Narrow Escape (24 page)

Eventually I had to ask the question that had been buzzing around in my brain for a while. “Where have they all gone?” I said.

Drew shrugged. “It's mainly the holiday boats and the weekenders that have gone,” he said. “Most of the live-aboards are still here.”

“That's because we've got nowhere to go.” I said. I couldn't help feeling a little peeved at the whole thing. “Did you get the latest email from Mrs Owner?” I asked.

Drew shook his head. “I haven't been home yet,” he said. “Bill's probably seen it though, what does it say?”

“Well, she's sent us a list of other marinas that would be happy to take our boats,” I said. “But I phoned them all today and most of them don't want live-aboards. Those that do are just ridiculously expensive and want either six months or a year up front. Of course we can all afford that sort of money, after all, we're all so well paid.”

Drew shook his head. “It's like she's not even taking us into account, there seems to be no idea of what we are or why we do this.” He picked up a pebble and tossed it into the water. It fell with a sad ‘plop'. “Loads of people are putting their boats up for brokerage. This is the last straw for them; they just can't find the will to carry on any more. With the terrible weather we've had this year and now this …”

I didn't admit to him but selling up had crossed my mind as well. It hadn't taken long for me to kick the idea away but … just for a moment … it had presented itself as the easy option.

“Hey!” Drew turned to me with a grin. “Have you seen the new security guards?” He gave a deep and meaningful nod to a white van that was parked in the corner of the car park.

Scratching my neck, I stretched and took a surreptitious look. I could just make out a figure in the darkness of the cab of the van.

“What are
they
supposed to be doing?” I was fairly sure that security guards were supposed to walk perimeters and check on buildings, things like that.

“Protecting Madam's interests from irritated and vengeful boaters.” Drew choked on a laugh and with each cough winced as the expulsions of air jarred his shoulder.

“And has there been any outraged rioting or group defacings of buildings and gardens?” I didn't really need to ask, it isn't exactly our nature to do that sort of thing. The worst you would get from anybody I knew was a serious moaning at and that would be after drinking too much.

Drew laughed “No!” He coughed again. “Everybody I've spoken to has been very careful to smile and wave and take them cups of tea. It's hilarious to watch her spending her money on employing them. It just goes to show that she has no empathy, she doesn't understand most of us at all.” He shrugged and coughed again.

“You don't sound too good,” I said.

Drew winced and rotated his one good shoulder. “I feel like I've been run over,” he moaned. “Even my hair hurts.” Grabbing the zips of his coat he wrapped it around his chest like a blanket. “Maybe I ought to go home. I'm really cold.”

I nodded. “I shouldn't think all this rain is doing you any good either,” I said. The wet weather had returned with a vengeance and with the river rising and the car parks and flood defences once again resembling swamps it was becoming almost impossible for us all to do what needed to be done.

Drew coughed again. “That's it,” he said “I'm going back to the boat.” With a wave, he was gone. I could hear him coughing and spluttering as he walked away.

I stood for a little while longer gazing out over the water, trying to work out how many boats had gone but I now felt uncomfortable. Very aware that a paid set of eyes was watching my every move (I know they were watching me, I was the only moving thing in the whole place), I couldn't enjoy my melancholy any more and decided that before I did something nefarious just to liven up the security firm's night I'd better take myself home as well.

“Are you all right?” Geoff looked up from his list making as I staggered in, wet and windswept.

I told him about the empty pound and the security guard.

He shook his head when I'd finished. “I was talking to one of the families further down the line today,” he said.

I nodded.

“They bought their boat for over twenty thousand only five years ago,” he said. “Today he had an offer for just over five and he accepted.”

I winced, “Ouch. That's a big drop to take.”

Geoff nodded. “Well, we really haven't got long left,” he said. “We all need to sort ourselves out.”

