linda.’

  ‘You did.’ Len was always fond of that girl.

  ‘I know I did. But now I don’t,’ Martin replied. ‘You didn’t even like Linda. You said you could never tell what she thought.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You did, Dad, don’t deny it.’

  ‘I don’t know what I did or didn’t do. It’s nothing to do with me anyway. All I’m asking is why you want to be with this other woman?’

  ‘Claire, Dad, she’s called Claire. What is your problem?’

  ‘I don’t have a problem, son. You can marry whoever you like. Don’t mind me.’

  ‘Good,’ said Martin. ‘So you approve?’

  I could hear Claire draining the bathwater. I didn’t want her overhearing and so I came back and tried to calm things down. ‘Maybe it makes your father feel old: you getting married,’ I said.

  ‘Too right it does,’ Len said. ‘Makes us both feel old.’

  ‘Have you set a date?’ I asked.

  ‘We have to check with Claire’s mother.’

  ‘Will it be a posh do?’ Len asked.

  ‘I hope so. And we expect you to be there.’ Then Martin looked at me. ‘And George, of course. You’re all invited. No excuses.’

  Len could see I was worried. ‘George is a bit of a liability. You know that, Martin.’

  ‘He’s family. He should come.’

  I was trying to work out some of the costs. I’d have to get a new frock, Len would need a new suit, and I’d have to persuade George into his uniform. That was about the only chance I’d have of keeping him still. I began to dread the whole thing, but I had to go through with it for my sister’s sake. God knows what Martin thought he was playing at. A vicar’s daughter! That really took the biscuit.

  Martin

  Dad was right. It was a posh wedding. April 26th 1969. Cup final day. Just as well it was Leicester v Man City. If it had been Tottenham we would have had to change the date because he would have kicked up a fuss.

  I think it was the first time I felt embarrassed about my upbringing. Dad looked smaller than he normally did, Vi was blousy and overdressed in a yellow outfit that showed too much of her cleavage, and my old school friends seemed to think they were only there to look at the women and get drunk. At one point I was worried if I even belonged myself, if this was really me, here on my wedding day dressed in a morning suit. I kept expecting a tap on the shoulder and a man saying, ‘Come on, Martin, admit it, you don’t really fit in here. This is far too good for you …’

  Ade, my best man, had brought a packet of condoms and put one in his right hand so that after he had greeted me I was left with sticky handshakes from then on. He even put one in the cucumber sandwiches. George pulled one out and started to blow it up. Claire’s mother thought he’d done it on purpose.

  ‘Who is that revolting man?’

  And then there were the speeches. Claire’s father had written a poem to his daughter that said her smile was like the sun coming out and even when she cried as a child there was always a rainbow after the storm. Then he began to cry himself, holding it back as much as he could, but ending by saying that the best present everyone could give would be their love and understanding throughout our marriage. Loyalty mattered more than anything in the world.

  ‘Be ye steadfast,’ he said, ‘unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.’

  I thanked him and said what an honour it was to be part of their family. I tried to be generous without upsetting Dad or Vi, and I could tell they felt out of place, sitting apart with all the Canvey people, toying with their sparkling wine and chickpea vol-au-vents.

  Ade made a drunken speech beginning with the old joke: ‘The trouble with being the best man at a wedding is that you never get to prove it’; but that didn’t get a laugh so he upped the ante. ‘Martin, old son,’ he said, ‘I’m telling you that your wedding night is going to be like a Christmas dinner: a bit of leg, a bit of breast and a lot of STUFFING …’

  Claire’s father tried to pretend he wasn’t there and her mother did her ‘boys will be boys’ look.

  ‘She’s a vegetarian,’ Amanda shouted.

  Ade then moved on to perform his trademark impersonations of a dog being sick and the boys got behind him and started jeering along (‘Bone up, Mart! Go for it, Mart! Hey hey hey!’). Then he said that although marriage could and should last a long time, it came in six-inch instalments.

