Narrow Margins (12 page)

Clever man – mind you, him being clever didn't make the whole sorry debacle any less his fault – so there!

Pulling into Peterborough, I found myself more than a little depressed; it really had been a horrendous day. We were close to exhausted, I had serious face-ache, we had been soaked to the skin, twice, and had spent the whole day testing out how many different things we could run into: willow trees, bridges, small boats, locks, the bank, and now, here we were in the middle of Peterborough, heading toward twilight and totally at the prey of the infamous vandals.

I was being more neurotic than normal but we had been told by so many people that Peterborough was not the place to stay that I was convinced we were all going to be murdered in our beds. I think it was less these oft-repeated warnings and more the horrible prospect of spending an evening with a psychotic and paranoid wife that convinced Geoff a mooring out of town would be a much better prospect.

The map showed a pub halfway down Morton's Leam that advertised moorings, and during a quick telephone call we were informed that they were more than willing to let us book their mooring for the night, which, we were also informed, could easily take Happy's length. I was so relieved to be guaranteed a pub-cooked meal, a vandal-free evening and a long, warm sleep that I became almost cheerful and positive again, which just confused Geoff and confirmed his concerns about imminent psychosis.

As we turned into Morton's Leam it became very dark, and we could see lightning beginning to flicker on the distant horizon. The rain once again became more insistent and we were pleased to see the pub looming out of the murk on the right-hand side. As we slowed Happy to a crawl, ready to pull her over, the mooring became horribly visible. We stood in silence, staring in growing panic. The mooring was four pieces of wobbly scaffold with some old planks stretched between them.

‘Not in a million years,' Geoff shouted over the sound of the rising weather, ‘we're going to have to find something else.'

I nodded mournfully and as colour images of hot meals and warm beds fled, I applied the throttle, noticing as I did so that water was running out of my sleeves and my tongue was hurting again. I moved Happy toward the oncoming storm.

Twenty minutes later, still looking for somewhere solid to moor, the storm hit us with full force. The lightning became cartoon-like; huge, crackling, multi-forked explosions of light and sound that appeared to hit the ground about ten feet away. Ten feet is probably an exaggeration, but in the dark and the rain, they appeared far too close.

‘We're going to die,' I thought. ‘We're standing on the back of a metal tube in a thunderstorm, the only way we can make this any worse is to stand on the roof, each carrying a copper pipe, both screaming insults at the gods.'

Due to the ferocity of the storm, Geoff and I had taken to communicating in sign language; the rain had become so heavy it had been similar to having a conversation in a power shower (just minus the warmth and all the giggling). Every time one of us opened our mouths, the water would run in and we would choke and cough. The gods not only have a sense of humour, they also have a major sense of drama.

Partially deafened by a roll of thunder, we rounded a corner and the subsequent lightning bolt lit up the huge doors of Stanground Sluice just ahead of us.

This was the biggest lock I had seen so far; the black, glistening, heavy wooden doors rose high above the roof of the boat and, appearing out of the storm, it could easily have been used as a prop in a vampire film. Geoff, on seeing the sluice approaching, immediately put Happy into reverse and swung the tiller to the right, intending to push us away from the doors.

‘We can't moor here,' he bellowed over another incredible roll of thunder. ‘We will have to go back to Peterborough.'

By this time, I was soaked through for the third time in one day, tired, in pain, totally miserable, and quite frankly the nefarious vandals could have everything I owned, just as long as they left me with a blanket and a cup of tea.

As usual, our next problem was turning Happy, and the incredible weather just made it all the more difficult. In the driving rain we couldn't actually see the bow or either of the banks, so Geoff elected to go to the front and tell me when we were close to hitting solid ground. While waiting for him to make his careful way down the gunwales to the bow, I studied the lock behind me.

As the lightning lit the B-movie horror set again, I stared at the huge doors, waiting for the Scooby Doo cartoon bats to make an appearance (luckily they didn't – I think I would've fainted). Through the gloom I could just make out Geoff waving me on. I sighed and wiped my soaked face with a sodden sleeve, down with the throttle, over with the tiller and here we go again.

Peering through the rain I could see Geoff making frantic hand movements and could vaguely hear him shouting something, but as I could neither hear him nor work out what his hand movements meant, I slowed down slightly but kept on going.

