Narrow Escape (14 page)

“But I have found a happy place,” I muttered, “it's here and they're threatening to mess it up.”

Geoff just snored.

As May progressed the swans, coots, and grebes all built nests over the other side of the river and we watched with great amusement as ‘Battle of the Builders' moved from outright fights to hit and run skirmishes and quick-fire terrorism.

For the most part, the swans ignored the screaming squawking low-lifes that were the coots. Mr Swan was far more interested in attacking the odd group of canoeists that occasionally paddled past. Braving the terrible weather and paddling grimly toward a welcome pint at the next pub down, they were never even aware he was there. He would wait until they were level with the nest and then, screaming and hissing, he would try to climb into the cockpit of one of the canoes. We could always tell when he was trying to sink one of them as the screams and loud splashing from just outside our boat would be enough to wilt cabbage.

Despite the big swan's terrorist tactics it was the coots that caused most of the disputes between the various nesting families. For a small bird they were certainly the most aggressive and vocal. Eventually, the coots' constant raids on his wife's nest drove Mr Swan to begin SWAT tactics. He would hide in the reeds, lying quietly in wait until Mr Coot was almost at the nest and Mrs Swan was having mild hysterics. At the very last moment he would leap at full wingspread out from undercover and race, hissing and flapping at the surprised little vandal. Mr Coot, chirping and screaming in alarm, would perform a smart about-face and shoot off like a little arrow down the river back towards his own stacked and untidy nest. Mrs Coot, standing guard over her own clutch of eggs, would watch his approach with a certain long-suffering attitude. She would then stand up and scream abuse at the huge white swan. This abuse would continue long after Mr Swan had gone back to lurk amongst the reeds once more.

While all this was going on the grebes were pretending to be Switzerland. They maintained a haughty indifference to the warring factions on either side. Taking turns on the nest they would make sure that they gave each other time away from the tedious job of egg warming and would always take the time to have a brief cosset as they swapped over. They were incredibly sweet and managed to maintain this aloof indifference in the very midst of the loud, wet avian battles that were going on around them.

Until one fateful day.

Running screaming from the latest defending assault Mr Coot, shooting back down the river and away from the pursuing swan, caught sight of a small boat with two wet fisherman inside. Panic stricken and disorientated he obviously decided that the nest to the right of him was his and without even a peep hopped out of the water and into the nest right on top of Mrs Grebe (or it could have been Mr Grebe, it's difficult to tell), who was happily having a bit of a nap.

All I can say is that hell broke loose that day. Mrs Grebe's outraged screams obviously brought back-up. Unlike with the swans, there was no fancy splashing and honking, in fact we didn't see Mr Grebe arrive at all. Now back in the water after having been knocked off the nest by Mrs Grebe, Mr Coot was swimming in agitated circles and screaming abuse at the elegant looking bird above him. As we watched he went momentarily silent and I could have sworn his eyes widened and there was a definite ‘oh shit' moment. Mr Grebe had obviously arrived as silently as the nautilus and had come up beneath the small black bird. That sharp, pointed beak was used to devastating effect on Mr Coot's tender nether regions and he erupted out of the water like a dolphin leaping for a flaming ring. He took off up the river flapping, screeching, and screaming. We could only assume that Mr Grebe was shadowing the panicked coot underwater as every so often Mr Coot would leap out of the water and attempt to swim in mid-air for a couple of seconds. We had no idea how far he was chased but about half an hour later Mr Grebe arrived home looking very sleek and contented. Mr Coot arrived back about an hour later; he was rather wild around the eyes and looked very much as though he'd been put through a washing machine, his feathers and his demeanour were massively tousled. Mrs Coot was not impressed and, for rest of the afternoon, there was loud screaming and peeping coming from the tall and untidy stack the coots called their home. Home sweet home? I think not.

