Narrow Minds (22 page)

I contemplated running after him and extricating the poor animal but as they disappeared into the storm I noticed that Joe had managed to get all his legs under control and was once more up and walking. (And dripping, and sneezing, and coughing and limping.)

Shaking my head at the wretched animal's plight, I looked around for the rest of my family. They had, as expected, completely disappeared. Hurrying off in the general direction of the river I noticed that the park seemed even wilder when you are completely on your own. I silently thanked the local council for the lights they had installed on the waterfront. I have no night vision at all and without them I would have been almost completely blind.

Finally making it back to the boat, I noticed that the river had risen significantly and it was quite a hop to get back on to
Minerva
's front deck which, devoid of drainage holes, now held two inches of water. As I opened the door a small fall of water cascaded over the door stop and down into the boat landing on a towel that Geoff had obviously placed there for just such a situation.

‘Wow! It's quite scary out there.' I stepped into the warm boat with a shudder. ‘I'm definitely not going out again and the river's coming up quite fast.'

Geoff nodded around a large chocolate muffin. ‘Hmm, it is a bit wild. Well at least the weather forecast was right.'

I wandered over and put the kettle on. ‘I think I would have preferred it to be wrong.'

The kids sat silent and wide-eyed on the sofa. ‘What's the matter with you two?' I asked.

Charlie looked up at the ceiling. ‘Is it safe?'

I was confused. ‘Is what safe?'

‘If it gets any heavier are we going to sink?' she said, huddling back under her blanket.

‘No.' Geoff was very firm (he has a good ‘firm voice'), ‘and it's definitely time for bed. When you wake up tomorrow morning the sun will be out and we may be a couple of inches higher than we were, but one night of heavy rain really won't make any difference.'

Charlie and Sam nodded and headed off to brush their teeth before bed.

‘Really?' I whispered to him, when I was fairly sure they were out of earshot, I was a little bothered by his non-committal shrug.

‘I've no idea,' he whispered back, ‘the boat should be fine, we've been through heavy rain before, but as to how far the river's going to rise, I really don't know.'

As I lay in bed that night I told myself it was Geoff's snoring that was keeping me awake but I knew that really it was the rain. I told myself I couldn't really feel the boat rising on the burgeoning waters but it really felt as though I could.

Geoff, as normal, was right. I awoke to bright sunshine streaming through the windows. With the fire on and banked for the night it was as hot as one of Dante's rings inside and there appeared to be an in-boat fog, I assumed it was just the heat drying off the wet floors and it was probably a good thing, but then rushed around opening doors, windows, hatches, and roof slide anyway. Once the heat had an escape route the temperature quickly returned to something a lot more tolerable.

The river was definitely higher and seemed to be flowing a little faster but it wasn't too bad, so with the sun shining and the birds singing we set off toward Rushden & Diamonds.

As the day progressed, the sky became more and more overcast. The wind, only this morning a summer zephyr, now howled around the boat, pushing us toward the far bank. Huge grey thunderheads loomed ahead of us and the shrinking patch of blue disappeared with horrible speed.

The rain hit around Higham Ferrers, Geoff and I ran around the last lock before Irthlingborough with our heads down and our collars up. It seemed to take for ever.
Minerva
bounced around in the lock like a puppy with a flea problem and no amount of power or rope seemed capable of making her stand still.

Finally, after some nervous moments we were on our way again. Three bridges to wander beneath then round the corner and we would be at the football ground were we could hide from the weather for a couple of days.

Geoff, needing the loo, left me at the tiller with many assurances he would be back before I needed him. Watching him edge his way along the slippery windswept gunwales I pulled my hat down over my ears and wished I had needed the loo first.

Noticing that we seemed to have picked up speed I knocked off the throttle as we slid under the iron bridge. This was the first of the bridges, I also noticed that the red light was blinking again, that was odd, it only did that when we were just ticking over.