First there was a gentle thump, then the bow lifted and tilted perceptibly over to the left, followed by a swishing grinding noise as the whole front end lifted about three inches up on a silt bank and there she stopped – again, again, again. Oh bugger, bugger, bugger, damn and blast.

‘What the hell are you doing?' Geoff clambered back down the boat toward me. ‘I told you to stop!'

‘I can't hear you, and your hand movements don't make any sense,' I screamed at him. ‘What am I supposed to do – and what the hell does this mean?' I flapped a hand at him.

‘Slow down, of course.'

‘Well it didn't look like it to me.'

‘Everybody knows what that means.'

‘Well I don't. Look, if you can do better, you drive the bloody thing.'

Geoff looked toward the front. ‘Just go backwards', he sighed ‘and we'll see if we can get her afloat again.'

By this time we were both squelching as we moved about. After about ten minutes struggling, rocking and revving, I managed to coerce Happy into backward movement, but every time we attempted to go forward, we ran aground in the same place. There just wasn't enough room for her to turn; she needed to pivot. Geoff decided that the only way to accomplish this was for him to jump off at the front, push her around, and then jump back on again.

Brilliant! This actually worked. With Happy going forward and Geoff pushing at her nose, she pivoted and turned back towards Peterborough. It was now fully dark and trying to give us some light to steer by, I turned on our pathetic tunnel light, but all this managed to do was highlight just how heavy the rain was by illuminating each individual drop.

I kept Happy turning slowly, trying to keep her close enough to the bank for Geoff to get back on. I could just about make him out in the gloom, walking alongside, awaiting his chance. As another bolt of lightning illuminated the area, I saw him make the jump for the side, saw him in silhouette pull himself up and then he just wasn't there any more. Training once again took over and I immediately cut the engine.

‘Geoff, Geoff! Are you all right?' I couldn't see him at all.

It's strange, real fear is nothing like hysterical panic. First you go very cold and it's as though a huge hand takes hold of your insides and begins to twist. Another lightning flash showed him pulling himself up over the gunwales at the front and making his way back toward me. I was so relieved to see him in one piece that, for a split second, all I wanted to do was cry; then I became unreasonably angry with him.

‘What happened to you?' I snarled.

‘I slipped when I jumped but managed to grab the door, so I just got one leg wet,' he shook the offending limb at me, gazing mournfully at his water-filled, weed-covered boot.

‘Oh for God's sake,' I snapped and leaving him staring after me in amazement, I stamped off into the boat where I sat, dripping, on the floor to have that much-needed cry.

Half an hour later, we were back in Peterborough. I had sorted myself out and was, once again, keeping Geoff company on the back as we pulled into a mooring. Although I wouldn't have thought it possible, the rain had become even heavier but at least the lightning had subsided. It was decided (more by me than by Geoff, who quite rightly pointed out that any hooligan stupid enough to be out in that weather wouldn't be able to untie a knot) that to allay the danger of the very absent vandals cutting our moorings and leaving us adrift. We would put down the anchor and, more to shut me up than from any possibility of us heading out toward the Wash, Geoff went out to sling the anchor off its rooftop resting position and into the river.

Sitting in the front with Sam, who was complaining vigorously that I was wet and smelly and that he was hungry, we both watched with interest as the big chain came clattering past the window, a huge splash, then silence.

For just one moment I had the notion that the anchor had taken Geoff with it, and the big hand, again, began to grip my insides, but within seconds he was back inside and wrestling with his soaked boots. We were, by now, so wet that it was nearly impossible to tell which leg had dropped into the river, the only tell-tale sign was a small piece of weed caught in one of his boot laces.

As we were sitting despondently in the boat, trying to work up the energy to move, a knock at the door made me leap nervously to my feet and gesture Geoff to go and answer it. Did vandals knock?

‘Hello,' a male voice drifted through the open door, ‘we saw you come in. You looked so miserable the wife has sent me round with tea and cake.'

I peered around the corner of Sam's nest room to see who would be so incredibly wonderful. The man standing in the rain was about 50 years old, with bright blue eyes, looking slightly embarrassed from beneath a mop of grey hair. He was carrying what looked like a fruit cake and a big teapot.

‘I told her you probably wouldn't need it ...'

I leapt toward him holding out my hands to take the pot. ‘No, no, that's fantastic,' I gabbled, ‘thank you so much, thank your wife so much.'

He blushed gently and rubbed a hand down the leg of his brown cords, shuffling his big brown boots backwards and forwards. ‘Ah, it's nothing, she loves to cook but with only the two of us living on the boat there's only so much cake you can eat.'

