Narrow Minds, page 28
Geoff and I both bolted for the front and found both kids leaning over the side desperately trying to reach something in the water.
‘What’s going on,’ I shouted above the noise.
‘Mortimer fell in.’ Sam turned round to me. ‘He was screaming at one of the swans, got both sets of feet up on the side and before Charlie could catch him he’d gone in.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Geoff waded through the kids. ‘All dogs can swim.’
‘Ours can’t.’ Charlie looked worried. ‘He keeps turning tail up in the water.’
‘What?’ I peered over the side and sure enough there was a black bottom and a tail and a lot of splashing, occasionally a pair of panic-stricken eyes and a couple of nostrils would break the surface but then they’d submerge again and the tail would move further down the boat. ‘Oh my God! Geoff grab him!’
Geoff leaned out as far as he could but couldn’t reach. Quickly turning around he grabbed Charlie (for a minute I thought he was going to throw her over the side), then taking a firm hold of her trousers and sweatshirt he hoisted her up onto the gunwales and held her out at arm’s length. Realising that he wasn’t going to be able to hold that position for long I grabbed the back of his jeans with one hand and the side of the boat with the other and leant backward hoping to give him more stability, even so, the veins at his temples still stood out and he went a lovely shade of puce, passers-by stood and stared we looked like the family from that children’s book The Magic Turnip all in a line and all heaving mightily.
Charlie, after a moment’s panic, grabbed Mort’s tail and dragged him back toward the boat. Geoff dropped Charlie unceremoniously onto the deck then reaching over the side grabbed our poor pup by the scruff and the tail and hauled him out of the water.
‘Sam.’ I gave him a swift nudge. ‘Go and get a towel,’
I wandered over to the dog who stood up, belched water out onto the planks of the deck then wagged his tail feebly at me. ‘You stupid animal.’ I gathered him up heedless that he was wet and shivering. ‘You really are very badly designed.’ I mentally added a dog lifejacket to our growing list of needs.
Sam rushed back with a towel and we swaddled our rather glazed dog into the folds.
This is probably the incident that led to Mort’s love affair with towels and his deep and abiding hatred of swans, to this day he still can’t see a swan without going into complete conniptions, so far he has been bitten, beaten and stamped on by the wretched things, not once has he ever managed to cause even the slightest damage to one but he never stops trying. He gets on with cats, ferrets, other dogs, loves people but swans are his nemesis, I have lost count of the times I have been dragged out on deck to break up a screaming match between the two species.
With the dog still wrapped up in a towel and the two children rushing to give him anything they thought he might need, I helped Geoff get Minerva through the Whittlesea lock. Watching them pull out I realised that my handbag with the car keys in it was still on the roof with all the shopping, and had to run down the towpath shouting for Geoff to throw it to me.
The onlookers give me a nervous smile and a rather wide berth as I stamped back toward the car muttering imprecations under my breath about drowning dogs, swans and leaky locks.
That evening, happily ensconced at the moorings in March, I went all out and cooked a veggie curry and settled down for the evening. ‘You could always just not bother going in tomorrow.’ I know that I’m not helping Geoff’s work situation, but I really don’t want another day of taking the boat on my own.
‘Oh, don’t tempt me,’ he groaned, ‘I keep dreaming that I’ve been fired and wake up really happy.’
I got up to put the kettle on. ‘Look on the bright side, at least you’ll be able to get Tuesday off, then we can have all the fun of taking her through Denver together.’
‘I hope so.’ Geoff muttered.
I pretended not to hear him, because I knew, if he wasn’t there, then the boat probably wasn’t going through, and if we didn’t get through due to tidal problems tomorrow there were no guarantees that he’d be able to take another day off, we HAD to get through tomorrow.
Geoff waved goodbye with a laugh as he watched me struggling to get Mortimer over the edge of the bow to go out for his morning jaunt and empty. After yesterday’s debacle there was no way in hell that dog was going anywhere near the side of the boat. He dragged his feet, lay on his back and just cried continuously until, in the end, I had to pick him up and carry him. He rushed about doing his business, then we had the same fight getting back on to the boat. But at least the added friction and exercise woke me up and had me ready to go far quicker than my normal three cups of coffee could have accomplished.
