The Tightrope Walkers (27 page)

We looked down to the streets of Gateshead, the bridges across the shining river to Newcastle, the city itself and Northumberland beyond, all of it shimmering in the heat of the warmest days.

The world was changing, as it always is. The land was being scraped clean of the past. Rows of terraced streets were being demolished. There were immense cranes, bulldozers, earth-shifters. New towers of flats were rising all across Tyneside, so that families could be lifted from the earth into the sky.

We looked down upon it from our sanctuaries and enclaves. We were happy. We were in love.

Once, heading homeward, we saw Jack Law. He was sitting on the lowest almost-horizontal branch of a chestnut tree. We waved and he returned our wave. We saw him again, another day, sitting cross-legged in long grass facing the sun.

“Is he
watching
us?” we asked each other.

“No,” said Holly. “He’s watching over us.”

Bright morning. Sun shining through the thin curtains. Dad shook me awake.

“Out of your pit,” he said. “On with your stuff, get tea and grub in you, bait in your sack, sack on your back, then off we gan to the river. This is work. We can’t be late. You hear me?”

Down we went. I ate cold toast as we walked. Feet rang out on the pavements. Sun rose over the distant sea. The river gleamed. Men walked from all directions, from alleyways between houses, from back lanes behind tight-packed terraced streets, from distant pebbledashed estates. They walked or rode black squeaky bikes. Sometimes a Honda 50 or a Lambretta puttered past. The crowd increased as we came closer to the river. Down through the streets towards the high steel gates, the great cranes, the gantries. Men were gathering at the other side of the gates, night shift finished, waiting to be set free. Dad showed me the entrances for the draughtsmen and office staff. He showed me the car parks for their cars.

“Them,” he said, “and us. And never the twain shall bliddy meet.”

A siren wailed and the gates creaked open. The night-shift workers were released. We shuffled forward.

“We won’t see each other,” said Dad. “Just do what you’re telt and watch for the holes. We’ll have a pint in the Iona after.”

He took me to the door of a wooden shed.

“This is him,” he said. “Me lad. Dominic. Treat him good. If you cannot manage that, at least keep him alive.”

Then he was gone, hurrying to clock in on time.

There were three men there, smoking cigarettes, draining mugs of tea. Men, but they seemed no older than me. They wore overalls, shabby boots. Face masks hung about their necks. Each had a bucket with a dustpan and hand brush in it. There was a pile of dustpans, brushes, and buckets at their feet.

“That’s yer weapons,” said one of them. “Here’s a mask if you like your lungs. Name’s Norman.”

He held out a cheap metal face mask and a white gauze mouth pad.

“You put the pad in them clips like this,” said Norman. “Hurry up, or Blister’ll be at us.”

I took the mask, worked out how to get the pad on it, hung it around my neck. Got a bucket, a pan, a brush.

“You’re the bliddy boffin, eh?” said Norman.

“Boffin?”

“This is Jakey. The handsome one’s called Silversleeve. You’ll knaa why when he’s got a cold.”

Silversleeve and Jakey nodded.

“Ye heard aboot our mate?” said Norman. “Poor owld Windy?”

“My dad told me.”

“He was a good lad. This place is full of peril. Keep your eyes and lugs wide open and tek care.”

“And watch who ye waalk with,” said Silversleeve.

“Where’s that bliddy cleanin gang?” yelled somebody from outside.

“Nick off, Blister!” Norman shouted back. “We’re training the new lad.”

“Training? Get out of that shed and in that tank!”

Norman grinned. I knew him now: Norman Dobson. Miss O’Kane’s class, just along the river from here. Did Norman remember? No sign of it. I recalled the catechism test:
What will Christ say to the wicked? . . . Put your hand out, Norman Dobson. We will help you to be saved
.

And then the hiss and crack of the cane of Miss O’Kane as it whipped in rhythm onto Norman’s outstretched obedient hand: “Go
away
from me, with your curse upon
you
, to the eternal
fire
. . .”

“Norman Dobson, you lazy prat!” yelled Blister’s voice again.

Norman flicked a V-sign towards the door.

“Coming, Blister!” he called. “Watch!”

