Narrow Escape (8 page)

Charlie nodded; she was used to this sort of behaviour.

Cuts and grazes were all right, all I ever did was rub gunk on them. Sore throats had to be really bad for either of them to tell me about it. The first thing I did was reach for the tincture of myrrh. It was a terrible-tasting substance. If they were willing to take that, I knew they were ill. Strangely enough they weren't ill very often.

By the time Geoff had completed his revised plans for the new office area, night was beginning to darken the sky, and I'd just finished making the dinner.

Charlie was in full flow moaning about her various scrapes and bruises and Sam had disappeared into computer world.

“Do you want to have a look at these plans? Geoff wandered over to where I was studying the pile of washing up.

“Erm … Yeah.” I picked up my big saucepan that was full of hot water from cooking the potatoes and groaned silently, I'd just filled the sink with bubbles and now I didn't have anywhere to throw it. “I just need to throw this outside.”

Geoff nodded and went back to drawing cupboards.

It was cold on the front deck and, not wanting to spend any more time than necessary outside, I put one hand on the gunwales and began to tip the water into the river. A startled ‘quonk' stopped me in my tracks.

Peering over the side I squinted into the twilight. A group of very young, very early ducklings peered back at me. I panicked and, worried that I might inadvertently cover them in boiling water, I pulled the pan back quickly, and dropped it.

Boiling water splashed across the deck turning the whole thing into a hot and slippery nightmare. One foot went one way, the other decided not to join it, and down I went, the last thing I remember thinking was, it's a bit early for ducklings.

I woke up with a royal pain in the back of my head and Geoff's face looming over me. It had obviously taken him some while to realise that I hadn't come back in as I was frozen to the bone and soaked through. There were also various parts of me that were bright red and beginning to blister.

As he helped me to stand my stomach turned over and I had to rush to the side of the boat to be very ill over the side. My head throbbed and there was a warm, wet sensation in my hair. I put my hand to my head and it came away dark and wet. Geoff looked a little sick and for a moment I thought he was going to join me at the side of the boat.

“I think we'd better get you to A&E,” he muttered.

I nodded and then desperately wished that I hadn't. The world swam like ink in oil and once more I headed for the side of the boat.

Accident and Emergency at Addenbrookes was, thank goodness, quiet and it didn't take long before a very young doctor was poking at the back of my head. Thankfully the nausea and the psychedelic vision had now subsided; all I had left was a raging headache.

“You were lucky.” The nurse, who had taken over after the doctor had decided I'd got no brains to rattle, was applying steri-strips to my skull.

“I suppose I was,” I said and winced as she applied another strip. “I could have decorated the front deck with all the pink and gooey inside my skull.”

She laughed, “It's grey actually,” she said. “I was thinking that it was lucky you fell backward. If you'd bashed your head and fallen forwards you'd have been in the water and unconscious.”

“Eaten by ducklings, they were waiting for you to do just that, you know.” Geoff put on a hollow voice. “There would have been no trace; just a set of very fat ducks and one, sad, floating slipper.”

I would have given him a gentle slap but it was too much effort to raise my hand. “Anything left would have drifted ashore and Eric would have eaten it out of spite.” I yawned. “I'm really tired. My headache's getting worse.”

“Haven't you had any pain killers?” The nurse looked a bit startled. “I'll get you some; I'm all finished back here.”

As she wandered off I put my hand to the back of my head. I couldn't feel anything, there was a big gauze patch on it. “How lovely,” I muttered. “Draw a circle on this and I'd have a target.”

Geoff sniggered, then his smile fell. “Are you all right?”

I nodded slowly and carefully, then grinned as the nurse came back holding a white paper cup containing tablets. “I'll be much better in about fifteen minutes,” I said.

The children's concern lasted about twenty-four hours, the incredible headache lasted twice that.

Amelia was horrified. “You could have died.” She screeched down the phone at me. “I don't need that sort of upset right now. I've only got two and a half months left.”

