The Weight of the City

The weight of the city was murderous for those who had fallen. Towers seemed to crush the very life from their bodies. Tall buildings touched beneath the sky, blocking out what little light there was. Dave was entirely alone now and dying of it, part of the unprecedented multitudes that walked the streets of London in the early hours of any morning destitute and always hungry.

He stood on the Embankment and gazed over the wall. He looked down the river towards the city a place in which he had lived now for twelve years.

He had crossed the river often and in so many states of mind. He had crossed every bridge in London. He had walked on every quay, harbour side, and lock from Teddington down to Limehouse to the Isle of Dogs, there was not one place he had not visited on the river, usually begging, always looking, particularly in the summer months, for a place to come back to later to sleep. He knew the river as one does finally a friend; knew it when it was black, guarding at night time all the lights of London in its depths, and seeming in its vast silence, to be communing with the dead who lay beneath it.

On windless days, it became peaceful, slick, dark, and dirty green and played host in the summer months to scores of rowboats by Richmond Bridge and threw up from time to time extremely unhealthy looking fish that men who stood along the fishing quays all summer accepted, throwing the slimy objects into rusty cans. Dave often wondered who ate those fish.

Further, down river, tugboats and barges flitted between the anchored ships passing cargos and daily chat, whilst gulls squealed all day and swooped for the food held by the hands of young children who daily visited the Tower of London.

His fall has been hard. Most nights he slept in the Social Security doss house down off Dean Street in Soho, virtually around the corner from where Trehearne used to work. The irony was not lost on him. The nights he went there he was examined for lice and made to shower. A small crew of tough looking examiners took details while they picked through his hair and clothes. Then he was designated a bunk bed in a dormitory lined with snoring men, some of whom muttered and talked in their sleep and asked in the darkness if there was anybody there.

One of them had been saying hideous things, laughing a bad laugh and then going more silent than even deep sleep permits before starting up again, it was more terrible in there than any place Dave could ever imagine.

He lay on his side, wrapped himself in the shabby Hessian blankets, which had borne generations and armies of men before him, and tried to sleep and not think too much of what was happening.

He thought of war and he had been captured, he was behind enemy lines now, deep in their territory. There was no way out that he could fathom from this personal Colditz.

In the morning, he knew he would be fed, providing he helped with cleaning the latrines or sweeping the floor. He could almost taste the baked beans and sausages dished out in the small canteen by volunteers from the WRVS who come in regularly to assist and bring banter from the real world and who were old enough generally to be most of their mothers.

In the wild rain - swept nights when the wind was howling Dave would try not to think of the futility and despair of his position. To him he was one warm body in that wet, cold night, a lighthouse in a raging sea, a lit match in a cupped hand that flickered on a distant hill, and then went out. ‘Was that my life?’ He shuddered off into a deep sleep.

Through the bare trees the moon.

He had been out of prison now for six months. It had been hard adjusting to the rigours of life. He was trying to concentrate on filling his days once more. There was so little substance. He could not get his head around what these motions of living were. He saw people going about the streets and disappearing into buildings full of offices and then all rushing out later in the day to catch a train. They rushed over bridges in the City, going one way in the morning, and rushing another way at night.

He usually sat on a bench down by Blackfriars Bridge observing his fellow creatures, saddened really by the severity on their faces and the seeming lack of any form of enjoyment. Dave suspected there was very little gladness in any of their hearts. He could not help wondering why they did it when it was so obviously upsetting them. What grasp did it have on their minds that made them go to the same building day after day?

The sun was out and a small sparrow was bobbing along the wall by the river. Dave left a few crumbs of bread and watched the birds pecking very quickly at them before flying off to the rooftops nearby.

Further, down the river, he could hear the long, mournful, bass note, of an ocean going liner as it headed through the thin morning mist and out into the open sea.

Where he sat, the riverbank was empty. He looked across the water to the embankment, and saw the tops of the tall red buses showing above the far off walls, and watched the trees swaying and rippling in the wind. Behind them, a myriad of windows banked up to the heavens.

It was a city of shapes that banged together and seemingly, re - arranged them selves in an all - consuming never-ending sculptured stockade that stretched from Canary Wharf to Westminster. It was big and frightening and he wanted to know where his strength had gone.

He had had so many hours of need that he was certain that if he were religious then he would be on first name terms with the Lord. He had gone too far to the other side and he could not get back.

Sometimes he heard whispering voices, it was as if he was stood on a street corner on a windy day and around that corner people was talking and he couldn’t quite catch what they were saying. He sometimes thought he heard his name being called but then again he was not certain. But what would he do if he heard his name? Where would he go to tell somebody that they had just called his name and really who were they?

He had seen the winos performing on many a night down by Waterloo Bridge. At sunset on most days when he was there, one man would come to attention, salute, and start marching up and down playing the instruments of a brass band.
‘By the centre quick march! Boom! Boom! Boom!’ he sang at the top of his voice… ‘Some talk of Alexandra and some of Hercules, of Hector and Lysander and such great names as these, but of all the worlds great hero’s there’s none that can compare with a tow row, row, row, row, row, to the British Grenadier! Three cheers for her majesty!’

Bodies lay in cardboard boxes and peered from their crevices at the knee bending man, as he swung round to the right for the march past. One minute he was playing the trombone, the next the big base drum plus Dave would have laughed if he only could, but somehow the tragedy was too great, and he could not help but wonder what was happening to this man and what did he see for those few moments?

That night Dave was walking down Horse Guards Road in the early hours. There was not a soul about. His footsteps were making a noise, bouncing off the buildings, muffled steps across the causeway and when he stopped, for a moment the noise of footsteps continued for a further four paces. He looked about but there was nobody. Nothing was moving. Under the fabulous moon - light he carried on in silence and stopped suddenly again and once more the steps continued for a short while. 1 – 2 – 3 – 4.

The shadows were following him. The oak trees were marching. Saint James’s Park was coming alive and the flowers in formation, red tulips to the fore came around the corner like Grenadiers on parade. Dave came to attention and took the salute standing on a bench in Horse Guards Parade whilst a platoon of white geese waddled by squawking among themselves and not taking the slightest bit of notice.