And he led us out, and we walked towards the ship that waited, half formed in its dock, casting a huge dark shadow over everything below. We walked through great heaps of steel sheets, men working with acetylene burners, men crouching to the earth with welding masks and welding rods flickering. There were scaffolding and ladders against the ship. The din of riveting and caulking was intense. The air was filled with fumes, the smell of oil and drains and piss. We paused at the foot of a ladder and Norman pointed down to the hard earth. He had to yell against the din. “This is where it happened!” Then looked upward to the monstrous curved steel wall. He spat, wiped a tear from his eye, then led us up a series of steep ladders to the deck. On the deck itself there were curls of cables, heaps of curving pipes, more piles of sheet steel. There were pools of oil, splinters of metal, spatters of bird shit, cigarette ends everywhere.

“Watch yer bliddy feet!” yelled somebody as I stumbled on a cable.

“He’s right,” said Norman. “Watch your feet, Boff.”

I thought I saw Dad far away, or what seemed to be the shape of Dad. He leaned down to the deck as if in prayer, pressing down his caulking hammer to the steel. I paused to watch.

“Hell’s teeth, Dominic!” Norman snapped. “This ain’t a place for dreamin in!”

He pointed down. There was a rectangular hole in the deck just in front of my feet.

“We want to get at least one damn day from you afore you’re gone. Don’t want you endin up like Windy, do we? Or like our Jakey.”

Jakey grinned, toothlessly. He lifted his cap, swept his hair back, showed a great pale gash across his skull. He rolled back his sleeve to show the weird angle of his forearm. He put his hand across the bottom of his spine and groaned as if in massive pain. Then yelped like a dog and flapped his tongue and winked.

“Bottom is a b-bloody long way down,” he said.

Silversleeve laughed. Wiped his nose noisily on his sleeve. Slung the bucket across his arm.

“So in we go,” said Norman. He widened his eyes at me. “Ready? Follow me.”

I quaked. Norman crouched and backed his way down into the opening. Stepped onto the top of a steel ladder that descended into the dark. Went down, looked up, his face illuminated by the sky above.

“Howay,” he said. He laughed. “Not feared of heights, are you? If you are, they’ve sent you to the wrong damn place.”

Still I couldn’t move.

“Divent be scared,” he said. “I’ll guide you doon.”

I looked back, saw Dad, or the man in the shape of Dad, watching from afar.

“Just do it,” said Silversleeve. “Do it and you’ll quick get used to it. Do it for as long as us and ye’ll know it’s nowt at aal.”

I crouched as Norman had, I edged backwards until my reaching foot slipped beyond the steel and felt nothingness. Shuffled backwards, reached down with the foot until I felt the ladder’s rungs. Kept shuffling and sliding backwards.

“That’s the way,” said Silversleeve.

“B-bottom is a l-long way down,” said Jakey.

I kept on going. Stepped properly onto the ladder, gripped the first rung, and went in.

“Good lad,” said Norman. “Keep on comin. I’ll give you space. Step down, step down. Let Silversleeve and Jakey follow. We’re with you. Divent worry. You won’t faal.”

You won’t faal. It was what I had told myself as I walked the rope between the drainpipe and the outhouse, as I walked the wire between the hawthorn trees. But I had fallen, many times, but just four feet or so, and I had been prepared for it, had turned every fall into a leap. Here, in this place, I couldn’t look down, couldn’t see how many four feets of emptiness were beneath. How prepare for that, how leap into the littered darkness? I told myself I didn’t have to do this at all. Told myself I could just turn away and leave the place. The place had no claim on me. I had no responsibility to it. And what was Dad doing sending me, his son, to this? And then I told myself how stupid I was. Men came down here day after day and day after day and had done for ten thousand days before. Yes, Windy Miller had fallen, but that was rare, and Windy was a clot. And this was my heritage. I kept on staring at the wall of steel behind the ladder, six inches from my face. Gripped the cold rungs tight, kept stepping down, stepping down. Riveters and caulkers attacked the metal from outside. There were tiny explosions somewhere. The ladder and the walls continually trembled.

“OK!” yelled Norman. “Tek a break. Nae need to rush now. Blister knaas we’re in.”

Now I clung to the ladder and dared to look. Spotlights dangled down on cables. The lights were garish, narrow-focused. Great gulfs of dimness lay between them. The tank was as deep as the ship itself and broad as a church. Dark-shadowed rubbish was cluttered and heaped up in the bottom.

