Narrow Minds (20 page)

Geoff, having finally got to his own feet, linked his arm with mine. ‘Come on, gimpy.' He pulled me limping and protesting toward the door of the shop. ‘They're going to be closed in about fifteen minutes and I think that we might need that fire pretty soon.'

The Chandlers were actually closing their doors as we approached but, as usual, they were welcoming and polite and gave us the extra twenty minutes that we needed to load ourselves up with goodies.

I love chandlers, I always have. They are like huge Aladdin's caves of stuff, amongst which I could furtle for hours. Tiny baths, fridges, cookers and fires take up one side of the shop while down the centre are ropes, couplings, gas fittings and all other manner of bits and bobs with which to make all your in-boat systems work.

To the right was a selection of lights and ‘pretty stuff' with which to adorn your living area. I became completely enamoured with a selection of ‘Tiller Pins'.
Minerva
's was a completely standard brass pin that looked like a tiny poker. It wasn't very fancy and I decided that the only way my life would be complete was to purchase a brand new pin. There were swans, boots, dogs, all sorts of things, each with its own attraction. The only problem was that I couldn't decide between one shaped like a witch and one in the shape of a Buckby Can, which is the classic boatman's water can, you often see them decorated in the classic Rose and Castles design, standing proud and tall and full of flowers on the top of some of the more ornate boats.

Finally I decided on the witch. She stood with her broom held between her hands, her hat crumpled and tilted to one side, her long cloak fell in folds about her back, she was lovely. I felt Geoff smooch up behind me so held her up for him to see.

‘Look, I'm thinking of getting her, what do you think.' I refused to look at his face knowing full well how he feels about ‘useless frippery'.

‘Hmmm.' Geoff began to tick items off on his fingers. ‘New water tank, new floor, heating system, paint, wood, diesel and …' he paused for a moment to let his tedious list sink through my haze of consumerist hope, ‘… NO JOB.'

As he wandered off toward the till, his hands full of functional items, I pulled a face at his back, then replaced the witch back into the display. I really hated it when he was right but surely isn't it nice to buy something that is just ‘nice'? Does everything have to be for a reason?

Sighing, I began to make hand signals to the kids who were examining a bath, ‘Come on you two, time to go.' I stared at my witch one last time. ‘I don't want you anyway.' I poked her in the hat. ‘You have a really big nose.'

Getting back on to
Minerva
was much easier. The other boat had gone and we pulled her close to the mooring and I just stepped aboard.

That evening, parked up just past Braunston Marina and with the fire and flue now sealed to within an inch of its life we lit our first fire then sat outside, sheltered from the wind by a huge hedge as the fire gave off horrendous ‘first fire' smells.

It seemed utterly ridiculous to have the fire burning bright and warm inside while we were all sitting outside, freezing our bits off and huddled under a blanket while we waited for the stink to burn away.

I stared up at the sky. For the previous two weeks we had been able to see nothing but stars, now, however, the stars could only be seen occasionally as the clouds scudding across the sky broke and frayed, spun about by the rising winds. Autumn was coming, there was no doubt about it, and I contemplated the long winter we'd have to face before we could really start any major jobs. It was all a bit daunting really.

Pulling myself together, I pushed aside the slight feeling of foreboding. We chose this, I in particular pushed hard for this lifestyle, I had absolutely no right to worry about it now. Shaking off the feelings, I got to my feet. ‘Come on, time for bed.' I poked Sam who gave me a sleepy grin from where he was slumped on Geoff's lap.

Later that evening Geoff and I were snuggled up in bed when the first drops of rain began their inevitable tattoo on the roof. I smiled, this was what I liked best. The fire, having given up stinking, had a few feebly glowing bits of wood which gave off a faint red light. This was what I remembered about living on a boat and snuggling down, I fell asleep listening to the gentle sounds of rain and being rocked to sleep by the still-rising winds, I didn't know why I'd had that moment of being maudlin earlier in the evening, everything was going to be fine.

Waking up the next morning, I yawned then snapped awake. I was freezing and completely wet through. Leaping out of bed with a yell I woke the rest of the family, who finding themselves also wet and cold soon joined me in adding to the rapidly expanding litany of complaints that, for some reason, we all aimed at poor Geoff, as though it was his fault we were wet, our bedding was soaked and under each window a large semi-circle of damp stained the floor.

