Submersion (2 page)

‘Speedboats, eh?’ Papa Harold had chuckled, when Elinor had first told him of her early morning transport. ‘We had buses in my day.’

‘Double-deckers?’ she had responded, remembering what he had told her, showing her in old books he’d kept, lighting-up with the joy of story. ‘Before the roads were rivers?’

‘Yes, before all that.’

Being just seven when the city had flooded, Elinor had limited memories of vehicles on them, but she had been to the transport graveyard that was north of Cedar Street. A cemetery of abandoned cars and motorbikes, battered buses and coaches, at the heart of which was a twisted pile of rusting train carriages.

But her daily journey to school took Elinor west.

A ghost town, is what Papa H would have called the streets that Elinor travelled through. A shell of a once thriving city now boarded up, rats scuttling along the stairs and escalators instead of customers, squatters moving in and pillaging any decaying stock that remained.

From Cedar Street, I steered us left until we came to a crossroads; it was a right turn from there and a further ten minutes through a winding residential street, until we met our destination: the speedboat stop. It was from here that the
ghost town
part of her journey began. I had travelled with her several times, but also knew the area from old. Remembered when it was still up and running. Takeaways, restaurants, boutiques, newsagents, hairdressers, record stores, shoe shops – all were in plentiful supply, rich with offers, and richer in takings. But all that had now gone; the colours of a more affluent past now greyed.

The speedboat stop was a rough construction of scaffolding poles and planks of wood, assembled in front of three boarded up businesses. In my teenage years, these had been a fish ‘n’ chip shop, a Chinese takeaway and a florist. The signs had long ago faded and the windows hidden behind more than one layer of hardboard to protect it. Given the damage from the floods, rats, squatters and looters, it wasn’t clear what the boards were actually protecting. To keep the makeshift platform in place, bolts kept the scaffolding poles at the rear anchored to the walls of the derelict shop-fronts.

‘You don’t have to wait,’ Elinor told me that morning.

When we arrived, the platform was populated by three of her school friends; the speedboat was not in sight.

‘It’ll be here in a minute or so,’ she reassured me, wanting my permission to alight from our borrowed boat and be left to without parental supervision.

I nodded my agreement and watched as she stood, steadied herself and stepped from the boat to the platform, a foot-width of grey water separating the two. The wood was wet and dark with damp and I feared she would slip, but she was fine. She read the concern in my face.

‘I’ll be fine, Tris,’ she told me and, having given her permission to leave the boat, I realised I had outstayed my welcome.

‘I’m going, I’m going,’ I told her and gradually, I steered the boat around and headed back.

I didn’t look back.

I so trusted in what was going to happen, in the safety of her routine, that it didn’t occur to me to even check she was still there. Had I known what I would discover just hours later, had I realised the significance of our parting that morning... Well, I would have done something different.

But I didn’t.

I just thought I was leaving her to join her friends on the platform. I just thought I was leaving her to catch the school speedboat that would complete the morning travel routine. I had no inkling it was a less abridged parting - that I was simply leaving her. We all were. To what? Her fate, maybe. Whatever it was, we would not find out for a long time.

So, with Elinor’s last words to me still ringing in my ears, ignorant of their finality, I continued on my way, paddling towards my workplace in the opposite direction.

My line of work was whatever was going – and had been for a long time. I had a sort of boss in Jessie Morton, in as much as I would seek him out, knowing he could find me jobs.

I usually worked alongside him and a crew of three or four other men. Craftsmen, tradesmen, odd-job men – various job titles suited what we had to offer; in general, we fixed things up. Usually outdoor work – repairing roofs, replacing rotten timber, repointing brickwork, stabilising foundations; corrosion and decay were persistent in our waterlogged city and the work plentiful for those with the skills and hardy to the cold, wet environment.

It was Jessie who approached me to work for him, just weeks after the city was drowned. He’d been asked by the authorities to help with the rebuilding of the city and was pulling a crew together. It would be hard labour, he told me, but could provide months of steady income for those with the right abilities. As I’d decided to stay on with Agnes and Elinor by then, I said yes.

On the whole, we didn’t get involved with the clearing away of the debris or in the reconstruction of the town; we were mainly required for conversion and protection work. We worked quickly to safeguard the properties that hadn’t been destroyed by the water, adapting them to function as homes and businesses in the post-flood world. The authorities supplied us with the materials and science to restructure plumbing systems, so relatively clean water could be pumped into homes, keeping out the sewage that had initially washed through everything. We re-wired electrics with tough water-resistant cables and fixings, making them as safe as we could, although nothing worked as well as it had in the past and leaks were a frequent and dangerous concern. We also helped with the process of underpinning housing structures and the re-damp proofing of properties, now that the water levels had exceeded the original treatments. Success varied – some buildings were caught in time and still in use. For others, it was too late and the damp and damage continued to creep in and corrupt the structures – some were abandoned, others still occupied by those too poor and desperate to afford an alternative.

