‘To Fall At The Beginning Is To Start Again’
Book of Wom, saying 11
It begins with McBee. Or rather, it begins with what happened to him.
They say that the last straw is often the most insignificant thing; in McBee’s case this was most definitely true. The over-fed, arrogant lady driver of the small pink automobile - complete with ridiculous orange furry dice bobbling about in the windscreen - would probably be very surprised to learn that she was responsible for triggering the most catastrophic, cataclysmic day of someone’s life.
But she was. Or more precisely, her furry dice were.
For posterity shall record that, a little after 3.15pm on a grey, drizzly Thursday afternoon somewhere in mid-October, the sight of this lady’s victoriously swinging fluffy window adornments, now in front after she nearly ran McBee off the road with an idiotic overtaking manoeuvre, tipped him over the edge. And McBee, to coin a phrase, finally Lost The Plot.
At any other time he may have laughed at the scenario. But as it was, this one, seemingly insignificant happening was the final link in a long, long chain of events. And consequently McBee’s life changed irrevocably from that point on.
It seems ironic that a man who had successfully carved a career out of lambasting the human race’s aptitude for pettiness for the past twenty-five years, should be ultimately unhinged by two preposterously naff cubes dangling from a rear view mirror. But this is how it was.
McBee screeched to a halt in the middle lane of the busy G46 – the majestic seven-lane thoroughfare snaking out of the City - sending cars spiralling off in all directions to avoid him.
‘I have been cut up by a woman with furry dice,’ he stated aloud, the preposterousness of the situation dawning slowly. At first unsure whether this simple statement of affairs would induce laughter or anger, he sat there motionless, waiting for an emotion to arrive. Oblivious to the blaring horns and curses from the approaching drivers, McBee remained still, until a white-hot anger began to boil up within him, brimming over and searing through his veins.
‘I have been cut up by a woman with furry dice,’ he repeated, the statement now a manic mantra under his breath as blood pumped wildly at his temples. Then, without warning, all the years of feeling undervalued, the relentless daily grind of his existence and the building sense of disappointment in a life that once had promised so much, yet never delivered, suddenly descended as one huge, crushing weight on McBee’s weary frame.
Stunned by its claustrophobic severity, he struggled to catch his breath, grasping frantically at the driver’s side door. Finally locating the small silver handle, he pulled at it with all his might – which took considerable strength, as every movement now appeared to require a gargantuan effort to perform. The car door swung open and McBee grabbed his suitcase from the passenger seat, bolting from the stranded car with all the speed he could muster.
Maybe it was the utter idiocy of the situation; maybe it was the result of too many emotions swept under the carpet for too long – we shall never know. Even McBee himself, in later years, couldn’t exactly explain what it was that made this particular offence so different from all the others he’d encountered in his life.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that this event was officially The Last Straw for McBee - and came to be known as such.
McBee fled across the lanes of skidding, swerving and colliding vehicles - that were fast becoming steaming, screaming dog-piles of metal and skin, blood and bone. All he could focus on through the brooding purple-grey haze pulsing across his vision was the wall at the edge of the carriageway – and the streak of dark silver water, hundreds of feet below the road, stretching out towards the grey horizon.
Unable to think any longer, he moved towards the wall as if propelled by an overpowering, unearthly force. Beset by the pounding of his heart in his ears, the growing sounds of confusion, fear and pain behind him and the taste of burning rubber and flesh catching at the back of his throat, McBee’s mounting, terrifying panic forced his body forwards, until it pushed him – quite literally – over the edge.
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A ferryman punting slowly across the calm river beneath the motorway bridge was the only witness to the falling figure, arms flailing and macintosh billowing, as it plummeted without a sound towards the waiting water’s shadowy depths. Sid the Old Salt (as he was known in these parts) lifted a white bushy eyebrow in a quizzical manner, stopped punting and waited, leaning his ancient bony frame against the blackened punting pole, whilst keeping his tiny black eyes fixed to the place where the body had been swallowed. Far above him, the aftermath of McBee’s Final Straw continued, albeit a distant, indeterminable concoction of smoke and clamour from the water’s edge.
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McBee, meanwhile, was finding the whole experience a lot more comforting than you may imagine. As soon as his feet had left the bridge’s edge, he had felt an overwhelming sense of calm pervade his entire being. The cold air rushing up and around his body removed the smell of burning from his nostrils as he fell in what felt like a dreamlike, slow-motion descent. Suddenly he found he had time to think – acres of mind-space unexpectedly available for him to wander through.