Geoff, seemingly deaf to all our moans and whines, moved from window to window, his expression darkening with each examination he carried out.

An hour later the sun had come out and we had decorated the tow path, the hedge and the top of the boat with every wet item we could find. Geoff had dug out two huge canisters of sealant and was currently smearing the sticky substance around each and every window.

‘So what's the prognosis?' I handed him a cup of tea and frowned as he touched my arm with a sticky hand. ‘Yuck, that stuff's horrible. Do you think you've managed to get all the leaks?'

Geoff shook his head. ‘I honestly don't know, I hope so.' He took a huge gulp of hot tea. ‘I won't really know until there's more rain, so we just have to hope that the next rainfall is heavy enough to test the sealant but short enough that if I
have
got it wrong, we have time to seal it again.' He shrugged and then fumbled in his pocket as his phone rang.

Great, I wandered off to check the slowly drying items that were still strewn around the area. With the weather threatening more change, short sharp rain showers weren't really on the cards, it was far more likely that it would start to rain and wouldn't stop for hours.

‘Hey.' Geoff had finished his phone call and was wandering down the tow path toward me. ‘I've got an interview.'

I felt a sudden rush of relief. It was like suddenly letting out a big breath that you didn't really realise you were actually holding in.

‘Great,' I said, giving him a hug, ‘which one of the three hundred jobs you applied for finally came through?'

Geoff frowned at me. He hates, really, really hates and abhors exaggeration.

‘I've only applied for about six.' He shook his head. ‘It's that printing company in Cambridge that wants an in-house maintenance electrician.'

‘And is it a job that you really want?' I didn't feel confident about the look on his face.

‘It's a job,' he said and shrugged, ‘and we ‘want' money coming in so I ‘want' this job.'

I nodded. ‘OK, and when is the interview?'

‘Next Thursday.'

I counted up on my fingers. 'So we have six days to get somewhere that we can stop for the day, we have to get a car to somewhere useful and then we have to be able to get you to the interview and back again.'

Geoff nodded then, as my phone rang, he mooched off to continue sealing the windows.

‘Hey Mum!'

Amelia's strident voice shrieked at me out of the earpiece. ‘Hey you,' I replied, grinning, ‘what are you up to?'

For the next half an hour Amelia gave me her potted plans for the next three years. Dismissing most of it as potentially, and probably, changeable, some of it within days, I concentrated on a name that kept cropping up: Chris.

Waiting for a gap in the lifestyle monologue that covered: work (now working at a pub in Reading and enjoying it enormously); education (had just got her acceptance to Reading College and would be starting in September); living arrangements (Amelia and Tallulah her pet gecko were currently occupying a friends spare room, but she was looking for something more permanent.) I finally managed to get a word in edgeways. ‘So how's Chris?' I asked in a deliberately casual tone.

There was silence, a small cough and then a slightly squeaky, ‘He's fine.'

‘Hmm mmm?' I waited, knowing that Amelia's innate need to fill a silence meant that she'd have to tell me probably far more that she had originally intended to. Sure enough, after a split-second she launched into a detailed description of his looks, his personality and his mental capacity. All, of course, entirely perfect.

When she had finished, or at least paused for breath, I leapt into the conversation. ‘So when do we get to meet this paragon of virtue, gorgeousness and intellectual prowess?

There was a giggle from the earpiece. ‘Soon, I should think.' There was a pause. ‘But I think I need to prepare him to meet you lot.' She laughed again. ‘Let's face it, I don't want you frightening him off with all your weirdness and it doesn't matter how much I pretend to be normal, they say if you want to see how your girlfriend turns out you look at her mother.'

‘Hey!' I bleated down the phone. ‘I'm completely lovely.'

She laughed again. ‘Yes, you are. But let's be honest, Mum, any new boyfriend walking into the hell you call home had better be the forgiving type.'

Hmm, she was probably right. I looked down at myself, the only thing I could find this morning that hadn't been soggy was a pair of Geoff's long khaki shorts and a puffy flannel shirt, which I was finding a bit warm so I'd rolled the sleeves up and opened all the buttons to show the lime green vest thing I was wearing beneath. This fetching ensemble had been finished off with some accessories (Gok Wan says that accessories are vital to an outfit), a really scraggy pair of Birkenstock clogs which I was wearing with a pair of merle grey fluffy walking socks and a bad tatty old straw hat which I had picked up from a folk festival.

