The Drowned Man



Noah is next door building a boat.

He calls himself Noah, and he says he’s going to rescue all the cats when it comes. He may also take Linda from number 16. He’s always fancied her.

But when it comes, he says, the rest of us are going to be swimming.

We tell him that he is really Geoff, and his wife is upset by the boat strategy. There will have to be a fuck of a lot of rain, we tell him, before it reaches the top of Rideup Hill, which is where we all live.

Meanwhile, newspapers have begun to take an interest. Reporters ask him for weather predictions. They cup their hands as they whisper into each other’s ears, and laugh uproariously. Noah, up there on the boat, throws down handfuls of wood shavings like confetti.

Pictures are taken. ‘The Rideup Hill Noah’, the papers call him. There is a TV crew now, trying to get an interview, but Noah – Geoff – won’t have anyone near the boat unless they come with nails or wood or caulking.

Geoff’s wife caused this problem by having an affair with an accountant. It was a temporary thing, she tells us as we stare up at the clinker-built craft. It must have been part of my mid-life crisis, she says, and now Geoff is building that fucking boat.

Summer comes and the boat dominates our houses, towers over them. Trucks arrive with canvas and ships’ stores.

The accountant who has enjoyed the favours of Geoff’s wife arrives in a big car. That boat, he shouts, is going to cost more than your life is worth. Eventually, he retreats when Geoff throws an empty gin bottle at him.

Today, it starts raining.