The Pimlico Kid by Barry Walsh

Author:Barry Walsh [Barry Walsh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

Drowning and Denying

Rooksy and I are walking beside the dry channel that runs through the Peabody Estate. It was once the course of the River Tachbrook, which is now a sewer flowing inside a giant rusting pipe, ringed every ten yards with nut-and-bolt collars. Before reaching the Thames, the pipe enters the ‘hydraulic’. The Hydraulic Pumping Works contains several large tanks of deep water. When its drains open, surface pressure forces the water down through a network of pipes with enough force to raise lifts in high buildings for miles around. It’s ‘working water’ that doesn’t have to be too clean. When the levels drop, the tanks’ sides become green-slimed cliffs.

‘Fancy climbing over?’ says Rooksy.

No, I don’t. In nightmares, I’m drowning in one of these tanks, searching the snotweed walls for handholds as the gurgling drains suck me down.

At the swimming pool, I’m a creature of the shallow end. Every time I steel myself to dip my head under water, the blurred light and the burbling distortion tell me that this is not the beginning of swimming, but of drowning.

I was once pushed into the deep end. Down I went, not to the bottom but far enough to believe I’d never get back up. In a terrifying few seconds, I clawed ineffectively at the water as divers arrowed down around me, trailing streams of bubbles and others rowed themselves silently along the bottom before turning to rise in balletic slow motion. My treacherous lungs were trying to force open my mouth and inhale water. I was beginning to think that this wasn’t such a bad thing when a thud in my back propelled me towards the surface. John had spotted me in time.

On the poolside, I coughed and puked chlorine spume while he thumped my back in the mistaken belief that he was helping. Once he knew I was OK, he fell into hysterics at how my arms and legs had whirred like a cartoon character’s to get out of the water. Next minute he was up, hands on hips, defending me to the frowning pool attendant who was squeegeeing away my vomit. ‘He can’t help it, someone pushed him in.’

So, no, I don’t want to go in the hydraulic.

‘No thanks Rooksy. Not bothered.’

Close by, Griggsy is climbing over the spiked railings embedded on top of the hydraulic wall. He shouts at Rooksy, ‘Ya won’t get ’im in ’ere without ’is rubber ring … no fucking shallow end. Try the paddlin’ pool in the kiddies’ playground.’

A lidded jam jar hangs on string from his belt. He’s after water fleas for his terrapins. In summer, the tanks teem with all sorts of crawlies loved by his tiny, scrawny-necked turtles. Weird pets, but Griggsy isn’t the kind of kid who’d keep kittens.

‘Chicken are ya?’

Well yes, shit scared actually.

‘No, don’t fancy it.’

‘Chicken,’ he says, keeping to the point.

With his back to Griggsy, Rooksy is mouthing ‘wanker’.

I smile but it’s not funny that both my friend and my enemy know I’m scared. This spurs me to climb the railings after all.

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