I'll Never Be Young Again

1

When the sun had gone, I saw that the water was streaked with great patches of crimson and gold. They formed a ripple under the bridge that was part of the wake belonging to the barge. She was perhaps two cables' length from me now, low in the water, deeply loaded with timber, the brown sail flapping uselessly against the mast. There was scarcely a suggestion of a breeze, and it was the ebb tide that carried her downstream. I could see one man aboard her, his arm flung carelessly over the tiller, his legs crossed, and a cap on the back of his head.

His pipe must have gone out, for I saw him bend swiftly and fumble in his pocket, steadying the tiller with his knee, then he cupped the pipe in his hands, and threw away the match. I imagined myself in his place, glancing half-curiously in the wake of the barge, where the little match drifted with the tide.

The air to this man would be strong with the harsh smell of tobacco, and the peculiar sweet flavor of well-seasoned timber that clings to a barge. His hands and his clothes would be of it too, the sticky mixture of tar and cutch, and a burned rope's end dangling near an empty barrel.

While beyond all these things, so intimate a part of his life, there would come floating up to him, from nowhere in particular, the old unchanging smell of the river, borne from the mud flats beneath the wharves and the dingy warehouses; a smell of refuse left on these beaches to be carried away by the tide, a hint on those mysterious houses where no faces are ever seen and whose dark windows look out upon the Lower Pool, a whiff of oil upon the surface of the water cast by some passing tugboat.

And strange and unbelievable, mingled with the smoke of London rising into the hazy orange sky of the spent day, a suggestion of some world farther than the tired City and the river, a world where there would be no stretch of buildings flattened in a half-light with the spire of St. Paul's companion to a warehouse chimney, but a gray sea not encompassed by the smallest ridge of land, cold and white-crested, under a gray sky.

Now the barge was no more than a black smudge among the traffic in the Pool, a tugboat was frothing in her wake, smoke screaming from her stout funnel, her propeller churning the water as she went astern.

The iron of the bridge felt hot under my hand. The sun had been upon it all the day.

Gripping hard with my hands I lifted myself onto the bar and gazed down steadily on the water passing under the bridge.

The flaming colors had gone with the sun, the little ripples still formed and bubbled, but they were brown now, dull, and shadowed by the archways of the bridge.

The sight of the barge had taken me away from myself, and because she had left me I fell back again into my first despondency, seeing nothing but my own black mood of bitterness, caring for nothing but that the night should come quickly and allow me to slip away unseen. I waited then, for time was something with which I had no more concern, except for the furthering of my purpose, and as I leaned against the stanchion of the bridge I closed my eyes so that I need not look upon the faces of the men and women who passed me by.

In this way I could cling to some sort of security, and my plans would not be hindered by a momentary weakness thrusting itself into my view, a weakness coming to me from the strength and solidity of people.

My ears would not be deafened, though, and in spite of myself I listened to the safe and steady rumble of traffic over the bridge, the hard, grating wheels of lorries, the painful grind of a tram homeward bound, the jolt of a bus, the smooth wheels of cars, and the silly rattle of a stray taxi. I pretended that these things were meaningless in themselves, and could not drag me away from the river to be part of them, but even as I argued thus I heard the voices of women as they trudged along the pavement, brushing against me as they went, the shoulder of one just touching the back of my coat. And these women, whom I had never seen, seemed by this simple action to enter my life, becoming definite personalities of reality.

Coward-like, I would have turned to them and stretched out my hands, saying as I did so: "Perhaps you would stand here a little longer so that I may listen to your voices; nothing more than this." Maybe they would have understood. Stupidly, with the dumb knowledge that such a moment was impossible, I longed for them to linger awhile, and consider the matter, and then accepting me as one of themselves suggest that I return with them. Gravely, kindly, they would watch my face, and with a quick, shy gesture, as though ashamed of their charity, they would say to me: "You can come back with us, you know, it isn't much of a place.…"

I would walk then with them, somewhat apart, conscious of their superiority, and we would arrive at some drab tenement building, where iron-railed balconies stretched from window to window. There would be a canary swinging in a high cage, and a faded odd-patterned screen. These women would busy themselves, familiar with their surroundings, and the drip of a tap or the moving of cups and saucers would seem blessed tokens of friendship to me, humble in a quiet corner, blinking my eyes because of the sudden flare of a gas jet. I would enter the moods of these people, share their troubles, love their friends, act in some way as a faithful servant if only they should not cast me away from them, leaving me to wander back to the bridge once more.

I opened my eyes, and the women had passed from me along the pavement; I could scarcely distinguish their backs among the crowd pushing each other where the tram stopped.

They were away and out of my remnant of existence, like the low hull of the barge and the man with his arm flung over the tiller.