Wincing as a bucketful of windswept, freezing cold rain hit me in the face I looked over the gunwales at the river and frowned as I noted how fast it seemed to be running. I knocked the throttle off a little further and found that I was at full stop and it was just the river that was carrying us along.

This really was not good. Without power to the prop I had no way of controlling the steering, as we passed at a good lick under the iron bridge I hit the horn hoping to tell Geoff that I needed him up here right NOW!

He's pretty good as husbands go and five or six short bursts on the horn brought him back up on deck. ‘What's up?' he frowned, I noticed he had rushed out without doing his trousers up.

I indicated the fleeing banks and shouted, ‘We're going a bit fast.'

‘Well slow her down.' He shrugged like it was no problem.

‘I can't, we're already on tickover.'

‘WHAT?' he peered at the throttle then at the banks which seemed to be gathering speed. Looking over the roof I noticed that the second bridge, the one carrying the A6, was rapidly approaching.

‘WELL STICK HER IN REVERSE!' Geoff screamed over the howling wind.

I nodded, there was really no point in trying to talk. Slamming poor Min into reverse did slow her down but left me with absolutely no steering at all, so attempting to get around the right-hand bend before the bridge was a bit tricky as I had to keep putting her in forward, turning her a little then putting her into reverse to slow her down. Every time I gained a little headway the wind would slam us back into the side and the rising waters wafted us wherever they pleased, consequently we scraped through the bridge taking a little paint off our sides and some concrete dust from the bridge walls.

As we shot out from under the road bridge I could see the next and final bridge about two hundred yards away and true to form
Minerva
picked up speed and headed towards it like a horse with the bit between her teeth.

I couldn't slow down, there was no time. This bridge had sections beneath it through which I had to steer my runaway boat. A heroic bound onto the back deck he stuck his head down into his collar, closed his eyes and hung on for grim death.

I so nearly made it. As we came through one of the arches the bubbling and heaving water joined forces with the high winds and pushing our backside round, slamming our midsection very hard into the bridge. There was a horrible crunching grinding noise as Min heaved violently over to one side then a huge splash as she slapped back down into the water. Her backside rebounded out and then back again to hit the bridge just by the tiller. With the force of the bump my hand slipped from the tiller and I felt myself falling backward. As the boat slid out from under me Geoff, moving far faster than I've ever seen before, grabbed my arm and dragged me back toward him.

As our nose shot out from beneath the bridge the surging water caught her and spun the front end around to the right. Hanging on to the tiller with some sort of death grip, I slammed her into full reverse trying desperately to ignore the screaming engine that was sending huge clouds of black soot into the air, covering two people that were leaning over the edge of the bridge staring in astonished silence as
Minerva
came to an extremely sudden halt in the weeds at the far side of the river; a sudden stop that threw both of us chest-first into the edge of the roof, knocking the breath out of both of us and leaving us bruised and disoriented.

There is something about an adrenaline rush that really makes you want to check that all your limbs are intact, so for a moment or two we stood there, trying to breathe normally again, moving bits of ourselves to make sure we were still in one piece. I had to smile as Geoff obviously had some difficulties disengaging his white-knuckled fingers from the handrail on the roof, then remembering that it was only that grip that had kept us both on the boat, sighed and thanked anyone who cared to listen that he'd managed to hold on at all. We could have both, so easily, ended up in the river and that would have been disastrous.

The engine was still screaming and with a sigh I killed it with the simple act of pressing the off button. Blessed silence descended broken only by the sound of wind and rain. ‘You all right?' I spluttered at Geoff.

Not waiting for an answer, I remembered the kids and rushed off down the gunwales to stick my head through the hatch. ‘Everybody alive?' I called.

‘No we're bloody well not,' Charlie called back.

‘We're fine,' Sam giggled.

