Narrow Margins (21 page)

Half a mile out of Ely, on the open river, the wind, with absolutely nothing – not even a scabby little bush to stand in its way – once again regained full power. The river now sported six-inch waves rippling and breaking around the bow; Happy hit each one with a thump and a groan. Once again travelling diagonally, we limped and bounced toward the mooring and, for the very first time since owning her, I felt terribly, horribly nauseous, although I wasn't entirely sure whether it was terror or motion sickness; narrow boats just weren't meant to move like this.

The normal travel time was, at its worst, an hour and a half. This trip took well over two hours and I never want to repeat the experience. As we finally pulled into our mooring Charlie came out of her bedroom and staggered out of the front doors, before throwing herself down on the steps and turning her face into the wind to take great lungfuls of air.

‘The world's spinning,' she complained. ‘I never want to have to do that ever, ever again.'

I laughed and gave her a hug, ‘Where's your sense of adventure? Oh and by the way ... welcome to the family.'

Chapter Twenty-four
A Grand Day Out

I
T MAY SEEM THAT
every time we went to pump out something awful happened, and I have to insist this wasn't the case. We have had many visits where nothing of any import has happened at all. We have pumped out, found a mooring and spent many happy hours wandering around the town, usually on market day, just spending our afternoon lounging around on the boat in the sun and chatting to various boaters up and down the wharf. Many trips were accompanied by either friends or family. On one particular occasion, we had Arwen and Carl, their two boys Kaelan and Ashwyn and Ian, a friend from Geoff's university days.

Arwen and Carl both work within academia and I have a hard time understanding what they actually do for a living, especially as they both seem to harbour a deep and abiding distaste for their jobs. Every time you ask them exactly what it is they do, they both just change the subject with a sad shake of their heads. Arwen, tall, dark and overly organised on behalf of other people, rebels on a daily basis at home, preferring to wallow in what she terms ‘applied patheticness', giving the false impression that she is completely dippy and allowing Carl, who isn't fooled for an instant, to do what he does best and organise her.

The only fair description of Carl is that he seems to have fallen out of a Viking picture book, lost his horns and picked up a pair of glasses en route – possibly a Superman-like disguise, it's hard to tell. Tall, well built, with long, thick blond hair, unless he has let Arwen cut it for him, when he sports a sort of hairy bob for a couple of months until it grows back. He has a sideways sense of humour and is quite happy to participate in long and seemingly incomprehensible conversations which are likely to encompass ley lines, religion, spaghetti monsters and chaos theory all within about two sentences; you tend to come away from a conversation with Carl needing to lie down and gibber gently for a while.

Sam, Kaelan and Ashwyn have known each other since birth and getting them all on the boat together was a sure recipe for an afternoon of pounding feet and flying toys (not to mention flying small boys). Charlie took one look at this ball of punching, screaming humanity heading at a fair speed toward her and immediately took refuge on the roof with a book.

Ian, while being one of the most amusing people I have ever met, is never going to live on a narrow boat. At six foot four, he has to walk carefully, with his head on one side, down the very middle of the boat where the ceiling is at its highest. If he sits down, in an attempt to take up less space, his great long legs create assailable barriers for small boys to trip over, giving them the opportunity to scream louder.

He is gently spoken and usually fairly elegant, but when stuffed into a small space becomes ungainly and gangly. If he has chosen to wear black that day, he bears an uncanny resemblance to a large spider in a small test tube, a collection of knees and elbows held loosely together by an equal mixture of sharp, biting sarcasm and genial equanimity. We have found, from experience, that Ian is often the best person to keep Geoff company at the tiller, where at least he doesn't suffer a crick in his neck, spotlight burns on his head or lumps taken out of his lower limbs.

On this particular trip, we had all decided to make a day of it, have lunch at the pub and then take a gentle stroll through the French market that occasionally lined the streets of Ely. We all piled on to the boat, which had been turned around the previous day, in readiness for the onslaught, and headed off toward the city. As we passed under the first bridge, we noticed a small holiday cruiser coming from the opposite direction; the occupants, young and happy, replete with beer and warmth, were all singing along to music, while lazing in the sun on the top of their boat. They waved to us with big smiles as we chugged past.

One young man stood up on the top of the boat and reached for the underside of the bridge as they started to pass beneath.

