Instead of turning towards the station, he buttoned up his coat and turned right towards the park, through the old Greenwich market where he stopped to watch a street artist paint.
He’d never stopped to watch anything like this before. Never taken the time to enjoy little pleasures like a man in a paint-smeared smock putting brush to canvas, filling empty spaces with depth and colour.
On a whim, he approached the artist and asked to buy the picture. It was a simple thing, just the sun setting over the Canary Wharf skyline, but the personal meaning Cohen found in the painting appealed to him. So, he handed the artist over two hundred pounds in crisp twenties to make it his. He imagined looking back on this image and remembering the day he decided to take hold of his life and make it his own; not what Canning wanted it to be, not what Esther wanted it to be, not what Jim wanted it to be and not even what River might want it to be.
No. From this moment on, Cohen was his own person. He controlled his own destiny.
‘Come back next week. It’ll be dry by then,’ the artist told him, handing him a receipt. ‘I’ll have it wrapped and waiting for you.’
‘I will,’ Cohen replied. ‘Just one thing though ... where is this?’ He gestured to the painting. ‘I mean, where did you sketch from?’
The artist grinned. ‘Not from round here, are you? This is the view from the Observatory, mate.’
‘The Observatory?’ Cohen asked.
The artist pointed towards the park. ‘Cross the road, go through the gates next to the Maritime Museum and walk ten minutes up the hill. You’ll find it.’
Cohen nodded his thanks, giving one more satisfied glance at his newest acquisition before throwing his hands into his pockets and following the artist’s directions.
He’d never been in this park before. He’d seen it from office windows, of course, heard of it briefly as a pleasant place to visit, even laughed at the mistake in thatThormovie with his British colleagues ‘because you’d have to be an almighty God to make commuting to Greenwich by tube from Charing Cross happen’.
But he’d never actually been here, and for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why. The winter sun weakly warmed his back while the breeze was cold against his face, and the contrasting elements fostered a feeling of contented happiness within him. It was enough to make him stop again, to make him pause and enjoy the moment. He found a coffee vendor outside the museum and picked up a macchiato, surprising himself and the barista by asking for a measure of syrup to be added.
‘No offence, but you don’t look like the kind of bloke who adds gingerbread syrup to his coffee,’ the barista remarked.
Cohen shrugged. ‘I guess you don’t know what kind of person you are until you try being them,’ he replied.
‘Amen to that,’ the barista said, pushing a miniature sugared pie towards Cohen along with his coffee without adding it to the bill.
‘What’s that?’ Cohen asked, looking with trepidation at the shortcrust pastry before him.
The barista smiled. ‘A mince pie. Christmas speciality.’
Cohen resisted the urge to shudder. ‘Right. And it has … meat in it? Under all the sugar?’
The barista grinned again. ‘Nope. Look, just give it a try. You said so yourself, you never know, right?’
Cohen nodded, recalling his earlier words. ‘Yes. Yes, you’re right. Thank you.’
The barista shrugged, almost sheepishly. ‘No problem. Merry Christmas, hey?’
Cohen smiled. ‘Happy Hanukkah,’ he offered, surprising both himself and the barista once again.
The barista nodded slowly. ‘Right. Yeah. Happy Hanukkah.’
Cohen sipped his sweet coffee and clutched the pie as he made the slow journey up the hill towards the Observatory. Andoy vey, Cohen thought, if he’d known this place existed he would have set the incline on his running machine a little steeper, because the hill was a bitch to climb and he was panting before he was even halfway up the slope.
But at the view Cohen felt a quick thump of excitement. As he rounded the hedge, the steep hill clearing into a gentle incline, the panorama of London was just incredible. If he hadn’t already been so winded from just getting up here, the place would have taken his breath away.
He sat on a bench, taking a bite of his pie. The taste was surprising to him, not strange or unappealing at all, but pleasantly sweet and spicy. A little like Challah, perhaps, but with a moist and rich filling, like you might find in a cherry blintz. In fact, the pie tasted a little like home, reminding him of his mother and, momentarily, he missed her desperately.
But as he brushed the crumbs from his mouth, he also brushed away all thoughts of Esther, looking around and distracting himself with his surroundings. To his left was a red brick building, tightly held behind wrought iron gates.Royal Observatory Greenwich,a sign read. Beneath that was a twenty-four hour clock, and as Cohen peered through the gates, he got it.
This, he realised with a start, was wheretime began.A line on the ground indicated the place from where all time was measured, and by God, he could have cried for pure joy.
Because there was something deeply poetic in deciding to take time to live, here, in the place where time began, next to an observatory, the gateway to the stars. He was so taken with the concept that he spent half an hour watching the clock make its sweeping journey around the circle of numbers –just because he could– and he rejoiced in the passage of time, in the celebration of life itself. With each movement of measured time, there was a new second, a new minute, a new hour …a new Cohen.
At that moment, he reached into his bag, pulled out the padded envelope Billy had given him earlier and opened it.