‘What the hell did we hit?' Charlie appeared in the kitchen with a blood-stained tissue in her hand, noting the horrified look on my face she looked down at it and shook her head. ‘Don't worry, it's just one of Sam's nosebleeds, he didn't bounce off anything, his nose just started bleeding, like it always does.'

I sighed with relief, Sam's nose would bleed at the drop of a hat, he had already had one side cauterised and we were expecting to have to do the other side very soon.

‘A bridge,' I finally answered Charlie's question.

‘You managed to hit a bridge,' Charlie sneered at me, ‘big brick thing standing in the middle of the river, did you not notice it?'

I really didn't have time for sarcasm as I could feel the boat moving and we still had no engine.

‘Gotta go, just checking you were both fine.'

Charlie muttered something at me but I didn't hang about to find out what it was. I headed back to the tiller, Geoff was nowhere to be seen.

For a moment I had the strong urge to check over the side, but then I decided it was a silly idea and stuck my head into the engine room instead.

Sure enough, there he was fiddling with our erstwhile engine. ‘Will that thing start again?'

Geoff nodded. ‘I think so, give her some boot and see what happens.'

At the turn of the key, Min's engine groaned and coughed but finally gasped and spluttered into life. Now came the difficult bit.

Turning her round in a fast-running river with strong winds and still pouring rain wasn't going to be easy and sure enough half an hour later we were still squished against the far bank, held there by the wind, the water flow, an underpowered engine and probably our own incompetence.

‘I honestly don't know what to do.' Geoff scratched his head and looked glum. ‘Every time we get six inches off the bank we just get pushed back on again, it's getting ridiculous and more worrying and the waters are getting higher by the second.'

I stared down into the muddy green/brown water. It seemed to be getting faster as well. But even more worrying we had gathered quite a crowd. About ten people stood in the rain on the bridge above the river and stared down at our antics (for goodness' sake didn't they have homes to go to?)

I surreptitiously pointed them out to Geoff, ‘Hey, according to our crowd to problem ratio we have found ourselves with quite an issue.'

Geoff grinned. ‘Come on, one last push,' he said, handing me a pole, ‘you push one way and I'll push the other and we'll see if we can swivel her.

I shrugged, why not? We'd tried everything else.

It worked!! Sort of. With Geoff using his pole as a long leg, he sort of walked the back around, I slammed the pole into the river and basically used it to keep Min's nose in one place. Eventually after a lot of pushing and shoving, swearing and sweating, we were the right way round.

I was soaked through. The rain ran off my hat ran straight down the collar of my wax jacket. I was so cold I really couldn't feel a flaming thing from my knees down. I grinned over at Geoff as we finally managed to start the hundred-yard cruise down river to the Moorings. Poor thing, he looked awful, his hair hung in wet rat-tails over his eyes and two small rivulets of water ran constantly from his beard. Having lost his hat, his ears were bright red and sore-looking. He really looked like a man in dire need of a cup of tea.

By five o'clock he had one, at least he had one under the sofa, he was so tired he had dropped off to sleep on my lap. I only found this out because Charlie told me later, evidently I was asleep with my head thrown back and huge snores rolling sonorously from my open mouth which I had pointed toward the ceiling. She said she didn't have the heart to wake us so had made Sam and herself tea. (I'm fairly sure they had beans and cheese on toast by the look of the three saucepans, three plates, a grill pan, a chopping board and various other items that were in dire need of washing up.) But the desire to help was there and we very much appreciated her thoughtfulness.

Chapter Ten
Amelia's Turn to Cause Chaos

A
T ABOUT TEN O'CLOCK
Geoff and I woke up enough to send the kids to bed and have a quick chat about his interview the next day.

‘Are you looking forward to it?' I asked as I handed him yet another cup of tea.

Geoff gave a huge yawn and then grinned. ‘Not really, I don't think it will be half as exciting as today.'

‘I'll be happy if I never have another day as exciting as today. What time do you have to leave tomorrow?'