The rain started just as we pulled away and, huddled in my waterproof on the back of the boat, I decided that this was not going to be a good day. We had talked to the lock keeper the night before and he hadn’t sounded very positive about our chances, we had a week to get through these locks before they closed for repairs and we’d be stuck on the wrong side of the sluice.
On our previous trip we had been stuck at March for a week so I knew that the tides were a bit iffy around this time of year. All I could do was pull my collar up, put my head down and hope.
To compound all my trouble and woes, Minerva was handling like a pregnant cow. With hardly any power, her steering was like swirling a stick in bowl of thick porridge. Eventually after about an hour and a half of difficulties, I pulled her in at the side of the river and tried of think of something else that could be wrong: something which wouldn’t necessitate me fishing about in the cold water beneath the weed hatch.
One cup of coffee later and I’d worked out I had no choice but to put my hands and arms into that water, I had tried poking beneath the boat with a stick but that hadn’t come up with anything useful so there was nothing for it, I was going to have to face the dreaded weed hatch. I shuddered, tried to bribe the kids to do it for me, but even at ridiculous amounts of money being offered they both just grinned and shook their heads at me. (Possibly because they both knew that even if they actually did it I was almost guaranteed to welch on any deal they made.)
They did turn out to watch me do it though so that was nice. I opened the hatch and stared with distaste down into the water, putting one hand in I felt around the skeg (the pointy bit that the propeller is attached to) and from there to the little gap between boat and prop. There wasn’t one, the gap was entirely filled with something rough and filled with leaves and tendrils. Ah well, at least I knew what the problem was.
It took about three-quarters of an hour to get all the rubbish from around the prop, two different types of rope, one quite thick and coarse the other a nice blue bailer twine which in turn had gathered up every weed and floating bush for the last ten miles and turned it into a foliate ball which had almost completely obscured the prop. By the time I had finished, both hands were blue to the elbows and I had dropped two knives into the river.
Closing the weed hatch, I gibbered gently at Charlie and amazingly she managed to work out the nonsensical sounds coming from between my chattering teeth meant ‘Go and put the kettle on’.
About an hour later I was almost warm again. ‘I’ll take her on, Mum.’ Charlie gave me a cheerful grin.
‘What?’ I didn’t manage to get the entire word out but at least I was making more sense than I had been earlier.
‘There aren’t any locks, are there?’ She looked at me quizzically. ‘I’ll take it slow and you can warm up for a bit more.’ She waited for a reply and when I just looked dubious she pressed on. ‘Honestly it will be fine.’
I took a moment to get my ice-locked jaw mobile again. ‘There is a lock, it’s about three-quarters of an hour away. It’s a manned lock but the route is pretty straight till then.’ I looked longingly at the fire and made a decision. ‘Any problems and you give three short blasts on the horn and I’ll be out quicker than you can say Wah!’
Charlie grinned and scurried off in search of coat, hat, gloves and all the other bits and pieces that would make her stand out on the back less boring, (cup of tea, mp3, magazine, etc., etc.).
Sam had been paying close attention while all this had been going on and as Charlie rushed off he grabbed my arm. ‘You’re letting Charlie drive the boat, by herself?’ He put on a dramatic and worried expression.
I nodded.
‘We’re all going to die!’ he screamed and threw himself backwards onto the sofa then closing his eyes he extended one hand dramatically toward the ceiling. ‘Mother! is that you calling me into the light?’
‘No.’ I poked him in the ribs until he screamed with laughter. ‘This is your mother calling you a twit.’
He laughed and rushed off down the boat to sit on Mortimer, who took the whole thing with fairly good grace.
We made the next lock within the hour. Charlie, on the whole, had done exceptionally well. There were only two occasions where I’d had to stick my head out of the doors and tell her to slow down.
