Canvey Island (20 page)

I was surprised how close to the roadside they were camping. There was a communal area of tipis and Elsan toilet tents jostling ramshackle structures made of polythene, tarpaulin and branches. Inside the doorway of the main tent was a cauldron surrounded by orange box seats and camping chairs. Beyond stood a caravan with message boards, posters and sheets for making banners.

Lucy was juggling with three red balls. She smiled, let them fall and ran towards me.

‘Have you come to take me home?'

‘I hope so.'

Claire gave me a wave. Her hair was muddy with ties and ribbons and she was wearing a baggy hand-knit jumper I hadn't seen before.

‘You look very settled,' I said. ‘I am. We're in it for the long haul.'

‘A bit like marriage then …'

‘Don't, Martin …'

There was a kitchen area which they called ‘open-plan', with bread, butter and spreads for quick sandwich breaks; plastic bins with beans, muesli, tinned food and vegetables; and then a pallet with plastic water containers, a plate rack and washing bowls. Claire
had organised a water rota to make sure they never ran out. If I hadn't wanted her to come home so much I would have been proud.

In the distance I could see a draped plastic tunnel. Inside some of the women were resting.

‘Do you sleep there?' I asked.

‘Depends.'

‘On what?'

‘Whether I have to be up for an action.'

‘Does Lucy join in?'

‘When she wants to. Most of the time she likes making things round our little tent. Ask her to show you. She's good at art.'

‘I know that.'

‘You should see what she's done, doves, mosaics, all kinds of things. She's learning such a lot.'

‘It would be nice if we were a family again.'

‘We
are
a family, Martin. Don't make it difficult.'

‘Come home,' I said. ‘I need you. My work's horrible and I'm lonely.'

‘My work's horrible too.'

‘Come home then.'

‘When the missiles have gone.'

‘They're not going to go, Claire.'

‘They are. This is common land. It doesn't belong to the Ministry of Defence or the government. Wait for me, Martin, and then we can walk across it together. I'll come if you insist. But please don't make me resent you.'

‘What about Lucy?'

‘She's happy. We're coping. Trust us, Martin. We love you. It's all right. We're going to win.'

The police were lining up outside the gates expecting a delivery or further action. I couldn't help feeling they'd rather be in an office solving an impossible murder case than stuck out on a cold night in front of a group of women who were never going to give up.

‘Why am I so kind to you?' I said.

‘Because we love each other. You can come and see us whenever you like. It's not a prison. And we do miss you. But you know we
have to do this. And you letting me be here only makes me love you more. You must know that?'

‘I'll try to keep remembering then.'

‘Don't try. Just remember. Please …'

When I got home her father phoned. ‘Claire not back?'

‘I'm afraid not.'

‘You couldn't persuade her?'

‘No.'

‘I'm used to Claire being a wildcard. I was one myself, although you may find that hard to believe. But I'm worried about my granddaughter. Lucy's far too young for all this. Celia thinks so too. We can't let Claire bully us with her idealism. Lucy's just a child, for goodness' sake.'

‘That's why I went to fetch them.'

‘Then why didn't you bring them home?'

‘I don't know, Matthew. Perhaps I can't. Perhaps I can't control my wife like people did in the old days.'

The only thing was to go out and get drunk, somewhere close to home so I wouldn't have far to stagger back. I found a pub away from the seafront that was sufficiently down at heel for tourists to ignore. It was dark and filled with ship memorabilia, bits of driftwood and faded newspaper cuttings. The only concession to modernity was a blackboard in the Gents' for the graffiti.

I sat on a stool by the bar and asked for a pint of IPA and a double whisky chaser.

The barman looked a bit surprised. ‘You all right, mate?'

‘A bad day, that's all.'

‘Then you've come to the right place. We make this pub so crap you can't help feeling better. Give it five minutes and you'll think the sun shines out of your arse.'

‘I've never thought that.'

‘But you've never been here, have you?'

I ordered some food, the largest rib-eye steak they had, with mustard and chips. At the next table a girl with a Frankie Goes to Hollywood T-shirt and blonde hair piled high on her head was getting rid of her boyfriend. ‘I'm sorry it hasn't worked out …' she was saying. ‘I know this has meant a lot to you, and it has to me too.'
Her companion had almost finished his pint and it didn't look like there was going to be another. ‘I understand.'

‘I haven't been good at disguising things … how I haven't been happy … and I think you haven't been happy either.'

‘I understand, I understand,' the man replied.

‘So it has to be for the best …'

‘It's all right.'

‘Really, it is. It has to be. We can't go on like this.'

I tried to imagine what it would be like to be these people, away from the comfort of marriage, where friendships were tested for sexual tension and where love could begin or end at any minute.

‘You don't need to say this,' said the man, trying to get out of his seat even though it was pinned between the table and the wall.

‘I know but I want to. You've been so good to me.'

‘I haven't done anything.'

‘You have but we both have to accept that it's over.'

‘Well, if that's what you feel …' He sat down again.

‘It is and I'm sorry. I wish things could have been different.'

‘So do I.'

The girl rose from her chair and swung her bag over her shoulder. ‘I'm really sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'

‘I understand,' the man repeated, looking back down at his drink. ‘It's all right.'

But it isn't
, I could see him thinking.
No one will love me again. I'm washed up. It's all over. Fuck you. Fuck everything that has ever happened to me. Fuck this town and this bar and this career and this day and this life
.

I wondered what I would think if I ever broke up with Claire. Would it be like that, the two of us in a pub, talking about how we had tried but there wasn't enough love left to support us and that it would be better, yes, better for us both if we parted?

We would not be able to look at each other, perhaps, and Claire would be pale and hollow-eyed and I would not know what to say.