  Half of the room was silent.

  ‘Sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. Anyway. I’m stopping. Yes, I’m stopping. Claire, Martin, may the blue bird of happiness crap all over your wedding cake. The bridesmaids!’

  Linda

  I wasn’t invited, of course. Instead I went down to the Lobster Smack by the jetty for a few drinks. It was Saturday lunchtime and there were the regulars and a few couples out for a bit of a blow but it was too cold to stay out long. I found a table in the corner and tried to look like I was waiting for someone, smoking and drinking lager tops. I got the odd stare and by the time I ordered the third drink anyone could see that no one was joining me. I did a bit of doodling in my sketchbook and a few people gave me dirty looks because they thought I was drawing them. Eventually this man came over and asked me if I wanted another lager. He had a red shirt and a cowboy hat. He was tall and much older than me, and he had the kind of moustache I never liked, just curving round the upper lip and down the side of the mouth, but I didn’t care.

  Stan, he was called. He worked at the Bata factory in East Tilbury making shoes and told me he knew what it was like to be lonesome. Please, I thought, I don’t need your pity, but it was getting near drinking-up time and I didn’t want to leave. Two-thirty: the time of the wedding.

  Stan told me he had some Cointreau back at his house and it was just nearby. It would be a privilege, he said, a privilege, if I joined him.

  We walked back and the light was shining through dark clouds like something out of Whistle Down the Wind. Stan’s house was just off Canvey Road in the Dutch Village, an ordinary semi with cracked crazy paving and roses that already had black spot on the leaves. It smelt of gas and fried food like it needed a good airing. We went into the kitchen for the drinks and I could see there were family photographs, the children grown up, and three different cowboy hats on the walls.

  ‘Deirdre bought them for me.’

  ‘Deirdre?’

  ‘My wife.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘She died.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to think I was divorced.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t want you to think there’s anything wrong with me.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  I could see the remains of breakfast in the kitchen sink. The plate and the cutlery, a frying pan with dried-up fat and half a sausage on the gas ring.

  ‘Would you like to come through? I’ve got a drinks cabinet. Perhaps I could light the fire in case it gets a bit chilly? We could sit on the sheepskin.’

  ‘That’d be nice,’ I said, expecting him to move the coffee table out of th
e way. That was how he wanted it, I could see, on the rug by the fire. He put a match to the gas.

  ‘Would you like to see my collection?’

  ‘Of what?’ I wondered if it might be pornography. Ideas he wanted to try out.

  ‘Boots, of course.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Samples. Everything I’ve made. A whole career. They’re in the basement.’

  ‘Take your hat off,’ I said.

  ‘No, I’m shy,’ he said. ‘I’d like to show you the boots first. I don’t have all my hair. I like to keep my hat on.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Show me the boots.’

  ‘It’s a bit dark on the stairs but there’s no need to be frightened. I won’t harm you.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ I said, trying to be jokey and then regretting it. What if he had his mother down there like in Psycho?

  ‘You should look at the wellingtons first. That’s how I started. It was my idea to make them in pink and blue rather than green and black. Then I did white for the young ladies. Then protective and safety. I’m good with steel caps too. But I expect you don’t want me going on about that. Rubber’s best.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Tell me about the steel caps.’

  He wasn’t going to talk to me about floods or mothers or changing the world. He was going to talk to me about shoes. That was as long as he didn’t murder me. Then we’d go back up, drink Cointreau and fool around for a bit. Not much harm in that, I suppose.

  ‘Shall we go upstairs and put on some music?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘We’ve got lots of country. Lynn Anderson’s good. Do you know “Ride, Ride, Ride”?’

  ‘Have you got any Neil Diamond?’ I said. He looked like the type of man who would.

  ‘I’ve been to his concerts. With Deirdre, of course.’

  Stop talking about your wife, I thought.

  ‘Let’s have something else,’ I said. ‘Johnny Cash. “A Boy Named Sue”, something like that.’