The gin was making me depressed — or maybe I'd been depressed before and the gin just highlighted it. Something about the clarity of the drink that cut through to the core of it all and sharpened what had only been glinting dully just below the surface before.
But no, the canal towpath was not the best place to sit and drink gin. The bench there, scored by almost impossibly legible names and phrases, was missing a slat at the back and so my spine curled into the space and hurt. Somehow this made the gin taste better. Cheap shit from the Co-op — a green label that was trying to look gordonsy but was most definitely failed by the never-been-near-a-juniper-berry-but-could-easily-strip-paint flavour. I say ‘flavour', but it was more of a sensation. A sensation of strength and pain and heat. It felt like my teeth were eroding.
I had another swig and watched some kids throwing bricks at a dead duck, trying to sink it — but it was too far gone for that. It tilted in the chopped-ripples of the near-misses and I tried not to feel sick when I thought about the maggoty insides and the death-gasses that kept it bobbing on the surface in a mad parody of its swimming, happy (can ducks be happy?) life.
Lee was up the allotments. Sulking. It was his new thing; the allotment, not the sulking.
He'd waited ages to get one — had read up all the while he was waiting — and considered himself an expert. I'd got him a book about it — something like 'the ultimate allotment book for beginners'; half price at Smiths. He'd liked it then. Had read it. But he didn't like it now. Or rather, didn't like me, and therefore didn't like anything that somehow connected him to me. So the book had gone on the new bonfire along with all the other things I'd ever given him — the flammable things, anyway. He'd made sure I knew that. Gathered up the bits of carbonized pages of other books and the corners of hardbacks that hadn't quite caught — words of praise from reviewers still legible — to show me later, in the pub, when he was being backed up by his allotment mates. The fucker. I'd pretended not to give a shit. But he knew I gave a shit and that made him happy. Eight years with someone and you know when they're pretending or not. Or at least you hope you do. And he knew. And I knew. And so that's why I was sitting on some fucked up bench by the canal drinking cheap-shit gin.
The dead duck floated out of reach of even the kids' considerable throwing ability, and I watched as it wobbled, undignified, on the oily surface of the water. They skidded up their bikes from the towpath and shouted off away to some other scab-picking activity. I swigged the rest of the gin and pitched the bottle at the duck — just to see what would happen: I missed — then gathered up my stuff and headed off.
The duck and the bottle danced uncertainly together on the scummy surface. But I didn't stay and watch them sink.
Not this time.
Jo Swingler now lives and works in Warwickshire, having spent several years teaching English in Asia. Her poetry and prose have been published in several magazines and she has also been longlisted for several major poetry prizes. Her next objective is to make it onto a shortlist.