I took a folded newspaper from my pocket, smoothing the creases carefully and read with interest some advertisement for furs.

The print mocked me, knowing that the words they spelled could have no meaning to me, for soon I would be a bent, contorted thing of ugliness, sucked and drawn by the swirling eddies of the Pool, and the paper and its advertisement floating placidly to some unknown destination upon the surface of the water.

It seemed strange that things could still be done to me after I was dead, that my body would perhaps be found and handled by people I should never know, that really a little life would go on about me which I should never feel.

The tiresome business of burial, and decay. These sordid actualities of death would be spared me at least.

For me, the present agony of departure, the silent terror of leaving a place known to me if hated, the well-nigh impossible task of conquering the fear that possessed me. Not the fear of that hasty look round, the sudden plunge headlong and the giddy shock of hard, cold water, the river itself entering my lungs, rising in my throat, tossing me upon my back with my arms outflung—I could hear the sob strangled in my chest and the blood leave me—but fear of the certain knowledge that there was no returning, no possible means of escape, and no other thing beyond.

It would not matter to the world that I was gone, odd doubtful thought, entering my mind at such a moment. I felt the flesh that was mine and the body that belonged to me; queer to think it was in my power to destroy them so swiftly.

During these last moments I stood apart then from the world I had not left. No longer of it, and yet not broken away.

That man on the top of a bus, brushing his hair away from his face, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, he belonged—he would know many days and many nights. That lorry driver, his face white with cement from a load of bricks, shouting to his companion; and a hurrying girl, parcels in her hands, glancing to right and left. One after another they flashed before me, imprinting themselves forever on my mind, living, breathing figures I had no right to touch. I envied them their food, their sleep, their snatches of conversation, the smell even of their clothes, dusty after a long day. I thought of places I should never see, and women I should never love. A white sea breaking upon a beach, the slow rustle of a shivering tree, the hot scent of grass. A crowded café, and the laughter of some man, a car passing over cobbled stones. A dark close room and a girl still against the shadowed pillow, her hands across my back.

I remembered as a child standing in a field where a stream crossed my path, and a yellow iris grew next a background of green rushes. The stream sang as it tumbled over the flat stones. And as a child I thought how strange it was that such things should continue after I had left them, as though when turning a corner with the stream hidden from view, a mist must fall about them, shrouding them carefully, until I should pass again.

It was like this now, with the traffic and the moving people. Impossible that they should live while I was no more a part of existence.

Once more I looked down upon the swirling water beneath the bridge. I threw away my paper and watched it twirl slowly, caught in a sudden eddy, and then, limp and tragic, float from me, borne by the current. A crinkled edge stared up at me, as yet unsodden, like a faint protest.

I resolved that I would not wait anymore. The dust and the noise of humanity, the nearness of men and women, were urging some claim upon me that was robbing me of my strength and will.

They were united in a conspiracy to keep me from the peace I had promised myself.

It was not thus I had imagined it would be.

I wanted it to be made easier for me. In my preparations for this moment I had been overcome by a great weariness, my eyes had seen nothing but the wide placid sheet of water ready to receive me, my ears had heard nothing but the soft, steady ripple of the wash against the archway of the bridge.

There was no throb of traffic then, no hum of city, no smell of dust, and body, and life, no shouts of men, nor the clear whistle of a boy with his hands in his pockets.

I wanted to be tired, I wanted to be old, I wanted to lose myself and not be reminded of things I had never done.

I looked up at the sky and saw a great dark-edged cloud hover over the distant spire of St. Paul's. Where the west had been golden was a shadowed blanket, a grim reflection of the murky buildings by the water's edge. Soon the million lights that belonged to London would cast a halo of light into the sky, and one faint star would flicker against the purple.

There seemed no reason for staying any longer. I would not even be dramatic and make a gesture of farewell. There should be no sentimentality where I was concerned. It was not worth the trouble of tears, not my life, anyway. I would make a ripple upon the water for a moment, not much more than a stone thrown by a child from a bank. Nothing mattered very much. I wondered why my heart felt so heavy and afraid, why the sweat clung to my hands and could not be wiped away.

I swung my legs over, holding onto the bridge with desperate fingers. An odd snatch of breeze blew across my hair. I supposed that this was the very last thing of the world to come to me.

I breathed deeply, and I felt as though the waiting water rose up in front of me and would not let me go.

This was my final impression of horror, when fear and fascination took hold upon me, and I knew that I should have no other moment but this before the river itself closed in upon me. My fingers slackened, and I lowered myself for the fall.

It was then that someone laid his hands upon my shoulder, and turning to clutch him instinctively as a means of safety, I saw Jake for the first time, his head thrown back, a smile on his lips.