A Murky Mind

I was drowning. Gagging and spluttering my way up to morning through a sea of deep-sleep snot. I reached for Kleenex. Ccchuuurrrpp. Wedging my head back down into the pillow, I took a second to remember who I was and what I was doing here; the standard morning routine. I gulped in powdery air, painful to my desert lungs. I couldn’t be bothered to move my head, let alone make the arduous journey into the kitchen. I coughed and coughed, choking on spit. Finding a squashed Ribena carton, I squeezed out the last trickle of juice and settled back down: floating, doggy-paddling between sleep and wakefulness.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, the events of the night before came into focus. So slowly, I didn’t wince.

It had happened. It had. That was no dream. I brought my hands up to my face and inspected my fingernails and knuckles for signs. Nothing. Throwing the duvet onto the floor, I charged to the bathroom. No traces on the taps. Not even a speck on my dented pillow. I even checked the individual strips of mop. Nope. I rubbed my eyes; it had been a long night.

*

Whispering, whispering in my ear. I thought it was the weed at first. High grade. Does weird things to my head though. Shouldn’t have had that last joint. Her eyes were pleading, desperate. I told Mack I wouldn’t be long. Picked up my Lucky Strikes and a vegetable peeler, just in case. It’s the only sharp thing in the flat.

I followed the voice. Outside it was louder. I crossed the road, ignoring the screeching tyres giving me grief. I saw her face. Man, she looked scared.

The whispers got faster as I reached the canal. Faster and faster as I got to the bin and reached down, only stopping to retch as I touched something cold and wet. I pulled out my hand. Only now it didn’t look like my hand. Blood rippled around my knuckles and my fingernails looked like a dirty butchers. It stunk. It stunk like gone-off meat. The busy towpath had suddenly gone quiet.

‘You gonna help, or what?’ I shouted to the mute passers-by. A woman pulled her daughter towards her and hurried passed. People looked out at me through the safety of pub windows. The cowards of Camden. The canal-boats bobbed up and down as if pointing at me and laughing. That’s the one, him there, he, he he. Bastards. I sat down on the bank watching the blood drip, drip to the floor.

*

‘How are you today Benjamin?’

What could I tell her, the truth? ‘Fine. I’m fine.’

‘No more episodes?’

I was just about to tell her to shove her episodes up her…

‘Please, help yourself.’ She pointed at a plate of biscuits. They were laid out on a paper doily. Reminded me of the last day of term at school, you know, when everyone brings in a game and some pop. The doctor dipped one in her mug, spilling tea all over her tights in the process.

Dr Green, (please, call me Miriam), didn’t look like a doctor.

‘Benjamin, if you want to get better, you must talk to me. I cannot diagnose without information.’

The woman was mad. What did I need a diagnosis for? I knew I was fine. I can’t help it if she doesn’t believe me. Mack does. He thinks I’m a genius. He calls me the prophet when he’s high. A couple of things have come true. I’m not telling her that though, she’ll have me dosed up and pissing in a bag in no time.

‘Benjamin?

It was getting hard to hear her. I had this buzzing in my ears, like a car radio in a tunnel. I needed to get to the other end. I stood up and made my way to the door.

‘Benjamin! Where do you think you’re going?’

I drowned out her voice with Radiohead and lit-up, taking the back-stairs. Just in case.

*

The blood trickled into rain streams, leading out into the night. I followed until the stream ran clear and the canal was still. I couldn’t get the thought of that girl out of my head.

What was wrong with me? I recognised that look in that girl’s eyes. I’d seen it before. Felt it before. Felt it now. Shit. I was crying. I never cry. Ever. The first trickle led to sobbing. Idiot. Fuckwit. Stop, just stop it.

I breathed it down and swallowed it.

I looked out towards Little Venice and Browning’s Island. The craggy willows there leaned over the water as if they’re looking for something. I remember going there for a school trip.

The river which had done them all wrong,
Whate’er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.

Yawn.

I pulled my glasses out and stuck them on, since I was on my own. The detail was ugly. London looks quite pretty in my usual myopic haze. Though, if you look close enough, everything can be redeemed. There’s beauty in it all, I thought, ignoring the Snickers wrapper stuck to my shoe.

I once read a book on the Thames. It’s ancient. I mean, millions of years ancient. This part, Regents Canal, was the M25 of Industrial London. Now it was just a dumping ground for the city’s secrets.

Secret - such a dirty word. Too many secrets cut deep.

Mack told me a secret. Said his dad touched him up. Only once. Said it’s why he’s like the way he is. We laughed it off in a haze of skunk and Jack. Never mentioned it again.

Miriam reckons I’m not ready to deal with my secrets. Says I won’t have to see her anymore when I can. She’s a clumsy cow but there’s something about her that reminds me of my mum. Can’t talk about her though. Not yet.

I reached the tunnel where the canal turns black and pulled my scarf tighter around my neck. I clung to the peeler in my pocket as I walked.

I could hear Stratford before I left the tunnel. The crashing of cranes dumping earth from pile to pile greeted me with metal squeals. It would look different soon. I sat on the bank and stared into the murk.

There was something there, I was sure. I could just make it out. A shape. A glimpse of human flesh before the tide carried it away. It couldn’t be. A girl. The girl. Dead. Not even floating. Dead and wedged in a grimy river. I reached for my cigarettes.

*

‘Can I help you, mate?’

I looked up mid-puff into the face of a builder. Hands like shovels. I stared at the tattoo of a swallow on his forearm, which had faded to an algae-green, wondering if it was standard builder-issue.

