along this coastal path he told me, I sought it out on my visit. The boards peel and every pane is cracked, can’t be long before they tear it down to build flats with tiered views of the estuary. But for now it’s wild and alone and I can imagine him in his toast-crumbed peacoat looming at the window, eye to the distant whitecaps and the comings of boats, the little fishers and the ferry back from Lundy. Riverman had a child and a woman he loved and for most he was happy, but some flawed part in him fouled the workings. Broke-anchored, he drifted up to my landlocked town, drinks tea and gin in the shallows, holds forth about the right to be left alone. The right to live undisturbed in the gaps of this world. But you’re welcome anytime you are, son, if the cabin chain’s off I’m aboard, you just knock and I’ll answer.
