the raspberry rocket stick

It hadn't rained for days. Patches of earth mottled the yellowed grass of the verge like melanomas on elderly skin. The road, all blinding windscreens, shimmered up into a sky baked brittle blue. Ian wished he were by the sea, quenching and endless. In the town the only water that didn't come out of a tap or a bottle was in the canal, which trickled murky and green past dusty industrial estates and pollen spluttering fields.

The road was being resurfaced and glistened with fudge-soft tarmac. With sweaty belligerence, Ian stepped off the pavement and straight into a patch of melted tar. Like a young child he trod up and down, wallowing in the sticky, liquorice blackness, filling the ridged soles of his Doc Martenswith gungy lumps of chippings. He stepped back onto the pavement and paused to scrape them off across the edge of the curb, stones dropping dust-coated into the gutter like tiny grey toffee bon-bons.

Although Ian hadn't been walking for long, and was only wearing a T-shirt and a pair of denim shorts, he had already become quite hot and thirsty. He took off his rucksack, which contained a can of Lilt, a can of Fanta, a pack of cheese and onion crisps, a handkerchief (for his hay fever) and a half-read copy of Melody Maker. He'd been meaning to save the cans until he reached the canal. But decided he couldn't wait. He reached in the rucksack, took out the Lilt,peeled off the ringpull, took a long swig and trudged on. Ahead of him, along the main road, Ian saw an old man in a wheel chair. The pavement in front of the man was obstructed by a row of dirty orange cones, which surrounded a deep trench beside a mound of tarmac chunks and crumbly earth.

As the old man wheeled his chair off the pavement, the steep camber caused him to roll into the middle of the road, directly in front of a line of cars which were stopped at temporary traffic lights. As the lights changed, a silver Mercedes accelerated away, swerving around the man in the wheel chair, blaring its horn. Alarmed, Ian broke into a jog to catch up with the man. He took hold of the chair handles and pushed the man out of the traffic's way, beyond the orange cones.

"That was a close one," he said, letting go of the chair and walking beside the man, letting him wheel himself along.

The man had only one leg. His empty left trouser leg was folded up and fastened with a large safety pin to his belt. He looked up at Ian with a mouthful of rotten teeth, caked in tartar like bits of toffee.

"Ruddy gas board," he said. "Always digging they are. And if it isn't them, it's them bleedin' Telecom people."

The rubber tyres of the wheelchair bumped and banged against the curb as he tried to manoeuvre back onto the pavement. Ian saw the palms of his frail hands were covered in blisters and calluses.

"Do you want a hand," asked Ian, grasping the plastic handles at the back of the chair and tilting the chair back towards himself. The sudden downwards shift of weight was much greater than he had expected and he stumbled, half dropping, half rolling the chair's small front wheels onto the pavement. Ian twisted his body sideways and banged his hip into the frame of the chair, jolting the rear wheels over the edge of the curb. Then, pushing his palms flat against the canvas back of the chair, he shoved it up on to the pavement.

"Careful," grumbled the man. "I'm not a bloody sack of potatoes."

"Sorry," said Ian. "The chair was heavier than I thought."

Ian had expected the man to be a lot lighter, having only the one leg. He looked down at the man's pinned up trousers and frail, blistered fingers. He took hold of the handles at the back of the chair and began to push it along again.

"Where are you off to then?" asked Ian.

The man shrugged his shoulders beneath his grubby, coffee-coloured cardigan.

"I'm going to the canal," said Ian.

"I likes it down there," said the man. "It's nice there."

Ian nodded.

"Yea, especially on a day like this."

They reached the roundabout by the DIY centre.

"I've got to head down the hill now," said Ian.

"I was going that way," said the man hurriedly.

"I suppose it's easier down hill," said Ian.

"All the same to me," said the man.

"I can give you a push if you like," he said.

"If you want," said the man.

As Ian wheeled him around the edge of the roundabout the man pointed to a road to the left.

"That's where I live," he said "St Mary's Court." Ian glanced across the road at the block of old people's flats. The three story building looked quite a nice place to live. It had big windows with little balconies for flowers at the front and neat lawns surrounded by a high fence with spikes along the top.

"I wasn't going there just yet," the man said. "I was going down here first."

"Well you wouldn't want to be inside on a day like today," said Ian.

"I used to be at Greenfields House," said the man "But I had to move out. They didn't have nothing left on the ground floor see." He pointed to the space where his left leg had once been. "Can't get up the stairs no more."

