Narrow Minds (30 page)

‘Well you're getting paid for what you've done, aren't you?' I got up to put the kettle on again, this obviously wasn't going to be a one-cup conversation.

‘Yeah, but I could have been with you and the kids.' He put his head in his hands and stared at his boots. ‘The aerial, the windows, your hand,' he continued, waving at my, now slightly grubby, bandage, ‘none of that might have happened if I'd been here.'

‘Humph.' I sat down next to him. ‘I think you flatter yourself a bit.' He looked up hurt. ‘Oh, I didn't mean it like that.' I gave him yet another hug. ‘Unless you've suddenly become King Canute, there was no way you could have slowed down the water in Titchmarsh Lock, so it may well have been your hand, not mine that got hurt, but as we usually run so that you do the locks and I work the pound I can't see that anything would have been different.'

Geoff shrugged and nodded.

‘Look,' the kettle chose that moment to blow its whistle but I continued, ‘we're here, we have an extra week's money in our pockets, you are definitely going to be here to get us through the lock, you have another interview in a couple of weeks …'

‘Two actually,' Geoff interrupted, ‘I got another call today, there's a job in Peterborough, they need an electrician with data and UPS experience to work in a banking data centre.'

‘Oh,' I grinned. ‘Well that's great.'

I stood up and reached my good hand out to pull him up as well. ‘You're being a fraud, this is for the best, if we can't get through here tomorrow then you're going to be around the next day to help out and the next, and the next, so I for one am incredibly relieved.'

Geoff gave me the first real grin of the afternoon. I took his cup from him, turned him around and pushed him out of the doors. ‘Now go and see the lock keeper and see what our chances are of getting home tomorrow.'

Geoff grinned again and went.

Shaking my head slightly, I gathered up cups and plates and began to wash up before making some dinner. I had to smile as I looked out of the window, the kids had found sticks and were sword-fighting across the grass outside. Mortimer was almost beside himself and spent his time launching himself indiscriminately at any moving stick, the children had to reclaim their weapons from the dog before he or she could hit the other. He was doing a damn fine job of peace-keeping.

Not much had changed since the last time we were here, except that, unlike last time, Helen and Dave weren't here and I was actually sober, which I most certainly wasn't on our last visit.

The phone rang and drying my hands rapidly I looked at the incoming number and smiled. ‘Hi, that is so weird: I was literally just thinking about you.'

‘Oh yeah?' Helen sound wary

‘Yep, we're back at Salters Lode.' I laughed down the phone. ‘I can't remember much about our last visit, can you?'

We chatted for about an hour, finishing only when the kids bounced back in with Mortimer barking behind them.

‘Is that a dog I can hear?' Helen, a massive dog lover herself, could almost recognise which breed of dog it was just from its breathing.

‘Yes, Amelia bought Chaos and Disorder a pup for Christmas.' I retrieved one of my socks from the puppy in question. ‘He seems to have fitted in quite well.'

‘What is he?' Helen laughed.

‘Staffy,' I said shortly, ‘but so far he hasn't shown any signs of aggression.'

Helen seemed surprised. ‘Why on earth should he? They're lovely and really good with kids.'

I sighed, I knew I should have called her to get her view on him when he arrived.

‘But Marie …'

‘Hmm?'

‘Actually, that's what I'm calling about,' she suddenly sounded hesitant.

‘What, Mortimer?'

‘Mortimer?' She laughed. ‘Only you would call a dog Mortimer.' She sighed. ‘No, it's Herbert I'm calling about.'

Herbert had been our very, very ancient and incapacitated terrier when we had lived on
Happy Go Lucky
. By the time we had decided to put her up for sale, he'd been quite ill and wasn't dealing with life on board at all well and we'd been told by the vet after one particular scare that he really ought to be put to sleep or at least find him a final home where life wasn't so exciting and active. I had been devastated at the time and Helen had come to our rescue, finding him a place with her friend Linda in Scotland who had a lot of old dogs and was quite happy to have another potter about her bungalow.

