‘It’s fascinating to see the old canal re-appearing after so many years,’ he said. ‘Wonderful. It’s history coming full circle. This was Lock Eighteen, wasn’t it? Fosseway Lock?’
‘No, Fosseway is number seventeen. Eighteen is Claypit Lock. Across the road there, to the south.’
‘Of course.’
‘And just beyond that is the site of Fosseway Wharf. It’s completely overgrown now.’
He looked at me with a smile. ‘You’ve become quite an expert, haven’t you, Christopher? Very admirable.’
The windows of the car were starting to steam up, so I wound the handle down on the driver’s side to let in a bit of the cool February air.
‘I’m not an expert on anything,’ I said. ‘Journalists rarely are. The restoration provides good copy for me, that’s all. So I’ve made it my business to know a bit about the history of the Ogley and Huddlesford.’
He propped the handle of his stick against the scuffed dashboard. The grey hair on the back of his neck curled onto his coat collar, and his large nose had turned pink with the cold. His eyes were watering slightly, and he pulled a tissue from his pocket to wipe them. Though he was an old man, there was nothing feeble about his voice. It was steady and clear, with a local accent distinguishable under an educated veneer.
‘Just one lock dug out so far, and a new bridge, isn’t it? What do you think the chances are of restoring the entire seven miles of canal?’
‘Very slim,’ I said. ‘Oh, they’ve got the enthusiasm, that lot down there. But just think of the cost. We’re talking ten million pounds at least, and the estimate is rising by the year. Where’s the money going to come from? Most of the line of the canal has been filled in, parts built over completely — factories, housing estates, garden centres, you name it. Locks have been broken up and bridges demolished. And that’s not to mention the new link road. It will cross the track of the canal twice, and the restoration trust has to pay for bridges, if they want them. It seems obvious to me that it’s more work than a handful of volunteers can possibly manage. We’ll all be dead long before there are narrowboats passing through Lichfield again.’
‘I see you know how to talk like a journalist. But I’ve been told your heart is in it, and I think they’re right.’
‘Who said that exactly?’
‘Oh, people I’ve asked about you.’
I didn’t like the sound of that. There were no dark secrets in my life, but the idea that anybody had been going round asking questions about me felt uncomfortable all the same.
The old man made no attempt to wind down his own window. He continued staring straight ahead while the glass misted up and blotted out his view of the road. His eyes had a faraway expression. I didn’t know what he was looking at, but it wasn’t anything in the real world.
‘Are you really a friend of my family?’ I said.
He turned towards me then, and fixed me with those pale eyes. He smiled, showing a set of teeth that must have been his own, judging by the unevenness and the staining of the enamel on his front incisors. For the first time, I noticed the short, white whiskers on his upper lip where he’d failed to shave properly.
‘Yes, Christopher. I’m Samuel Longden.’
‘The name still means nothing to me, I’m afraid. My parents never mentioned you.’
‘And you never met your grandfather, of course.’
‘He died long before I was born.’
‘Yes, I know.’ He turned away again and used the cuff of his overcoat to wipe a small, damp space in the condensation on his window. ‘It’s understandable, of course. But I thought I was just ignored, not forgotten entirely.’
His words sent a small, inexplicable shaft of guilt through my heart. But I couldn’t see a justification for feeling guilty, and I shrugged it off immediately.
‘You were a friend of my grandfather’s then.’ I realised they must have been of the same generation, though my grandfather hadn’t survived to anything like the age Samuel Longden had reached.
‘I knew him very well indeed,’ he said. ‘Yes, your grandfather. George Buckley.’
‘If you were a very close friend, I’m sorry that I haven’t heard of you.’
‘I shouldn’t be too surprised. There were things that happened between us, between myself and your grandfather. They meant I was no longer welcome in the Buckley family. Now I can see I was never forgiven. “Unto the third generation” they say, don’t they?’
He said this with such a note of despair that I felt sorry for him. I wanted to tell him something different, to assure him I’d heard of him after all, that my parents had talked about him often, and he’d been such a close friend of my family that I almost considered him an uncle. But I could assure him of none of these things. They wouldn’t have been true.
‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me about yourself,’ I said, as kindly as I could.
He rallied then, shook his shoulders and gave a small smile. ‘Of course. I must warn you, though — I’m happy to tell you a certain amount about myself. But there’s something I want from you in return.’
And there it was. The trap. He thought he had a hold on me, and perhaps he was right. I was curious, and whatever it was he wanted, I was going to have to cope with it. I hoped he couldn’t see the expression that passed across my face.
‘That sounds like a deal.’
He was beginning to look better in the warmth of the car. A bit of colour returned to his face, and his shoulders relaxed. He caught me looking at him, and I got that frisson of shock again as our eyes met. It was as if I was looking at somebody I’d known all my life.
‘You have seen me before,’ he said, as if reading my mind. ‘Though you might not have noticed me at the time. I’ve certainly seen you, Christopher.’
‘I don’t remember. I suppose it must have been a long time ago?’
‘Not at all. It was three months ago. I was at your father’s funeral.’
‘What?’
‘I didn’t make myself known, of course. I wanted to come along because... well, because your father was George Buckley’s son. I’ve always regretted that it wasn’t possible for me to attend your grandfather’s funeral. I knew I wouldn’t have been welcome. But with your mother and father both gone, I hoped there’d be no one to object to my presence. I took a gamble with you, Christopher, as to whether you’d recognise me. But now I see that I worried unnecessarily.’
My father’s funeral was still very clear in my mind. There had been few mourners at St Chad’s. Even fewer had bothered to come the short distance from the church to the house at Stowe Pool Lane. Most of those who appeared were my mother’s family, the Claytons and Bridgemans, the same tight-lipped middle-class couples from Birmingham who’d attended my mother’s funeral a few months earlier. Their cloying sympathy had irked me, but the knowledge that it would almost certainly be the last time I saw any of them was a consolation.
There had also been some of my father’s former colleagues — most of them rather depressed-looking men who’d been made redundant at the same time as him from the engineering factory on the Ringway industrial estate. None of those had come back to the house, so there had only been a small clutch of in-laws and one or two neighbours who were openly inquisitive about what I intended to do with the property.
As our silent group stood at the graveside, my mind had wandered over many subjects, none of them related to memories of my father. Like the neighbours, I was considering what I’d do with the house. I could sell it, but what would I use the money for? The property was vastly more desirable than the grubby flat I’d shared in Stafford. The question was whether I could bear to live in a house full of reminders of my parents. It was this mental debate that might have made me seem reserved and withdrawn.