‘Would you like to come in?' I enquired, noticing that the rain was beginning to run off the bottom of his chin. ‘Share some cake?' I grinned at him.

‘No, no,' he took a step backwards. ‘You enjoy your tea, I take it you have milk and sugar?'

We nodded.

‘If you could just return the pot when you're done, we're on ‘Rosie' behind you; we're sticking around town for a couple of days so you can just drop the pot and the plate into us in the morning if you like.'

With that, he turned and disappeared into the darkness waving over his head at our shouted thanks.

Two hours later we were warm, dry and full of tea, ham and cheese sandwiches and the most excellent fruit cake; it was so good that even Sam ate it.

We took stock of the situation; from leaving Peterborough late this afternoon, we had been soaked to the skin and almost terminally terrified, we had run aground, we had shouted, screamed and cried, we had courted death by electrocution, we had been travelling, struggling and cursing for over two and a half hours.

The outcome of all this hard work and heartache? Two hundred yards from where we started and facing in the wrong direction. Argh!!!

Chapter Thirteen
What Flaming Landmarks?

M
ORNING BROUGHT THE SUNSHINE
, strange, slept-in hairstyles and a restored sense of humour. As we weren't due to go through Dracula's lock until three-thirty that afternoon, we had the morning to pretty much do as we liked and it was great!

I popped round to ‘Rosie' to return the teapot and plate that had been so kindly left with us the previous evening. Knocking on the back window I gave a shouted ‘Hello'.

‘Hello,' a smiling woman with very short grey hair and glasses poked her head through the window, ‘are you from next door?'

‘Erm, yes,' I waved the pot at her, ‘I came to thank you and return your teapot.'

‘I saw you come in last night.'

Her head disappeared into the boat and I could track her progress by following her voice toward the back.

‘You looked so bedraggled and miserable. What on earth were you doing out so late and how did you get through the lock at that time of night? I'm Faye by the way, do you want a coffee?'

I sorted my way through her questions, working out which one to answer first.

‘I'm Marie, and yes I'd love a coffee and then I can tell you why we were coming back from the lock because I think I need a coffee to go over it again.'

‘Come on in,' Faye smiled.

The smell wafting from the kitchen was incredible and set my mouth watering, vanilla and chocolate, the smell of cooking and fresh coffee was enough to tempt any weight-watcher almost past endurance. We wandered into the saloon and she indicated a small table upon which sat a beautiful oil lamp, which was so polished to perfection that it reflected the room around it.

I pulled a chair from beneath the table and sat down as she bustled off toward the kitchen. The decor matched the smell, warm, homely and inviting, it was like sitting in a perfect doll's house; the walls were varnished wood and had that reddish tinge which warmed the room beautifully; the small sofa in cream with gold-tasselled cushions fitted snugly in one corner; a matching tiny armchair stood on the other side of the boat, with a nest of tables to one side and a wood-burning stove to the other, raised from the floor on a plinth of warm cream stone tiles and surrounded by cut logs.

All of these stood on a red and gold Persian rug that stretched from one side of the room to the other; small hangings and pictures cluttered the walls and the whole room changed colour as the light came through the stained-glass flowers fitted into a porthole. Just to complete the picture, there was a huge fluffy white cat asleep with its feet in the air on the armchair.

It was absolutely beautiful and I really hoped that Happy might one day look like this, but I doubted it.

By the time I had finished telling her all about our trials from the night before I had probably extracted every expression that she possessed: horror, laughter and more horror.

‘Oh good grief,' Faye laughed. ‘I didn't realise you had a little one on board, that must have been so worrying for him.'

I doubted Sam had even noticed we were missing until he was hungry; he had certainly noticed when we came back because we were wet and horrible and definitely getting in his way.

‘He seems to be taking it quite well really, no doubt he's saving up all the parentally induced angst until he's fourteen, and then he will hold it against us for the rest of our lives.' I grinned at her and got to my feet. ‘Talking of Sam, I'd better go, I promised him we'd go into town. Thanks for the coffee and I really, really love Rosie, she's beautiful.'

‘You're very lucky,' Faye smiled sadly. ‘We didn't decide to live on a boat until the kids were teenagers and then they wouldn't have any of it, so we had to wait until they left home before we could buy one. They still gave us a hard time and refuse to visit'. She looked down at the table, and ran a finger through a wet coffee ring.