‘Herbie?' I smiled, he'd had the most horrible smell and unlike our current enthusiast had spent most of his life cuddled up to the fire or wrapped in his blankets, he was ugly and battered, half-blind and had fallen into the river with alarming regularity. ‘How is he?'

Helen sighed. ‘He died this morning.'

‘Oh.'

‘I'm really sorry,' Helen paused, obviously trying to find the right thing to say.

I saved her from the search. ‘Hels, don't worry, he must have been about a hundred in dog years. What happened?'

‘Well, nothing really, he just died in his sleep.' Helen laughed. ‘He spent most of his life asleep so it was sort of expected really, but he wasn't in pain, he just didn't wake up.'

We spent another ten minutes chatting then, spying Geoff walking back toward the boat, looking a bit concerned, I assured her I'd call as soon as we got home and ended the call.

‘What's up?' I called over to Geoff as I pocketed my phone.

Geoff carried on trudging toward me with no sign that he'd even heard the question (he really must get his ears tested sometime soon). When he finally reached me he gave a small shrug. ‘No answers, I'm afraid.'

I must have given him a quizzical look because he continued, ‘He can't say whether we'll get through or not.' He shrugged again and said, ‘We're just going to have to play it by ear.'

Later that evening, Mortimer decided that nine o'clock was the perfect time to want to go for a walk. I took one look at the kids engrossed in some Disney film and decided that even asking one of them to take him out was just going to be met with blank stares, Geoff was asleep and snoring on the sofa, so, avoiding the gambolling, leaping puppy, I wandered around the boat, putting on walking boots and coat, I then filled the pockets with phone, torch, and secondary torch and filled my travel mug with coffee.

After losing Mortimer in the dark the previous week, Geoff had brought home a brightly coloured and reflective collar with tiny LED's set into it at odd spaces, I hadn't had the chance to use it on him yet and tonight seemed the perfect opportunity. I told the kids that I was going out (I'm not sure they even heard me) and, turning on the torch that was attached by straps to my hat I headed out into the night with Captain Enthusiast.

There was a definite scent of autumn in the air so with Mortimer flashing like a small Christmas tree and me taking a sip of coffee every other step we headed away from the water and down a small lane. It was a very still night, thick clouds obscured any moon and I was glad of my two torches.

As we wandered along I watched Mortimer and thought of Herbert. The final loss of the little dog gave me a small ache; it was another part of another life that had now vanished. He had never really got his head around living on a boat and fell off with alarming regularity, I grinned as I remembered some of the troubles he got himself into. ‘Seeya Herb,' I whispered, then jumped as the light on my head went out.

Stopping for a moment, I placed the other torch carefully onto the ground and took my hat off. It was obvious that the battery had gone on the head torch but I bashed it a couple of times just to make sure (this percussive maintenance had never worked for me before, but there was always going to be a first time).

Obviously wondering why I wasn't immediately behind him, Mortimer came bouncing back towards me. Jumping up at me with his ball in his mouth he misjudged the whole thing horribly and landed directly on the big torch that I had placed so carefully on the ground, trampled to death, it too went out and plunged me into darkness.

I think I may have mentioned before that I have no night vision. I've heard other people say this but they always have a little, I have none, none at all. Plunged into an inky blackness, I immediately panicked. There were no houses around, certainly no street lights and with thick clouds covering the whole sky there wasn't even a glimmer of starlight, let alone moonlight. All I could see was an alternating flash of bright blue and white lights that emanated about a foot from the ground and appeared to be moving in circles (Mortimer was apparently chasing his tail).

Feeling a little like Thelma from
Scooby Doo
I knelt down and felt around for the other torch, I must have taken a couple of steps away from where I was before and I couldn't feel it anywhere around. Taking a few deep breaths in an effort to calm the real panic that was building, I decided that Mort's LED's were so bright that they were probably blinding me every time they flashed, I could see where the dog was but they certainly weren't lighting up anything around him so, reaching down, put him on his lead and turned off his collar. It made absolutely no difference at all, I could feel Mort tugging on his lead and there were other sounds, a wind seemed to have sprung up and there was a rustling and sighing among the trees so, just to have something to look at, I turned it back on.

