And what would he say to him when he got there anyway. It would be awkward.
People call it the new road bridge, but it must be twenty or thirty years old.
Its not just the weather that changes. Its surprising, how new a day can look, how different the view can be when he stands there each morning having a piss on the stony ground. The height of the water, the colour of the sky, the feel of the air against his skin, the direction of the smoke drifting out from the cooling towers along the horizon, the number of leaves on the trees, the footprints of birds and small animals in the soft mud at the waters edge, the colour of the river running by.
The speed of the water changes, thats something else, with the height of the river. If its been raining a lot. The river draws itself up, the water churning brown with all the mud washed in off the fields, and the river rises up and races towards the sea, sweeping round bends and rushing over rocks or trees or sunken boats that sit and rest in its way, anything that thinks it can just rest where it is, the river rushes over and picks it up and carries it along, like loose soil and stones on the banks of outside bends, or trees with fragile roots, or a stack of pallets left too close to the waters edge, it all gets swept along, like people in a crowd, like what happens in a football ground if there are too many people in not enough space and something happens to make everyone rush, if they all start to run and then no one person can stop or avoid it, they all move together and then what can anyone expect if theres a dam been put up against all that momentum, if theres a fence and someone saying stand back dont run theres enough room for everyone if you could spread out and stand back and just stop pushing.
When theres not enough room. When theres too many of them and someone puts up a fence and says stop pushing.
Thats what its like. The river. When its been raining too much. The momentum of it is huge and dangerous: it makes him think of a crowd of people being swept along and none of them can stop it and they get to a fence and someone says stop pushing. In a football ground. Everybody rushing into one space and theres not enough room and no one can stop moving. And theres a fence and someone standing behind the fence says: Stop pushing will you all please stop pushing.
Its what comes to mind, when he sees the river like that.
And other times the river is quiet. After the rain has stopped. After a few days of the river raging past, all choked with mud and fury, it drops back down again; slows, slips away from the high carved banks and comes to what looks like a standstill. The sun in broken shards across its surface, like scraps of tinfoil thrown from a bridge by some children further upstream. It looks good enough to swim in, then. Not that he ever has. Hes never seen anyone swimming here. It doesnt seem like a good idea.
*
So. This is how his days begin. If you really want to know. The morning creeps through the cracked windows of his house. He stands in the doorway, pissing on the stony ground, and he thinks about all these things. He looks at the river, and the sky, and the weather, and he thinks about his work for the day. He tries to allocate his priorities. The treehouse is almost finished, apart from the roof, but the raft is still a long way from being done.
The roof will be important.
He thinks about the people on the boats, and the man fishing, and children further upstream throwing things into the water. Throwing sticks and model boats, pieces of paper jammed into plastic bottles with screw-top lids. He imagines the bottles washing up on to his piece of land by chance, and he imagines unscrewing the lids and unrolling the pieces of paper. He thinks about the children, on the bridge, watching the model boats and the plastic bottles turning in the current. He imagines them shielding their eyes to catch a last glimpse. Two of them, a boy and a girl, the girl almost eleven now, the boy eight and a half. Red-haired, like their father. He imagines the girl turning away and saying: Come on, we should catch up with Mum now, and the boy saying: But I can still see mine, I can. Holding his small hands up to his eyes like binoculars.
And what would be written, on these pieces of paper?
The sky looks clear right across to the far field, a faint early sun shining off the river. But theres a cold wind, and rain on the way.
Yellowed willow leaves blow across the stony ground and into the river, floating away like tiny boats heading out to sea.
And when it starts they wont understand. Theyll put on coats and go outside, brandishing umbrellas against the violence of the sky. Theyll check the forecast and wait for the rain to stop so they can hang the washing outside. But it wont stop. They should understand, but they wont.
The treehouse is almost done. It was slow when he started; he didnt really know what he was doing. He had to try a few different techniques before he could progress. There was less urgency then. Theres more now. Its sort of imperative that he gets it finished soon. Hes used pallets mostly. Theyre easy to get hold of, and if it looks a bit untidy then so what. At least it does the job.