Geoff, trophy husband that he was, complemented my sartorial elegance by sporting the grizzled, sticky-tar-and-sealant-spotted, not-shaved-for-days look. Together we made a right pair, with the contents of our life strewn, drying, across the vicinity it was no wonder that walkers hesitated before they walked past and I can see how my eldest might hesitate before introducing us to an unsuspecting new boyfriend.

‘I promise we'll scrub up before we meet him.'

‘Good.' Amelia's tone changed. ‘Anyhoo, got to go I'm due at work in about half an hour. Oh, before I forget, I'm coming down to see you, I have a day off next Friday, where will you be?'

‘Just you?' I asked hopefully.

‘Yes, Mother.' Amelia became stern. ‘Just me, Chris is working. Text me where you'll be and I'll see you about lunchtime. Speak before then. Byeeeee!' And with a click the phone became silent.

With the disappearance of my oldest I sat and contemplated this wonderful young man that she seemed to have found, but it was no good, I couldn't imagine him at all; I was just going to have to be patient and wait until she delivered him up for parental assessment. I sighed, I hated being patient it really wasn't me at all.

Chapter Nine
Nothing's so Scary Second Time Around

L
ATER THAT DAY
I found out that Braunston tunnel hadn't changed at all. It was still drippy and horrible and, being a Saturday, there were a lot of boats making a run for home territory before the weather changed for good. We met four boats coming the other way, one in particular, was a little trying. A hire boat with a group of twenty-somethings aboard. Drunk twenty-somethings, guiding a large narrow boat badly through the dark was a bit worrying. They came haring through the tunnel going far too fast, their lights were off and the only way I knew they actually even existed was by the echoes of screaming and yelling that drifted to me on the tunnel air flow, so luckily I had slowed down, confused by the fact that I couldn't actually see any lights.

I finally worked out that, to frighten the girls on board, one bright spark kept turning off the tunnel light and plunging them into darkness. This made the girls scream and must have made the macho intellectual feel great.

Slowing right down I hugged the tunnel wall, I could see the light flashing on and off but couldn't really work out how far away they were, so to give them a good idea of where we were I hit the horn, hard.

There were more screams but from the sound of the engine they didn't bother to slow down and as their lights flicked back on I could see that they were about twenty foot away and heading right for us.

Laughing at all the screaming, the driver swung the tiller over and then began to panic as he realised it wasn't having much of an effect. Up to that point their speeding boat had only been required to go in a straight line, now being asked to turn in a confined space and at speed it was behaving as a normal narrow boat does and ignoring him completely.

His facial expression changed from one of fairly drunk amiability to sheer panic and he hauled the tiller over as far as he could. Luckily, and I still think it was a mistake, he grabbed the throttle and poured on more power, I think it was a mistake because he only did it for a moment before he screamed and then pulled the throttle back, killing the engine completely. Luckily that burst of power turned the nose just enough, enabling the boat to skid down the side of ours. Knowing how this works, I grabbed the top of the roof and just held on.

For a moment there was nothing but the sound of scraping and grinding metal then they were gone, their screams and shouts echoing back down the tunnel toward me. I waited until silence was regained and a normal heart rate was restored then, taking a deep breath, I began to think about continuing down the tunnel.

Charlie leapt out onto the gunwales and tottered across to the back deck where she proceeded to scream things like ‘Morons' and ‘Slow down you drunken Twits'. (I think she said ‘twits'.)

Geoff stuck his head out of the other side door and was obviously confused when he came face to face with the tunnel wall. ‘What happened?' he shouted back at me.

‘Holidaymakers,' I shouted back, ‘drunk.'

He shook his head and helpfully pushed off against the wall of the tunnel with the handle of our broom. ‘You all right?'

I looked ahead and was relieved to see that the opening of the tunnel was just visible. ‘Fine, we'll be out soon.'

Going into the tunnel we had left behind bright sunshine, we emerged into what can only be described as dank gloom. A light rain had started, the type of rain that you don't really feel the individual drops but within half an hour every single item of clothing that you have on is soaked through, it has to be my least favourite type of rain: insidious.

Stopping for the night just outside Bugbrooke, we headed again for the village. Last time we had visited the village shop in a desperate search for a can opener. This time we were fully stocked with can openers (we had three, all in different colours).