“I know.” I handed him a big mug of tea. “I just keep thinking that, if I ignore it, it will all go away. We still don't have anywhere to go. But my biggest problem is that the only places that are really open to us are much further away. I'm going to have to change Sam's school and I'm going to lose my job.”

Geoff looked up and then sighed. “Let's not do anything rash until we sort it all out.”

That night I couldn't sleep. Despite Geoff's hopes that ‘something' would crop up I was fairly sure it wouldn't and wasn't looking forward to breaking the news to Sam.

The next day was Sunday and, once again, the sky was grey and overcast but at least it wasn't raining. A cold wind pinned us inside the boat and due to the general miseries, conversation was minimal.

Hiding myself behind the computer stopped me from having the same discussions over and over again. They were conversations that were never going to come out well. What I actually wanted to do was to grab Geoff by the lapels and scream, ‘what are we going to do?' at him until he came up with an answer. I was fairly sure he wanted to do the same to me. Neither of us even bothered to discuss options, there really weren't that many of them and both of us were avoiding the ‘maybe we really should sell up' conversation.

I was just wondering if the afternoon was advanced enough for me to put a large shot of rum into my coffee when Geoff stepped into the boat carrying a piece of paper. He stood and read it with a frown. “Marie?” He waved the piece of paper at me. I've just been given this by some bloke who was posting them on all the boats. “What do you think?”

He took one step toward me and then was stopped by a loud knock on the door. Elaine stuck her head through the door. She held an identical piece of paper. “Have you seen this?”

We beckoned her in and Geoff put the kettle on while I read the message:

UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY
NEW LUXURY RIVERSIDE MOORINGS WITH ELECTRIC HOOK-UP, WATER AND CAR PARKING
CLOSE TO TOWN CENTRE
10 MIN WALK TO LARGE SUPERMARKET AND TRAIN STATION
FREE WIFI
ONLY FOUR AVAILABLE
INTERESTED? PLEASE CALL … …

We looked at each other for a moment. Elaine bit her lip. “I've already called him,” she said. “I wanted to be one of the first. It sounds good but it's a fair way away. What do you think?”

I honestly didn't know what I thought and looked at Geoff with a shrug. “Geoff, what do you think?”

He stared at the paper for a very long time. Eventually he committed to a comment. “It looks good,” he said. “But there's no way Sam would be able to go to his current school. To get there would add another twenty miles to a journey that already takes three quarters of an hour.”

“Maybe we ought to go and see it.” I always found prevarication a great tool in decision making.

Elaine nodded. “We could go this evening.”

Well, that was nowhere near as much prevarication as I would have liked but I nodded.

The rain, that had been sporadic all day, began to fall in earnest as we all trudged out to the cars. By the time we made it to the moorings the roads were awash and it was difficult to see more than about twenty foot ahead.

Eventually, after driving around the small town for about twenty minutes we finally located the tiny dirt track that we'd been looking for.

The car bumped and splashed its way in and out of water-filled potholes and tall trees loomed overhead.

“Hang on a minute.” Dion pointed at a hand-painted sign that could be seen glowing in the headlights. “What does that say?”

I pulled the car to a halt and we all peered through the foggy rain smeared windows.

‘Private Property, no camping. There was another that said: ‘Private Property, trespassers will be prosecuted'. Then yet another that said: ‘Trespassers will be shot, those that survive will be shot again'. There was a smiley face hand painted on the sign, someone had added an arrow into one of its eyes.

We looked at each other.

“Not happy about casual onlookers then?” I wondered if I'd taken a wrong turn and inadvertently ended up on some sort of base for a religious cult. I was ridiculously glad that we'd phoned ahead.

There was silence in the car and a couple of shrugs. Putting the car into gear I moved gingerly down the track. We all stared out of the windows expecting, at any moment, to see something military loom out of the darkness and open fire. I couldn't help humming the
War of the Worlds
music.

Geoff nudged me. “Will you please stop that?”