All this work didn’t come without a price. Whilst the authorities paid Jessie for the work his team did, the money came from the people. And it wasn’t a simple question of taxation, spreading the cost across the land. You were given a price for the work required and you got whatever you paid for. It was a small levy to pay, the authorities claimed, given the extent of the devastation. And look, hadn’t everyone noticed – no dogs.

But of course everyone had noticed. Yes, the dogs had gone and no one could argue with that.

When we could get away with it, we’d help those that couldn’t pay, claiming to the authorities that there had been a discrepancy in the supplies we’d been given. But we couldn’t do that as often as we’d have liked.

Our work helped stabilise the city, so despite feeling tarnished by our association with the authorities, we did know we were doing good. But the local government’s policy on how to fund the changes had a crippling effect for some -
it made the poorest of people poorer, zapping any spare income they might have stowed away. And any monies they might have used to subsidise an escape - to finance another place to live - were gone. And poverty joined fear and ignorance in the list of things keeping people trapped in this ruined land.

Jessie and I continued to do this work, usually through the authorities, fixing leaks, replacing worn out parts, keeping water and electricity apart, maintaining public property across the city, but the sense of urgency had gone.

It was now business as usual.

Occasionally, there would be a salvage job – the chance to enter some drowned establishment with the aim of securing it from further damage or looters, with the perk of helping ourselves to the odd treasure along the way.

Jessie Morton’s place was a five-street row from Cedar Street. 12 Jackson Way was a house converted into a business. It had once been a two-storied building, with an integral garage; still was, but only the top storey was any use. The metal door to the garage was held in place by rust and the force of water. Jackson Way was deeper under the water than Cedar Street; the damage was deeper too and many of his neighbours had abandoned their properties, lacking the skills and money to protect them from complete ruin.

What remained of Jessie’s house were four upper rooms, accessed by a platform at the front of the building, built from scaffolding and planks, much like the speedboat platform where I had left Elinor. The four rooms had been three bedrooms and a bathroom. The bathroom retained its original function, but the other rooms had become an all-in-one living and sleeping area and two storage rooms, housing Jessie’s business equipment and raw materials.

‘We have a salvage job today,’ Jessie told me when I arrived, twenty minutes after leaving Elinor. ‘And it’s just you and me. No one else on this job. No one else is to know about it either. Coffee?’

The beverage offer was a signal that I was to moor my boat; we were stopping for a drink and a chat before we headed off to wherever the work was taking us.

The salvage jobs were different from the majority of the work we did. Rather than repairing our city, it involved going onto land or into buildings and taking out what was still of value. There was more money in this than the repairs; at least, there was for me, when Jessie handed over my earnings. What arrangements Jessie made thereafter, I had little knowledge of. There was someone he called
my
client,
that was certain, but their name, needs or business remained unknown to me. At first.

‘Coffee is exactly what I came for,’ I said, accepting the invitation.

Jessie was tall and broad: six foot one, muscly, with dark blonde hair and greying-blonde stubble covering his chin and cheeks. His eyes were green but there was nothing green about his wits and nature. He was a sharp businessman, an opportunist who made a good living out of the predicament the flooding brought us. His home and attire – grubby denim jeans and jacket, white t-shirt soiled yellow with oil and sweat – reflected none of his success. Yet, I knew where he was investing his earnings.

‘In the future,’ he confessed to me once. ‘In
her
future,’ he specified.

You see, there was a reason Jessie Morton passed work my way, a reason I was nearly always on his team, nearly always first to get work – he was keeping me close. He was keeping an eye on me, making sure he knew as much about the comings and goings of Agnes’ lodger, friend, lover as he could. Agnes meant a lot to him; Agnes was his ex. By default, Elinor meant even more to him.

‘He’s her father?’
I asked Agnes one evening, when I dared venture into an area Agnes rarely let me enter. We were interrupted before I could continue – a bang on the wall from Papa H, demanding our assistance. Turned out, Papa H’s toilet cistern had sprung a leak and my plumbing skills were required. Agnes and I did not return to the subject again.

Father or not, Jessie Morton was fond of Elinor and was investing much of his profit in her future. He had never told me exactly what this meant, just that he was doing it.

‘It’s his way of hanging onto you, like he’s making a claim,’
I complained to Agnes, but she shrugged it off. Did it matter what her ex did with his money? If Elinor happened to benefit at some point in the future, did I really expect her to complain? And if I hated working for Jessie so much, why didn’t I just quit?

But I didn’t hate working for him and didn’t need to quit. I never would. Despite my dislike of his continued interest in Agnes’ affairs, I liked Jessie a lot. He had been good to me – whatever his motivation – and he had something else that appealed to me, something that was rare in our town. Five minutes after my arrival at his place that morning, he passed me a hot, steaming mug of that rarity.