We knew that we had to face the Rothersthorpe flight and hoped that we'd be able to get to Northampton as soon as possible. With Geoff's interview looming, we'd decided that our biggest problem was moving a car so he'd have some transport to get to Cambridge that Friday. Our cunning plan was to stop over at Northampton for the day, the kids and I would go and do some much-needed shopping and laundry, Geoff would take the train back to Birmingham, pick up the car from there and would drive to Rushden & Diamonds football ground near Irthlingborough. He would then catch a bus back to Northampton where he would rejoin the boat and we would all head for Irthlingborough to pick up the car. Simple really.

After a ridiculously early start (I'm sure that Sundays were never intended for early anything), and having battled down through the Rothersthorpe locks, we seemed to be making good time and pulled up on the Northampton Wharf to go shopping at Asda at about two o'clock in the afternoon.

Organising the children to go shopping before Geoff could look at his watch and decide that we could perhaps get a little further, I decided that maybe now would be a good time to stock up on all those little items like jumpers and warm socks. The long sunny days at the start of this journey now seemed like a distant memory and I was becoming used to the rain clouds suddenly looming up and pouring their contents over me. There seemed to be a constant cold wind as well and I was beginning to miss my thermals.

After the shopping trip we loaded all our packages back aboard and started to make ready to leave. We were only heading for the water point which was just a little way down the river, so we were all being pretty relaxed about the whole thing. Charlie, who had been staring out of the window, crinkling her nose at the concrete and steel wharf of Northampton's main boat parking facility, suddenly frowned and pressed her nose to the window.

‘What's he got in that cage?' She stood up and sauntered down the length of the boat and stood staring out of the double doors at the occupant of the next boat along who was currently sitting on one of the benches talking to a large black bird that had emerged from the cage resting on the seat beside him.

‘Look, he's got a crow.' Charlie dithered, unsure whether she could go and talk to him.

‘Go on.' I nodded toward the figure on the bench. ‘Go and ask him about it, I'm sure he won't mind and if he does you'll soon know.'

She nodded and leapt of the boat with her brother only inches behind her. Watching them go, with Geoff a couple of paces behind them, I decided that it was no wonder Charlie was so interested in this particular pet. A couple of years ago she had attempted to tame a wild crow and had actually managed to get it to take food from her hand. The only problem was that while Charlie was at school, Eric (the crow) had taken out his frustration at Charlie's absence by ripping open all the bin bags of the other boaters. A couple of them had asked her to stop inciting the wildlife to riot and Eric had been firmly ignored until he went back to foraging in more normal crow-like places. Charlie hadn't been happy about it at all.

I had just finished putting the last of the shopping away when the thunder of not so tiny feet trashed the gentle quiet of the boat. Charlie threw herself on the sofa. ‘He's had him since he was tiny,' she announced, frowning at her feet. ‘He found him and looked after him.' She stared into the water the circles made by the sudden onset of yet another shower mirrored the shape of her thoughts. ‘I wish I'd kept Eric.'

‘Eric wasn't really a baby though was he,' I said, smiling as I remembered the huge black bird, he wouldn't have looked out of place stunt doubling for a raven in an Edgar Allan Poe poem, the way he looked at you, all speculative intelligence and controlled malice still made me shudder a little. Nothing that bird did would have surprised me, but even with all his horror-film connotations I couldn't deny that he was incredibly beautiful.

Charlie shook her head. ‘No, he was too old to properly tame,' she said and gave me a sudden grin, ‘hey, there's loads of crows around the old mooring, maybe next spring I can find a baby.'

Argh! Quick, which way to handle this? If I disagreed she would almost certainly find one and if I agreed she would also find one. I decided to settle on gentle apathy so I gave her a distracted nod and a muttered ‘maybe' then sauntered off down the boat in an effort to lose this particular conversation.

The next morning Geoff was off to the train station bright and early, he was due to bring the car back to the car park across the road for the night and then we would all take off and go our separate ways tomorrow. I was a little tense about running
Minerva
without Geoff's wonderfully steadying presence but we were only due to meet him just down river. There was a lovely little mooring just before the first lock and we'd decided that we would park there and take a walk to the health food store ‘Daily Bread' which was a nice walk along park-way and cycle paths. True, it wasn't as peaceful as it might have been, due to the six lane A45 that runs alongside the river, but it was still a nice walk.