Geoff yawned again and said, ‘Well, I want to go into town and pick up some plumbing parts so I thought I'd head off about eleven, if that's all right with you.'

I nodded. ‘Yup, Amelia is due here about midday which is about three in Amelia time, so she might be still here by the time you get back.'

‘Well, if I miss her, give her a kiss from me.'

‘I will.' I joined him in another long yawning session. ‘Oh I give up on today. Let's go to bed.'

It seemed like only ten minutes later when a gentle knocking on one of the front windows woke us back up. Shouting, ‘Hold on a mo!' I fumbled for Geoff's watch, ten o'clock! I stared up at the sky, what ten o'clock? Morning? Night? What had happened to the intervening hours? The soft knocking sounded again and I finally managed to throw myself out of bed and grab a big baggy sweatshirt which I threw on over my jammies.

‘Hello?' Conscious of my state of déshabille, I peered cautiously around the front doors.

‘Hi there!' A cheerful voice sang out.

I winced, coming out of the sun the figure in front of me was merely a black shape with a spectacular aura. The cheerful voice grated on my sleepy senses and I struggled to wake up enough to realise I wasn't experiencing an angelic visitation.

‘Erm … hi?' I shook my head and tried to get my eyes to stay open without the aid of a couple of cartoon-like matches.

‘Environment Agency.' The figure blocked out the sun as he crouched down to talk to me.

‘Hi.' It was such a relief to identify a face. ‘What can we do for you?'

‘Oh, nothing.' He pointed down toward the lock. ‘We just needed to tell everybody that the river's closed for at least another two days. The locks are dangerous and the river's running way too fast so I'm afraid you're all going to be stuck here for a bit, and if it rains again it could be longer.'

I stared down the moorings, there were another three boats parked on either side of us. Two smaller narrow boats, one unnamed, one called
Fairy Girl
and a large cabin cruiser.

As we stood there the occupants of these boats joined us and I made a silent vow that I would never, ever come out without getting properly dressed again, it was becoming very embarrassing. The man from the Environment Agency repeated himself for the benefit of the whole group then with a cheery wave and a promise to update us as soon as they had some news sauntered off toward his van, leaving us to introduce ourselves and talk about our various stalled journeys.

Audrey from
Fairy Girl
and her dog Bertie, a big black Labrador, didn't seem too bothered, they lived aboard and generally mooched about pleasing themselves throughout the summer and then when the weather turned inclement, the pair of them would winter in the south of France where they had a small villa. Nice life. John with Sally, a small elderly black and white collie, from the un-named boat in front of us were also unconcerned. They had no place to be and we were in a fairly good mooring spot, a village within walking distance, showers, a skip and good parking. Everything you could wish for actually.

The couple from the motor cruiser weren't so sanguine about the enforced break. They both had jobs and needed to be back at their mooring as soon as possible. So after a brief chat they disappeared with mobile phones to try and organise their hectic schedules. I remembered doing that, I didn't miss it a bit, trying desperately to get a few moments of peace but then life would catch up with you and kick you in the butt again.

With their disappearance, John and Audrey turned toward me. I became even more aware of my sartorial style statement and ran a suddenly sweaty palm down my reindeer-covered jammy bottoms.

‘Well,' I said, aiming for a breezy tone, ‘if we're stuck, we're stuck, I'd better go and tell the husband, I'll catch up with you all later.' And with a cheery wave I moved nonchalantly back into the boat.

A pair of eyes peered at me, owl-like from beneath the covers, ‘Wass going on?' Geoff yawned.

I put the kettle on. ‘We appear to be rendered motionless for a couple of days.'

‘Wha?' Geoff struggled to focus on me.

‘That was the Environment Agency, they've banned all travel on the river until it goes back down to a manageable level.'

Geoff frowned, obviously trying to sort out all the connotations of this statement. ‘Well that should be all right, shouldn't it?' He leaned up on one elbow and peered myopically at me. ‘I've got the interview today and we can stay here tomorrow and I'll move the car about a day's ride down river, then we can move on the next day.' He yawned hugely then yelped as a wide-awake son landed squarely in his midriff.

