‘Hello,’ said the hunted author cheerily. ‘Do you travel on this boat too?’
Perdu rolled his eyes. He’d tear a strip off Max Jordan later and then politely chuck him overboard. Now he had to concentrate on all the things heading his way: sightseeing vessels, working barges, houseboats, birds, flies and spray. What were the rules again? Who had priority, and how fast was he allowed to go? And what did the yellow diamonds on the bottom of the bridge mean?
Max was looking at him as if he were waiting for something.
‘Jordan, take care of the cats and the books. And make some coffee. Meanwhile, I’ll try not to kill anyone with this thing.’
‘What? Whom do you want to kill? The cats?’ the author asked with a blank look.
‘Now take those things off,’ Perdu pointed to Jordan’s earmuffs, ‘and make us some coffee.’
By the time Max Jordan placed a tin cup full of strong coffee in the holder beside the tyre-sized wheel, Perdu had grown more accustomed to the vibrations and to navigating upstream. He hadn’t steered the barge in a long time. Simply nosing this thing along the river – the length of three shipping containers – was so discreet. The book barge cut quietly through the water.
He was so scared and yet so thrilled. He wanted to sing and scream. His fingers clutched the wheel. What he was doing was mad, it was daft; it was … fan-tas-tic!
‘Where did you learn to drive a cargo boat and all this?’ asked the writer, gesturing in awe at the navigation instruments.
‘My father showed me. I was twelve. When I was sixteen, I did the Inland Waterways Helmsman’s Certificate because I thought one day I’d be transporting coal to the north.’
And become a big, calm man who never needs to arrive to be happy. My God, how quickly life hurries on.
‘Really? My father didn’t even show me how to make paper boats.’
Paris passed by like a film reel. The Pont Neuf, Notre Dame, the Arsenal Harbour.
‘That was a perfect 007 escape. Milk and sugar, Mr Bond?’ asked Jordan. ‘So what made you do it, anyway?’
‘What do you mean? And no sugar, Miss Moneypenny.’
‘I mean sending your life up in flames. Scramming. Doing a Huckleberry Finn on his raft, a Ford Prefect, a—’
‘A woman.’
‘A woman? I didn’t think you were so interested in women.’
‘In most, I’m not. Only in one. And in her case a lot. I want to see her.’
‘Oh. Great. Why didn’t you take the bus?’
‘Do you think only people in books do crazy things?’
‘No. I’m just thinking that I can’t swim and that you were a kid the last time you drove a monster like this. And I’m thinking about the fact that you arranged the five tins of cat food in alphabetical order. You’re probably insane. My God! Were you really twelve once? An actual small boy? Incredible! You seem as if you’ve always been so …’
‘So?’
‘So grown-up. So … controlled. So totally in command.’
If only he knew what an amateur I am.
‘I wouldn’t have made it to the station. I’d have had too much time to think things over on the way there, Monsieur Jordan. I would have come up with reasons not to go. And I wouldn’t have gone through with it. Then I’d be standing up there’ – he indicated some girls on bikes waving to them from one of the bridges over the Seine – ‘and stay where I’ve always been. I wouldn’t have budged one centimetre from my normal routine. It’s shit, but it’s safe.’
‘You said “shit”.’
‘So what?’
‘Excellent. Now I’m a lot less worried about the ABC in your fridge.’
Perdu reached for his coffee. Wouldn’t Max Jordan worry a whole lot more when he began to suspect that the woman Jean Perdu had suddenly dropped everything for had been dead for twenty-one years? Perdu imagined himself telling Jordan. Soon. If only he knew how to.
‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘What’s driving you away, Monsieur?’
‘I want to … look for a story,’ Jordan falteringly explained. ‘Because … I’ve nothing left inside. I don’t want to go home until I’ve found it. In fact, I only came to the embankment to say good-bye, and then you cast off. May I please come with you? May I?’
He looked at Perdu with such hope in his eyes that for the time being Perdu shelved his plans to set Max Jordan ashore at their next port of call and wish him luck.
With the world ahead, and an unwanted life astern, suddenly he felt once more like the boy he had indeed been – even if that must barely seem possible from Max Jordan’s youthful perspective.