Narrow Escape (15 page)

As I left them to it I could hear Geoff explaining that the filter was an optional extra on our engine. They wandered off to have a look at this marvel of elderly engineering. I left them to it, at least they weren't underfoot.

“Drew's given me the name of his boat safety examiner.” Geoff stepped back inside about an hour later. He was covered in oil and stank as badly as if he'd been swimming in a diesel reservoir.

I crinkled my nose. “Yuck,” I said. “Dump those clothes and have a shower, you smell as bad as that engine of yours.”

He handed me a piece of paper with a scrawled telephone number on and tried to give me a kiss as he went past.

I shrieked and, lips thwarted, he ran an oily hand down my face then, giggling, ran off down the boat.

“I think I might start her up tomorrow and see what happens.” He obviously didn't need an answer as I could hear the water running in the shower.

Later, clean, fed, and generally warm and cosy he dragged out a scruffy bit of paper covered in lines of writing.

“Another list?” I glanced up from where I was sanding down the top of the new bedding box. The weather was driving me mad, the box needed priming and painting but everything was so wet it would take days to dry.

Geoff nodded. “We're never going to pass an inspection as we are at the moment,” he said.

“So what's got to change?” I watched with a certain amount of consternation as drips of water appeared on my newly sanded wood. Looking up I could see that the rain was leaking through our roof hatch. Well that was just one more thing that needed fixing. If it carried on like this we would be more tarpaulin that boat. We had tarps over both side doors and over the cratch support at the front. At some point we intended to get a cratch cover but at nearly £700 it was just ‘on a list' and now we were going to have to throw one over the roof as well. This flaming boat was falling apart around us.

“Well, we need to get the gas installation certified,” he said.

“But you put that gas in last year,” I said.

He nodded and shrugged. “Yes I did, and I should have had it certified months ago.”

I nodded. Like most things in life, there was always tomorrow.

Geoff continued. “I need to finish the engine repairs, I need to remove the diesel feed from the old heating system, the electrics around the battery bank need tidying up, we need to put ventilation into the bathroom, and the old favourite, sort out some fire extinguishers and a fire blanket for the kitchen.” He frowned and stopped to draw breath. “I think that's about it.”

“Oh, just trivial bits and pieces then,” I said. “Hang on, we've got loads of fire extinguishers.”

Geoff nodded. “And they're all wrong,” he said. “That one there …” he pointed to the one nestled beneath the kitchen shelf “… is three times the size it needs to be. It has a higher fire rating than is needed for two boats.”

I was confused. “That's a good thing isn't it?”

He shook his head. “No, it's just wrong so it's a fail and the other two are wrong as well.”

I was still very confused. “So wouldn't they work?”

“Oh yes, they'd work but they're not right, they're wrong. So they'd fail.” He gave me a happy grin. “Don't you just love regulations?”

“No, not really.” I stared around at the fire extinguishers. “So have we got to replace them? They're very expensive.”

Geoff shook his head again. “No, Blackadder, I have a cunning plan.”

“Do I want to know about it?” Sometimes Geoff's ‘cunning plans' make me wince a little.

“Probably not.” He gave me an innocent smile.

“Right,” I said. “I'm going to wander off down this way with my fingers in my ears, OK?”

“You do that,” he said.

The day before boat inspection day is always a trial. I spent my day rushing about cleaning, tidying, and making sure that there was tea and a new packet of biscuits. I'm sure that safety inspectors wouldn't take bribery well but there was no harm in extreme hospitality.

About half an hour before the inspector was due to show Geoff suddenly leapt to his feet with a yelp.

“What?” I was worried by the stricken look on his face.

“I need to chain the cooker down,” he said. His voice wafted back to me as he made a bolt for the door.

Watching him rush past the windows as he headed toward the back of the boat I stared at the cooker. It looked back at me with obviously well feigned innocence. “Now why on earth would we have to chain you down?” I asked it.

Sam gave me a quizzical look. “Why are you talking to the cooker, Mum?” he said.

“Because evidently it's dangerous and needs to be in chains,” I said.

“Huh?” He shook his head and went back to the model he was building.

