Robbo shivers. He wipes a cold, damp blade of grass from his face and sits up.
Birds are singing. Lots and lots of birds. In the branches above his head and in all the trees, lining the paths that criss-cross University Parks, as far as he can see through the bright morning mist.
He crawls out from under a red-leafed bower where he spent the night, briefly wondering what kind of tree it is. Not a willow, not a yew, not like anything he’s seen before. If Jak was here he would ask her but even she probably doesn’t know. Some fancy tree anyway. An exotic.
Robbo heads down to the river, into the thickest of the mist, and sprawls out on his front to drink.
—
A woman in a blue suit jacket and white skirt, holding up a red umbrella beneath a cloudless sky, leads a group of sixteen tourists – phones in hand – through the gates of University Parks.
Robbo gets his phone out too and pretends to take photos of whatever it is the tourists are taking – the cricket pavillion; a tree with bright pink blossom; a memorial to an old professor whose name Robbo, hanging back out of the guide’s eyeline, doesn’t catch; a duck pond; the River Cherwell, where some of the tourists stop to video a family punting along the river; a bench dedicated to the writer of the Lord of the Rings and a pair of associated Silver Birch trees; and a patch of grass called, according to the tour guide, Mesopotonia.
They head back to the gates and Robbo continues to tag along at the back of the group. Hearing their foreign accents he decides not to ask them if they’ve seen Hank. He has already had a morning of blank looks and people pretending he doesn’t exist. And he’s about ready to head home in defeat. But first things first, he is very hungry.
—
After a brief negotiation between the tour guide and the bowler-hatted security guard – the ‘porter’ – at the college gatehouse, the tourists are ushered into a cobbled quad and then, through a passage, into another quad, this one with a manicured lawn set up for playing croquet.
“Please stay off the grass,” the tour guide warns a man who is trying to get a close up of a croquet hoop, “we shall tour the college with ample opportunities for photographs after lunch. But now – to the dining hall!”
“I want selfie with learned professor,” declares a woman.
“Maybe later,” sighs the tour guide, “it’s time to eat now though. The college caterers have put on quite a spread I believe.”
“Spread,” the woman says loudly into her phone, stares at the screen and, puzzled, shows it to the tour guide.
“A large amount of food,” she explains.
The dining hall is lined with dark wooden panels and cavernous, with spotlights picking out tables covered with platters of food and drinks: sandwiches and scones, cold meats and cheese, fruit and dessert pots, salads of various sorts, bottles of fruit juice and jugs of iced water with slices of lemon.
Beyond the food is a rope cordon and, barely visible in the dim light, a small flight of steps leading up to a platform with high-backed chairs arranged around a long wooden table.
Robbo shivers slightly and heads for the meat and cheese table. He grabs a chicken drumstick and urgently gnaws at it, then with his other hand grabs several slices of salami followed by a round mini-brie. He places the chicken bone at the end of the table and is about to grab another drumstick when he sees one of the tourists carefully arranging their food on a paper plate.
Looking around, Robbo sees a few remaining plates, along with stacked plastic glasses, just inside the door. Everyone else is piling their plates high and going outside to sit on benches. He starts to do likewise but eats as he walks, and turns round to refill his plate along with grabbing two bottles of juice and squeezing them into his jean pockets.
Robbo looks around the sun-soaked quad, tourists sitting in twos on benches, the tour guide leaning against a shaded wall dragging at a vape. Nobody is paying him any attention. He retraces their steps, past the croquet hoops and verdant lawn, across the cobbles and back through the gatehouse entrance.
“Nice place you got,” Robbo smiles as he walks past the porter who ignores him.
He walks along the narrow street, which gets busier the further he goes – pedestrians, cyclists, delivery drivers on scooters and occasional Oxford Authority vans all compete for right of way. Robbo turns down an alley, behind a row of shops and restaurants, and finds a metal crate to sit on and eat his food. A seagull perches on a wheelie bin and eyes him up. With less than half of his food eaten, he is already starting to feel queasy.
‘Too much rich food Pauly Po. You’ll get tummy ache.’
Robbo folds the plate over to hold the remaining food in one hand while drinking a bottle of juice with the other. He decides a walk – anywhere, it doesn’t really matter but ideally somewhere cool – is needed to digest his lunch and work up an appetite for the rest of it. He would also love a beer right now.
‘Do your best, do your best, do your best.’
Fighting his indigestion and alcohol craving, Robbo heads along Cornmarket, a busy pedestrianised shopping street. He keeps his head down and holds the folded plate of food close to his body. People mill around the entrance to chain stores and fast-food outlets.
At Carfax, the crossroads in the centre of Oxford, he turns down Queen’s Street, another pedestrianised street, which is slightly more upmarket with clothes and cake shops, which leads to the modern Westgate Shopping Centre… an air conditioned shopping centre.
The arcade is busy at first with people on their lunch breaks eating in the cool air but the further he walks along it the quieter it gets.
Robbo looks in a large shop window. Inside is an open space, varnished wood floor and a shelf of the same wood running round all three walls with necklaces, watches and other jewellery mounted on blocks. There doesn’t seem to be a cash desk. Or price tags on the jewellery. A bored looking shop assistant, a young woman in a pale pink blouse, long dark green skirt and black high heeled shoes, glares back at Robbo.