‘Hey, look,' he shouted at his friends, ‘I can reach.' Laughing, he grabbed the underside of the bridge and swung his feet in mid air. It was inevitable, his boat just carried on and even from our distance we could see his laughing expression change to one of complete and utter panic as he realised that there was no longer a steady surface beneath, just cold, cold water. His friends, also laughing, realised at about the same moment and, leaping into action, they scrambled about the boat kicking beer cans and chips into the water in their panic to get the boat turned around.

Luckily for him, the small fibreglass cabin cruiser was light and manoeuvrable and, after a couple of minutes during which they had to make three attempts to get into a good position, they had him safely back on board. Now suddenly sober they resumed their journey with the sound of our laughter chasing them down the river.

Sitting outside the pub an hour later, Arwen commented on the mentality of people with boats, ‘Are they all mad?'

‘Not really, it's just a different set of values.' I tried to think of an example. ‘How often do you worry about running out of water, or that your toilet is going to overflow, or that your electricity is going to run out and you won't be able to cook a meal?'

Arwen considered these bizarre circumstances, ‘Erm ... Never.'

‘Exactly, but these are the things that are on a boater's mind all the time, so it may seem as though they are all a little eccentric, but, really, the children's ballet lessons or getting involved in the school's PTA really aren't that important.'

Carl frowned. ‘You say “they” – don't you mean “we”?'

I thought about it for a moment. ‘Nearly, but not yet, I don't think we've lived on a boat for long enough – we are still newbies. Some of these people haven't lived in a house for over 20 years, I wouldn't presume to even guess at some of the changes they've seen. I still have problems turning my boat around.'

We fell silent, watching the colourful ebb and flow of tourists, locals, anglers and boaters along the waterfront, all of them stepping around the huge flock of ducks, geese and swans that Ely attracts. Despite their name none of these waterfowl seemed to want to be on the water, preferring, instead, to wander quacking and honking along the wharf where the pickings were much better, getting under people's feet and menacing small children.

Arwen looked around at us all lounging indolently in the pub garden and decided that it was time for a picture.

‘What do you think?' she asked, showing me the screen of her digital camera.

I recognised the group immediately, but had to take a close look at one woman. ‘Is that me?' Arwen looked at me, confused. ‘Yes, of course.'

There was no full-length mirror on the boat, so for the past year I had only seen myself from the shoulders up – and then only long enough to put a dash of make-up on. I couldn't remember the last time I had really looked at myself.

The woman in the picture was recognisable but only just. Gone was the sharp business suit, the slick blonde bob, the permanently worried look, the harassed career woman. In her place sat a relaxed hippy type – dark, short, spiky hair, flowing skirt, purple Docs, a faded Indian shirt rolled up to the elbows, grinning under a baker-boy hat.

The clothes I knew, but the expression was one I didn't recognise at all. I looked happy and relaxed, sitting behind a half-finished pint of real ale, with Sam hanging, grinning, over one shoulder and Charlie in mid sentence to Geoff, who was laughing at whatever she had said. He sat next to me with a faded T-shirt, faded jeans with holes at the knee, salt and pepper hair dragged back into a ponytail; he, too, looked relaxed, healthy and happy. It was a huge eye-opener at how much we had changed – when on earth had that happened?

‘Look,' Charlie nudged me, dragging my attention away from the camera; she pointed toward two elderly gentlemen making their way slowly along the wharf toward us. One had a ferret in a harness and lead and, as he shuffled along, the little animal danced around at the end of its tether in time to the music of its own imagination.

Charlie was enchanted. We all watched as they shuffled toward us, and smiled to see the tourists leaping out of the way of their furry and dentally well-endowed yoyo. As they came abreast of us, we heard one say to the other, ‘Are you a duck man?'

His friend considered the question and they moved off into the crowds. We never did find out whether he was a duck man or not.

‘Are you a duck man?' Arwen stared after the odd group. ‘What does that mean, “Are you a duck man”?'

I laughed. ‘We may never know,' I said, turning to Charlie who was pounding me on the shoulder. ‘What?'

‘Can I have a ferret, please, please, please, please? I'll look after it and take it for walks – oh please, please, please can I have a ferret, pleeeeeeeease.'

Hmm, time to go I think.