Well, that brought me up very short. Ten weeks! Ten weeks and then I was going to be a grandma. My headache came back and I had to go and have a lie down.

Amelia had taken to pregnancy very well, far better than I ever did. Every time we saw her, she got a little bit more round and a little bit happier. I wondered if this state of affairs would last into the final days. The baby's due date was around Sam's birthday in early June. As Amelia had asked if I'd come to Cardiff for the birth I'd had to do some fast talking to get Sam to take a later birthday celebration. He'd taken it very well considering. Ever the one to make the most of the situation, he'd held out for a much more expensive birthday celebration than the one I had planned for him and had agreed to the compromise that I could say
when
but he had the final say in
what
we did on the day.

Geoff wasn't at all concerned about his upcoming change of status. Using the last of his holiday he set about building the new office and storage space.

As with most builds the initial creation of the desk, the cupboards, and the bedding storage should have taken about ninety per cent of the total time required. The reality is that you set aside some time and get ninety per cent of the work done. The other ten per cent takes at least another ninety per cent of the allocated time, or just never gets done at all.

Some of the work HAS to be done when the sun shines. Painting is one such job: the weather has to be warm as every window and every door needs to be opened as wide as possible. Meals have to be taken outside and the secondary job is occasionally rushing back into the boat to pick the dead mosquitoes and other suicidal bugs out of the wet paint. I have to admit I'm not keen on this job and in our last boat we had a vast array of tiny bumps in the paintwork. Each one marked a glossy bug tomb.

Geoff, however, was more than happy pottering about building the office. Apart from the slanted side of the boat there weren't any odd angles.

“It's so much easier when some pest isn't demanding forty-five flaming degrees.” He punctuated each word by rapping me gently on the head with an old school wooden ruler.

I caught the rule and with a slight tug took possession of it. “I don't want anything at forty-five degrees this time.” I gave him my sweetest smile and, holding one end of the ruler onto his new desk, I gave the other end a flick making the foot long length of wood go
boiiiiiiing
.

He grimaced at me and winced as I kept flicking the ruler, making odd noises.

“Good.” He took a swipe at the flapping measuring stick and tried to stop me from being irritating.

I manoeuvred myself around so that he couldn't reach the ruler. “No, I want …” I stopped flapping the ruler and turned to face him with another big smile. “… a curve.”

“Gimme that!” Geoff snatched the wooden stick away from me and waved it triumphantly over his head. “Mine …” He laughed and held the ruler onto the ceiling. After a couple of moments his face and the ruler fell. “What did you just say?”

“A curve.” I marked out where I wanted the desk. “Look it could start here.” I held my hand about two foot from the new bedding store he'd just finished building. “And it could sweep around the side of the boat and meet up with the edge of the new storage unit behind.” I refused to look at him knowing full well that he would be going puce about now. “It would look lovely.”

“No, no, no, no.” Geoff stuck his fingers in his ears. “I did not hear you say that, therefore I don't have to take any notice.”

I stuck my lip out at him and ignored his frantic humming. “But it would look fantastic. We could put shelves underneath and have books and all the paperwork that we needed in box files. We wouldn't have to worry about it all turning to mulch because it would all be nicely organised and out in the open.” I knew he hadn't wanted to put shelves there because of the damp.

“Anything but a curve.” Geoff gave me an anguished look. “I'm an electrician not a flaming chippy, I just can't do it without doing dovetail joints and all that sort of thing. It would take ages and I'm not convinced that the outcome would be very good.” He stared at the wall for a moment. “Tell you what, how about a compromise?” He looked hopeful. “I'll take the panelling down, and reline that wall. Then I'll put the shelves there and I'll bring the desk around like a little plinth but it will have an angle not a curve.” He scratched his head with the ruler, looked at it in surprise and then stuck it in his back pocket. “How about it?”

“Oh all right.” I grinned at him. “I really would like shelves there.”