“Looks like the net’s in tight today!” yelled Norman.

I saw it, the dark meshed lines that stretched from wall to wall.

“Mind you,” continued Norman, “didn’t we say that on Jakey’s big day!”

Jakey guffawed, Silversleeve sniffed, the ladder trembled. I yelped as something fluttered past my head. The others laughed again.

“The deadly spuggies of the tank!” said Silversleeve.

“Blister!” hissed Norman. He leaned right back, shouted up at the silhouetted face that had appeared in the hole above.

“Blister man! Bugger off and chase some proper skivers!”

Blister didn’t move.

“We’re doin it, Blister! Look!”

And Norman stepped from the ladder onto one of the strengthening ledges that were arranged all around the walls of the tank. He swept his brush across the ledge and a cloud of dust and debris scattered away.

“See!” he yelled.

“I want it done tobliddyday!” came the answering voice. “Or there’ll be bliddy hell to pay!”

Norman laughed.

“It needs wetting doon!” he yelled.

The face disappeared, returned again. Blister sprayed water from a hosepipe down into the tank and onto us.

“Keeps the dust down, Dom,” shouted Norman. “But meks things slippery. Tek care.”

Blister kept on spraying.

“Enough?” he yelled.

“Enough!” answered Norman. “You’ll start a bliddy flood.”

Blister laughed and disappeared.

“Bye-bye, Blister!” shouted Norman. He spoke to me again. “Mask on now. You can dae this one with me.”

“Do what?” I said.

“This. Which ain’t too hard to learn. I’ll show you.”

He knelt on the ledge. He bowed forward, brushed again. He crawled away from the ladder, brushing the ledge in front of him, and a cloud rose around him and tumbled down through the light of the spotlights into the gloom below.

I quaked again. The ledge was less than three feet wide. It ran all around the walls of the tank. There were other ledges further down.

“We do
that
?” I said.

“Aye,” said Silversleeve. “Brush it doon, then crane it up.”

“Piece of p-piss for a boff like you,” said Jakey.

“Ship’s getting near to finish,” said Norman. “Our job’s to brush it doon and get the shite oot. Then come back in to wash it doon. Then a final spit ’n’ polish and the lid gans on the hatch and its ready for the oil.”

He crawled away, brushing as he went.

“This is the mucky stage! I gan this way, you gan that. Meet up in the middle. Then we gan to the one below.”

He paused.

“Gan on,” he said. “Divent worry. Just get on the shelf.”

“It’ll b-be aal reet!” said Jakey.

I couldn’t answer.

“Just divent look doon,” said Norman.

“Keep your mind on higher things!” laughed Silversleeve.

I did it at last. Took a deep breath. Knew that I wouldn’t fall, that a three-foot ledge of metal was a different thing from a half-inch of rope. I put on the mask. Crept out from the ladder, crept around the ledge, swept trash to the depths, crawled forward, swept again, swept again. In places the ledge was wet. The knees of my jeans were soon damp and caked with filth. The mask was useless. I breathed in dust and grit. Found all kinds of stuff. The dried-out withered body of an ancient bird. Another. And another. Over the ledge they went. I tried not to look down. Imagined falling so very far. Would the net be strong enough to hold me? Or was it just for show? I knew that Windy wasn’t the only one to fall. Men went overboard into the dock or into the river, men stepped out onto a duckboard that wasn’t there, they simply took a wrong turn and tumbled down into the murk, men walked from open decks into the river itself. Many injuries, lots of frights and yes, an occasional death. I crawled and swept, met Norman at the centre, on the opposite wall of the tank. Norman shook my hand, then we turned and went our separate ways back to the ladder again. Jakey and Silversleeve swept the ledge below. Then I went with Norman to the ledge below that, where we swept again, where dust from the ledge above cascaded down upon us. The tank was a cloud of dust dancing in the spotlights. Sometimes an obscure sparrow fluttered through it. The caulkers and riveters dinned. After the second ledge, we came to the net. We clambered through, further down into the murk. We swept the ledge below. Then came to the bottom of the tank at last and rested, sitting on the great metal struts that rose from the floor. Norman was black in the spotlights. Red shining lips when he lifted his blackened mask away.