At eleven o'clock I waved him off into another bout of rainy weather. He was not a happy bunny, after years and years of high-end interviews he felt underdressed if he wasn't wearing a suit and tie but this certainly wasn't that sort of job, an in-house electrician to a large printing works wasn't going to wear a suit very often.

So clean and pressed but suit-less, he had wandered off into the rain in a bit of a grump, obviously feeling that something important was missing. Watching him go I felt an odd frisson of worry, what if he didn't like the job but got offered it. With our finances glaring us in the face I knew he would agree to anything just to keep us afloat.

Laughing at my horrible pun, I wandered about feeding children and generally tidying things away. The kids amused themselves by swearing at the weather and playing some sort of complicated card game. Knowing that I had a million little jobs to do on the boat, I settled down with a good book.

By twelve o'clock the dripping sounds in the boat had taken on the intensity of Chinese water torture. Every time I started a new paragraph the dripping sounds would take on a new tone, then stop for a moment then continue at an increased rate before settling down to a monotonous drip again.

I couldn't stand it any more and I certainly couldn't concentrate on
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
by Murakami, this is not a book you can flick through at the best of times, the dripping water made it impossible to even hold the thing without wanting to jump up and down and fling it down the boat.

Sighing, I dumped the book on the sofa and started hunting for the sealant. Damn Amelia, why couldn't she be on time for once, then I'd have a good excuse not to do anything.

‘She's here!' About half an hour later Charlie's voice dragged me away from desperately trying to poke silicone into the sides of the window with a cotton bud, I was surrounded by little plastic sticks and the silicon was taking on a decidedly lumpy, fluffy sheen.

I huffed, this was ridiculous, the windows were beginning to look so much like badly iced cakes that I was tempted to stick little snowmen and plastic figures of children on sledges along the sills. I ran a finger around the window in an attempt to remove the excess silicone, epic fail: I just managed to get a snow drift at one end.

‘MUM!' Charlie bellowed again, ‘Amelia's here.'

‘OK, OK.' I sniffed and ran my soiled finger down my work jeans, the jeans were getting to the point where they were so stiff with silicon they stood up by themselves. I had tried washing them on several occasions but they, unlike the flaming windows, were completely waterproof, and on top of that I'd had to crack them to bend them into the machine.

‘MUM!!' Charlie stamped down the boat. ‘I've been calling you, didn't you hear me?'

I pretended surprise; it was easier than trying to explain why I was ignoring her. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, these windows are driving me crazy,' I paused and scowled at the offending glass, ‘do you think there could be a hole in the steel where the water's coming in and it's not the windows at all?'

Charlie shook her head in exasperation, completely ignoring my leaking window woes. ‘Come on, Mills is here and she's got a big box.'

I frowned. ‘Wow I hope she hasn't brought her washing with her. She's going to be really irritated when I throw it in the river and poke it with a stick.'

Charlie theatrically rolled her eyes and physically turning me round, pushed me down the boat.

‘Hey, Mum.' Amelia stepped into the boat with a huge grin.

Now there are certain psychic tendencies that come with kids, they're like free gifts. I looked at her wide eyes behind her glasses, I noted the way she wouldn't actually look at me, I also noted the way that she talked almost incessantly to Chaos and Disorder which usually meant that if I couldn't get a word in I couldn't ask awkward questions.

Luckily Sam came to my rescue.

‘What's in the box, Mills?' He bounced up to the door and stared out at the box slowly collapsing as the rain saturated the cardboard.

‘Yes,' I asked slowly, ‘what
is
in the box, Mills?'

Amelia sighed. ‘Look, I know you're probably not going to be happy, but as I said earlier, it's an early Christmas present for these two, I've bought it now before I become completely broke by being a student barmaid.' She shuffled again.