The couple at the Upwell lock are lovely, chatty and helpful. I think they were a little surprised at such a young driver and were quite relieved when I appeared out of the boat to take over.
Charlie pulled Minerva very slowly and carefully into the lock and apart from a few nudges and instructions I let her get on with it. She seemed perfectly content to stay on the plate so I was quite happy to get off and have a quick chat, not only with the lock keeper but with the owner of another boat who was waiting on the moorings on the other side.
Charlie brought Minerva out of the lock and parked her carefully on the moorings at the far side.
‘Do you want me to take over now?’ I asked as we sat over a cup of tea.
Charlie thought about it for a moment. ‘No, not really, unless you really want to.’
I shrugged and said, ‘I’m happy in here, and you seem to be doing a good job, but there’s a really horrible right hand bend coming up in a little while, and you might need some help with that.’
‘OK,’ Charlie grinned and said, ‘I quite like being in control of this great lump.’ She put her coat back on and disappeared outside.
The bend at Outwell was, as predicted, pretty hairy but between the two of us we managed it and passed gently into a landscape that can only be described as terminally boring.
The Middle Levels stretches in a flat plain toward the horizon with only little clumps of houses to break up the monotony. The waterway is long and straight, the road which runs alongside is long and straight. The grey sky touched the grey earth and we all plodded along in the gloom.
When it was my turn to drive (we were taking hour-on, hour-off rotations by that point) I tried to put the radio on, but the cheerful voice of the announcer and the bouncy music seemed so at odds with the glum landscape that I had to change it, I felt as though the sound was cutting through the melancholy like a knife. I turned to a classical station hoping that something statelier would be a better accompaniment. Unfortunately they were playing Carmina Burana by Carl Orff and that fitted the landscape so well it gave me the creeps: I turned it off.
As we finally passed through Nordelph, ducking under the last low bridge on the other side I was smitten by completely opposing feelings. On one hand I was ecstatic to be nearly out of the Middle Levels, and I was happy that the journey was nearly over, through the two big locks and home via Ely, only one more day remaining. On the other hand I was worried that we wouldn’t get through those locks and also I didn’t really want the journey to end because then we would just go back to living on a boat. It was the journey that was the exciting part and I was worried that the living part wouldn’t be as much fun as I’d remembered it.
It is always a bit of a surprise to arrive at Salters Lode, one minute you’re plodding along a fairly slim passage between high weeds, the next you go under a road bridge and find the river just stops dead and there you are.
The car was parked on the side and I could see a figure sitting slumped inside. Hitting the horn, I smirked a little as the figure jerked up and then stretched and got out of the car.
Geoff had a face like thunder. Whoops! I hadn’t realised he was that fast asleep. ‘I’m sorry,’ I shouted, ‘I didn’t mean to wake you up, I was just letting you know that we’re here.’ I tailed off: his face hadn’t changed, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I got fired,’ he muttered through gritted teeth.
Well I wasn’t expecting that and held up a hand to stop the following explanation. ‘Hold that thought, let’s get her tied up and put away, we can get the kettle on and you can tell me all about it over treacle tart, OK?’
Geoff nodded, his angry face melting into a sort of glum and forlorn look and when I reached over and gave him a big hug he just slumped into my shoulder with a sigh. Obviously it had not been a good day.
Tea made, tart eaten, kids and dog rushing around outside, he finally got around to telling me what had happened.
‘First thing this morning,’ he began, ‘I asked for tomorrow off and that seemed to be OK, then I went back to sitting around waiting for some work to come in.’ He paused to take a sip of tea. ‘About three o’clock I was called into the office and was basically told, thanks very much but don’t bother coming back.’
‘Oh dear, you must have felt horrible.’ I gave him another hug. ‘Do you think it’s because you asked to take the day off?’
Geoff shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so, I haven’t actually done anything since I’ve been there and it doesn’t look like there’s any work coming in.’ He paused and sighed. ‘It’s been such a waste of time.’
