probably didn’t have the first…
HAH!
… idea about the phrase’s basic etymology. He was so damn slap-happy, so relentlessly superficial. A cunning magpie. A stinking plagiariser. And so determinedly cheerful about it. Such a blissful bloody…
HAH!
… philistine.
Arthur bent down abruptly to tighten one of his shoelaces –so abruptly, in fact, that the weight of his rucksack almost toppled him. He quickly stiffened his legs, his thighs, stretched out his arms; palms pushed forward –grumbling furiously –rapidly re-located his centre of gravity, tapped the ground lightly with his fingertips –just to make certain –then yanked hard at the lace and firmly re-tied it.
Wasn’t the poor –Huh-huh –lace’s fault, was it!
Defoe? A preposterous seventeenth century opportunist, a loose cannon, an incorrigible hypocrite. And that –let’s face it –was putting it politely.
Candy.
Candy…
Arthur stood up. His face glistening. He grimaced. He re-adjusted his back-pack. He walked on again.
Presumably there was some vague historical connection with the sugar industry, but in truth he was pretty uncertain as to the finer details. I mean wasn’t everybody? He was fairly sure, though, that Defoe hadn’t ever been explicit about the origin of this phrase in his copious writings, or its actual…
Phew! Deep breaths. Deep, deep… One-two. One-two. Yes. That was better. That was…
… meaning. And if it had another source –Shakespeare? Chaucer? Dick bloody Francis? – Arthur was buggered if he knew what it might be. He was a specialist, dammit. A Specialist. He was the first to admit it, and proudly. Not for him the comprehensive route, the broad-based background in everything from the novels of Jane Austen to the origins of world debt to the nesting habits of the black-headed gull (Arthur Young, a Generalist? Never!).
Arthur Young was partial, he was a pundit, a boffin, a connoisseur. He was –and there was nothing wrong in it, either –he was… he was particular.
There
(But hang on a second. Hang on a minute. Because… because wasn’t this his area? The seventeenth century? Farming methods. Livestock quotas. The consequences of enclosure. All the rest of that miserable, desiccated, dry-as-a-bone malarkey? Wasn’t this his speciality? Wasn’t…? Ah, fuck it. Fuck…)
Something was very wrong here.
One-two. One-two.
Shetland ponies
Hah!
Industrial landmarks
Hah!
Machinery dating back to the industrial revolution
Hah!
Walking. Walking. Walking.
HAH!
Just the same (so put this in your ruddy pipe and smoke it), he’d painstakingly re-scrutinized the relevant chapters of the book in question the previous evening (Defoe’s excessively lauded A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain) for any other direct reference to Canvey, just in case something tiny might’ve slipped his mind. But it hadn’t. HAH!
It hadn’t. Thankfully. So he took the phrase to be a topical seventeenth century reference, something throw-away, incidental, insignificant…
Left knee was creaking a little. There was a lesson in that, wasn’t there! Yup. Shouldn’t have bent over so violently.
He did know, though, from what little he’d retained from his own long distant researches –and not forgetting those of his esteemed relative; his great, great, great… how many greats was it? Six? Seven? Sod it –that they’d farmed sheep on the island, originally. The fat-tailed variety.
And they’d made special, extremely strong, exceedingly coarse, border-line-loathsome cheeses. From goat’s milk. Sent them, posthaste, to the London slums. Corroded their mean and impoverished palates with them.
Anything else? He struggled to remember. He’d last walked this route way back –way, way back –in 1973. A long time ago now. He calculated the numbers. Good God. As long ago as that? His thin lips tightened. His shoulders hunched-up, dispiritedly.
1973. A world away. They’d still had a swing bridge then –to gain access…
The swing bridge!
Ah yes. He remembered it. And he also remembered –that very same instant –a rather scraggy, slightly worthy, ludicrously keen, ridiculously independent, squeaky-clean, still, still, still just-teenage Arthur (remember?), precocious as a kitten. Square as… well, square. Eyes like a leveret. Wide. Round. Credulous.
He’d been a babe in bloody arms! Fresh as a peach. Prickling with idealism. Literally prickling…
Left turn now. Left turn. Shoulders back. Head up. Keep deep… Keep breathing
Before then –the 1930s, was it? When the bridge was built? (This date stuck in his mind for some inexplicable reason) –they’d used rowing boats. And you could walk over, if you were careful, at low tide. There were stepping stones (and casualties).
What was the name of the silly boy who drowned in Anglesey? Warren, was it? Warren Summer? Warren Sum-n-er. Yes. Warren Sumner… That was him. Yes. Good.
No
Colin.
It was Colin Sumner.
It was Colin.
Arthur still retained most of his short-term memory.
Okay, not all of it, by any means, but at least some things remained intact. No matter what the… No matter. Some important… it was still working, still ticking over, still turning, despite everything.
Canvey. The bridge. The swing bridge.
Hmnnn. Air suddenly feels cooler. Brisker. Moister
Local people –as he remembered –had been almost unnaturally fond of this fine but patently rather antiquated construction.
The swing bridge.
He couldn’t properly recall what they’d called the damn thing… It did have a name… Now that was a challenge. He knew –or at least he felt, instinctively –that it’d had a person’s appellation. A man’s name. Something like Peter. The Peter Bridge. No. No,
