Through Lanes Toward The Canal Bank

Ours was a respectable neighbourhood; the roads were perfectly clean, level and always deserted by 11pm. There was no sense of mystery about the place; head-high brick walls bordered the perfectly green grass of our back-garden which rolled to an abrupt, uniform stop at the back. In summers the family would barbeque out there on the wooden deck my father built and you could hear the chat and calls of the other families on our road drifting from their own gardens

When it wasn’t raining we’d organise football matches on the green space in the centre of the crescent. We’d play well into the early evenings when the street lamps came on and the cars of our fathers’ returning from work drifted slowly on the clean black tarmac of the road. We played football nearly every evening, using jumpers for goal-posts, mimicking the score dances and kicks we’d seen the night before on Match of the Day. By about six-thirty the mobile-phones would go off with calls and texts from the mothers recalling us for dinner. I would stay, sometimes, well after the first call from my mother, while the life on the green space in the crescent died and the others departed.

It was then, sometimes, while I whiled away the time kicking my ball above my head, that I’d see her; Rosie Kohn, big sister to my class-mate, David. She had long, dyed-blonde hair and she rolled the top of her tartan uniform skirt higher than any other girl in our school. In the evenings a marine-blue sports car, vibrating dub-step bass, would pull-up outside the corner house and out she’d trot, skirt swishing, hair flowing. I’d drink in every physical detail of her on her quick hop to her own front door. I’d go then quickly, my head full of the sight of her, to the warmth of my own house, to the heat and smell of mashed potatoes, and get scolded by Dad for delaying family dinner.

At night in the heat of my bed I’d lie awake and think of her; Rosie Kohn. Rosie Kohn and the black converse she wore instead of her school shoes. Rosie Kohn and the time she got sent home for wearing striped, knee high socks instead of plain navy ones. Rosie Kohn and her boyfriend; a sixth-former on the National under-20 rugby team.

In the mornings I made my way guiltily down to the breakfast table in the conservatory and searched the faces of my parents for signs of the knowledge of what I had done in the night. My mother would plonk a bowl of super-food infused granola before me and kiss my tousled head. My father, from behind a broadsheet paper, teased me about my small size and then, one watery grey eye winking at me over the top of the printed page, told me he had not started to develop into a man until he was fifteen. But their words were then only noise to me. Instead my mind would wander to Rosie, to the sensations I had made of her last night, to the anticipation of passing her in the hallway at school later and the possibility of the evening swish and flow of the dash from car to home. The pre-occupation followed me throughout the school day. In third period French I caught myself examining David Kohn’s profile. I compared the uptick of the nose, the delicate bones of the cheek and the long, Sephardic eye-lashes. I envied him for his closeness to her. Had he played in the bath with her as a child? Had he walked in on her in the shower? Did he ever hear her groans at night? I wanted, at the least, to inhabit David’s skull for a day. Then I could collect enough sights and sounds of her to put my desire to rest.

Finally my chance came. David and I were paired to write a presentation on the life of our favourite musician, Thom Yorke, and we would work on it evenings in David’s house. Success. I spent much of the morning before school in the bathroom, preening myself for our pre-destined encounter.

David’s house, being on the corner, was larger than ours; theirs had an extension placed on the vast garden to the side so the house resembled more an old country mansion someone had had plonked in the middle of a suburb. Upon entering I was immediately conscious of taking it all in, of gathering mental snapshots and storing them in my mind.

Inside the front door David kicked off his school shoes and left them amongst a row of the family’s. I did the same. I noticed, in between David’s shoes and a much larger pair of faded grey running shoes, a pink and black pair of skate-shoes, small, and drawn on in permanent marker. Hers.

Later, while we worked on our project together, I excused myself for the bathroom. In the corridor I passed a half-open door and smelt immediately the sweet, mossy smell of the perfume she wore. I poked my head inside and I drank with my eyes the sight of her unmade bed and the discarded clothes littering the carpet of the floor. I took another deep breath of her room and detected beneath the perfume and the laundry the organic punge of weed.

Or work went on. David’s mother, a friendly, terrifically-hipped woman, brought us glasses of squash and some biscuits in the early evening.

‘How are you boys getting on?’ she asked us. We told her fine.

‘Sam?’ she asked. ‘Would you like to stay for dinner?’

‘Yes, please,’ I said.

‘If we ever get to even eat dinner tonight,’ David said.

‘David, don’t say that,’ his mother scolded him.

‘If she’s not home on time tonight I’m starting without her.’

‘No, David. You’ll wait for Rosie and we’ll eat like a family,’ she said, and left the room.

We had been waiting a full fifteen minutes at the table in the dining room when we heard the deep thrumb of the dub-step bass and her key in the hall-door. She hurried into the room on a cloud of perfume, pausing for a second as she registered me.

‘About bloody time,’ said David.

‘Rosie, this is David’s friend, Sam.’ Rosie frowned at me and took her seat.

I did my best to chew with my mouth closed. I acted a good, polite guest, asking David and Rosie’s Dad about his work at the record company, and telling their mum about our project. All the while I was conscious of trying not to look too often at Rosie, while still using it as an opportunity to record every detail of her face and every millimetre of her movements.

I soared home that night, thrilled to high heaven by her presence. My mind ran away with thoughts of being near her, of being encircled by her scent, of being caught up in in the flow of her hair.

I had recorded enough of her to keep me satisfied one more night: I learned she covered her mouth with her napkin as she chewed. I noticed her eye make-up was so thick about her eyes it actually caked. I saw the black roots of her hair separated from the straw blonde.

