Despite his need for money, he will avoid, as much as possible, that block of Church Street where are located the opposed and facing competitors, Argument and Cloverdale. Were he to go, he’d see that Leopoldo Dell’oro, Master Glassmaker is still up on Cloverdale’s sign, that Argument’s Vesuvius is as eruptive as ever, the lines of those hoping to see it as long, or longer.
It mattered, once, that he was there. But it doesn’t matter that he’s gone. The relentless mill of their competition grinds on without him, he who was once the grist forgotten now.
That world is his no longer.
• • •
I have to go out, Clotilde. I have to work.
When she refuses to remove her feet from his lap he lifts them himself, gently though (he is always so gentle), cupping the rough heels in his palms.
Oh, Leo, must you—
Yes. I really must. I’ll just be outside, in the shed.
• • •
He won’t go to Henrietta Street, seeking help, any more than he’ll go to Church Street. No matter what their level of desperation, he will never seek his father’s help. That’s what he thinks, as he stands at the corner, looking left, then right, dark eyed, the upright crest of hair giving him an appearance of false alertness. He is like a crow about to pounce on a crumb, except there is no crumb, either to the left or to the right. And below him: that is the river, rushing, boulders looming smooth and dark beneath the surface.
• • •
He will not work today. He has lied to my mother. Even he cannot acquiesce all the time.
• • •
Instead he is headed down the hill, toward the Scaur.
It is a place Leo seldom visits now. He doesn’t know that my mother and I visited it often, a certain number of months ago, in our frantic efforts to be rid of each other.
It’s difficult to say what he’s looking for there. A trace of his childhood self, perhaps, the mark of his own ancient bootheels on the uptilted, striated rock. But it’s impossible to leave a mark on the Scaur. It takes a million years to make a mark there. My father, traversing it again, will not find himself there, if it is his self that he is seeking.
Whatever he is looking for, he descends determinedly toward it through the warren of streets, disappearing between the whitewashed walls, then reappearing where the bends of the road open out toward the sea. He marches, his back stiffly upright in the too-old, too-shiny, too-warm suit, too-tight collar chafing just beneath his ears; weaves in and among and past the shop fronts and fishmongers’ carts, through shouts of bakers’ boys and potboys, past sweet shop and Punch and Judy, is among but not of it, removed by his demeanor (absorbed, distant, off-putting) and his clothes (strangely formal, yet in disrepair). He has taken on the general aura, which has now become typical of him, of wanting to be left alone.
I don’t know if it’s really what he wants. Or merely what he conveys.
But he is left alone. He descends, unharassed, to Harbour Road, then turns sharply right, onto the Scaur. Though it is a hot clear day, the heavy, green sea exhales coldly upon him, breath reeking rot of tide. His feet remember, instinctively, the twisted spine of rock. Despite the constrictions of suit cuffs and collar he climbs the rough stone ably, sure-footed as ever, eyes cast automatically, habitually, downward. Instinctively searching.
• • •
The Scaur is the same but also not the same. The rock itself is unchanged, though new cliff-falls pock the cliff face, exposing striated layers of sandstone and marl, seams of jet, seams of bone. But there are bathers here now, in their frilly costumes, and among the jetties on the cliffs: fossil hunters with picks and hammers, pith helmets, bulging bags, the instruments of amateurism. This is different.