"No, of course not," said Ian awkwardly.

"I liked it at Greenfields," said the man "It was near the church, St James. I'd been there every Sunday for seventeen years I had. Not one service did I miss, not one, ever. And that's the truth." He peered up into the sky. "The Reverend Peters, he used to say to me, someone up there certainly smiles on you Jack." He sniffed loudly and muttered "Shows how much he bloody knew".

Jack looked back over his shoulder at Ian.

"What's your name son?" he asked.

"Ian," said Ian.

Jack nodded approvingly.

"Do you go to church?" he asked him.

"Sometimes," lied Ian.

"No, neither do I any more," said Jack. "Not since I moved from Greenfields. I told 'em down the council. I've been to St Mary's Church before, I told 'em. It's all bloody guitars and rattling things, I says. They're lunatic they are, I says, I wouldn't go there if you paid me. Two hours I had to sit up at the civic centre with all them darkies and them punk whatsisnames. Then they wheeled me in to see some young boy who was no older than you, with that hair they have now and a gold thing through his tie like some kind of spiv. Asked me all kinds of nonsense, he did, the cheeky young sod. I says to him, I'm not answering your bloody questions, I says, I've already told your girl out there, I'm not going to ruddy St Mary's and that's that. He says I was making things very difficult for him. I told him, I'll give you bloody difficult my lad. He says to me, I understand how you feel Mr Stevens, but I'm afraid my hands are tied. Understand? I says to him, understand? You don't know bloody nothing son!"

Jack's hand clenched the arm rest of his chair. His fingers gouged at the orange foam beneath the arm rest's torn black cover.

"Young enough to be my grandson, the cheeky sod," he muttered and flicked a chunk of foam onto the pavement.

They passed a man mowing his front lawn with a battered Flymo. The man had a round red face and a knotted handkerchief on his head. He looked like a character from a saucy seaside postcard.

"Are you going all the way to the canal?" asked Ian.

He was worried that if he pushed Jack any further down the hill he would not be able to get back up again. Jack either didn't hear what he had said, or pretended not to hear.

"I miss the singing," said Jack morosely. "I liked all the old hymns. I'm too old to learn any new ones. I told 'em that, but they weren't interested. They ain't got no time for the likes of me."

"How..far..are..you..going?" repeated Ian in a loud, slow voice.

"No need to shout," said Jack. "I'm not bloody deaf an' all"

"Sorry," said Ian. He stopped pushing the chair and asked, "look, will you be all right if I leave you here?"

Jack looked upset.

"I thought you said you was going to take me down the canal," he said.

"I'd be happy to," said Ian. "I just wondered if you'd be all right to get back up the hill again?"

"I'll manage," muttered Jack.

"It's just that I'm going to go off for a bit of a walk when I get to the canal," said Ian. "I wouldn't want you to get stuck down there."

"I could wait," said Jack.

"I might be quite a long time," said Ian.

"I don't mind," said Jack, and added hopefully, "I could go with you."

Ian chewed his lip and continued to push the chair down the hill.

In the heat, the riverside had become a makeshift beach. Girls had laid towels on the grass, and were stretched out in the sun wearing tiny pairs of shorts or hitched-up skirts and cut-off vests or bikini tops. Beside the girls, some boys had set up a net between two trees to play volleyball. The boys were lanky with sunburnt backs and necks and brightly patterned Bermudas. They kept on knocking the ball toward the sunbathing girls and then racing each other to retrieve it.

Near the car park, older men with hair of varying lengths, denim shorts and black T-shirts, played a clumsy game of football in big boots. Their goal keeper had a shaved head and a long beard. He wore mirror sunglasses and a leather jacket despite the stifling heat. Beside them was a collection of motorbikes all gleaming chrome and giant handle bars, and a ghetto blaster which blared out decades-old heavy rock hits.

On benches nearby old men sat in white shirts, sleeves rolled-up, sedately mopping brows with handkerchiefs, oblivious to the surrounding mayhem. Lolling about on the grass with their wives were a group of tanned men with tattoos, fat hairy stomachs, little moustaches and shiny soccer shorts. Some of the wives were brown with long legs, others wobbly and white, their thighs laddered with cellulite. They all smoked and drank beer from cans. Their kids wore grubby Mutant Ninja Turtle or Spiderman T-shirts, brightly coloured plastic sunglasses and very little else. They ran giggling between the other sunbathers and threw stones at ducklings. They discovered dropped ice creams melting on the grass and prodded them with twigs, then got stung by wasps and howled. They returned, falteringly, to their mums and dads, running a few steps then stopping to cry then running again.