It’s funny, he mused as he fell, that doing something so drastic and potentially deadly to oneself could provide such a clear perspective on one’s life. He looked across his downward-bound body and noticed, with some amusement, the battered brown suitcase still gripped in his hand. How strange that I brought this with me, he thought to himself, watching the case swinging happily from its handle. It had been a present from his mother, more than twenty years ago, on his very first day at The Oktaban Times.
‘You’re a professional now,’ Mrs McBee had beamed, straightening her son’s new tie and standing back to admire the nervous young man stood before her. ‘And professionals should always look the part. Now, let me look at you. There you are - a proper journalist if ever I saw one.’
The thought of his mother brought a sharp, unexpected stab at his heart and McBee screwed his eyes up, focusing instead on the forces pulling his body downwards to try to numb the pain at his core. Soon, the cool calm returned and he found himself almost enjoying the experience. He opened his eyes…
Then, the water hit him, engulfing his body in dark, inky blackness, icy daggers attacking him from every side. Struggling to break the momentum of his fall, McBee violently jerked his body round until his head was pointing towards the dim light dancing at the river’s surface. But as he reached out his arms, his eyes began to fail him as his body began to succumb to the water’s freezing numbness. Despite his struggle, the light was now retreating further and further away from his outstretched hand. Inexplicably comforted by a deathly sense of surrender, McBee closed his eyes and gave in.
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Old Sid watched and waited. Around him the sky was beginning to redden as the autumnal evening set in. Flocks of guillegulls rose noisily from the marshes at the edge of the City through which the river flowed, their tiny flapping bodies moving in mesmerising, constantly changing formations like giant undulating black-speckled waves in the sky. The ferryman had witnessed this spectacle many times, yet even today he still felt a twinge of awe in his aged heart at this natural twilight phenomenon. As he lifted his gaze to watch the birds, he was temporarily transported back to a time, many years ago, bathed in the warm rosy hue that surrounds precious memories. He was a small boy of around eight years old, sitting on the prow of his grandfather’s barge with his bare feet dangling over the edge, while his faithful terrier Tujic sat at his side, barking at the birds as they flocked across the blood-orange sky. Just as he had done then, he did now; watching the shapes changing above his head for some time, he noted each metamorphosis out loud:
‘…diamond, square, ripples, oblong, cloud, wobbly blob, another squ…’
Old Sid was suddenly interrupted by a bubbling sound to the left of his boat and, on turning his head to investigate, was amazed to see McBee’s body – shortly followed by a battered brown suitcase – emerging from the river. The man was pale and covered in slimy green weed, but definitely – unmistakably – alive.
‘Begger me,’ the ferryman exclaimed, plunging the punt into the water and hauling his boat over to the floating body. Mustering all the strength he could summon, the old man grabbed McBee’s arms and hauled his bedraggled frame unceremoniously into the boat.
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When Heston McBee began his working life, he was a young man of nineteen, full of ambition and optimism. Fresh from finishing his Diploma of Letters at the Dianor Academy, McBee was invited to attend an interview at The Oktaban Times by a man who he had inadvertently met in Periphy Park one day. McBee was not one who naturally believed in good fortune, yet he would always say that the unlikely way in which he obtained his first job could only be attributed to ‘someone somewhere being pleased with me.’ During a late lunch-break from Gytha’s Diner – one of three jobs he had maintained to pay his way through college – McBee had decided to make the most of the brave April sunshine and head to the park at the City’s centre. After eating his sandwich, McBee pulled out the faded grey leather notebook in which he kept all his scraps of prose, poetry, sketches and musings. Unbeknownst to him, a tall man in a sharp suit, with a dark trilby worn low over his eyes was closely observing McBee’s every move, from a park bench nearby. After a few minutes of studying the young man writing fervently, the tall man in the trilby folded up his newspaper, tucked it under his arm and strolled casually over.
‘Afternoon,’ he said, tipping his hat respectfully.
McBee jumped and looked up, squinting as he shielded his eyes from the sun. ‘Afternoon,’ he replied.
‘I hope you don’t mind the impertinence,’ said the trilby man in a velvet-smooth, well-spoken voice, ‘but I’ve been watching you for a while and I was wondering what you were writing about.’
McBee hesitated for a moment but decided to trust the well-dressed stranger.‘I was just writing about today,’ he said, ‘you know - being in Periphy Park on an April lunchtime and things like that.’
The trilby man smiled a wry smile, ‘And do you do this often, young man?’
