FLOOD LINE

Even in sleep I could not escape.

“Does he know what he’s doing?” Hillary must have asked. The brilliance of the ice blue sky crackled out a warning to us both. This was the Swiss Alps where Opthalmist’s are an invention for city dwellers in their dark corners and shaded walls.

Our cab may have been lost. Ahead of us we saw once again the gap in the narrow hillside road where the raging brook had torn away the tiny bridge. This time banks of snow had appeared. The road was ungritted and compacted white. Insanely the car did not stop but spun forward for a second attempt at the leap.

Back then even we were young and happy, teenagers with best part of life still to come, could we but survive this landslide. I closed my eyes. I would not watch, but clung to the nasty plastic fittings.
All at once the dreams viewpoint switched. I could see the car from outside, its front wheels clear of the gap, its back spinning in the void, slowly upon slow it loosing faith, eking back toward the hysterical waters falling.

I fumbled for the door latch and leaped clear, the open door waving a final farewell as the vehicle turned sideways and vanished from sight.

“Hillary!” I must have cried. And then again, the sound of my own voice and the phone ringing slowly waking me from that guilt soaked nightmare. It was dark. The future did not exist. My eyes would stay closed.

The phone was louder now. The powerful odour of rotting vegetables and sewage hit me like a worse dream than the one I was just waking from. I was in bed. I reached out, feeling for the phone and eventually drew the receiver to me as it might be a beloved child or hope of salvation from the wretchedness of my remorse.

“Barry?” Came a voice from three thousand miles.

“Ah… yes?” I replied, trying to find myself. Playing for time.

“You ok?” I did not understand the question but gave the stock response.

“Yes, yes. Er…?” I was hoping for a clue to draw me from my limbo consciousness.

“It’s Bill.”

“Bill. Ah yes. American Bill.” It was Bill from New York. Mr Ground Zero himself.

“Yes.” He said.

“Father Bill.” I confirmed. The real world was starting to coalesce around me, yet it was formed of putrid shrouds seemingly less real than my sleeping self. I said nothing. My mind was somewhere out there still, falling hopelessly to my death. Clinging to her, white blind and turning. Or worse still. Alive in sleep, as in life. Her: gone.

“Yes…” He continued after a moment. “I was just calling to see if you were ok. The lines have been down.” Somehow BT must have got the system working again. I had not spoken to a soul in days.

I remembered calling Bill during 9/11, the phone announcing that due to a storm there were no lines into New York. I wondered what the world had been told now, given that London was under siege.

“Are you ok?” I diverted.

“Yes I… I was ringing to find out if you were all right. Did you get caught in it?” Suddenly this new world flashed back, punching me in the forehead like some rules free boxer. The phone tremored in my hand.

“We are up to our eyeballs in shit.” I offered slowly. “Every time the tide goes out it leaves a nightmare behind.” Yes, I thought, worse than that. “I didn’t realise that water could cover so many sins.” I was reorientating myself fast now. “hold on.” I said. “You know it’s early.”
I fumbled blindly for the lighter and lit the bedside candle. I twisted my neck to get a better look at the clock.

“It’s three in the morning.” I said without thinking.

“Sorry.” He replied. I had smoked the last of the blow so as to sleep and now I had been woken at the brooding hour. I did not hide my irritation even while denying it.

“No, no. That’s fine.” I lied. “That’s good.” I dredged back to his earlier question. “I’m fine.” I replied. “I was deep in.”

“Were you caught in the flood?” He asked urgently.

“No. I mean I was deep in sleep. Dreaming.” My mind was blank all at once.

“I should let you go.” Bill said. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to know that you were alive. I’m glad you weren’t caught in it.”

“What?” I responded. On this one fact I was clear. “No, I was… Oh my god yes. I was up to my eyes and ears.”

“Oh Lord no!” He exclaimed. There was genuine dread in his voice and I felt the fear rushing at me. It was coming at me.

“Yes.” My voice had that wobble. I imagined myself all at once as an old woman: my grandmother, panicked by change, staring out from her wheelchair at me. I ploughed on. “I’d gone down to see if there would be a breech on the North bank. I never imagined things could get so bad so quick.” The words were starting to tumble out. “I ended up stuck in a Pub.” The image flashed before me. “Oh dear!” I said weakly. “Yes.” I tried to push myself off topic. “As if we hadn’t known for years that this was coming.” Bill said nothing. After a moment I began to wonder if he’d been cut off. I hoped he had, just to stop the flood.