Jack and Ian watched the people in the sunshine by the canal. Jack rummaged in his pocket, produced a fifty pence piece and proffered it in his open palm.

"For an ice cream," he said.

"That's all right. I'm not really hungry," said Ian.

"Not for you," said Jack irately. "For me. One of them whippy ones with a chocolate stick in it"

"Oh, right. Yes, of course" said Ian. He took the coin from him. It was slightly sticky.

"None of that pink stuff though," said Jack. "And make sure it is a whippy one. Otherwise I won't be wanting it."

"Fine," said Ian tersely.

Ian went and bought a ninety nine cone for Jack and a raspberry rocket for himself. They cost seventy five pence each. When he got back Jack asked him:

"Where you been?"

"Sorry," said Ian. "There was a queue at the van."

He handed Jack his cone.

"I thought you'd run off with me money," said Jack.

Ian laughed.

"I don't think I'd have got very far," he said and peeled the wrapper off his raspberry rocket.

"I see you got yourself one then," said Jack.

"I decided I was hungry after all," said Ian.

"Don't suppose there was any change then?" muttered Jack.

"I'm afraid not," said Ian.

He handed Jack his fifty pence back.

"My treat," he said.

Jack grudgingly took the coin and put it back in his pocket.

"You going to sit here?" asked Jack.

"I thought I'd go a bit further down the canal," said Ian. "Towards the weir."

"Not too far," said Jack. "I don't want to go too far."

"OK. Not too far then," said Ian.

People stared at Ian as he wheeled Jack along the path by the canal. Ahead of them a small boy with tousled blonde hair and dirty knees kicked a football. He stopped in front of them with one foot resting on top of the ball. The boy's father, who had a bushy beard, white hairy legs and sandals, snapped:

"Keep out of the way Kevin."

The father roughly grabbed the boy by the back of his T-shirt and pulled him to one side.

"Owww," said the boy. When his father let go of him the boy angrily toe-punted his ball across the grass.

"Now you can go and get that please Kevin," the father said. The boy dragged the toes of his trainers through the grass as he traipsed over to where he had kicked the ball.

"And don't tread in any dog's muck," his father shouted after him.

Ian continued to push Jack past the people by the canal. A teacherish looking women in her early thirties, with a neatly cut black bob, coloured wooden beads and a flowing Indian skirt, smiled at him. Ian smiled back. He wished that he was wearing neater clothes and had brushed his hair before he'd come out instead of just lazily bunching it in a loose pony tail.

Further up stream some ducks had built a nest in a shopping trolley - upturned, rusty and wrapped with weeds. Mid-stream was a small island with willows that hung down over the water. Nearby a boy and a girl rowed in a grey rubber dinghy. A motor boat cruised past. The dinghy bounced up and down on the rolling waves in its wake. The rowers clung on tightly to their yellow bladed oars.

By the canal bank scores of ducks and two swans had gathered round a woman scattering bread crumbs. Ever-mindful of the swans, the ducks flapped as they fought for pieces of crust that floated, and dived for bits of bread that sunk. They dipped their necks into the water, shook their tail feathers and waved their flat, black feet in the air, then resurfaced champing their beaks. Sparrows and chaffinches skittered between the ducks on the canal bank and, in mid-flight, snatched chunks of bread from above them. A green-headed duck waddled towards Ian and Jack, slapping its leathery webbed feet over the dry, stony path.

"It's an amazing colour that isn't it," said Ian, gesturing at the duck's head. "Kind of emerald"

"I met a lad in the Navy," said Jack, "who had webbed feet. He had a little bit of skin between his toes just like a duck. Couldn't bloody believe it when he took his socks off and showed us the damn things. Daffy we used to call him. He were torpedoed by a U-boat just off Iceland." Jack shook his head. "Strangest bloody feet you've ever seen."

They continued on until they reached the weir, where the water cascaded and tumbled into foaming, swirling turmoil.

"It's like lots of miniature whirlpools," said Ian.

"It's deadly mind," said Jack. "Drag you under just like that it would." He briskly slapped the arm rest of his wheelchair. "Just like that," he said.