McBee wasn’t altogether impressed with the man’s tone, but replied politely, ‘All the time. I try to write every day. It doesn’t matter what I write about – it can be observational, poetic, satirical, romantic – just as long as I write something, that’s all that counts.’
The trilby man smiled again, this time much warmer, ‘Ah, I see. So, you’re a writer?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said McBee, ‘Or, at least, I will be soon.’
‘Have you been secured by a publication?’ asked the trilby man.
‘No, not yet.’
The trilby man gestured towards McBee’s precious notebook. ‘May I?’
Young McBee hesitated – after all, as his writing tutor Mr Lubowicz often said, ‘one’s writing is like one’s firstborn child – to present it for critique is as to present a part of yourself for judgement…’ Yet there was something uncommonly comforting about the trilby man’s manner. So hands trembling, he handed over his notebook.
The trilby man was silent for what seemed like several forevers as he slowly perused the contents of the journal. McBee scanned his face for any sign of emotion, but found none; which only served to increase his anxiety. Eventually, the man closed the book, handed it back to McBee and extended his hand to the young writer.
‘Charlton Cavendish,’ he announced, ‘I am Chief Scout for The Oktaban Times – do you know the publication?’
McBee caught his breath, ‘Do I know it?’ he stammered, ‘It’s only the finest newspaper in the whole of the country – let alone this City!’ Then, remembering his manners, he added, ‘Heston – Heston McBee.’
Charlton Cavendish shook his hand, ‘Well, well, Heston McBee, I think you are a good writer. And, with my help, you will become a great writer.’
True to his word, Charlton Cavendish became McBee’s mentor, securing him his first reporter’s post at the paper and working closely with him for the next twelve years. Until, that is, he mysteriously disappeared one morning and never returned.
Cavendish’s disappearance sparked a chain of events in McBee’s life that cast a brooding shadow over everything, ultimately leading to his jump from the motorway bridge. Robbed of his closest ally, greatest friend and most trusted confidant, McBee slowly lost the confidence, hope and ambition that had so characterised the bright-eyed young man writing prose in a sunlit park, many years ago.
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McBee gasped and opened his eyes. Coughing violently, he struggled for a moment to wrench enough air into his lungs to breathe again. As the convulsions in his chest subsided, he blinked away the resulting tears from his eyes and slowly began to focus on his surroundings.
He found he was lying in a warm, dimly-lit room, on what felt like a bed of straw, covered with a rough grey wool blanket. He tried to lift his head but found it impossible; every part of him ached and what little strength he had seemed only sufficient to allow him to move his eyes. As his vision gradually sharpened, he could see an old man hunched over a small stove in the far right corner of the room, in what passed for a tiny kitchen area. The old man was busily stirring a black iron pot that perched precariously on a small gas ring. With every stir, the pot wobbled over with a bump. He was humming a raspy, cracked tune as he worked, the odd lyric intervening occasionally.
‘Hmm young girl called Rosie Lee… hmmm, hmmm, hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm… longer legs than a hmm-hmm-heee, hmmm, hmmm, hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm… shot a hmmm with a hmm-hmm gun, hmmm, hmmm, hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm… and flashed her hmm for a hmm-hmm hmmm… with a hey and a ho and a big nonny… hmm, hmm, hmm-hmm hmm-hee..’ he took a big breath, ‘Grrreat big hmms and a bag of plums, hmm, hmm…’
McBee began to cough again and Old Sid stopped his humming and stirring to look over.
‘You’re awake then, eh boy?’ he observed, leaving the spoon in the pot and shuffling slowly over to where McBee lay.
McBee struggled to find his voice. ‘How did I…?’
‘Get ‘ere?’ offered Old Sid, ‘I dragged you out the river, that’s ‘ow you got ‘ere, matey.’
‘You? You got me out?’ asked McBee, observing the old man’s wiry frame.
‘Arr, so I did. I ‘auled you out by myself and brought you ‘ome to my barge. That’s where you is right now, by the by.’
McBee tried to smile at the old man. ‘Thank you,’ he said weakly.
‘No need to thank me, son,’ Old Sid smiled, ‘Twas nothing, really. Nearly gave this old sea dog a ‘eart attack, mind. Shocked the ‘ell out of me, you did.’
‘Ah, my jump…’ McBee felt a wave of nauseous embarrassment flood up within him.
As if sensing McBee’s feelings, Old Sid shook his head and patted McBee’s hand. ‘Twasn’t the jump, boy,’ he said, ‘I’s used to jumpers. Bit of a side-line of business for me, jumpers- if you gets what I mean?’
