Bag of Weasels. Chapter 5.

"How shall we go?
"How did you get here?
"I came through the streets.
A different route would be prudent under the circumstances.
"We'll go back, Ralph decided, " by river.
I liked the idea, the river sliced straight through. Although bridges went over and tunnels went under, the river was still the river. No-one could fuck with it. That was a good thing.
"We'll steal a boat, said Ralph, all enterprising.
I was up for it.
So back down the towpath, past the parasols, and under a bridge, where the towpath shrank to a nettle-squeezed strip that hurried us straight into the shadow of a dead tree, black against the sun. Its aura caught me, in the head: it rose up in dreadful symmetry, spike wood shooting out of its head, thick black bent horns like arms raised out either side, to unnamed glory. Its meaning, kept coiled inside, was stirring, flexing against the skin between here and there.
But it would not reveal: just a silent black hint of more than this. I'd got this same fleeting sense of more before, from a flickering lamppost. That hadn't come across either.
Ralph pulled me beyond its range.
And into glorious gardens swooping down to the water. We splashed through reeds and clambered through hedges and snuck up on our prey with one eye on the sprawling great houses that sat at the other end of the lawns.
The one for us was a white painted rowing boat, big enough for two but "not too big too handle according to Ralph. We squelched our way up and tried to chuck ourselves in, but having nearly sunk the craft we resorted to more conventional methods of dragging it out of the water, me jumping in, then Ralph launching us off and jumping in after.
And that was it. Nothing in the boat, just me, Ralph, two oars, and a big long white feather.
"It's a sign! laughed Ralph.
"It's a feather, I replied.
"You should wear it for luck, he said, ignoring my sarcasm.
I told him what he could do with the feather. We traded insults, and were soon splashing each other and mock-fighting with the oars. I was laughing, in company, for the first time in I don't know how long, and it felt strange.
We finally settled down to the job in hand, and Ralph began rowing us upstream. I picked up the feather and stuck it in my hair, where it wedged in tightly amongst knots and clumps and the makings of long mousy locks.
Round by a tree on a river bend a huge bright white swan stood cleaning its gleaming front feathers. It stopped still and watched us with its transfixing bird stare, and stayed fixed upon our progress down the twinkly green ribbon, stroked by willows and the light of the low sun, until we passed round the next bend and out of its sight.
Ralph refused my offers to row. "It's second nature, he told me, "I grew up on boats.
"On the river?
"On the sea.
"Where?
Ralph's laugh was the sound of a motor boat: "Somewhere hot, a long way from here. Surrounded by sea, and sky. No crowds. No rush.
"Why'd you leave? Why come to London?
I was brought here Sunny. When I was young. Brought here to learn, and I learned to keep out of the way, to dodge the crowds.
"But you're heading back in though.
"Ah but...
"But what?
"But it's different now. There's something there for me now. Something for all of us. London's calling, and we're coming, he was grinning broadly, maybe playing with me. "Everything's gonna change. And we rowed on.
Green and open means room to breathe but it made me light headed: I am of the city where I am more sure-footed. I waved my fingers through the water; my green hand tugging and snagging on weeds and hidden currents, while the open-wide green banked river allowed my city'freed mind to skit, out and beyond. With nothing to crowd them my thoughts flew and grew and disturbed me with their wanderings, and murmurs of the river past. Scraps of earlier, sun-kissed days flickered around me, and dissolved before I could snap them up. I wallowed faint in the boat's hollow, and Ralph rowed.
And as our twinkly green ribbon turned a fast moving brown, and the smell of green rot turned to chemical waste, the city's roar rose from beyond the banks, and I came fully awake.