Finally the track opened out into a yard that was surrounded by what appeared to be small businesses. There was a shot blasting place and a couple of other unidentifiable buildings and there, lurking in the corners were trucks and other large vehicles. There didn't really seem that much to be so protective about.

The door to a Portakabin opened and a warm yellow light shone across the yard. “Hello?” A man peered into the darkness and pouring rain. “Are you here to look at the moorings?”

Geoff and Dion wandered off to talk to him and Elaine and I hung back, helping ourselves to a good look around the yard. We could see that the edge dropped away to the river and there were already some boats parked alongside the car park.

“What do you think?” Elaine stared out over the yard. “It's a bit close to all these buildings, isn't it?” She stared around at the big trucks that were parked up.

“I don't think anything looks good in this weather.” I was trying to keep a positive outlook but the idea of swapping our wonderful rural mooring for this industrial setting wasn't really ‘floating my boat'.

Geoff waved us over and we trudged through the puddles to where they were all standing. “We're going to have a look at where the moorings are going to be,” he said.

Through the driving rain, we all trudged out of the yard and on down towards a stand of trees. I looked about as I huddled under my umbrella. Actually, this didn't look bad at all. It wasn't anywhere near the yard and it would be nice and quiet. I glanced over at Elaine who gave me a hopeful and positive nod.

“They aren't built yet.” The owner was pointing out bits of the river where he was planning to put the moorings. “But if you need to get here quickly I can probably put you somewhere for now and shuffle things around at a later date.” He glared up at the black sky. “This weather isn't making anything easy,” he said. “It's like digging in a swamp.”

“Do you have any problem with dogs?” I spoke over the thunder and decided that we really ought to get this meeting finished in double-quick time.

He shrugged. “No,” he said, “not at all.” Shaking rain from his hair he winced as it ran down his collar and under his coat. “As long as they're kept under control.”

We all nodded. “So can we fence them in?” I was fed up with poor Mort being on a running line and I was fairly sure that he was fed up with it as well.

“You can do whatever you like,” he said.

Elaine and I grinned at each other. Now
that
was exactly what we wanted to hear.

There really wasn't much to look at and, feeling slightly waterlogged, we all took refuge in the Portakabin that served as his office. I was very aware that we were all dripping and turning the floor beneath each of us into a small puddle.

There was a moment's silent communication where we all looked at each other and nodded before we handed over the deposit.

Geoff was trying to get the time frames worked out. “We don't need to leave where we are until early December.”

The owner nodded. “That would be good,” he said, “it'll give me time to get the moorings finished here for you.”

We spent another couple of minutes chatting about the vagaries of boating and then all piled back into the car. It was great knowing we had somewhere to go, now all we had to do was get the boats ready to do a major move and we'd be on our way. There was a definite party atmosphere in the car on the way home. So much so that I had to tell Dion and Sam to stop poking each other otherwise I'd leave them on the side of the road.

The good mood lasted throughout the rest of October and even the seemingly constant rain and terrible weather did little to irritate us. Geoff rushed about, putting in new lights and installing a new battery bank, we'd been on a land line so long we hadn't realised how dilapidated our batteries had become.

“What do you think about this?” Geoff's question roused me from my reading late one evening.

“About what?” Heaving myself off the sofa I wandered down the boat to where he was sitting at the computer. There on the screen were some fairly major pieces of machinery. “What is that thing?”

“Diesel generator,” Geoff studied the specs that had come up on the screen, “this one should be enough to give us all the power we need and, unlike a petrol generator, I can install this inside the engine room.” He huffed at the screen and shook his head. “They're pretty expensive though,” he said.

I looked at the price and winced. £500 was a pretty penny to lose from our rapidly diminishing slush fund. Well, some things are important enough that you have to take the hit and just bite your tongue. “If you're positive that's what we need,” I said.

Geoff nodded. “I will have to find some way to box it in to make it quieter and some way of making sure that the fumes go outside.” He looked up at me with a grin. “But I've got a plan how I can do that.”