‘What's in the box, Mills?' I stared down the gangplank and gasped as the box took a little leap sideways. ‘Oh God, there's something alive in there!'

Well, honestly I couldn't have said a more stupid thing, on hearing the word ‘alive' Sam and Charlie lit out of the boat like they were tied to a rocket, leaving me to glare at my oldest who just stared at the ceiling and grinned maniacally. ‘What have you done?'

Amelia took a deep breath and finally met my eye. ‘Look, you said they could have one, I got him cheap, and the kids need cheering up because they're living on this heap.' She gave me an evil smile. ‘And do you know the best thing?'

I folded my arms across my chest and glared harder. ‘What?'

‘This present makes me ‘The best sister in the world' and that's what I'm aiming for.' She patted me on the arm. ‘You're going to love him, just give him time to grow on you.'

I closed my eyes. ‘Please tell me it's anything but a flaming cat, I really hate cats.'

‘Mum, Mum! Look.' Charlie rushed up the gangplank with a little black lump in her arms, closely followed by her brother shouting, ‘Let me see, let me see him.'

‘Amelia's bought us a puppy!'

‘Oh God. No!'

Charlie, knowing me all too well, rushed over and dumped the squirming thing into my arms.

Amelia winced. ‘He might smell, he was a bit sick in the car, and he's twelve weeks old, pedigree but he hasn't any papers.'

‘Oh great.'

I looked down at the sad-looking little thing that was trying desperately to hide its head in my armpit. I wrestled him out and held him out at arm's length and gave him a good looking-over. He was an odd-looking article; all black except for a white chest and one white leg, he looked like he was wearing a plaster cast, a white shirt and a dicky bow due to the little butterfly-shaped black spot under his chin. He also had the oddest eyes, stuck rather far back on either side of his head, he gave the impression of being a black furry fish, with legs.

Dangling in my hands he wagged his long tail, yawned and blinked at me. I cuddled him back into my arms. ‘What's the matter with his eyes, why are they stuck on the side of his head like that?'

Amelia shrugged and looked shifty. ‘I assume as his head grows they'll move to the front, all the others looked the same.'

The puppy twisted on to his back and lay with all four paws in the air, he started to hiccup, then looking a little surprised, twisted quickly over to his front and vomited down my chest. Amelia winced as I howled.

By the time I had got changed, he had woken up a little bit and, obviously feeling better, was happily jumping on Sam's head, Charlie was fussing around making a list of all the things we would need for him, bed, collar, food and Amelia had made coffee.

As I sank down on the sofa he came waddling over and tried to climb on to my lap. I sighed, Geoff was going to have blue conniptions. ‘All right, all right.' I gently pushed him and his overexcited tongue away from my face. ‘So,' I looked around at the three hopeful faces. ‘What are we going to call him?'

Leaving Charlie to watch both Sam and Mortimer (the name suited him, with his black suit and dickey bow he looked like someone's elderly uncle), Amelia and I wandered into Irthlingborough to pick up all the dog stuff. Tiny collar, lead, bowls, food, bed, squeaky toys the bill came to around seventy quid. Geoff was really going to have a fit.

Walking back it began to rain again, Amelia was fine, she was carrying the dog bed and found the easiest way to keep dry was to turn it upside down and wear it as a large hat.

‘Just a little question.' I tucked the food under my coat in a vain effort to keep it dry. ‘With the boat in disarray, lots more travelling in front of us, all sleeping in one place and trying to avoid the leaks with all this rain, did it, at any point, occur to you that this might not be the best time to throw a twelve-week-old puppy into the mix?'

The one thing I can say about my daughter is that she is completely unable to deal with sarcasm; she gave me a sunny smile from under the dog bed and shook her head. ‘No, not really, I knew you'd love him.'

‘Actually, that's another thing,' I said, frowning at her, ‘why is he so old, you usually get puppies at about eight weeks, don't you?'