McBee, staring blankly at Old Sid, clearly didn’t.
‘Well,’ Sid explained, ‘I’s a ferryman, see? And I works yonder part of the river under the bridge. That’s my livin’, right? Not much of one, truth be told, but a livin’ nonetheless. I comes from a long line of ferrymen and my family’s always worked that stretch – even before yon bridge went up. But since they built that bridge, there’s been a steady flow, if you’ll pardon my pun, of folks what want to end it, see? Jumpers, we call ‘em round ‘ere. Anyways, they tend to land in my patch, if you like, and I’s a great believer in the ‘finders, keepers’ theory of life, if you get my meaning? That City Authority pays ‘andsomely for bodies retrieved from the river. Saves ‘em doin’ it, I s’pose, don’t it? So if I gets a jumper, I gets a fair bit of cash on the quiet, like. I likes to think it’s a chance to give yon poor beggers a reason for jumpin’ – kind of like them ‘elpin’ someone to live after they die, see?’
‘Umm...’ McBee’s head was swimming slightly.
‘So when I saw you comin’ out the sky, so to speak, I says to myself, ‘Sid,’ I says, ‘Yon poor begger there’ll bring you that outboard motor you’ve been ‘ankerin’ after’ So, there I was, waitin’ for your corpse to come up floatin’ – no offence, like – but, blow me, if you don’t come up alive! Couldn’t believe my eyes I couldn’t! I’s been draggin’ yon corpses out of that river for the best part of twenty years and I’s never seen one come up alive!’
‘Well, I must say it surprised me,’ said McBee, as the reality of his reality began to strike home.
‘I’ll bet it did,’ Sid nodded, ‘I’ll bet you was there, thinkin’ you was ‘eaded for some great glowin’ Nirvana, and begger you if you didn’t find yourself back in the land of the livin’. Twas a bit of a bummer, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘I’m… I don’t know,’ replied McBee, and promptly burst into tears.
Old Sid took an awkward step back, wringing his hands together, slightly embarrassed at the sobbing wreck of humanity lying before him. ‘Now, now come on, lad, it can’t be that bad, can it? I mean, yes, you wanted to end it all, like, but someone somewhere ‘ad other ideas, see? I don’t know a vast deal about Gods and stuff, but what I see is this: you flew from yonder bridge into that river and you survived. That’s a miracle s’far as I’s concerned, son. So maybe you’s got yourself a Second Chance. You can do anythin’ you wants to. Go anywhere your ‘eart desires, see? There’s not many a soul gets that type of opportunity, lad, I can tell you. Now, I’s made you some broth. I’ll get you some, so’s you can ‘ave somethin’ to eat. Then you’ll feel better.’
‘Thank you – um…’
‘Sid. Sid the Old Salt they calls me round ‘ere. But Sid will do just fine.’ Old Sid smiled, patted McBee on the shoulder and returned to the stove.
McBee closed his aching eyes and heaved a huge sigh. Inside him, his mutinous feelings were running round in circles, like a crazed bunch of lab rats too delirious to know which direction to head in after being released from their cage. He attempted to round them up – with little success – finally resorting to let them dash around for a bit until they’d calmed down sufficiently to hold a constructive conversation with him.
In many ways, he found himself glad to be alive after all. And now he found himself very much alive still, he knew he had the potential for many more years to live – the prospect of which both intrigued and scared the hell out of him. He was still a young-ish man, he reasoned; he had never really known anything other than being a journalist; never married, never ‘settled down’ – whatever that meant. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed, been in love, or taken a holiday. All his life had consisted of - year after weary year - was The Oktaban Times; mindlessly chasing its deadlines, leads and exclusives like some half-crazed addict… Indeed, he realised now that he had spent over twenty years of his life writing about other people’s lives, instead of experiencing a life of his own. The paper had been his family, his wife, his mistress, his master – but had never allowed him to be himself.
When Old Sid brought over a bowl of steaming broth, McBee found he was just about able to lift his body into an upright seated position. Sid folded up an old bearskin coat and propped it behind McBee’s back as a makeshift pillow. The smouldering broth was lumpy and tasted faintly fishy, but it was something to eat and McBee was surprised to discover how ravenously hungry he was. As he ate, he could feel his body warming and his strength beginning to return.
After he had eaten, he slept - a deep, heavy slumber with few dreams, save for a series of nondescript, shadowy images shifting uneasily through his subconscious mind.
