I was cleaning the windlass wrong, running the rag along the square end instead of the shaft, and I didn't notice till I'd taken half the brass off with it. My hands were somewhere else. I kept thinking about the last page.
Three weeks before that, I'd taken the relief post at Sowter's Lock because Vernon had gone into hospital with his hip and the trust needed someone who could wind a paddle without losing a finger. The hut smelled of diesel and old rope, and there was a smell under that I never placed, something like wet cardboard. On the shelf was the log, a thing the size of a phone directory, its spine gone soft with damp. Vernon's writing filled most of it. Neat capitals, dates, boat names, water levels to the inch.
I was meant to start my own page that first morning. Instead I found one already there, dated for the day I was standing in, in handwriting that wasn't Vernon's small print. It was mine. My own slant, the way I do my sevens with the bar through them. It said: NB Constance through 0640, gate paddle stiff, oiled port side, spoke to hire company re: fee.
I hadn't oiled anything yet. I did it at quarter to seven, because the paddle was stiff, same as the entry said, and my hands did it before I'd properly decided to.
Now, three weeks on, I was back at my own kitchen sink with the windlass in my hand for no reason except that I'd brought it home and couldn't put it down. My sister's dog was under the table gnawing a shoe that wasn't hers, one of my old work boots, and I kept meaning to take it off her and didn't. I hadn't told anyone at the trust that I'd handed my notice in early. I told them Vernon was well enough to come back. That was true. It wasn't the reason.
Every morning at the lock I'd turn the page and find another one waiting. Always my hand, always a day ahead, sometimes two. Small things at first. A leak reported. A dog off its lead near the top gate. Then, on the ninth day, the entry for the tenth said: Fell reaching for centre rope, chamber three-quarter full, got out fine, embarrassed more than hurt.
I didn't reach for any rope the next day. I stood well back from the edge the whole shift. Nothing happened. I told myself that settled it — the book was wrong, or I was making it come true by expecting it, or something like that, some idea I didn't look at too closely. That night the page for the day after read: Fell reaching for centre rope, chamber three-quarter full, got out fine, embarrassed more than hurt. Same words. Same day, moved along by twenty-four hours, like it was waiting for me to catch up.
I worked eleven more days like that, always one step behind my own hand, or ahead of it, I never worked out which way round it went. Then came a page with no boat name, no weather, nothing but three lines: Gate paddle stiff. Wound anyway. Slipped.
That page still hasn't got a date on it. I checked twice before I left, actually, because the first time my eyes wouldn't settle on the corner where the date goes. I've got the windlass on the draining board now, and Vernon's not well enough to go back yet, and the trust rang this morning asking would I reconsider, just till they find someone.
I'm picking the phone back up.
"Kanawha Canal locks - Blue Ridge Parkway - Monroe County Va." by watts_photos is licensed under CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.