PART TWO
He took me to a pub down by the river
somewhere, at the end of a maze of narrow cobbled streets and before we went in
we leant on the wall and looked at the water. The tide was out and the sand
that no one in the city notices lay there untouched.
“It needs something to shine on it, a sort
of light, then it will glisten. I’ve got an idea, I could do that on the fourth
day maybe”, he said and we went inside.
I had a lime cordial, he had whisky and as
he drank it I wondered how old he was. His skin looked as if it would grace a
rhinoceros, deep lines were etched into it around his startling eyes and his
shock of white straggling hair looked like a plant that had taken root in a
rock.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Old enough, how old are you?”
“Young enough.”
He laughed. The sound started somewhere
deep inside him and rolled out like thunder, people at the bar turned to look
and one man came over and sat down.
“Who’s this?” the stranger asked.
“Don’t know his name” replied Dog, “but
he’s ok.”
The stranger raised his glass, “Cheers”. It
looked like he was drinking wine, but then again it might have been water.
“What do they call you Dog “, I asked.
“It’s my name”
“No it ain’t”, contradicted the stranger,
“ask him what his real name is”.
“What’s your real name”?
“God, but I changed it, it seemed
pretentious”.
“Why? I think it sounds quite good. Unusual
though, I’ve never heard it before – where’s it from?”
We chatted like this for a while and then
the stranger said – “Here’s the key, the model’s finished, you can have a look
but lock up after you leave” – and with that he got up and left.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“He’s a carpenter. We’re related. Let’s go
and see what it looks like.”
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