I waved a hand in front of my face but obviously there was no point in waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. They just weren't going to. My big problem was that I wasn't sure if I had turned around or not so I couldn't just do an about face and walk slowly and carefully back to the boat.

I stood for a moment in an absolute rictus of indecision, the sounds around me grew in intensity, the wind became stronger and I was positive I could hear something rustling around in the bushes by the side of the lane

There was nothing for it, I pulled out my phone and dialled Geoff. (Oh, I was not going to live this down for a long, long time.)

‘Hi,' I squeaked as his bleary voice asked me where the hell I was, ‘I've got a bit of a problem, my head light has gone out and Mort trampled the other torch to death, so I'm in the dark.'

There was silence for a moment at the other end of the phone as Geoff assimilated this information then he laughed. ‘You can't see a thing can you?' he deduced.

‘Nope.' I relaxed a little at the sound of his calm and steady voice. ‘Can you come and find me? I think there's something in the bushes just waiting for me to make a move.' I could hear Sam in the background asking what was wrong.

‘Did you go up that lane?' Geoff asked then without waiting for me to answer he went on, ‘It's all right Sam, your mum's torch has broken so I've got to go and get her.'

‘Yes, I haven't turned off or anything, I just walked in a straight line.' I frowned; I could hear the kids laughing and making comments about ‘blind as a bat' and ‘maybe Mortimer should be trained as a guide dog'.

‘Can't you just turn round and come back?' Geoff asked, ‘Surely you can't have got that far, as soon as you get around the corner you should be able to see the boat, we've got all the lights on.'

‘Well I would,' I snipped at him, ‘but I can't remember if I've turned around, well, I know I've turned around but I'm not sure how many times and what direction I'm facing in.'

Geoff laughed again. ‘Hang on, let me get my boots on and another torch and I'll come and find you.'

‘Thank you,' I muttered; the snuffling began again in the bushes. ‘If you feel like jogging I would really appreciate it.'

‘I'll be there as soon as I can.' Geoff turned his phone off.

Even the light from my phone was comforting so I kept pressing buttons to keep it on but soon the battery started to beep so I desisted and stood in the dark. Mortimer, who could obviously see perfectly well, ran around on the end of his long extending lead for a while, then, bored and wondering why we were standing still, came back and jumped up at my legs. I knelt down to stroke him but as I did he turned away from me and began to growl.

‘Oh please don't do that,' I whispered, desperately trying to see what he was growling at. No good, still completely black. For a moment I wondered how the blind cope and my admiration for anyone with a sight problem increased one hundred fold, to be forever in this darkness, with sounds and smells growing out of proportion was just something I couldn't contemplate. They must be incredibly brave, every small trip for them must be an exercise in heroism, I resolved there and then to put a very large amount of money in the next Guide Dogs for the Blind box I came across.

Mortimer's growling took on a new intensity and he pressed himself back on to my lap, his little body shaking with the force of each rumbling snarl. I could feel my heart trying to beat itself out of my body, I was actually quite irritated with it, the sound of the flustered beating was actually blocking out my ability to listen to whatever it was that had upset the dog so much.

I wiped my sweaty palms down my jeans and looked this way and that down the lane hoping for a glimmer of light that would herald the arrival of my knight in shining armour, there was no sign of illumination but the rustling in the bushes got louder.

Mortimer leapt forward toward the sound, barking and snarling, stopping only when he reached the end of his lead and as I was already on my knees this pulled me completely off balance and face down on to the ground. Finally getting my feet sorted out I pulled him back toward me and stood up trembling, trying not to make any noise I kept myself completely motionless while I desperately tried to listen to what was going on around me.

The soft and warm breath on the back of my neck finally dissolved any bravado I may have been hanging on to and turned me into a big fat girly. I screamed, then when I ran out of breath I stopped, refuelled and screamed again.