Next to the jewellery shop, which has the word ‘status’ spelled out in frosted glass on the window so as to be only legible from a distance, is a wine shop. Its layout is similar, and the wine bottles are displayed with garlands of flowers. Robbo doesn’t realise it is a wine shop at first. As soon as he does, he moves on.
Handbags, more jewellery – this time with an emphasis on men’s watches, shoes, women’s ‘fashion’, men’s ‘fashion’, chocolate – Robbo slows down and peers in at the tastefully arranged boxes, displayed with some of the chocolates missing and interspersed with apparently unopened bottles of champagne. Another bored looking shop assistant glares at him.
He keeps walking.
He steps over a low, tiled wall around an empty courtyard with tables and electric candles. At the other side of the courtyard is an unstaffed bar. There are scanners dotted along the bar – to scan your phone against. Robbo tries to scan his phone to order an iced mineral water – the cheapest item on the menu – but a red light flashes on and then off again. Nothing else happens. He gives up and returns to sit on the wall.
“You a customer, sir,” challenges a security guard in a navy blue baseball cap and ‘Excelperience’ uniform.
“Couldn’t get served,” replies Robbo.
“You need to move along then, sir,” instructs the guard.
Robbo stands up, takes two steps to his left, and sits down again.
“You need to move away from this bar altogether, sir.”
“Why?”
The guard points to a red sign, “seating is for customers only, sir.”
“There aren’t any customers. And it’s just a wall.”
“Then nobody should sit on it, sir.”
“Okay whatever,” Robbo stands up and asks, “good job?”.
“Good pay. Boring job,” explains the security guard, “nine hours a day of walking around. No one to talk to, haven’t seen a shoplifter for months. Hardly seen a customer all day. Just folk getting out the sun. It’s all digi these days, order from anywhere to anywhere, don’t know why they bother with actual shops.”
“Who pays?”
“Oxford Authority, well…” the guard pauses and lowers his voice, “says something different on my bank account like, but I’m getting paid okay. That’s the main thing. As long as I’m on time and not bunking off, I get paid.”
“What happens when you’re late?”
“I’m not.”
“When someone else is late…”
“They’re sacked. Don’t find out til the next day like,” he laughs, “my mate Rhys was like, ‘what do you mean my visa’s voided, I work at the Westgate’ but they weren’t letting him back in coz he was five minutes late the day before. Fucking classic!”
“Seen this guy about?” Robbo shows him Hank’s photo.
“Sorry mate. Here, your battery’s red, nearly all gone. I’d charge it if I were you. They don’t like a dead phone on the gate – that’s a withheld pay that is.”
“Oh right. Better get going then,” says Robbo, “thanks for your help.”
—
Robbo heads back to University Parks to make one last look for Hank. He walks straight down to the river and follows the bank, looking for boats or any sign of the people who had been there the night before.
The footbridge, close to where the boats had been moored, arcs steeply up over the river. Robbo walks to its highest point, midway across, and scans both sides for signs of Hank: empty cans, discarded handkerchiefs – he was always losing his hankies, plastic sunglasses, anything really. He doesn’t know what he is looking for particularly, just something, anything.
The other side of the river has a high electric fence to keep people from the Outers out. But there is a narrow, a metre or two, strip of grass and bushes between the fence and the bank. A smartly dressed young man saunters along it, hands deep in salmon pink chino pockets, and strolls over the bridge until he is next to Robbo, “hello old chap, lost something?”
“Maybe,” replies Robbo warily and takes half a step back.
“Or just looking for something?”
“Just leaving,” Robbo starts to turn, ready to run if the young man steps any closer.
But he doesn’t. He just stands with his hands in pocket and an amused look on his face, “oh that’s such a shame old chap, I was going to offer to help. I’m at a bit of a loose end at the mo’, and am more than happy to look for whatever it is you’ve, let’s say ‘misplaced’ rather than ‘lost’. Call it my good deed of the day.”
Robbo turns back to face the river, while glancing sideways at the young man, watching him closely, “friend has disappeared. Might be around here.”
“Oh dear, that’s sad. Do you think he’s okay?”
“Dunno.”
“What does your friend look like?”
Robbo pulls his phone out of his pocket and shows the photograph of Hank just as the screen fades and becomes impossible to see in the sunlight, “battery’s nearly gone.”
“No worries old chap. Let’s have a good look for your dear old friend. But it’ll be thirsty work, shall we get some drinks first?”
“Look for Hank first, drink later?” suggests Robbo, “have you seen him?”
“Sure thing chief,” agrees the young man, “you know, a little hard to tell from that picture, but I think I might have come across your friend Hank. Definitely worth asking around. Let’s take a short stroll along the riverbank, boat folk often know what’s what with this sort of thing.”
The young man leads Robbo across the bridge to the side opposite the park, and they walk back in the direction he had come from. Walking with purpose this time – Robbo scans the ground for anything that might be Hank’s, the young man strides briskly and skips over rabbit holes, dry soil crumbling beneath his feet and trickling into the burrows, and gnarled tree roots.
