He’d played so many bars round here. I reached another, which still had a battered blackboard advertising Friday’s bands. I’d humped gear up that staircase, and seen the guy who played bass sprawl drunkenly back down it later. Mark and I had spent half the night with him in A&E; back then, we even had to ask directions to the hospital.
I shifted the box to a different position; I’d lost the knack of carrying. As I walked over the canal bridge I wondered about chucking the thing in, letting Mark’s old hopes and dreams float away or sink into the depths. I rested the chest on the parapet, staring down into the water. Of course, below was a lock: no use for disposing of anything.
I heaved the box back into my aching arms and set off again. As I stepped off the bridge, a dark figure loomed up. It looked like Mark’s old drummer, it hunched like him with a hat pulled low.
“Need anything, mate? Good skunk?”
I shook my head and walked past, keen just to get to the Tube. All around me memories stepped from behind walls. A snatch of acoustic guitar floated from a pub window, an old Ry Cooder song that Mark used to sing; people I thought I recognised from drunken nights and wasted mornings; someone cupping their hands to light a fag just the way Mark did.
The orange light of a taxi came towards me, and I hitched the wooden box awkwardly on one knee to free an arm and flag it down. I wrenched the door open, lurching into the open space and collapsing onto the seat.
“Get me out of here.”
Get me out before I drown, before I go down under all the leftovers of my past. Just get me away.
The driver looked concerned, so I straightened up, focussed and told him my address. He nodded and set off, leaving me once again staring at my reflection in a window. I’m still here. Still breathing. Just.
Safely back in my own flat, I parked the wooden box on the floor, sat beside it, and even flipped one of the catches. No. Not now, not tonight.