After this the grebes were far less inclined to take such a laid-back view of the nest invaders. Every time that Messrs Coot and Swan started their little battles, Mr Grebe would dive silently below the grey green waters and as Mr Coot headed back towards his nest, beaten once again by the great white birds, Mr Grebe would help him on his way. He never missed and, by the end of the month, Mr Coot had developed a noticeably nervous twitch and would swim with his head on one side so that he could keep one eye on the water below his feet.

For the next two months we watched the birds and marvelled at their dedication. Despite the appalling weather, despite the hit and run raids by the coots, despite the mould that was growing on every nest, they just sat and hoped. The coots managed to hatch half of their eggs and paraded up and down the river with their tiny balls of peeping black fluff in tow. The great crested grebe eggs never hatched and eventually Mr Grebe got bored and wandered off. Mrs Grebe sat on the nest for another two days but, in the end, she too decided the weather and the incessant cold had obviously damaged her eggs and there would be no offspring.

The swans on the other hand refused to give up. Day after day Mrs Swan sat on the nest, her once sleek plumage becoming scraggy, scruffy, and positively grey. Mr Swan was obviously at his wits' end and had taken to swimming away from the nest and calling for her. She would climb down from the sodden pile of sticks and reeds they called home and would set off after him. She'd always manage about twenty foot before she would stop, hover in the middle of the river, dithering for about ten minutes and then she would head back to the nest and her beloved eggs that were obviously cold and lifeless. It was heart-breaking.

Eventually it was the coots that ended the sad saga. While Mrs Swan was having one of her moments of indecision, Mr Coot snuck up to the nest, climbed aboard and before she came back had rolled the eggs into the river and had destroyed the pile of reeds and grasses that the swan family had been hoping to call home.

Mrs Swan was visibly distraught and I had to physically stop Sam from throwing rocks at the coot. The sad and thwarted would-be mother stayed around for another twenty-four hours poking sadly at what was left of her nest. Eventually Mr Swan firmly collected her and together they swam away. We didn't see them again that summer.

We didn't really see much of anything else that summer. This, I put down to two reasons: one, it was raining so hard and so consistently that we were hard pressed to actually get out of the boat, and two, the windows were almost permanently steamed up.

Geoff, who was bored and becoming more dangerous by the day had decided to go through the paperwork. It was more for something to do in the dry than actually a job that needed doing.

Handing him a cup of tea I peered over his shoulder. “What's that?” I poked at the bit of paper he was holding.

He turned around with a frown. “This,” he said, shaking the grubby paper, “is our boat safety certificate.”

I lost interest. “Oh right. You haven't found anything like unpaid insurance claims or a couple of shares we didn't know we had then?”

“This is better,” he said.

Obviously cabin fever had robbed him of whatever sanity he once possessed. “And, why exactly is that better than finding lost shares?”

Geoff jumped to his feet. “This is about to run out.” He placed it carefully on the side and grabbed his boots. “We have to get another one at the end of this month.”

I was very confused. “Well we just get an inspector in to give us a new one don't we?”

Geoff nodded. “But I've changed loads of stuff since the last one.” He stood up and pulled his coat on. “If you want me I'll be in the engine room. It's about time I got that engine running.”

With that he was up and out of the door. I groaned at the small personal weir of rain that cascaded over the front step in his wake and then looked around at the paperwork devastation. Great, that lot had to be cleared up, it looked as though I suddenly had a job as well.

A couple of hours later he reappeared. Sam and I were cooking and we jumped as he banged through the door.

“You do not look like a happy man,” I said and put the kettle on.

Geoff dropped his wet coat into the space between the sofa and the wall with a heavy sigh and then set about making tea. I picked the soggy garment up and hung it up in our little coat space placing it carefully above an old towel that acted as a drip catcher. As I moved the other coats out of the way a waft of stink hit me. “That smell's back again,” I called down the boat. I grabbed a torch and peered into the darkness below the coats, the smell was definitely present but I couldn't see where it was coming from.

I wandered back down the boat to tell Geoff.

“That smell's back again,” I said again.

He gave me a particularly haunted look. “I can't find my oil filter.”

