I looked over at Elsie. She was sitting in the corner of the room, listening to the conversation with her eyes.
‘Cyril was there,’ she said. ‘Cyril would know.’
‘Cyril Sowter?’
‘See,’ she said. ‘You’re not as daft as you think you are. You remembered his name. You opened a drawer, Florence.’
Cyril Sowter lives on a barge. We’d heard rumour, but we weren’t sure whether to believe it or not, because some elderly people have very little else to do apart from exchange nonsense backwards and forwards between themselves to help pass the time. However, on this occasion, it happened to be true.
‘Do you think he’ll remember the night Beryl died?’ Jack said, as we climbed into the car.
‘He’ll have an opinion on it,’ said Elsie. ‘If nothing else.’
‘He has a full set of marbles, as far as I know,’ I said. ‘Or at least, as many as he started off with.’
Chris pulled into a cramped space by a wooden bench and a litter bin, and we spilled out of the car on to the towpath. I hadn’t been here in years. Not since Elsie’s mother used to walk up and down the bank, talking to the fresh air, and we would watch from a distance until she’d exhausted herself. In my mind, the water had a strange smell, but now when I took a breath, there was nothing. Just grass and trees, and a faint scent of diesel. What I remembered was probably just a post-war fragrance, when the whole world smelled tired and worn out.
There was a cluster of boats moored further up. A collection of primary colours and gold lettering. They bobbed together against the canal wall like a group of conspirators.
‘Which one do you think is his?’ said Elsie.
‘Cyril’s will be the odd one out.’ I squinted against the light. ‘Whichever one looks like it doesn’t belong.’
We left Chris and walked towards the boats. A family of ducks followed alongside for a while, cutting through the water in a line of determination, as though they had a very important meeting to attend.
‘You can see the appeal, can’t you?’ Jack tapped his stick along the towpath. ‘Pulling back your curtains in a morning and seeing a view like this, instead of the canteen fire doors.’
‘And the whole world slows down,’ I said. ‘Like someone took out the key to the clock.’
‘No one has keys in clocks any more.’ Elsie put her arm through mine. ‘I think that’s the problem.’
Cyril Sowter sat on a deckchair by his barge. I was right: the boat was painted in a canary yellow, and was called The Narrow Escape. His name had been written in red underneath. For good measure.
‘Sir Cyril Sowter?’ I said.
‘I decided to knight myself. People treat you with a bit more respect when you’ve got a title in front of your name.’ He nodded at the boat. ‘I don’t see why it should be limited to the Queen; I never voted for her, and it’s about time you turned up. I’ve been waiting all morning.’
‘You knew we were coming?’ I said.
‘You came to me.’ He pointed to the empty deckchairs. ‘In a premonition. I have them quite often. I told everybody we’d be getting a change of prime minister, and I predicted there’d be a new Tesco on the ring road. I even foresaw Welsh independence.’
‘Wales isn’t independent,’ said Jack.
Cyril tapped the side of his nose and smiled.
‘Well you can’t have predicted us very well,’ I said. ‘There are only two spare seats.’
Cyril made a pot of tea and we sat in September sunshine, watching the ducks. Elsie had to make do with a footstool, but it was fine, because she’s from a big family. Whilst we listened, Cyril stretched out in his deckchair and gave out the same opinion he’d been generous enough to share with everyone sixty years ago. Another prime minister, different wars in countries with unfamiliar names, a new set of people to blame, but the viewpoint was unchanged. He had just recycled himself for the modern age.
‘And that’s what’s wrong with this country today,’ he said. ‘Too many do-gooders, clogging up the place with their namby-pamby nonsense.’
‘Do-gooders?’ Jack said.
‘You’ve only got to look at charity shops.’ Cyril paused a mug of tea on the shelf of his stomach. ‘Everywhere, they are. Stretched along the high street like bunting.’
‘They do a lot of good, Cyril—’ But the end of Jack’s sentence was never allowed to make an appearance.
‘Not for me, they don’t. I never see a penny of it.’
‘What about Age Concern?’ said Jack.
He snorted. ‘No one’s concerned about my age. Why should they be?’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘All in the mind,’ he mouthed.
‘Is it?’ Jack turned in his deckchair. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Stands to reason.’ Cyril placed his mug on the fold-up table with the kind of precision people use when they have what they feel is a very important point to make. ‘You expect things to happen, so they do.’
‘They do?’ said Jack.
‘Of course they do.’ Cyril moved his mug half an inch to the left. ‘You expect to get indigestion after a big meal. You expect to feel cold when it snows. So that’s what happens. Same with ageing.’
‘Is it?’ said Elsie.
‘Very powerful organ, the brain. Renews itself every twenty-eight days.’
‘I thought that was skin?’ Jack said.
‘But the brain controls the skin.’ Cyril nodded in agreement with himself. ‘It controls everything, so if you can fool the brain, Bob’s your uncle.’
‘Everything slows down as we age, though,’ I said. ‘Your brain more than anything.’
‘Not mine. Faster than it’s ever been. I get up to more now than I did sixty years ago. I’ve got my allotment and my computer class, and I’m learning the trumpet. Stacks of sheet music I’ve got in there.’ He pointed back at the boat with his thumb. ‘Hours I spend practising.’
I gave the other boats a small nod of sympathy.
‘To say nothing of my enactments. Battle of Edgehill on Saturday, if you fancy it?’
We all found excuses in the backs of our throats.
‘Everyone ages, Cyril. Look at us.’ Jack used his most reasonable voice. ‘We’re like different people.’
‘On the outside, maybe. But on the inside, I’m the same person I was sixty years ago.’ He jabbed at his chest, to show us where his insides were. ‘It’s just the packaging that’s changed.’
Jack shifted in his seat and glanced over at us. ‘What kind of person were you sixty years ago then, Cyril?’
Cyril smiled and folded his arms. ‘I was the life and soul, wasn’t I? Very popular, me. Couldn’t walk down a street without being stopped by someone.’
I tried to smile back, but I couldn’t quite wring it out.
‘Had my pick of the ladies. They couldn’t get enough. Spoiled for choice, I was. Like a selection box.’
‘So who did you decide on in the end?’ Jack said.
‘My Eileen, God rest her soul.’ He crossed himself. ‘Was Everest. You must remember her?’
I felt my mind begin to fidget.
I started to speak and looked at Elsie, but in the end I just said, ‘I’ll tell you later.’
‘Fifty-five years we were married. Never a cross word. Died in her sleep, she did. I just woke up one morning, and she’d left.’ Cyril licked his thumb and rubbed at a stain on the side of his mug. ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you, after all that time, you’d be given a chance to say goodbye.’
I’m not sure if it was because the sun disappeared behind a cloud, but Cyril looked older in those few moments. More fragile. You can see the fracture lines in people sometimes, if you search hard enough. You can see where they’ve broken and tried to mend themselves.
‘My wife died of cancer,’ said Jack. ‘I think going in your sleep is a blessing.’
‘For them, maybe. I’ll be seeing you, Cyril. That’s the last thing she ever said to me. I wish there was some kind of sign to tell you it’s the last conversation you’ll ever have with someone. “This’ll be your lot, mate, so make it a good one.”’
We sat in silence, listening to the drift of the boats, and the soft call of a pigeon as it waited for its mate at the water’s edge.