Charlie never did get a ferret, but she did become the proud owner of three fancy rats. She had been pushing for a pet for some time and had made huge advances in trying to tame a crow that would land on our boat. She had got it feeding out of her hand and it was costing me a fortune in meat. This happy friendship unfortunately came to an end when a delegation of other boaters came round to complain.

Evidently while Charlie was at the boat, the crow (Eric) was perfectly happy to stay with her and be fed. While she was at school, however, it amused itself by ripping open the bin bags of every other boat and strewing the contents over each individual mooring. The friendship had to stop, so, in an effort to stop her feeding it, we purchased Tonks, Pipsqueak and Dangerous Beans, three of the daftest animals I have ever had the misfortune to deal with, but very sweet.

Tonks was a black and white Japanese hooded rat, quite normal-looking compared to the other two. Pipsqueak and Dangerous Beans were hairless, which made them look like freaky, long-tailed, big-eared, miniature, oven-ready chickens. Dangerous Beans had the added misfortune of being a ‘Dumbo' rat, which meant that her ears where completely round, twice as big as a normal rat's, and stuck out at 90 degrees to her head, which gave her a slightly goofy appearance. Despite their unfortunate lack of pulchritude (they were pig-ugly and made people scream), Charlie loved them. She did attempt to put harnesses on them and take them for walks but they resisted and complained so vigorously that she gave up. I know we haven't heard the last of the ferret.

The next trip was also classed as one of the ‘good ones' with only one member of the family terrorised, which, by our standards, was pretty good going. Unfortunately, it was Herbert who managed to get himself into severe trouble this time.

We had decided that, as the Maltings was hosting a good exhibition on the Sunday, we would stay at Ely overnight, treat ourselves to lunch the next day, visit the exhibition and then take a steady chug home – the perfect weekend – and, by seven o'clock on the Saturday evening, for once, everything seemed to be going to plan. It was a beautiful late July evening, warm and still – gorgeous – and we had a great time in the park. Even Herbert had managed to walk that far, although he had still managed to do his dead-dog impression on the way back and I had had to carry him for the last 200 yards to the boat.

Herbert was becoming an increasing worry to us. Getting on and off the boat was definitely more of a chore these days and his eyesight was getting worse and worse. He had mostly recovered from a stroke he had suffered two years previously and the vet had said (examining him to make sure he was a dog and I wasn't pulling his leg with a bit of old rug) that, by rights, he really ought to be dead and there wasn't much they could do for him, but if he seemed happy, then just wait it out and see how long he lasted.

We had to be very careful when letting Herb out of the boat every time we were away from home, as if one of us didn't chaperone him at all times, he would wander off and then when he had finished performing whatever necessary function he had to, he would just jump onto the nearest narrow boat that he could find. Luckily, most people were very amused by this and just handed him back. Finding himself back with me, he would sort of peer up at me and sigh, then permit himself to be carried back to the correct boat. (I think he was trying to find better owners, ones who didn't think that doughnuts weren't suitable for an old dog with blood pressure problems.)

On this occasion, we all went through the same old routine, and, as we were slightly out of town and it was a lovely warm evening, we just let Herbert wander maybe a bit further than we should have, while we were all collapsed on the grass. Another boat pulled in behind us and tied up. I saw Herbert wander towards it and started to drag myself to my feet, aiming to grab him before he made the usual mistake.

Too late. Much to the surprise of the woman standing at the bow, he executed a beautiful jump and landed smartly at her feet, and at the feet of the three German shepherds that were also occupying his landing space. I'm really not sure who was more surprised, the woman, who screamed, Herbert, who took one look at his predicament and screamed, or the three shepherds who, I'm sure, were convinced that God had dropped a furry plaything amongst them.

Herbert is a fraud; I now know this for a fact. He turned, jumped again, straight out of the boat with all the other dogs hot on his tail, and took off toward me at about 30 miles an hour where he shot behind my legs and keeled over into his usual dead-dog pose. I scooped him off the ground and had to hold him shaking above my head, while our new neighbours managed to get their dogs under control.

Putting Herbert safely into the boat, I went over to apologise. They were very good about it, and apologised right back, although what they had to apologise for I have no idea, but I thought it very British the way we all went about it. Herbert didn't move further than three inches off the gangplank for the next week. Poor old thing.