There wasn't really much I could say to that without bringing up my worries about Amelia so I kept quiet.

‘Anyway,' she took her glasses off, gave them a polish then stuck them onto her head, ‘at least you have someone that would like a cake.'

‘Yes, he loved it.'

‘Oh no, not that one.' She stood up and stuck her hands into the kangaroo pouch pocket on the front of her smock. ‘Little boys don't want to eat fruit cake, does he like icing?'

I laughed. ‘Usually that's the only bit he'll eat on the Christmas cake.'

‘Hang on a mo.'

She vanished back into the kitchen.

I looked around at the pictures on the walls; there did seem to be a lot of children, two boys and a girl at different stages of life smiled out at me from behind the glass.

‘Here you go.' Faye handed me a large paper plate full of small creamy cakes, covered in white icing. ‘They're butterfly cakes, I made a load for a lady I look after in town to take to a meeting, but I've made too many as usual.'

‘I can't take these,' I tried to hand her back the plate. ‘You were an absolute life-saver last night and I really can't thank you enough, but any more would just be greedy.'

Faye pushed the plate away and firmly turned me toward the doors. ‘Rubbish. Anyway,' she laughed, ‘they're not for you, they're for Sam. I've written my number on the bottom of the plate. If you find yourself back here again, give us a call, I would love to see your boat finished.'

With that I found myself standing on the wharf, Faye gave me a quick hug which I was more than happy to return, then, with a wave, she'd gone back into the boat, presumably to do some more cooking.

Geoff looked up as I entered and fastened his eyes on the plate. ‘More cake?' he enquired hopefully.

‘Cake?' Sam appeared and surreptitiously tried to put his bowl of Sugar Puffs onto the table.

I put them in the kitchen. ‘After lunch.' I picked up the broom and shuffled them both away from the plate with it. ‘If we stop to eat these, we'll never get anything done.'

We wandered around Peterborough for the rest of the morning with no aim or itinerary. We had coffee, Sam discovered that charity shops sometimes held old copies of Beano Annuals and made us visit every single one he could find. We found a great Army surplus store that sold some fantastic waterproofs, we raided the camping shop for decent gloves and hats, and wonder of wonders we actually, finally managed to get a can opener (we bought two ‘just in case') and then treated ourselves to a slap-up lunch in an Italian restaurant.

Sam couldn't understand why there were no restrictions; I just gave him the menu and said, ‘Order whatever you want.' I think it was more to do with the fact that we were warm and dry and the proud owners of a can opener than anything else but it was a lovely, gentle, terror-free morning and, returning to the boat, we were all in high spirits.

After filling Happy with water and pumping out the toilet tank, we were as ready to go as we were likely to get. Turning her round in this wide river gave us no problems at all and I was eager to head back to Dracula's Lock to find out what the nasty thing actually looked like in the sunshine.

Not much better, to be frank. Staring through the now open, black, wet doors, which still loomed menacingly above us, revealed a walkway far above, which reinforced the impression of moving through a castle entrance-way.

Once again the wind had picked up and we struggled to get Happy inside. Luckily there were some men working on the garden and they cheerfully grabbed ropes and just hauled us into place. Not only was this the biggest lock I had ever seen, it was definitely the deepest and Geoff and the lock-keeper's daughter (hmm, sounds like a folk song) seemed very far above me as I struggled to keep Happy still in the fast-rising waters; I now have a much better idea of what an oubliette would be like. It only took about four or five minutes to get the lock filled, and within ten minutes we were all back on board and out the other side, still not a bat in sight.

The other side of the lock was classed as the ‘middle levels' and strangely the landscape changed immediately and dramatically. From thinking of the lock as Dracula's castle I decided that maybe it was a large wardrobe and we were now floating through a very flat, boring Narnia. From being gently curving and occasionally wooded, the landscape was now bleak and straight, with no hills, no trees, few houses and every field set out in identical squares through which the River Nene ran in a dead straight line via man-made drains.

We had taken time to study the waterway map while at lunch in Peterborough and couldn't understand why the map showed overhead pylons as identifying landmarks. Actually travelling through this silent, flat landscape it became very apparent why this was so – there was nothing else to use.

For hour after boring hour we travelled through a landscape that was perfectly accessorised by the weather: grey, cool and monotone. After the first hour I noticed that we had started to converse in whispers; obviously this was due to a subconscious desire not to break the mood. By the third hour, I couldn't stand it any more and took to singing in a loud and tuneless voice just to break the silence.

