Mr Chadwick takes a bath

It had long been known by Herbert Archibald Chadwick that the very best thing to do when feeling out of sorts was to take a bath. Not just any bath either but a really long bath, one that starts with water that is unfeasibly hot, hot to the point where even getting in will take upwards of ten minutes. But today he felt that everything must be done to bring maximum benefit, whatever ritual that made his bath a source of peace and pleasure must be followed to the minutest detail.
The bathroom itself was of reasonable size and had windows through which sunlight poured, filling it with a warmth that was the precursor to the waters warmth that would soon surround him. He could feel that warmth as he entered and moved toward the bath. It was of luxuriant size and had obviously been bought with some care and attention to detail, standing proudly on its’ own to one side of the room; the copper colour only added to the general feeling of heat, the taps filling Mr Chadwick’s hands as he leant over the turned rim and wound them open, water gushed loudly.
Mr Chadwick then walked the pathway to the far side of the bathroom where an old chair stood sentinel, like some campaign chair of old, it knew its purpose and, always on parade, was ready to perform its’ duty. He moved it close to the bath, positioning it quickly but with the hand of an expert at the head end where the bath rim rose to cocoon the bather from the approach of anyone else who might enter this inner sanctuary, with that he turned and left.

The water ran into the tub, bubbles rose where it plunged into the seething cauldron that already stirred and steamed and grew in volume, as from other rooms the sounds of doors being opened and closed and the noise of organisation might be heard, if only by the expectant chair and the growing bath.

On his return, Mr Chadwick drapes a white, thick towel over the back of the chair. He place his glasses on the seat and a book that looks a little frayed under them, but finally he moves them both slightly forward and places an old transistor radio against the chair back, before checking the on the level and temperature of his bath, making a few adjustments to the taps he leaves again and the bathroom is once again left to the noise of falling water and white mist of steam that rises up and through the sunlight, it turns and spins and swirls as it goes.
Not too long later and with the bath three-quarters full, he returns in a well worn robe and bare footed. This time he walks around to the taps and shuts off the flow, the taps drip a few times as they grudgingly hold back the water and the silence falls.
Moving back to the chair he takes off his robe hanging it over the free part of the chair back and reaching down Mr Chadwick fiddles with the radio until the sounds of classical music take the place of the falling water that had so recently filled the room. But now with these rituals completed the business of ‘getting in’ must start.

Holding onto the chair for support he throws a leg over the rim of the bath and lets it descend slowly to the surface of the water, he can feel the heat in the air just above the surface and hesitates before dipping his big toe ever so carefully. He takes it out with a grimace – it’s especially hot. A few seconds later and with no appreciable cooling of the water he tries again, the result is the same and it is at least five minutes before most of his foot has been submerged and has turned to a glowing pink.
Five minutes later he is able to stand in the water, every movement causes a flow over his skin that burns and sends it the same colour as his now drowned feet. Soon after though he’s plucked up enough courage, and bending down places his hands on either side of the bath before inserting himself below the waters surface, and becoming very still. If he doesn’t move for a while then it is manageable and the cauterising heat is bearable. Beads of sweat erupt on his forehead and almost instantly they’re flowing in rivers down his face and across his lips: they taste salty and cool. He wants to scratch the tickle from the sweat on his nose but he resists and lays carefully back to indulge this pleasure and face his feelings.

Mr Chadwick was not from these parts, he had grown up in a small village in the North, and he now felt that he could remember those events far better than those of yesterday or the day before. It’s not that he felt old, in fact in his head he felt about twenty five but a short reflection on his bad back, painful knees and the increasing number of night trips to the toilet suggested that his body disagreed.

As he lay there he thought about going to school and his friends from the street where he’d lived, their faces swam in front of him wavering in the swirling steam. The games of hide and seek that they’d played in the back fields and the street bonfire parties they’d had. He remembered sledging on his satchel before school, scout camps when you were allowed to have a knife and gathered around the big comforting fire at the end of the day.

But none of these distant, evocative memories could prevent the death of his wife forcing its way into his mind. The sorrow of it could not be avoided and the sweat that flowed mingled with the tears as he tried to remember the sound of her voice.

Captain

It was a sailors’ moon; as white as a skull

as bright as the sun.

It threw a foam onto the beach

that hissed and throbbed

as it ran.

You could see the welling up of the sea

and its deep sigh,

the ice white waves locked in their

battle with the sand

and both losing.

At the pinnacle of Helen’s reef:

less tall, less wide, less forbidding

than before

the birds cry and crackle, launching

from that dab of land that bests the Gods:

A swarm of beaks,

a creel of fishermen that fly

high over the masts of the black-sailed sloop

that dips and rolls, billowed by winds

to the scream of gulls

he dreams of land. Of ancient ports

and the warmth of a lover’s touch.

That moon set his face

to a grim prow or a bloodless rock;

time changed him to a shadow.

Though he pierces the spray

though he passes through the storm

his life is cooled within him

to an ice.

By him comes the red tide

the storm’s cast and the howling,

by him comes the doldrum and the fog.

I have seen him.

His eye fixed forward to the bow

the etched boarding sliding by –

he did not own me then.

An autumn moon came up:

the harvest moon, the hunter’s moon

as red as a warning

draping its light over the waters

over fields and houses, over you

over me.

Off the Skerries, grey seals were thick in the water

their eyes black, whiskers dripping.

The seas were silent around me

only the suck of waves on rock

and the swirl of the lighthouse filled my head.

Out of that whisper he came

full sailed.

The shabby angels had been my guide

he saw me then.

His head turned and as the sails flew

his eyes settled

and he saw me then,

and I was his.