Beyond the weir was a lock. A change of colour in the lock wall revealed how far the water level had fallen during the recent heat wave. Faded grey brickwork, normally submerged, was exposed along with the rusted lower rungs of an old ladder. Shadows rippled across brown bricks higher up as a dense throng of minnows wriggled among weeds in the shallow water.

"Look," said Jack. He pointed to a small, dark shape moving across the canal. "Did you see it?" he asked. "A dirty great water rat."

Ian nodded. He swallowed the remains of his raspberry rocket and slipped the stick into his pocket.

A narrow boat approached the lock. It was smartly painted green and red, and decorated with a design of flowers. As the boat drew nearer, Jack and Ian could hear, above the purr of it's engine, laughter and chatter from aboard. As the boat came alongside them, Ian could see inside tables laid with plain cloths littered with crumbs and half empty wine glasses.

Three oldish ladies waved at Jack as they floated past.

"Hello there. Lovely day isn't it? Super day. Goodbye, goodbye."

Jack smiled and nodded.

Upstream, a plump girl, who looked about Ian's age, jumped out of the boat and tied a big rope to a black pillar by the lock. The girls ample figure was barely held in by a bright pink shirt tied tight above a wodge of midriff. The girl's whole body wobbled as she industriously turned a big iron handle, like the starting handle of an old fashioned car, to open the lock.

Jack and Ian watched her for a while and then continued down the tow path. Shortly they arrived at an old bridge over the canal between two meadows. The bridge was patched with moss and overgrown with grass. At one end was a wooden gate and at the other two wrought iron posts. Ian wheeled Jack up onto the bridge.

"I think I'll stop here for a bit," said Ian.

Jack arched his neck to peer down over the side of the bridge. Another smaller narrow boat passed beneath them. Waves fanned out behind the boat, lapped at the water's edge and were reflected. Old waves criss-crossed new waves creating a pattern of interwoven dark and light amoeboid forms which endlessly melted and remerged between the ripples. The sun dug a bright pool in the bottle green water, sheening the surface like it were molten gold and cresting each small wave in silver.

"Water's weird stuff isn't it," said Ian. "All those shapes and colours moving all the time, always moving."

Jack closed his eyes and raised his head to the sun. He breathed slow deep breaths as he fell asleep. Ian sat on the grass, drinking his can of Fanta, and read his copy of Melody Maker. About an hour later Jack woke up. He had dribbled in his sleep, saliva running down his chin. Ian asked Jack for his handkerchief. Jack reluctantly pulled it from his pocket and handed it to him. He wiped the saliva from Jack's face. The handkerchief was filthy. Ian rolled it into a tight ball and gingerly dropped it into his rucksack. He gave Jack his own handkerchief, crisp clean and white. Jack didn't seem to notice.

Ian wheeled Jack back towards the town along the other side of the tow path where black and white cows flicked their tails at flies in a meadow of buttercups and nettles. Two girls on bikes with baskets pedalled along the towpath. A woman with a head scarf tore a branch from a tree and threw it for her fat black Labrador. The dog looked bored and lay down in the shadow of willows that reached out across the canal, then got up and briefly followed a courting couple who strolled past deep in love and conversation. A toad sat in the sun. It watched the wheelchair trundle toward it for a moment then hopped into the shade of a large dock leaf before disappearing deeper into the wilting vegetation.

"Stop," said Jack suddenly.

Beside the path was a small speckled fledgling. One of its wings was limp the other extended, flapping uselessly in the dirt. Jack reached down from his chair and scooped up the little fledgling. He held it gently in his hands, his fingers seeming so old and gnarled against the bright young eye of the bird, which blinked and moved its head from side to side its little fluffy chest rapidly heaving.

Ian stroked the tiny head with his little finger.

Jack offered the bird to him. Ian hesitated.

"I'm not very good at this kind of thing," he mumbled.

"Go on, take him. He's not going to bite you," insisted Jack.

Ian tentatively reached for the feathery bundle nestled between Jack's fingers. As their hands met he felt the wrinkled dryness of Jack's skin and the soft warmth of the bird. Ian thought he'd got hold of it. But as Jack withdrew his hand the bird suddenly flapped out of Ian's grasp and disappeared, chirping pitifully, into a clump of nettles.

Ian knelt in the dirt and peered between the thick bristled stems, but there was no sign of the fledgling.

"Can you see him?" asked Jack Ian shook his head.

"Sorry," he said. "I think it's gone."

Jack paused as if about to say something, then shrugged and wheeled himself away down the tow path.

Ian clambered to his feet and slowly followed.