Not a response I was expecting so I just blinked at him. Eventually I realised I wasn't going to get any more information unless I pushed for it. “What oil filter?” I said.

“Well, that's just it, there isn't one.” Geoff frowned into the depths of his tea. “I'm fairly sure there should be an oil filter on a boat engine; it's a big diesel engine. All engines have an oil filter, don't they?”

I gave him a completely blank look. “Honey, I have absolutely no idea.”

“Well, where could it have gone?” He looked completely befuddled by the whole thing. “I know I deal with electrics and not mechanics but I'm fairly sure I'd recognise it if it was there.”

I shrugged. “Can you see where it fell off?”

“That's the other odd thing,” he said. “I can't even see the place where it ought to attach to. It just seems as though it never had one. But I think it should.”

Our engine is an air-cooled Lister ST3. We have no idea how old it is but it's certainly a replacement engine for whatever was originally installed. If you look carefully you can see where a big square had been cut out of the roof for the purpose of winching said engine into place.

It's very big, very smoky, and sounds like a set of vintage motorcycles revving up whenever Geoff works out how to make the whole thing go.

Squatting like some sulphurous toad in its own pool of diesel, oil, and water in the very centre of the engine room, I am convinced that it laughs whenever I go near it. For that reason alone I try to have as little to do with it as possible.

“Is there anyone you can ask?” I winced and waited for the response; I know he'd rather just get on and fix things. He hates being ‘taught'. Nobody goes at the right speed for Geoff's learning abilities and he gets bored and zones out.

“Nope, but I can probably buy a book,” he said.

About an hour later there was a triumphant “Aha!” from over by the computer.

“So is it supposed to have an oil filter?”

“I have no idea, but I've found someone who is reprinting all the old vintage engine manuals. It's going to cost us a fiver.”

I shrugged; I could live with that.

A couple of days later Geoff was blown through the doors with a blue book in his hand. He settled down to read, almost immediately making all sorts of little noises that meant he was learning vast amounts in a very short time. Later, while he was out of the room, I picked it up and had a flick through it.

Now, I don't consider myself a complete dunce when it comes to engines. I know enough to be able to check the oil, I know what the spark plugs, the HT leads, the coil, and the alternator do. I know how the basic engine works so I can usually hold my own in a conversation in Halfords and can occasionally fix my own car. This book was like reading something from Rudolf Diesel's original drawings, there were words in there that I'd never even heard of.

The first page I stopped at was talking about Sterngear. Well, that was OK, I knew about the stern gland and the stern tube but what on earth were plummer blocks? A couple of pages further on and the book was explaining the workings of the Listatex Anti-Vibration mounting and how to top up the Manometer reservoir, (the what?) Further on and the author became quite excited, extolling the virtues of a good oil feed to the Jabsco pump. There was a section on the Raised Hand Starting Assembly, the Cyclopac air cleaner, the coupled decompressors and the
pièce de résistance
, the Agglomerator.

Completely baffled I placed the book carefully back where Geoff had left it. I knew his cunning plan, he wasn't fixing the engine at all he was building a warp drive and he just didn't want to tell me about it.

The book obviously gave my husband the information he needed because he became quite blasé about the whole thing. I heard him discussing different viscosities of oil with Drew one Saturday.

“What on earth do you need specialist oil for?” Drew looked completely baffled. I knew how he felt.

“We don't have an oil filter.” Geoff was much happier now that he had all the information. I'm happy to live my life in a permanent state of bafflement, my husband is not.

“You don't have an oil filter?” Drew winced as he rotated his shoulders, the casts on his wrists were still there and he was having a huge amount of difficulty with pain relief. No one had seen Drew laugh for weeks.

I stepped out of the boat with one coffee and one tea. Drew took his awkwardly with both solid hands and gave me a half smile before staring mournfully into his mug.

“Don't even think about it.” I gave him a long look. “There's no way you're getting pirate coffee until you've finished taking those tablets of yours,” I said.