After nearly ten minutes’ walk along the bank they reach a canal boat, a faded dark blue colour, moored opposite a pontoon with tied up punts.
The young man knocks on the roof at the front of the boat, “hello, anyone home?”
“What is it?” a woman’s voice calls back from inside.
“My new friend has lost an old friend, and we were wondering if you had seen him?”
“Okay, just give me a second.”
The young man motions for Robbo to step aboard the boat, which rocks slightly as he does so, “hold on to the rail old chap, there’s a good fellow.”
A young woman, cigarette in mouth and phone in hand, emerges from the door. Robbo offers her his phone. She slips her own phone into a pocket in her dungarees and accepts it. Her cigarette flares as she inhales, “I’ll just go inside, hard to make anything out in this light.”
She ducks inside, finishes her cigarette, stubs it out and returns to the doorway, “okay yes, I’ve seen him. Funny chap. He went off up to the Marston Ferry Road. I guess, well, we all know why men go there but, well, he was a funny fellow and I don’t think that’s why he was going there to be honest. Maybe it’s where he lives?”
“This side of the fence?” asks Robbo, feeling confused about what Hank had been doing.
“He was on another boat,” explains the young woman, “he hitched a lift, I expect. People do that sometimes. River drifters we call them. Can be a bit of fun and company for boaters. They’re not supposed to be here of course but, well you know, there’s no great love of the current Authority among us boaters.”
Robbo sits down, cross-legged on the deck, and tries to make sense of it. He stares at a blue mooring rope, which as the boat rocks almost imperceptibly, slides gently back and forth through a cleat. Hank hitching a lift on a boat? What was he doing? Why was he here?
“So that’s good news. Isn’t it?” suggests the young man, “Hank is safe. Albeit in a rather, let’s say, insalubrious part of town.”
“Guess, yeah,” mutters Robbo, “should’ve just waited for him. Didn’t need my help. Why Marston?”
“Ah well, you weren’t to know old chap, it was jolly decent of you to try and find him,” reassures the young man, “all’s well that ends well as some old guy once said. I think this calls for a celebration. Mademoiselle, some wine!”
“We certainly have some wine in the fridge,” confirms the young woman, “white or rosè?”
—
The wine flows.
Robbo relaxes as he drinks. The young man and the young woman chat between themselves, teasing each other and laughing at things that happened elsewhere. Robbo looks the boat up and down, noticing dents in the hull and a lot of peeling paint, blue giving way to dark flaky wood beneath.
In places, the exposed wood is black. He pokes a finger into a patch. It is soft and spongy, musty smelling.
“You might want to put some treatment on that,” Robbo warns the young man, “before it spreads. You’re going to want to strip and treat the whole thing at some point. It’ll go rotten.”
“Thanks for the advice chief,” nods the young man, “keep meaning to do some work on the boat.”
“The Count’s Coffin?” laughs the young woman, “it wouldn’t be the same with fresh paint. Might make it easier to persuade people aboard though.”
The young man shrugs and swigs the last drops of wine from a bottle, “fetch another bottle from the fridge, would you old chap?”
Robbo unsteadily climbs aboard the boat, which rocks as he steps on, and scrambles down the stairs to the door. He puts both arms out to his side and feels his way past a table and a rickety shelf with plant pots full of dry soil. The boat, which seemed so still when he was sat on the bank, now sways constantly, catching him off balance and making him feel queasy. He can feel the wine sloshing around his stomach.
Along the window sill above the sink is another row of lifeless plant pots. Robbo shakes his head at them and opens the fridge door. It is dark inside but the first thing he pulls out is a bottle of wine. He inspects the label and mouths the words: ‘La Vieille Ferme’. Whatever it is, that’ll do.
“Thanks chief,” the young man takes the wine so Robbo can hold onto a shaky railing as he steps ashore, “ah, moving onto white I see. Very good. I really should’ve caught a trout or two to go with. They’re lovely fried in butter, you know.”
“Could grow herbs in your boat, parsley and dill,” suggests Robbo, “to go with fish.”
“You are so right old chap, just so right.”
“Here,” laughs the young woman, “I don’t suppose you fancy a job as a boat caretaker do you?”
Robbo doesn’t know what to say. Is she being serious or just joking? It would be a good place to work. But where would he stay?
The young man laughs bitterly, “please ignore Mademoiselle. She is playing with you. And me.”
The wine continues to flow.
Robbo gives his opinions on other plants they could grow in pots on the boat, “spider plants and peace lilies are fine, just a bit of water now and again. And cactus, obvs. Geraniums if you want something colourful.”
“How about,” the young woman leans forward conspiratorially, “cannabis.”
Robbo puffs his cheeks out, “not really. If you get plenty of sun and keep it warm in the winter. But doubt you can run lamps off your battery for long.”
“Thought so, fair enough,” the young woman gives up on the idea.
Robbo also suggests planting garlic on the bank, “and fry the leaves in butter with your fish”, which the young woman finds hilarious. The young man just smiles to himself and keeps topping up Robbo’s glass.