So vivid were my memories of that dinner I was distracted by remembrances of it every minute of the day. Dad made a comment about my detachment. My contribution to the project I was working on with David was nearly nothing. In his house I thought only of the thrumb of the dub-step bass and the key in the door, and wondered if I would be asked to stay for dinner again. When I finally presented my stuttering, poorly thought out half of our project to the class David shot me a filthy look and refused to talk to me for a week.

Not long afterward, while walking home from school through a laneway I encountered her sitting on a wall smoking a joint.

‘Aren’t you David’s little friend?’ she said. As she spoke she looked at the glow on the end of the joint.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Smoke weed?’

‘Sometimes,’ I lied.

I inhaled it and coughed so much I practically detached a lung. Through the wet haze in my eyes she laughed at me. She said I was a liar and I was too young to smoke. I should go home and play football, or something.

I told her I smoked all the time, but that what she had was shit weed. I said I was used to much stronger stuff than that.

‘Next time I get some I’ll bring some over,’ I said.

She walked away when the thrumb of dub-step summoned her from the lane-way.

There and then I decided to go to the only place I knew I could get some weed; a lock by the canal.

I went to the credit union that evening to withdraw the money I’d been saving up to buy people Christmas presents. It being close to closing the queue in the place snaked out into the street. The moment I entered an intense weariness came over me. It was the heat; the heat in the pipes of the place and the heat of the press of bodies in the queue. An irresistible thirst attacked the back of my throat. A bead of sweat broke below my neck and rolled down the small of my back. The pores in my face began to feel greasy and clotted. A pain developed near my hips. I thought I might faint.

The queue dragged on. I shuffled forth, mechanically. Finally I was next in line. I began to wonder if the cashier would give me my money, whether she would question me about why I needed all of it. True, the account was in my name. But what if she said she needed to call Mum about it? What would she think? She’d know about the weed, or assume something much worse. She’d drive straight here. She’d scream. Mortify me in front of the entire bank. It would get around the school.

When my turn came I approached the desk.

‘How can I help you, dear?’ said the large woman behind the glass.

I told her I wanted to make a withdrawal. I passed my savings book through the gap in bottom of the glass.

‘How much, sweetie?’ she said.

‘All of it.’ She smiled as she withdrew the notes from the steel drawer under her desk. She quickly counted out the notes, added the change, and slid them to me through the gap.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘You’re welcome, sweetie.’

Because of the rush hour the roads were busy and the bus barely moved. I was stuck in a corner at the back of the bus sandwiched between a steamed up window and an old man with about fifty shopping bags. After about thirty minutes I still could easily have walked home. It would not do if it kept on like this. If I did not get there quickly enough I’d be later than normal for dinner.

Finally we passed Kentish Town and the traffic began to ease. People got off. The bus sped on its way. I got off a stop before the tube station. The markets were winding down. Many of the restaurants appeared half-empty. A lone woman stood smoking by the stacked picnic benches, huddled against the cold in a big fur coat. She smiled at my school uniform as I passed.

I crossed the bridge and found the steps leading toward the canal. The water snaked either way beneath the bridge and the lights of the lamps along its path twinkled in its dark, shallow waters. On the path I passed a man huddled in a large coat by a bench.

‘Weed, Boss?’ he said.

‘What?’ I said, stupidly.

‘Buy some weed.’

‘How much?’

‘Fifty for a little, hundred for a big.’

‘OK,’ I said,

‘Little or big?’

‘Is it good?’

‘Yes, Boss. Congo Diesel skunk. Strongest in North London.’

‘I’ll take a big one,’ I said.

‘Hundred,’ he said, and grinned. When he grinned he sort of tilted his head back and I could see inside his mouth his set of yellowed, cracked teeth.

He took my money. In one fluid movement he made it vanish and replaced it with a tightly closed fist. I opened the palm of my hand and he dropped a small, thick baggie in it.

‘Enjoy,’ he said, and grinned again.

I quickly opened the bag in front of him.

‘Oi,’ he said. ‘Don’t do that right here. This is my spot. Do that somewhere else.’

‘Just let me check,’ I said.

‘No mate. You get out of here with that.’

‘But I just want to…’

He gripped my wrist.

‘Boss, you better go away now.’

‘Why can’t I just…Hold on!’ I pulled away from him. I opened the bag and brought it to my noise. Herbs de Provence! It wasn’t weed at all.

‘You bloody cheat!’ I practically shouted at him. ‘It’s Herbs de Provence!’

‘What did you call me? Did you just call me a cheat?’

‘But it is! It’s Herbs de Provence? Give me my money back!’

‘Keep your voice down,’ he said, and shoved me.

‘I’ll keep my voice down if you give me my money back.’

‘What are you going to do? Call the Police? Tell your mother? Just go on, son.’

‘You give me my money back or I’ll…’

‘You’ll what?’

‘I’ll…’ He slapped me backhanded in the cheek and punched me square in the stomach. I doubled over. I heard his steps patter quickly away from me.

Tears welled in my eyes. I shook and sobbed. The throb of thirst attacked the back of my throat again. When I straightened myself out the lights on the bridge above the canal blurred through my tears. The dark shapes of people were up there passing quickly in the cold. Some of the shapes had stopped to look at me but didn’t approach.

I became conscious of the cold of the night, for the first time, and shivered. On the bridge I passed with my head down the shapes watching me. I made for a bus-stop, passing the first one I came to for the sake of anonymity. When I got there the streets had quieted and the cars floated past intermittently. I could see my breath in the air. I knew I would be later than normal for dinner and would be scolded for it. In my pocket some change jangled. It was the last of all my money from the credit union. I had given the rest to the man on the canal. The bus came. I got on. I trudged to the back where I sat feeling sorry for myself and thinking of the most fantastical excuses for my lateness.