The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim

actually I did manage to go to university in the end, but that was when I was almost forty and so that’s another story entirely. Anyway, that was how I started reading books and I can’t remember how old I was when I read Narrowboat but I know that my mum and dad were both dead by then because I would have loved to tell them that their shop was mentioned in the book and I never did.’

While she was pausing for breath, Mumtaz said: ‘Do try to keep to the point, Margaret. You were supposed to be telling us something about Max’s father. Now none of us can remember what you were talking about.’

She gave him a pointed stare. ‘Well, I can remember. The thing was that Harold and I made this plan, you see, that we were going to hire a narrowboat ourselves for a few weeks, and follow the same route that this man Rolt and his wife had taken. We were going to do it in 1989, exactly fifty years after they’d set off. The idea was that we’d visit all the same places and see how things had changed in the meantime. Well, that was my idea, anyway. All Harold wanted to do, I’m sure, was sit on the roof of the boat looking at the clouds and daydreaming and writing his precious poems. But for me, you see, the point about Tom Rolt’s book – and this’ (fixing Mumtaz with another stare) ‘is why I’m telling you about it – is that it’s not just a book about canals at all. It’s one of the most amazing books about England ever written. Rolt was a very interesting man – a man with very strong beliefs – and although I dare say he was a bit of a Tory in his politics he was also into green issues years before the term had been invented. And do you know what he saw – way back in 1939? He saw a country that was already quite happily allowing itself to be killed off by the power of the big corporations.’

Mumtaz rolled his eyes and gave a comically theatrical sigh. ‘Oh, I see. Now I get it. Watch this carefully, Maxwell,’ he said, holding up a finger in warning, ‘because you are about to see a woman climbing on board her hobbyhorse, and once that happens, you are never going to be able to get her off again. We are going to be here for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon, I tell you.’

‘It’s not a hobbyhorse,’ Miss Erith insisted, ‘and I’m not going to climb on board it. All I’m saying is that, if you read that book, you’ll understand a bit more of what’s going on in this country, and how long it’s been happening. What big business is doing to it. It’s not a recent thing at all: it’s been going on for years – centuries, even. Everything that gives a community its own identity – the local shops, the local pubs – it’s all being taken away and replaced by this bland, soulless, corporate –’

‘What she’s really saying,’ Mumtaz explained to me with a weary smile, ‘is that we’ve been trying to think of a nearby pub where we can go for our lunch, and she doesn’t like any of them any more.’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Miss Erith. ‘And do you know why? Because they’re all the bloody same! They’ve all been taken over by the big chains and now they play the same music and serve the same beer and the same food …’

‘… and they’re full of young people,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Young people enjoying themselves – that’s what irks you! Young people who like it that way.’

‘They like it that way because they don’t know any other!’ Miss Erith said, her voice suddenly rising to an angry pitch. The good-humoured, bantering aspect of their conversation seemed to evaporate in an instant. ‘Mumtaz knows very well what I mean.’ She had turned to look at me directly, now, and I was amazed to see that there were tears in her eyes. ‘I’m saying that the England I used to love doesn’t exist any more.’

A long silence followed, while these words were allowed to hang in the air.

Miss Erith sat forward and drank the remains of her tea, not saying anything more, looking straight ahead of her.

I looked down at my father’s blue ring binder, wondering if this would be a good moment to make my excuses and leave.

Mumtaz sighed and scratched his head. He was the first one to speak.

‘You’re right, Margaret, absolutely right. Things have changed a lot, even since I’ve been here. It’s a different place now. Better in some ways, worse in others.’

‘Better!’ she echoed, scornfully.

‘Anyway,’ he said, rising to his feet, ‘I think we should try The Plough and Harrow again. It will be nice to get out into the countryside, and the piped music isn’t too loud, and the food is good.’ He turned to me and said kindly: ‘Why don’t you join us, Maxwell? We’d be glad to have your company.’

I stood up as well. ‘That’s really nice of you,’ I said. ‘But I think I’d better be getting on my way. I’ve got a long journey ahead of me.’

‘You’re going to Scotland, I think you said?’

‘That’s right. About as far as you can go – all the way to the Shetland Isles.’

‘Marvellous. What an adventure. And what takes you there, might I ask? Is it business, or pleasure?’

The simplest way to answer this, it seemed, was to reach inside the pocket of my jacket and fetch out another of the toothbrush samples I’d been carrying around with me since yesterday. I’d given my two IP 009s to Mr and Mrs Byrne – all the others were still in the boot of the Prius – so what I handed over to Mumtaz was the nice, plain, elegant model that Trevor had shown to me first of all – the ID 003, made of sustainable pine, with the boar’s-hair bristles and the non-detachable head.

‘I represent a company that markets and distributes these,’ I explained, surprised to find how proud I was to be saying it.

Mumtaz took the brush from me and whistled admiringly through his teeth.

‘Wow,’ he said, running his fingers along the shaft, ‘this is a real beauty. A real beauty. You know, I might even enjoy cleaning my teeth if I had one of these, instead of it being a chore. And you are going to sell some of these in Shetland?’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘Well,’ he said, giving the toothbrush back to me. ‘You will have no difficulty, that’s for sure. Margaret! Margaret, did you hear any of that?’

But Miss Erith was still in a kind of daze. She turned towards us slowly, almost as if she had forgotten that we were in the flat with her at all. Her eyes remained rheumy and unfocused.

‘Mmm?’