‘Well you’re getting paid for what you’ve done, aren’t you?’ I got up to put the kettle on again, this obviously wasn’t going to be a one-cup conversation.
‘Yeah, but I could have been with you and the kids.’ He put his head in his hands and stared at his boots. ‘The aerial, the windows, your hand,’ he continued, waving at my, now slightly grubby, bandage, ‘none of that might have happened if I’d been here.’
‘Humph.’ I sat down next to him. ‘I think you flatter yourself a bit.’ He looked up hurt. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.’ I gave him yet another hug. ‘Unless you’ve suddenly become King Canute, there was no way you could have slowed down the water in Titchmarsh Lock, so it may well have been your hand, not mine that got hurt, but as we usually run so that you do the locks and I work the pound I can’t see that anything would have been different.’
Geoff shrugged and nodded.
‘Look,’ the kettle chose that moment to blow its whistle but I continued, ‘we’re here, we have an extra week’s money in our pockets, you are definitely going to be here to get us through the lock, you have another interview in a couple of weeks …’
‘Two actually,’ Geoff interrupted, ‘I got another call today, there’s a job in Peterborough, they need an electrician with data and UPS experience to work in a banking data centre.’
‘Oh,’ I grinned. ‘Well that’s great.’
I stood up and reached my good hand out to pull him up as well. ‘You’re being a fraud, this is for the best, if we can’t get through here tomorrow then you’re going to be around the next day to help out and the next, and the next, so I for one am incredibly relieved.’
Geoff gave me the first real grin of the afternoon. I took his cup from him, turned him around and pushed him out of the doors. ‘Now go and see the lock keeper and see what our chances are of getting home tomorrow.’
Geoff grinned again and went.
Shaking my head slightly, I gathered up cups and plates and began to wash up before making some dinner. I had to smile as I looked out of the window, the kids had found sticks and were sword-fighting across the grass outside. Mortimer was almost beside himself and spent his time launching himself indiscriminately at any moving stick, the children had to reclaim their weapons from the dog before he or she could hit the other. He was doing a damn fine job of peace-keeping.
Not much had changed since the last time we were here, except that, unlike last time, Helen and Dave weren’t here and I was actually sober, which I most certainly wasn’t on our last visit.
The phone rang and drying my hands rapidly I looked at the incoming number and smiled. ‘Hi, that is so weird: I was literally just thinking about you.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Helen sound wary
‘Yep, we’re back at Salters Lode.’ I laughed down the phone. ‘I can’t remember much about our last visit, can you?’
We chatted for about an hour, finishing only when the kids bounced back in with Mortimer barking behind them.
‘Is that a dog I can hear?’ Helen, a massive dog lover herself, could almost recognise which breed of dog it was just from its breathing.
‘Yes, Amelia bought Chaos and Disorder a pup for Christmas.’ I retrieved one of my socks from the puppy in question. ‘He seems to have fitted in quite well.’
‘What is he?’ Helen laughed.
‘Staffy,’ I said shortly, ‘but so far he hasn’t shown any signs of aggression.’
Helen seemed surprised. ‘Why on earth should he? They’re lovely and really good with kids.’
I sighed, I knew I should have called her to get her view on him when he arrived.
‘But Marie …’
‘Hmm?’
‘Actually, that’s what I’m calling about,’ she suddenly sounded hesitant.
‘What, Mortimer?’
‘Mortimer?’ She laughed. ‘Only you would call a dog Mortimer.’ She sighed. ‘No, it’s Herbert I’m calling about.’
Herbert had been our very, very ancient and incapacitated terrier when we had lived on Happy Go Lucky . By the time we had decided to put her up for sale, he’d been quite ill and wasn’t dealing with life on board at all well and we’d been told by the vet after one particular scare that he really ought to be put to sleep or at least find him a final home where life wasn’t so exciting and active. I had been devastated at the time and Helen had come to our rescue, finding him a place with her friend Linda in Scotland who had a lot of old dogs and was quite happy to have another potter about her bungalow.