When he woke again, the room was filled with daylight. The heavy curtains that had been drawn over the windows the previous night had been pulled back, revealing large, circular portholes and confirming that this was, indeed, a boat. McBee felt a little woozy from his long sleep, but better – so much so, that he found he was able to swing his legs to the side of the bed and stand up, albeit very shakily. Suddenly remembering that his clothes had been soaked from his plunge into the river, he looked down - and was surprised to discover he was now wearing wide blue slacks and an old white collarless linen shirt. Moving carefully across the dark wooden floor, which was strewn with faded rainbow-coloured rag rugs, McBee slowly made his way towards the small open doors leading to the deck, heading in the direction of the sound of Old Sid’s voice, which was humming another sea shanty somewhere nearby.
‘Hey diddle-i, iddle-i-o, three busty girls and away we go, hmm, hmm, hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm.. Ah! There you are, lad! So you’re up and movin’ eh?’ Sid grinned, coiling up a length of thick rope.
McBee smiled, ‘It would seem so, Sid.’
‘So, what do you think of me barge then, eh?’
McBee looked around at the old vessel. Though she was faded and had admittedly seen better days, she was still a fine specimen of an estuary barge. Her deck was dark wood, with tarpaulin-covered cargo boxes roped into the middle. From the centre of the deck a tall mast rose, with washed-out flapping red sails lashed loosely to it. Towards the bow of the boat was a further covered cabin, its small windscreen looking out to the horizon with the river stretching away as far as the eye could see. McBee took a breath of air – it was so much fresher here out on the river than it ever was in the City. The air was cold and stung his lungs, but it felt good. ‘She’s wonderful,’ he breathed.
‘That she is, son, that she is. Cocoa?’ asked Sid, offering a steaming white enamel mug.
McBee took it and drank, enjoying the velvetiness of the sweet, gloopy liquid as it slid luxuriously down his throat. ‘By the way, I never told you my name,’ he said, after a while. ‘I’m Heston McBee. But most people call me McBee.’
Sid grasped McBee’s pale hand with his large bony, dark-tanned one and shook it fimly. ‘Pleased to meet you, matey,’ he grinned. ‘So, ‘ere’s a new day for you, after all those shenanigans last evening. Where’ll you be headin’ now? Not home, I would’ve thought?’
McBee shook his head, ‘No,’ he said, purposefully, ‘Not home.’
Then – largely because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, but fortuitously, as it turned out – he asked, ‘Where are you going?’
Old Sid appeared a little taken aback by the question, lifting his white bushy eyebrows high in surprise as his swarthy wrinkled features crinkled into a smile.
‘I? Well, I’s be ‘eadin’ that a-way,’ he answered, gesturing in the direction of the blue horizon, where the spraygulls were surfing the thermals like miniscule white V’s dotted across the sky. ‘The old girl’s a sea-goin’ vessel, see? I’s be plannin’ on takin’ ‘er to the ocean. She don’t get to see it often, see, so I’m takin’ her back to remind ‘er of where she came from, if you gets my meanin’?’
The ocean – just the mere sound of the word in McBee’s mind made his heart skip. It promised high adventure, wildly beautiful vistas and breathtaking power… ‘Can I come with you?’ he breathed, almost without realising he’d spoken the words out loud.
Old Sid considered McBee for a moment, his expression a mixture of surprise and puzzlement. He lifted his blue peaked cap to scratch the wiry white clump of hair clinging for dear life to his head. ‘Well, I… I don’t see why not, lad. I mean, there’s plenty of room aboard old Polly-Jo for a scrap like you, I’d say.’
McBee felt a rush of excitement coursing through his veins, making his head giddy. ‘Thank you so much, Sid!’ he exclaimed, ‘It’s just I… I can’t stay here and I’ve never seen the ocean.’
Old Sid looked genuinely shocked. ‘Never seen the ocean, lad? Well blow me over with a gust of wind! You City folks don’t know what you’re missin’! Right, that settles it, boy. You’re a-comin’ with me and old Polly-Jo to see the sea!’
And so it was that Heston McBee, who had never ventured out of the City his whole life, left it far behind him for good.
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High on the motorway bridge, a faceless man in a nondescript suit pressed his lapel button and spoke in an urgent whisper. Down on the river below, another be-suited man standing on the deck of a small, unremarkable boat waved an orange lantern towards the bridge. Then he turned to face the horizon and nodded. Slowly, unnoticed, the small vessel began to move in the direction of the ocean.
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