We spent a happy day shopping in Northampton. Charlie managed to get her hair cut and Sam managed to talk me into buying him yet another version of the card game Munchkin. I didn't really mind, we'd spent a lot of riotous evenings playing this ridiculous game so another addition to the set wasn't a huge hardship. As the rain began again we slogged through Beckett's park, juggling purchases and polystyrene trays of fish and chips.

Charlie had only recently purchased a little model of a narrow boat, it was beautifully painted and very sweet and she had looked a little sad as we'd taken it to the post office and posted it off to her friend Louise, who still lived in Durham. ‘Do you think we'll ever have a normal summer holiday?' Charlie threw a chip to a rather fearless squirrel that had been shadowing us for the past ten minutes. Squirrels on land, swans on water, it occurred to me there was always some creature harassing you to share your dinner.

‘Sure.' I laughed as another squirrel shot down from a tree, stole the chip and vanished with a flick of the tail. The muggee screamed useless chattering threats at the mugger then doggedly followed us again in the hope of some more dinner coming his way. Sam quite happily gave in to his request. ‘Next year you'll be bored as anything, nowhere to go, long days of sunshine and mowing the lawn, you watch, you'll be begging us to take a boat trip before the second week is out.'

Charlie was silent for a moment and carried on throwing chips at the squirrels (there was now a little gaggle of them and they were beginning to appear quite threatening). ‘I bet I bloody well won't,' she muttered.

I pretended not to hear her.

Geoff turned up that evening, tired and irritated. Tired because he had basically been travelling since eight o'clock that morning and irritated because public transport, in his opinion, is unreliable and the other road users are just out to get him.

Snuggled up in bed that evening I shuffled over to give him a hug. ‘What time's your interview on Friday?'

‘Three o'clock,' came the short reply followed by a long yawn.

I took the heavy hint and asked no more questions.

By ten o'clock the next morning we were all ready to go our separate ways. The kids and I began untying the boat and Geoff waved us off before he headed toward the car. We weren't going far, about a mile down river where there was a nice mooring next to a lock. We had decided that while we waited for Geoff to transfer the car to the football ground then catch a bus from Irthlingborough to Northampton then walk along the towpath to the lock, we would visit Daily Bread which was an interesting little shop about twenty five minutes' walk away.

There are two Daily Bread co-operatives, one in Cambridge and one in Northampton; they are lovely shops which I try to visit as often as possible. Selling healthy and wholesome food, they are trying to walk that fine line where they area supplier of products which are good value for money and offer a positive benefit to the customer and the environment. Based on some sound trading principles of profit without greed, fair trading and responsible retailing they stock things like nuts, flours, breads, fruits and a whole list of other things that it is difficult to get elsewhere or at least, difficult to get in bulk.

Back in the boat Charlie and I were attempting to find a dry place to store 5 kilos of rice when Amelia rang.

‘Hey mum,' she panted at me (she always sounds like she's running a race), ‘right,' she didn't even give me time to say hello, ‘coming down on Friday.'

‘Oka–'

‘Shhhh.' She shushed me. ‘I need to remember all this or I'll forget to tell you.'

‘Oka–'

‘Shhhh … now is it OK if I hand over the kids' Christmas present?'

‘What?' My head spun a bit. ‘Isn't it still September?'

‘Well, yes,' Amelia huffed, ‘I ordered and paid for it when I still had a proper job and now it's turned up I need to get rid of it as quickly as possible, I think my living space is even smaller than yours.'

‘I doubt it.' I looked over to where Charlie was trying to stuff the rice into a cupboard and making up swear words while she attempted the seemingly impossible.

‘Anyway, is that all right?' Amelia pushed.

I sighed, ‘Yes I suppose so, what the hell is it anyway?' I stared over to where Charlie was gazing out of the window with her hand over her mouth.

‘Never mind, it's a surprise.' Amelia laughed, ‘I'll see you on Friday, OK?'

My attention shifted, Charlie was now banging for all she was worth on the window shouting, ‘Get off, get off.'

‘Amelia sweetie, I have to go, your sister's threatening something outside.'

‘I can hear her,' Amelia was silent for a split second then said, ‘never mind, tell me all about it on Friday. See you, byeee.' And she was gone.

Placing the phone in my pocket I looked over at the middle child. ‘What are you doing Charlie?' She took no notice just carried on banging on the window and screaming. I raised my voice over the din, ‘CHARLIE!'