‘I think I just saw a girl in the water. Dead.’

‘Come again?’

‘In the water. Girl. Dead. Is she still there?’

He paused before stepping to the edge and peered over.

‘Nothing there, mate.’

I took a deep drag. ‘You sure?’

He stubbed a steel-capped toe into the canal. Sediment lifted and then all was clear.

He looked at me expectantly. I don’t know what he was waiting for me to do. I didn’t care. I stood up and brushed the backs of my legs.

‘My mistake.’ I grinded the butt under my foot and departed.

*

The river moves through time, obsessively painted and sketched, shifts of light captured, so that it retains its special status as a ribbon of memory.

It was nearly dawn. I reached Victoria Park, dragging my feet to the mossy-covered bench on the towpath. Men with easels lined the opposite bank, three of them. Painting. Painting the river. Painting its stories, its secrets. I wondered how much of that could be caught on canvas.

It was cold. The wind whistled through my trench biting my skin. It felt good. Like a piercing, I thought, feeling the metal through my scarf. That pain is almost sacred. Like you’re closer to something than you’ve ever been before. I watched the painters in the wind; their tufty white hair lifting off their heads in the breeze.

I remember coming here in the summer when I was younger. Soggy sandwiches and sweaty warm foreheads from chasing each other. Dipping our feet in the twinkly water to cool off. Mum calling us back to where she could see us. That was all a long time ago.

My stomach growled. I wasn’t hungry. A bodily function to remind me just how low I truly was, or at least that’s how it seemed. I itched my head and shook it. I couldn’t shake it away.

I pictured the girl. Swimming with a haze of blood surrounding her. Looking at me. Choking. I was so sure it was real I nearly dived in. I got to the edge. The painters looked up from their easels and I quickly moved away.

*

I reached a crossroads. The crossroads. Where boats enter from great locks into the Basin. I’d never walked this far before. Limehouse Basin. What a shit-hole. This is where it all ends up, like soap scum and hair around the plughole.

People were supposed to come here interested in wildlife. I couldn’t imagine amoebas surviving in this stretch. I imagine fish coming up for air, finding no oxygen in the canal below just trying to find a way to get out. Like a sink estate, all around you decaying and eroded.

The only wildlife I saw were pigeons cooing and shitting on the rooftops. Wedged between the useless metal spikes.

The old factories here had been turned into flats. I bet you couldn’t get a studio around here for less than half a mill. I suppose it is quite peaceful, I thought, removing my glasses and seeing a different place.

The yachts bobbed up and down in the slight current. The towpath split off here, following the different routes around the Basin. Like a nervous system designed to confuse you. The locks chugged and heaved as more boats made their way in. I felt out of place. I needed a bike, or a dog, or a yacht. Some prop to make me look like a real person here for real things.

I smoked a cigarette properly, tasting every drag of nicotine smoke that twisted its way into my lungs. I felt it reach my alveoli where I had no more breath. It stung a bit as I exhaled the slightly yellow smoke out. What the fuck was that? I stubbed the cigarette out between my thumb and forefinger and placed the singed butt in the bin. That was a proper smoke. Reminded me of my first fag under the slide with the pitched roof.

I watched the smoke rise and fall across the canal. It disapparated into the polluted air. As it left, I felt her. I felt her here, in the Basin.

I walked around the edges searching the opaque water, I mean I know she can’t really be here, not really, but I felt her. I knew she was.

I quickened my pace and soon I was running. Shit, I wish I knew her name. At least then I’d have something to shout, to release some of this, whatever it is, into the air. Where is she? Where is she? I thought, as I jogged jogged sprinted around the moorings. Lights switched on in boats and curtains twitched. Fuck em. I kept running.

*

I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here.

I took the stairs two at a time. I counted in twos, 2…4…6…8…10. Nearly there, 142…144…146…148…150. I did the same thing when I jogged along the canal path. Counted the canal boats as I passed them. Seems to speed up time, I count in time with the music. In my head, of course, I don’t want people to think I’m weird or anything.

I just got to the fire exit when….

‘Benjamin, stop. Please.’

The doctor looked out of breath. Two clod-hopping men followed her.

‘You haven’t exactly been telling me the truth, have you Benjamin?’

I didn’t look at her. It was true, I hadn’t.

‘I think you’d better come with me now.’

I don’t care if it hurts,
I want to have control.

Fuck, where were they going to take me? Oh fuck. What was wrong with me? What did she tell me to do…breathe….breathe…..Slowly.

I paused in the quiet. She just looked at me. They looked at her.

Time seemed to stop.

I was starting to panic. Oh shit. They were coming towards me. I reached in my coat for the peeler. Fuck, it’s gone. Fuck..fuck. Breathe…Shit, that’s not fucking working. Stay away, stay away, I thought, rubbing my eyes, my head. It itched, it really itched. Where was Mack? He could tell them. Tell them I wasn’t crazy. Bitch. I didn’t mean that. She just wants to help. Fuck.

I gave up the fight and they led me away.

*

In the murk of the Basin, the itch was red and inflamed. Nestled between the silt and grime, a leg was wedged. It had faded around the edges and no longer resembled a limb. Chunks of flesh were missing. The toes were pointing north, towards the lock and the deeper depths of the Thames.

Her vacant eyes were staring. Dead. Floating hair surrounded her grey and swollen face. It lifts and settles as if waving for attention. Her head tilted, as if in death she can still hear the melody of life that surrounds her. The currents and tides drag her dismembered body further into hiding. The gush silently whispered sssshhhhh…….