It was a couple of days after my visit and Jon took me to a part of Duerdale I’d never been before. We walked from the town centre, behind the Town Hall and across Duerdale Recreational Park (which is a fenced-off area of gravel with three swings, a slide, and a scruffy patch of grass with a sign that says ‘No Ball Games’). When we pushed through the gate on the far side of the park my surroundings were immediately unfamiliar but Jon knew exactly where he was heading. He walked fast and I scuttled along trying to keep up whilst drinking in as many of the new sights as I could. On the lookout for ideas for new paintings. After a few rows of terraced houses we reached old red mills that were tall and stretched on for ever. We cut through between two giant mills on a tiny cobbled passage and I stopped and held my arms out. I could touch both walls with flat palms but I couldn’t decide if it felt like I was pushing the mills apart or stopping them close in together. I looked up at the thin line of sky that slotted between the walls and every bone in my body felt tiny and fragile. I hurried on, catching back up with Jon, keen now to be in open space. We left the cobbled passage at the next ginnel and rejoined the main road.
The mills were enormous. One building alone had a sign that showed it housed a plastic-mouldings firm, a carpet factory and a graphic printers. We passed along on the road, through the noise of booming radio voices and the clunk-clattering of machines. Work noises jumped out from different windows and echoed and spun in the road, bouncing back off high brick walls causing a cacophony in the street. We crossed a dirty river that ran alongside the mills. Its banks were littered with junk: mattresses, prams, cookers and other debris, rusted and wasted out of recognition years before. The buildings grew into a state of disrepair the further we walked away from town and the screeching noise of the businesses gradually faded away behind us, dwindling to a murmured nothing. The final mill we passed looked like it had been abandoned the day it shipped its last loom of cotton; the entrance was boarded up and the windows were smashed. Only one window had survived intact and Jon pointed it out, a small corner window on the second floor. We both stared up at it for a while, wondering how it had escaped, it was an easy enough target, and then Jon started walking on again and I fell into step alongside him. I had an idea where we were headed but I hadn’t asked. Jon was still annoyed with me, I could tell, and I had a feeling I was about to be taught a lesson and that it was my duty to suffer in silence. We passed the last deserted mill and walked out into open wasteland. More junk congregated here, some of it in piles, some randomly scattered. We zigzagged our way through it all, crossed the busy circular road and arrived at the estates. The houses were small and squat, all regulation size and made out of grey breezeblock brick, the kind of brick that darkens in the rain. There was a low grey sky hovering above it all and for a few moments I was almost grateful for my disintegrating house. As we passed the regularly spaced road ends we could see kids further down in the maze of streets, wheelying on bikes, sitting on walls, looking for anything to do. Jon kept his head down and walked faster and I was right with him. We only slowed when we had passed the last clutch of houses and left the estates behind.
It was just starting to get dark now and our surroundings took on a dusty, moonlike glow. We were at the opposite end of town now, as far away from my house as I’d been, and almost back in open countryside. The road turned from tarmac to gravel and we crunched our way on. Eventually, through the fading light, I saw a large dark building ahead. And I knew that was our destination. Jon was walking straight towards it, head down, in silence.