He stared at me for a moment and then groaned. “That's what you wanted in the first place, wasn't it?”

I nodded and shrugged.

“There are times you know ….” He left the implied threat hanging and wandered off to get a hammer to start taking down the panelling.

Mortimer had wandered up to see what all the fuss was about. I looked down at him. “I have a feeling I should make myself scarce for a little while. The sun's shining, fancy a walk?”

He wagged his tail and stared blankly at me.

I pointed at the door. “Where's your ball?”

At the word ‘ball' he bounced and took off down the boat like a rocket. Braking with all four feet just before he hit the step he scuffled around under the sofa and backed out holding his bright orange ball in his mouth. He doesn't understand every word I say but there are times when that dog understands just enough.

It was a nice day. There was still a hint of chill in the air but outside the world was taking advantage of the sunshine. Elaine and Dion next door had a gaggle of grandkids leaping in and out of their boat. Dion, completely unfazed by the furore that was going on around him, was calmly sitting on top of his boat with a fishing rod in his hand.

“Have you caught anything?” I hailed him as I waited for Mortimer to finish his investigations of the undergrowth.

“I'm not fishing.” He took a sip from a can by his side.

“Oh?.” I stared pointedly at the rod in his hand. “So what
are
you doing, gnome impressions?”

He laughed. “I'm staying out of the way.” He checked to see if all the kids were still in sight. “Up here I can keep an eye on them and they're still too small to reach me.” He gave me a happy thumbs-up.

I laughed and headed off toward the reservoir with Mort.

There is something glorious about walking in the sunshine with a happy dog. We stopped occasionally to skim stones across the sun-flashed water. Mortimer, who isn't very bright, decided that I needed a large stone from the bottom of the lake and kept sticking his head under the water to look for one. He finally selected a huge slab of slate which he dragged on to dry land. Being rather muscle-bound he didn't realise that it was longer than he was and proceeded to run around in circles, one end of the stone between his jaws the other embedded in the soft mud of the bank.

Leaving him to it I wandered off beside the water. Looking around I could see for miles. I always loved it here. There wasn't a house to be seen, boats chugged slowly up the river and occasional tractors could be seen puttering backward and forward planting whatever the farmer decided was optimal for that year. But it never changed; year after year the same things were done. It was one of the most restful places I'd been able to find.

Eventually, after I had managed to separate Mort from his rock and we'd completed a couple of circuits of the large reservoir, I headed back toward home.

The grandkids next door were keeping Jake, Dion's dog, occupied by rolling his ball down the flood defences and then laughing hysterically as the happy spaniel rushed up and down collecting it for them to throw again. He would lie on the top of the bank and if they ignored him for more than a split second he would pick the ball up, carry it over to one of the children and drop it on their bare toes, then sit back, white feathery tail waving frantically waiting for them to throw it yet again.

Into this happy group Mort arrived like a bowling ball hitting a bunch of skittles. Children scattered, giggling, in all directions. Jake, momentarily nonplussed, opened his mouth and his ball rolled down the flood defences and towards the boat. Hitting the concrete step that Dion and Elaine used to access their boat it bounced and with a little flip headed straight into the river.

I put Mort back on his lead and headed down the steps to retrieve it.

“Don't worry.” Dion climbed down from the roof and picked up a child's bright green fishing net. “I'll get it.” He shook his head. “He only drops it in there about twenty times a day.”

I laughed and turned to see why Mort was pulling so hard on his lead. There was a huge splash and when I turned back most of Dion had vanished, all that was left were the soles of his feet sticking up over the riverbank.

There is an odd moment in any situation where your brain refuses to process what your eyes are seeing. Then all the information comes crashing in all at once.

At my panicked yell Elaine appeared at the boat door.

“What? WHAT?” She looked around, obviously counting grandchildren. When she had come to the number she was expecting, she looked down as Dion's wet head appeared over the side of the bank and sighed.