Or perhaps she would be happy. She would be relieved and confident and try not to show it. Perhaps she would have found someone else: a woman at the camp or a man with money and stability and calm; someone not so filled with some foolish ambition to save a crumbling cliff face from disaster in memory of a mother he could hardly picture any more.

I thought of Linda and how we had broken up all those years ago. I remembered her on the beach at Aldeburgh, dressed in black, sitting on an upturned boat while I tried to measure the tide.

I had taken so much for granted and now I couldn't imagine anyone else loving me as she did then. And what had I done with that love?

Perhaps I could go back and make amends, say sorry, do something right with my life. I didn't know. I didn't feel certain of anything.

I heard Linda's voice.
Come on then, I'm cold. Need you to warm me up. Let's go back to the hotel. A bit of whisky and each other
.

I remembered how we used to lie in bed, our faces close together, cupping each other's heads with both our hands to form a sphere so that we blocked out most of the light. We had looked at each other as intently as we could, our focus on each other's eyes, and pretended that the whole earth was contained in the circle created by our hands.

Linda had told me that our eyes were the seas of the world, our noses the mountains, and our mouths the dark caverns underground. If we closed our eyes and kissed then the world would disappear. We would cup our hands and build a new world, with new seas and new mountains, and it would be ours and no one would know about it. It would be like a distant, uninhabited planet, millions of years from here, contained in our heads and our hands, and lit by the moon.

It was 1964 then, and we were seventeen.

Ade came round and said that Martin had phoned him to get my address and was it all right if he gave it to him?

‘What do you think?' I said. ‘Bit of a surprise, isn't it? Why does he want to come now, after all these years?'

‘It's a free country,' Ade replied.

‘Do you think he's got bored of his wife?'

‘I don't know. But be careful. You can do what you like, Linda, but don't go getting yourself hurt all over again. Married men are nothing but trouble. I should know.'

‘You're no trouble, Adey,' I said.

‘Wanna try?'

‘Don't be silly.'

‘Are you going to see him then?'

‘There's not much point, is there? He's still married as far as I know.'

We'd probably meet in a pub: neutral territory. I began to imagine what it would be like and the kind of things we'd say to each other. Then I worried that he'd be able to tell I wasn't happy. Sometimes I think men can smell the desperation.

I still hadn't met anyone who was right; they were gay, or they were married, or they were screwed up. There wasn't such a thing as a normal man of my own age who was single and wanted someone to love.

Martin was probably another of those men whose relationships have dwindled into friendship and they want to prove that they had once had a life. He was hardly the first to have come calling. People
think that because you're single and you live on your own you're available. It makes it easier for them than having an affair with a married woman. Then they have to go to the expense of hotels and the affair can only last until the money runs out or they're discovered. Whereas with me they all imagine it's going to be discreet and easy and the only problem they'll have is the guilt of sleeping with their wife afterwards.

I wasn't going to do anything stupid and I was determined not to be hurt. But we had loved each other. And love always feels stronger when you remember the past. Him getting in touch after all that time was a relief in a way. It meant I wasn't the only one wondering what might have been.

Canvey was two different places at the same time. There was the town of seaside fun and the town of aggression with its prohibitive signs warning incomers that the people who lived here were not going to put themselves out for anyone. ‘No Vacancies. No Loitering. No Entry.' I walked past a pub. ‘No dogs. No working clothes.' White faces. Chips. Early drug use.
Don't look at me. Don't touch me. What do you want?

I stayed with my father, pretending I'd come to see him rather than Linda, and we lived a bachelor existence. In the kitchen there were stale cornflakes, tea bags, powdered milk and peanut butter; Ritz crackers, vacuum-packed Cheddar and a six-pack of Tennent's. I thought of the care boxes ordered by ex-pats in Spain and realised that I could probably fill one simply by emptying my dad's store cupboard.

My old bedroom had been made feminine by a lace cloth on the bedside table. The view to the back yard was obscured by nets and faded velvet curtains, salmon pink and falling like an old belly. I could almost hear my father knocking on the door, telling me to get ready for school, and Vi leaving a cup of milk on the floor outside. I could still picture my duffel coat on the hook with my satchel and the money pouch which my father sometimes binned for drinks. It was a house in which I could never sit still for long:
Shouldn't you be getting on? Haven't you got homework to do? Be a good boy and run to the shops, will you?

I think Dad guessed why I was there and he certainly knew that I
was having problems with Claire being away. He kept banging on about how life was like climbing a mountain.

‘You think the ascent is the difficult part, growing up, getting a career, having a family, and then you get to forty-five and you realise you have to start coming back down and it's far harder than you ever imagined.'

‘I'll bear that in mind, Dad,' I said. ‘But I don't think I've reached the plateau yet.'

‘Just got to make sure you've made the right foot-holes, son …'

‘Yes,
all right
, Dad.'

‘And you don't slip up.'

‘I
know
.'

Ade told me that Linda lived above a newsagent's on Long Road. It was at the end of a row of shops that had changed owners but remained the same: the off-licence, the charity shop (it had been blind, now it was cancer), the minicab office, the bookie's, the hairdresser with specials for senior citizens, and the newsagent selling anything you couldn't get elsewhere.

It was two days before I met her. I saw her walk into the off-licence and come out with a bottle of vodka. I was about to get out of the car but she was already heading towards me.

‘Are you following me?'

‘Of course not.'

I thought she would smile. I had imagined we might even kiss each other, but Linda wasn't having any of that.

‘I saw you yesterday and I nearly came out but I couldn't believe it was you. What do you want?'

‘I thought we could go for a drink.'

‘Well, I've got a drink, thank you very much.'