The park was closing and Marcus hurried to the northern exit. It was growing dark and there was a whisper of snow in the air. On a whim he crossed straight over Holland Park Avenue and headed up Ladbroke Grove. He always forgot how steep Notting Hill was. The trees that tented the road in summer had lost almost all of their leaves; those at the top of the hill had already been pollarded and held their stump-limbs skywards in protest at the brutality of their treatment. Darwin was tired and limped slightly. Marcus lifted the little dog up and carried him under his arm. In the distance he saw a Hammersmith and City Line train crossing a bridge. The lighted windows of the train looked like lanterns suspended in the air from a string.
Marcus trotted down the hill and was soon passing under the Westway outside the Tube station. He remembered how Abby had dragged him to the market here years ago. They were looking for a birthday present for Lee and had wandered among the tightly packed stalls, pointing at books and T-shirts and all sorts of nostalgic junk. Abby had come back wearing a Tyrolean hat and Marcus an MCC tie. He looked at his watch and realised that Abby would have landed by now. He felt a stab close to where Darwin’s wet nose was tickling his chest.
Marcus turned onto the towpath as the last light of the day left the horizon. He looked into the supermarket as he passed and saw children helping their mothers bag up the shopping, young couples buying inexpensive wine, the jostle and buzz of real life. He made his way carefully along the unlit path, stepping aside to let bicyclists through, almost tripping over a tramp who was sprawled across a bench sleeping off a hangover. Finally, he made out the Jolly Roger that hung from the rear rail of the Gentle Ben and saw with pleasure that the lights were on. He knocked on the door, saw the boat sway as Mouse moved around inside, and then, after a few minutes when Marcus heard nothing but the gentle slap of the water against the boat’s hull, Mouse opened the door, beaming.
‘Hello, sport,’ he said. ‘Do come in. And bring that darling dog with you. He’s a fine sailor, you know.’
Mouse had been reading. Marcus saw a copy of Journey to the End of the Night lying face-down next to a bottle of white wine and a bowl of pistachios. A small lamp stood on the table and cast a warm glow over one corner of the cabin. Marcus edged himself onto the bench opposite as Mouse found him a glass. Before sitting down, Mouse opened a cupboard and pulled out a tin of tuna which he emptied into a bowl for Darwin. The dog scoffed the fish appreciatively.
‘So has Abby gone then?’ Mouse asked, sitting down to face Marcus. Their knees touched under the table and Mouse edged backwards, drawing his legs up underneath him. He was wearing an old Thomas Pink shirt that was frayed at the collar and strained at its buttons around the belly. Marcus recognised it as one of his own. Abby must have given it to Mouse.
‘Yes. She’s gone.’ Marcus had already finished the glass of wine. He watched with embarrassment as Mouse poured the rest of the bottle into his glass.
‘Sorry. It’s been a shitty day. I’ll nip over to Sainsbury’s and buy you another bottle in a bit.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Abby and I argued before she left.’
Mouse looked up at him.
‘I did think it was a strange time for her to go. With Lee and everything.’
‘She said she needed some space to mourn.’
‘To mourn? So she doesn’t think Lee’s coming back?’
‘Do you?’
Marcus offered Mouse a cigarette. Mouse took it and lit it. He opened the window beside them a crack and they flicked their ash out into the night.
‘I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Sally Nightingale found some books at Lee’s flat. Some diaries. Lee was terribly sad, poor thing. I always knew that she was prone to these slumps, but I suppose I just thought she got down like we all do. Or maybe that she was a little more sensitive than us, you know? That she felt things more acutely, but never that she was so low as to do this.’
Darwin had finished his tuna and was struggling to climb up onto the bench. Marcus cupped a hand under his tummy and lifted him into his lap.
‘I wouldn’t give up hope yet. People write things sometimes just to see how they look. Not everything that is written is meant.’
‘I know, I know. But the pictures of men. So many of them. I suppose I had always hoped that she was secretly chaste. That the men who went home with her were made to sleep out on the terrace or something. And some of them so old and ugly — I saw the photos. It makes me wonder quite why it was she never looked at me.’
They sat in silence for a while. A barge chugged past, rocking the boat with its wake, causing Darwin to stir in his sleep. Marcus eased the dog onto the bench beside him and walked out to the supermarket to buy more wine. He picked out a bottle of good Burgundy and made it to the boat just as it began to rain. Mouse was standing in the tiny kitchen stirring a bowl of pasta when Marcus arrived.
‘You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?’ he asked.
They sat and ate and the rain pounded down on the roof above them. Marcus peered out onto the water of the canal and saw it dancing with the torrent that was pouring down from the sky. He realised at once how cosy and how lonely Mouse’s life out here was. He turned back to his friend.
‘Who called you Mouse? Who gave you the nickname?’
Mouse thought for a moment. Marcus settled back down on the bench beside Darwin.
‘I suppose I did. It was when I was at school in Scotland and obsessed with The Wind in the Willows. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that there was some terrible sadness behind the story. Even in the joyous parts, there’s a kind of elegiac quality to it, and finally I read a biography of Kenneth Grahame and it all made sense.
‘Mouse was the name of Kenneth Grahame’s son. Or actually Mouse was the nickname his dad gave him. His real name was Alastair too, you know? I took my nickname as a kind of homage to him. The Wind in the Willows was written for Mouse.’
The sound of the rain on the roof grew louder. The wind blew and the boat rocked. Mouse drew back a corner of curtain, looked out into the night, and then let it drop back. He shivered, then continued.
‘Mouse had been born partially blind, and his dad told him bedtime stories that he’d made up during weekend walks along the riverbank. Because he was sad that his son couldn’t see everything in nature and appreciate the walks with him. Anyway, these bedtime stories turned into The Wind in the Willows. And then when Mouse went away to boarding school, Grahame continued to tell the stories in letters he’d write to him every week. Mr Toad was based upon his son, who used to get taken up in new pursuits and then discard them as soon as something more exciting came along. I suppose all children are a bit like that.
‘Despite Mouse’s eyesight, and because of his dad’s help and encouragement, wee Mouse was accepted into Oxford when he was seventeen. The letters with the stories about Mr Toad and Mole and Ratty continued when Mouse was at university. And then nobody knows what happened. It was maybe a suicide pact with a gay lover, maybe an accident. I like to think it was the pressure of being his dad’s only child, of having his dad smother him, that did it. He lay down on a railway track and killed himself.
‘I like the fact that The Wind in the Willows is so innocent, so completely removed from everyday concerns and troubles, and yet the story behind it is so dark and heartbreaking. A bit like Lee, I suppose. Everyone who met her thought she was this wonderful, lively girl. Those eyes. . I’d see people look into her eyes and be transported. But behind it all she was struggling with terrible demons, unable to face the world.’