Some of the others in the yacht club have noticed. They must have seen it from the road when they were driving past. They were laughing about it last time he went in. One of them asked if his name was Robinson and where was the rest of the Swiss family, and he almost did something then, like swinging a big glass ashtray into the side of his head or pushing him off his stool. But he didnt. Hes more careful now. Accidents and things like that happen very easily, if hes not careful. So he didnt say a thing. They asked him lots of questions, like what was he building it for and why was it so high and what was he going to do when the winds picked up. He just said he had some wood lying around and he thought hed give it a go, and when someone beat their chest and made a noise like Tarzan he got up and left. He didnt even slam the door, and he didnt go back when he heard them laugh.
Who knows why they call it the yacht club. None of them have got yachts.
The way they laughed. Some people deserve it, what will come.
It might not be the finest treehouse ever built, but it does what it needs to do. Its difficult to get the details exactly right when youre fifty foot up in the air. Its hard enough getting all the wood up there in the first place. It would be easier with two people. Or quicker, at least. But its just him, now, so it takes some careful planning. Some forethought. And hard work.
He needs some roofing felt. Or an old tarpaulin, if he cant find any felt. The roof will be important. Hell need to take his time over the roof. And then theres the raft, of course: hes got the basic structure, the barrels and the pallets, but it needs more work on the lashings. Its the structural integrity which will count, in the long run. It might need some kind of shelter as well, a little cabin or a frame for a tarpaulin. If it can take the weight.
The weather, when it changes, generally comes rolling in from the east. He can stand here and watch the clouds gathering, like an army forming up in the distance and preparing to march. Only when it comes in its more of a charge than a march, crashing into the river, with a noise like boxes of nails spilling on to a wooden floor. When it comes like that, furious and sudden, it usually passes by again soon enough, the air beaten clean in its wake.
But there will come a time when it doesnt pass. When the clouds gather and dont pass away, and rain pours endlessly upon the earth. And some will be prepared, and some will not.
He wonders what the man on the other side of the river does, when hes not here. When hes not fishing. Probably hes retired and thats why he can manage to be here so often. But he doesnt look old enough to be retired, the way he walks, the weight he carries. Maybe he got grounds of ill health out of someone, out of whoever he was working for. The police, maybe, its quite possible to get grounds of ill health with the police, like mental distress for example, like if something were to happen, there are things that can happen if you work in the police, there are things that can give you stress or mental distress. For example things you might witness or be a part of.
Like being in front of a crowd, and saying: Stop pushing theres enough room for everyone theres no need to push. Like being the other side of a fence and saying: Get back stop pushing. And then later you see the rails, steel rails, bent and broken as easily as reeds.
It could be difficult for someone to do their job after something like that, to carry that with them and not be affected by the mental distress. Fishing might be an ideal respite: the order of it, the quietness, the solitude. No one shouting or pushing. No one asking for explanations. Just the river, easing on past. The sky, the changing light, the flash of silver from the emptying net when the fish pour safely back into the river.
It might not be that, of course. That would just be speculation. It might be nothing like that at all.
When it comes it will come suddenly, rushing across the earth like a vengeful crowd, an unturnable tide of seething fury. They will stand and watch, in bus shelters, in shop doorways, from the apparent safety of locked cars, and they will tut to themselves and say: Oh, isnt the weather awful, and they will not know what they say.
And those two children on the bridge, throwing scraps of paper into the water, watching the water rise higher, perhaps they will have the sense to know what is happening, perhaps they will climb a tree and scan the horizon for a place of safety. Or perhaps in desperation they will take their umbrellas and turn them into boats, drop them into the river and ride them wherever the current goes. Or perhaps theyre too big for that now.
And whenever it looks as though the rain will stop, people will come out of their houses and peer up at the sky. They will lift their faces and let themselves be soaked while they stare at the thinning clouds, retreating to the safety of their houses, their upstairs bedrooms, their rooftops.