The Girl in the Boat

It was bitterly cold as I left the concert hall; the still air was heavy with the frost that was just beginning to form. I walked along through the quiet streets and around me the pubs and the clubs were still full of people celebrating Christmas early. It would not be long before the revellers were slowly but forcibly disgorged into the night to make their merry way home. I hate the city at night and I wanted nothing more than to reach my parked car and head out of town for home. I wanted to be out of it before the 'stickies' got into their Astra's and 'hatches' and drunkenly made their ways back into the sticks of Cheshire. I wanted to be away from them as quickly as I could.

The concert had been uplifting, the music swelling and fulfilling, now though, outside in the cold I hurried across the tramlines towards the car park.

My route crossed one of the streams that flows tamed and soiled through the city centre. Stonewalls and buildings, tunnels and bridges guided its heavy flow as it swept darkly along to God knew where. I paused for a moment looking at the water. It seemed oily almost but for all of the seemingly viscous quality it appeared to be racing along swiftly. The street lamps gleamed dully on it, and it looked as if it should have been making a noise, but it was peculiarly silent.

Just as I was about to turn and continue I noticed something emerging from the shadows of a bridge just upstream from where I stood. Between two tall and sheerly dark buildings, blind windows out-staring each other, it came into the dim light from the silver and amber city lights.

It was a boat, a wooden one, with a tall stem post. Straight as a die it came down the middle of the stream, but the motion of the water beside it suggested that it moved slower than the river. As it left the shadow of the two buildings I saw that the boat was filled to the gunwales with white flowers - camellias or lilies or something similar - lying on them in a posture of repose was a girl.

Early to mid-twenties was my first impression, followed rapidly by the thought that she must have been bloody cold wearing that thin, white, shiny, silk-like material. Just looking at her made me cold and I shrugged my coat up around my neck. She had long dark hair that spread out all around her shoulders, and her skin was almost as white as the flowers that surrounded her. I was just about to pass it off as a student prank, or some dumb stunt to do with Christmas, when I noticed - she was closer now - that there were two coins - pennies from the look of it - on her eyes. And for the first time, probably because the boat was now clear of the shadows, I noticed the boatman.

Okay I know that it didn't have to have been a boatman - especially as the figure was - sensibly I thought - wrapped in an all enveloping shroud and hood. What ever it was it seemed to be driving the boat along with a long pole, though as I mentioned before the boat moved more slowly than the pace of the stream. It passed under the bridge.

Ignoring the traffic, which was light, I ran across the road to the other side. As I did I noted that there was no one to be seen for hundreds of yards.

On the other side I saw the boat emerge, and I stood watching for a few more minutes until it disappeared beneath another shadow filled bridge and out of my sight. The night seemed darker and, if anything, colder, as I opened the car and got in. I waited until the engine had warmed up before I moved off with an FM radio station warming my spirit with some rock music.

I was stunned as much at my own reaction to the crash when it happened as much as to the actual event. Pulling away from a set of traffic lights an Escort slid past up the outside to make a right turn at too high a speed. For a moment I had an impression of the passenger's face as it passed me and I felt I'd seen the person before somewhere.

The car might have made it if there had been a little more road or a bus had not been pulling away from the lights on the other side of the road. As it was the back-end of the car began to slide away on the frost slick road, and the wheels lost their grip. The Escort's driver putting his foot down - to power his way out of the situation - didn't help either and the bus caught it sideways on crushing the side.

It was as if I'd been expecting something like this - I wasn't at all surprised.

I went to see if I could help, calling an ambulance on my mobile.

The emergency services reacted very quickly, but the passenger of the escort was dead already.

I was helping steady the driver, who was puking his guts up by the car, and giving a policeman my version of the accident when they got her out.

As the ambulance men placed her on the stretcher for a brief moment before they covered her up, her long dark hair framed her pale, unmarked face.

Astonishingly she looked almost as if she was asleep, and I remembered where I'd seen her earlier that night.