‘Black, one sugar, just as you like it,’ he said, handing over a thick rimmed white mug.

We were in his living area, sitting on two grey leather car seats he and I rescued from the train graveyard one drunken evening, after we had shared a bottle of scotch he’d illicitly acquired. Spirits were even harder to come by than coffee. Between us, a wooden crate served as a small table.
Just what are you investing all that profit in,
I wondered, but I didn’t ask. Jessie might have taken a lot of interest in my life, in what I did, but he was shy about exchanging facts about himself, taking offence if you asked much beyond the superficial. He had a brother, I knew that, but his long-term absence wasn’t discussed.

‘This salvage job?’ I asked, knowing this would be safe territory to venture into, necessary territory at that. ‘Usual client, usual deal?’

‘It’s a bit different,’ he offered, sipping his coffee, savouring its thick, pungent taste. ‘You can’t tell anyone about it. Even after. Not even Agnes. And you’re not to turn it into one of your bedtime tales for Elinor, either. It’s strictly between you and me, with no questions asked at all.’

‘Not the usual client then?’

No answer.

‘Can I ask where it is?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ There was a smile in my one word question; a hint of disbelief. ‘No?’ I repeated, getting to the bottom of the mug. It was gritty with coffee sediment, but I swallowed the lot; a luxury not to be wasted.

‘I’ll need to blindfold you,’ Jessie told me, coming to his feet, his features serious, despite the odd nature of his words. I read his face for a moment or two, wondering if it might crack, the damage parting to allow a smile through.

It remained serious.

‘Blindfold?’ I checked, unnecessarily, as I had no doubt that he meant it, but somehow I needed it to be cemented further in his assuredness.

‘Blindfold, Tris old pal,’ he confirmed, attempting to lighten the seriousness with his familiarity, as he reached out to take my mug. ‘You in or out? I need a quick decision and then I need to get on.’

My eyes were uncovered for the first part of the journey, as we travelled east of the city in Jessie’s own speedboat. It is smaller than the one which took Elinor to school, with a smaller engine and tank, but big enough for the work we did. And it was the only visible sign that Jessie made a good profit; no one else I knew - at least, no friend or family – had their own speedboat. We sailed beyond Jessie’s road, at the top of which there was a crossroads. Once controlled by four sets of traffic lights, it was by then a free-for-all, but as with most of the river roads, the traffic was light. Most people had neither the means nor the inclination to travel far from their homes. We sped straight over at the crossroads, curled along a mile long fir tree lined avenue and then Jessie stalled the engine.

‘Time to cover up,’ he informed me, although I’d guessed that was the reason for stopping the boat. He tied an old, silky scarf around my head, folding it wide enough to block out my sight entirely. Even through the war-time face mask, my nose caught the scent of the fabric: oil. The effect of the two facial visors combined was sufficiently disorientating; there was no way my senses would be able to map out the route in my mind.

‘You’ve put a dirt rag across my face?’ I protested, lightly, trying to break through the darkness with a little humour.

‘Put your hands out front, where I can see them,’ he instructed, avoiding an answer and, when I complied, the unexpected happened. I felt and heard cold steel crunch around my wrists.

‘What the-.’

‘I’m taking no chances, old pal. None. It’s not worth either of our lives.’

‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘I just need
you
to trust
me
for this one. I don’t need yours in return – I’ll just cover my arse with a bit of security.’ I heard him move back to the engine and pause. ‘Do I have your trust, or do you wanna go back?’

Thirty minutes later, the engine stalled again and cuffs and the scarf were removed. We had arrived at our secret destination.

‘Okay, brace yourself,’ Jessie instructed, as I gazed ahead, blinking, taking in the sight before me. ‘See why I had to blindfold you?’

Oh yes,
I said inside, nodding as my external response.
Oh yes I do.

It was dark when we were done, darker still once I was back in the boat, hands secured, eyes covered by the oily silk rag. Jessie didn’t bother to remove either until we were moored outside his place again. Before I went, he insisted on handing me an envelope.

‘I’ll pay you more once the job is complete, but here’s a little something for now.’

This was out of the ordinary. I knew the deal with Jessie – you only got your cut when Jessie got his. But this time was different; he was still safeguarding his back. The handcuffs and the improvised mask were not enough to replace his trust after all – he felt the need to buy my silence as well.

I took the envelope, nodded and stepped back into my boat.

‘Tris, not a word to anyone, or we could be in more trouble than you can imagine,’ he warned, untying my boat for me and flinging the rope into its shell. ‘I’d not have gone ahead with it if you hadn’t agreed. Wouldn’t have trusted the others.’

I rowed away, pointing north to Agnes’ house, thinking how he had redefined trust by making me his captive for the day.