“Barry?” He said. No. He was still there.

“Yes, yes. Don’t mind me.” I said as a kind of filler. Bill struck out tentatively. He was always a stickler for facts.

“I didn’t think they were fully aware.”

“What the fuck?” I responded. It sprung out of me like a gob of vomit. “Are you kidding me? We’ve been preparing for this since the ‘70’s. The 1770’s for the love of god! I cannot believe those evil bastards.”

I had a strong urge to take a leek. I had a bucket wedged in the toilet bowl. I’d have to get out of this flat soon. It was my ex-wife, Hillary or cholera. Suddenly my waking dream hit me again. Living amongst sewage meant you never had to smell your own shit. A minute later, having pissed, I was on a roll. I told him about our catch 22:

Without dire warnings of what was coming, the finances could never be raised from the City to fortify us against the inevitable flooding of London. But if we had made those dire warnings, the City itself could have crashed, its confidence gone, being so close to the flood zone. I ranted on, thankful to be almost blaming someone else for the situation. Bill listened. After a while I came up for air.

“But you’re alright?” He questioned.

“Jack!” I shot back. I was angry now. I had been working myself into a light frenzy, like a child striving for tears. “Oh yes. Kicking people off my feet while I’m clinging to a beer tap. I’m fine and dandy.” I had as good as killed that woman as she clung to me for life. I felt a hopelessness shuddering through me. I had kicked her off my foot. I had killed her as good as if I had pushed her down into the bathtub with my bare hands, forcing her head below the milky water, seaweed haired, her eyes bulging with utter desperation, utter hopelessness looking up at me, begging. Me waiting for the release without compassion. I had kicked her off. And now she was dead. I saw a body lacerated by the plate glass of the bar window out on the street after that initial whoosh and vomited up my horror and disgust at what I’d done, before rushing from the next possible onslaught. I awaited Bill’s response. Frightened.

“What was the…? What happened there?” Bill queried. Please forgive me, but I could not bring myself to explain to him as I have to you. Why could he not have just understood? I diverted again.

“Strong east wind, Atlantic surge, very heavy rain.” I said, all matter of fact, but shaking. “The sewers backed up, Essex became water logged. About the only thing to hold up was the Thames Barrier. What’s the point when we all knew at the Department that the water would go round it?” I paused. “Mustn’t spook the City though.” I let my shoulders drop. I had worked at the Department of the Environment. Bill knew I had. I felt blame. Even there I found guilt looking back at me: inhuman like the weather.

There was a long pause.

“Sod it.” I thought. “Let Bill do the talking. I’m awake now.” There was no way I was letting this guy go. Not at three in the morning. I waited for him, like a batsman might wait for a fast spin bowl. Like a boy in the confessional.

“I guess you need your sleep Barry” Bill tried. “I’ll love you and leave you.” But if he wanted to call me, he would have to work for it, for that priestly virtue. Now he could work for it.

“How’s Noah?” I chirped.

“He’s good.” He replied edgily. Even over the phone he was nervous about talking of his ‘special friend’. “Worrying over you all of course.”

“And you?”

“Oh Yes.” He said as if having God on your side meant always fine, always good. There was something about being just fine when you talk to someone who clearly was not. It seemed almost rude. Bill was trying to keep it bland.

“How was the Grand Canyon?” I asked.

“Oh…” he paused. “Awesome as ever.”

“You go to a place like that,” I needled, “you realise just how irrelevant we all are.” I just wanted to make him say something meaningful: something to redeem me.

“Well Barry.” Bill said. I guess he could feel a storm brewing. He was going to head it off. “I guess we’ll just have to agree to differ on that.”

Agree to differ. “You are so full of shit” I found myself saying out loud. I suddenly had a powerful image of his home: so white; so clean. I reached over slowly and placed the receiver back in its black cradle. Agree to differ. Your sins are but the sins of the flesh but mine are mortal. He did not and would not forgive.

I got up and walked over to the window. It was pitch black outside: dark and filthy. The phone started ringing. After a while it switched to voice mail. I rocked my head from side to side. How could I live with myself? The phone started its’ trilling again.
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