It then became a game, gaining points by actually going around a corner or under a bridge. By the time we reached the infamous Whittlesey Corner we were quite looking forward to it,
anything
to break the monotony.

The Whittlesey Corner is very sharp, and although easily able to accommodate boats up to 68 foot long, we are 70 foot long – over 71 if you count the fenders. We had discussed our chances with the lock keeper at Dracula's Lock, he had given Happy a critical once-over and shrugged.

‘You should be all right,' he laughed. ‘Give it a go.'

‘Great, thanks,' I sighed and went back to imagining the fiasco that would occur if we failed.

Geoff slowed right down to a crawl and started to ease her round the corner, chug by chug. At one point her nose was about three inches away from the left bank at the front, the far side of the middle of the boat was six inches away from the right-hand bank and her stern was scraping gently on the left bank.

For some strange reason, Geoff, Sam and I were all holding our breath, as were the two fishermen on the bank, who, seeing us coming had grabbed all of their equipment and had moved it well out of the way. We knew that if we couldn't get around we would completely block the waterway until some other boat took pity on us and came to give us a bit of a shove. As we finally cleared the corner the fishermen gave us a short round of applause.

Eventually we were back on open water and allowed ourselves a collective sigh of relief. With the worst obstacle out of the way, we moored early in Whittlesey and, as congratulation for getting ourselves there in one piece, we celebrated with an exceptionally good Chinese takeaway.

With dinner finished and Sam safely tucked up in bed, zonked after a two-hour game of ‘completely fail to kick a ball, fall over a lot and run around shouting' – the family version of football (none of us are very sporty) – and a huge meal, we spread the maps out on our wobbly table. I had spent a good hour on it after dinner and, using a toothbrush, had managed to extricate all the little pieces of food that were stuck under the raised sides. Geoff had wandered up to see what I was doing and stood and watched me for five minutes until I said with great satisfaction. ‘There, that's done, that wretched table has been bothering me for days.'

‘Oh,' he turned to his toolbox, ‘you should have said.' He then picked up a hammer and chisel and within 30 seconds had taken all the sides off, revealing more congealed food. He stood looking at me, smiling, obviously waiting for my heartfelt thanks – I nearly killed him.

Sitting at our now exceptionally clean table, we worked out that we were actually two whole days ahead of schedule. As we had to give 48 hours advance warning to Salters Lode, a large lock that would let us out of the middle levels, we prepared to settle in for a couple of days and enjoy the enforced interlude.

We were so close to the end of our journey that it all seemed a little surreal. Being only half a mile apart, Salters Lode alerts Denver Sluice, informing them that a boat needs to get off the tidal stretch of the Ouse and onto the river. Getting onto that river would put us within five hours of our new permanent mooring, our new home.

After sitting around looking at each other for a bit, we decided that there was no way we could just do nothing for two days, so we decided to make use of that time and journey by train to Rugby (which was the nearest station to the marina) and, from there, catch a taxi to Braunston Marina to pick up the cars.

With a plan in mind, we felt that we could legitimately lounge around for the rest of the evening discussing the extreme events of the past week. All our traumas didn't seem nearly so bad when being discussed in the warm evening, with a full stomach and a bottle of red wine past the halfway mark. They almost seemed amusing, not so much that I would like to do it again, but at least I managed to laugh – well, as much as I could around a still rather sore tongue.

Ten o'clock in the morning, Friday, September 16, and I was on the phone (with a slight hangover) to the lock-keeper at Salters Lode. He was helpful and nice, and told us that, yes we could come through at 11 o'clock two days from now but to make sure we were there on time as there was a neap tide and nothing was going through in the afternoon. Great, all going to plan.

‘Just one more thing,' he asked as I was about to go. ‘How big are you?'

‘70 foot.'

Silence, then, ‘Oh dear, there's no way I can get a 70-footer through with this tide up, you'll have to come through in a week's time when it's all gone down.'

‘What?' The tinkling sound of breaking plans sounded in my head.

‘Yeah, sorry about that, the lock has two sets of gates, the first set is full height and those can be used at any state of the tide but only allow up to 60 foot through, and we have a second set of half-height gates that we use for large boats, which can only be used when the water is low. Give me a ring in seven days and we'll see how we are doing, OK?'