Narrow Escape (26 page)

The neurologist was stick-thin and severe-looking, quite terrifying. If I hadn't been so sure I was fine he would have had me quaking in my boots. However, I was so happy that everything was mostly back to normal I would have faced down Giant Haystacks himself. My protestations of severe good health cut no mustard with the dour little man at all. He listened patiently to all I had to say and then waved me into a chair. It took another hour to run through all the tests and, when he had finished, he finally cracked a smile. It was actually more of a twitch than a smile, lasting only a fleeting second before he returned to his obviously normal blank expression.

“You seem fine, a little wobbly but it seemed to have been more of an inner ear problem than anything else,” he said.

“A little wobbly?” I'd thought that the tests would have shown that I was back in perfect health.

He nodded. “There's that one test with your left hand that obviously gives you trouble.”

I knew the one he was talking about. You hold out your right hand, palm up and flat. You then place the palm of your left hand ninety degrees palm to palm on top of the right. Turning your left hand over, you then place the back of your hand against the palm of your right and then you alternate, getting faster and faster, swapping from back to front. Almost like buttering bread. I can bat my right hand back and forth across my left but I seem to have a lot of trouble doing it the other way around.

He stared at me for a moment. “But it's not a problem really.” He had a laconic, toneless way of speaking. “A lot of people are less dextrous with one hand.”

I decided to push the issue. “So I don't have a brain tumour?”

He studied me further, his expression one of extreme sadness. I felt as though I was a pet dog that was going to have to be put down. “Well I would never say that someone definitely didn't have that sort of an issue,” he said. “But I would say that its more likely than not that you don't.”

I worked my way through all the double negatives and vagaries in that sentence. “So I might?”

“Every single one of us ‘might',” he gave a glum shrug as though it was inevitable that every member of the population harboured a lurking, time-delayed parasite deep within our psyche. “But you don't show any signs of having one, but there might be one, hidden away somewhere.”

Well, that was cheerful. “Do you think I need to go for this MRI scan?”

He looked disconsolately down at his desk and, after a deep sigh, slowly shook his head. “You can if you want to,” he said. “But sometimes it shows things that then need to be investigated that then just turn out to be nothing.”

Good grief, this man answered questions like a politician. “If you were me, would you go for a scan?” This was almost beginning to seem like some sort of game. Get a straight answer … ten points.

The neurologist shook his head slowly and gave a little shrug. He looked completely dejected. “Probably not,” he said.

I subsided. That was obviously the best I was going to get. I thanked him for his time and, after grabbing my coat, stood up. As I headed for the door a thought occurred to me. “So, I can drive now?” I was completely fed up with having no transport, I'd been bouncing off the walls all week.

He nodded. “But it's better if you don't.”

I was confused by the difference between his body language and what he'd actually said.

“Why?”

“Cars are dangerous.” He sighed and placing the top back on his pen he placed it slowly and carefully back into the red plastic stationery tidy that sat on his desk. “Those things really will kill you.”

I was very confused. “But legally I'm OK to drive?”

He nodded again. “If you must.”

What? Just … What?

Back at home I finally relaxed and immediately started thinking about our looming move. There's a difference between being sure in your own mind that there is nothing wrong with you and having a medical professional, however morose, confirm your suspicions. Now that the immediate problem of possible brain surgery was removed I could concentrate on more pressing issues. With a big sigh I called the local school and made arrangements to visit with Sam. I couldn't ignore the facts any longer; changes were going to have to be made.

When Geoff came home that evening I gave him the good news and after a celebratory packet of biscuits he also turned his mind to our next problem. “So,” he said, “what on earth are we going to do between being chucked out of here and being able to get through Denver and out to our new mooring?”

I had no answers for him. Any visitor mooring that was likely to be able to accommodate us was going to make parking the cars very difficult. There was no way that Geoff could empty his van of all the tools and bits and bobs he carried around. If he left the van parked overnight in some remote spot and left everything in it we could almost guarantee that it would be battered and empty by first light.

November was fast running out and with the weather being so very foul it was looking as though we couldn't get anywhere even if we wanted to. Floods covered East Anglia and pretty much every other part of England. Those boaters that had managed to find themselves moorings at Huntingdon and beyond found themselves stuck around Earith. Rivers broke their banks and the surrounding fields began to look like huge pools. Roads were closed, diversions were set in place and still the rain fell in an almost continual stream.

Feelings were running very high about the weather. Walking through Ely one afternoon I stood behind an elderly gentleman while waiting to cross the road at a pedestrian crossing. A car, obviously moving a little faster than it should, hit a puddle and covered the gentleman in muddy water. He spluttered in massive indignation and stamped his feet to shake the water from his raincoat. Turning to me his mouth moved but no sound came out, he was obviously beyond angry. Eventually he managed to get himself under control. Pulling himself up to his full height he sniffed once and settled his hat more firmly on his head. He studied me for a moment and then nodded and leant forward to speak.

I held my breath and wondered what on earth he was going to say. I hoped he didn't think it was my fault he'd been soaked, I took a step back.

He stared at me, eye to eye and then shook his head. “Drought my arse,” he said. He swallowed convulsively for a moment and then nodded as though we were privy to some sort of government conspiracy. He raised his finger and shook it at the sky, when he spoke again his voice rose in a shout. “Drought my sodding ARSE.”

At this point the lights changed and, at the frenzied beeping from the crossing machine, he whirled and stamped away through the puddles. I'd hovered about and let the lights change back to red. I felt that one more soaking might unhinge him completely and I really didn't want to be behind him when he exploded.

