At Wapping Dock, the Dates Still Need Checking

The afternoon light lay flat on Wapping Dock. Skinjo and Lacuna walked beside the still water, the massive stone edge wide enough to make their footsteps seem small.

“Picture the ships coming alongside,” Skinjo said. “Cotton lifted out, sugar coming ashore. Cargo crossing this strip of stone and disappearing into the warehouses. The water would be the quiet part of the picture; everything else would be moving.”

“Except the dates,” Lacuna said. “Those are moving quite freely.”

Skinjo glanced over.

“The history we read gives an opening in 1834 and construction in 1855–1856. That needs an explanation.”

“Perhaps I should paint it without a calendar.”

“You can. The history cannot.”

They continued along the quay. The warehouse windows held pale pieces of sky.

“Jesse Hartley,” Skinjo said. “The engineer who also worked on the Albert Dock. That much I remember.”

“Yes. But remembering the name doesn't settle which date belongs to what. Different phases might explain it. Or an error might. We don't know from that account.”

Skinjo stopped where the building's reflection met a faint disturbance in the water.

“I was about to give you a very convincing scene.”

“You still can. Just don't make the certainty part of the scenery.”

For a moment they watched the reflection recover.

“And now people live there,” Skinjo said. “The former Wapping Warehouse: apartments, Grade II listed. Rooms behind the same solid walls. I keep imagining someone putting a cup down where goods once waited.”

“Not necessarily on the same floorboards.”

“You're a difficult person to furnish a metaphor for.”

“Leave the cup. Question the floorboards.”

Skinjo smiled, then looked back up at the windows. “Does living in it keep the past close, or make it easier not to notice?”

“Either is possible,” Lacuna said. “A home isn't a museum. The people inside don't owe us a performance of dock life. But calling it a home doesn't tell us enough about what happened here before.”

“The building survives. The explanation still needs work.”

“And the dates need checking.”

They walked on. Skinjo watched the long weight of the warehouse against its wavering double; Lacuna paused to reread the two dates. Across the stone, their shadows reached toward the water without quite touching it.