The river running past our boat, wind-whipped into white horses, washed boats, trees, and other flotsam past at a breathless pace. Nobody in their right mind wanted to go out in that. Even if you could battle the side winds long enough to get mid-stream, there was no way you had any real chance of getting where you wanted to go. Most people only went out if they were heading in the same direction as the river. I just hoped that they didn't want to stop or were happy to just run into the bank because trying to pull in gently was just going to be an exercise in futility.

Most of the boaters viewed the conditions with a certain amount of trepidation but we knew that there was to be no stay of execution. Those that had dared to ask had been met with very terse and negative replies. Even Geoff, normally gentle and good humoured, had become quite militant about the whole thing. “I don't care what she does.” He stared out of the window and waved as another intrepid boater swished past at a rate of knots. “There's no way we're taking
Minerva
out in this, especially if we're going to have to tow Charlie's boat. We wouldn't even make it to the next moorings.”

My heart sank, I'd completely forgotten the other boat. Dragging that was going to put some serious strain on
Minerva
's vintage engine.

One morning in late November we finally woke to silence and for a moment couldn't work out what had happened. Geoff cautiously peered out of the window. Grey, quiet, and dry, the world stared back at him. “It's actually stopped raining.” He sounded surprised. “I need to make a phone call.”

I nodded, handed him my phone and watched as he wandered off up the bank with it. Eventually the conversation finished and he trudged back down to the boat. He shuddered as the warmth from the fire met him as he came through the door. The wind may have died down and the rain may have stopped but the temperature was dropping rapidly.

“What was all that about?” I asked.

“I think I may have found a temporary solution,” he said. “Grab your coat, we need to go and look at a mooring.”

We finally found the moorings after about half an hour of exploring the country roads beyond Littleport. Pulling into an area that was part car park, part boat park, and what appeared to be a large outdoor workshop we searched for the owner. Eventually a tall, thin man, in a check flannel shirt and black woolly hat appeared from behind what appeared to be an old railway carriage. I shivered on his behalf, he didn't appear to have nearly enough clothes on for the weather.

“Did you phone earlier about the mooring?” He grinned at us. “Come on, this way. Hope you're feeling fit, it's a fair walk.”

He wasn't exaggerating and, as we trotted along another set of flood defences, our heads tucked into the collars of our coats, he explained how it all worked.

“You can park down in the car park,” he said. “It's quite safe and obviously, as there's quite a walk, we supply a trolley for you to drag stuff about. If you have a lot of stuff like coal and shopping, just let us know and we can arrange to bring it over to your boat by lawn mower.”

The mooring he showed us was almost perfect. No electricity, but we had our shiny red generator so that shouldn't be a problem and it was only six miles away from Sam's new school so that would cut the school run right down. I recognised a couple of boats from the marina. Bill and Jenny were just over the river and we were to be parked right next to Janis the upholsterer. I laughed, it was like home from home and I felt that, apart from the walk which could prove more than a little irritating if I had a lot of stuff to carry, it would suit us beautifully.

Geoff, however, wasn't that enamoured.

“I'm going to have to get up so early to get to work,” he said as we drove back to the boat.

I felt guilty, I hadn't considered that. Geoff already leaves at seven o'clock to make him get up even earlier was a bit much to ask.

“Do we have a choice?” I really wanted to say that we wouldn't bother, we'd find something closer to his work but I knew there was just nowhere, well, nowhere within our budget and nowhere that didn't involve getting through Denver.

Geoff didn't answer but pulled into the car park of a small supermarket just outside Littleport. He rested his head on the steering wheel and then gently banged his head on the leather cover.

The reality of living on a boat, although you appear to have a vast amount of freedom, is that unless you have ability to just travel and you don't need to go to work or get kids to school you are incredibly limited. If you're buying or renting a house and you don't like the first one you visit you know there are always other options. We don't have that luxury and, counting hard, I worked out we had exactly three options: One: sell up. Two: take the mooring we'd just visited, Three: float around, hopping on and off visitor moorings, overstay the allotted time, and just hope that the Environment Agency were feeling charitable enough to turn a blind eye. With Denver being closed, escaping the system around Cambridge was impossible and under normal circumstances we should have had a big triangle in which to try and lose ourselves along with all the other boaters that had already left the marina. However, the floods and the river closures were rapidly closing that triangle down.

With the hardest, coldest time of the year rapidly approaching and with the seriously inclement weather showing no signs of letting up we had to make some decisions that, obviously, neither of us were comfortable making.

“I just don't know.” Geoff lifted his head from the steering wheel and stared, unseeing, at the front doors of the supermarket. “I want to be somewhere safe for Christmas. Ideally I want to be gone by the beginning of December. If we wait it out until the very last moment we could be into ice and snow and if the river freezes again like it did last year we're going to be in big trouble.”

“Well, if the river freezes again, there won't be anything we can do,” I said. “We just won't be going anywhere.”

Geoff shook his head and sighed again. “Can you cope with getting the shopping and all the coal, gas, and diesel to the boat from where the car's going to be parked if we take that mooring?”

I nodded. “I'm going to have to; the nights are just going to get darker. I've already handed my notice in because there's no way I'll be able to get to work and pick up Sam from school. You'll be out for at least another hour a day with the extra travelling.” I trailed off and then shrugged. “We have no choices. Until they manage to get the lock open and all of us waiting here can get off the system and out into the Middle Levels here we're all going to have to stay.” I gave him a nudge. “It can't keep raining and it seems to have stopped for now. Hopefully the river levels will drop and we'll finally be able to get through.”

Geoff turned to look at me. “It's not the river levels that are the problem now.”

Oh great, something else had obviously happened; something that I was blissfully unaware of. “Go on,” I said, “What's stopping us now?”