Geoff jumped back through the door with two small lengths of chain and some screws.

“What are you actually doing?” I watched as he began screwing the chain to the box that the cooker sat in.

“It's part of the safety inspection.” He explained as he used pliers to place the chain through two little rings on the side of our cooker.

I'd always wondered what those little rings were for and even when shown I still couldn't see what the chains were supposed to accomplish.

“But why?” I gave the chains a rattle. “What on earth is the point of these things?”

Geoff shrugged. “Stops it sliding off if we hit choppy water I suppose.”

I looked out of the window at the mirror surface of the water outside. “Like that happens a lot to narrow boats does it?”

Geoff huffed. “How about we just do what needs to be done, and we'll discuss the idiocies afterward, shall we?”

I wandered off; I can take a hint, especially from a man with a hammer in his hand.

The inspector looked as though he was the same age as Amelia and I did my best to keep out of his way. There is something about a dour-looking man with a clipboard that makes me very nervous.

After the inspector had gone, Geoff threw himself onto the sofa with a sigh of relief. “Well, that's over for another four years.”

“Did we pass?” I handed him a cup of tea.

“Barely,” he said. “We've got some advisories and he did take a hard look at the extinguishers.”

“Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about those,” I said. “So what exactly was your nefarious scheme?”

Geoff laughed. “There are three extinguishers here that exactly fit what is required for the safety certificate.”

“Here?” I wasn't sure I understood what he was trying to say. “Where here?”

“Down the line,” he said. He took a sip of tea and then dunked a biscuit into what was left. “All that happens is that we all have inspections on different days, and we swap these three extinguishers about so that we pass.”

“Oh good grief,” I said. “Isn't that a bit immoral?”

“The whole thing is stupid anyway,” he said. “I have this certificate in my hand and with it I can get my river licence.” He raised his eyebrows at me, making sure I understood what he was saying.

“Right …” I shrugged.

“Well, if I waved that guy off and then ripped out the entire inside of my boat and replaced it with open fires and made petrol cans into furniture I still have a boat safety certificate,” he shrugged. “They really are a complete farce, very expensive and unnecessary.” He frowned. “And, of course, it doesn't help that we have to have two of them.”

Well that brought me up short. Each inspection was a hundred and thirty pounds. “What? Why on earth do we have to have two, for pity's sake?”

Geoff looked at me as if I'd gone made. “We have two boats you know.”

“Charlie's isn't a flaming boat, it's a metal box. There's no running water, no toilet, no gas, no diesel, and it's only twenty-seven foot long. What the hell is he going to inspect in there, the decorations?”

Geoff shrugged. “It's a boat, it needs a safety certificate,” he said. “He is going to knock twenty quid off that one though.”

“Oh well, big flaming deal,” I said.

“I take it you don't care what I do with the fire extinguishers then?” Geoff laughed.

“No I don't, tie the inspector to them and drop them in the river for all I care.” I sighed. “Two hundred and forty quid. That's a flaming rip-off. That could be used to tax the car.”

Geoff nodded. “Ah well, at least it doesn't have to be done for another four years.”

Well, that was the end of that. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that living on a boat is a cheap alternative to a house. It isn't really; we just have different bills to pay.

At the end of May I received the expected telephone call, “Hi Mum.”

Aha! Middle daughter, what a surprise.

“Hello, chucky egg,” I said. “What can I do for you? I assume you're calling for help?”

Charlie gave a nervous laugh. “Sort of.”

“Money, groceries, clothes?” I chuckled. “What have you run out of?”

“How much stuff has Geoff put in my boat?” she asked.

“Nothing permanent, why?” I knew why, but after the fuss she made about being able to move out there was no way I was going to pave the way back again.

“Can I come home please?” she said.

I laughed. “Of course you can,” I said. “Why?”

“Thankyou, thankyou …” Charlie gave a huge sigh of relief. “Why is everything so bloody expensive? I can't afford to live on my wages, this is ridiculous.”

I thought back to the hours I'd spent trying to explain the cost of living to her. My figures had been ‘pooh poohed' as being wildly inaccurate, she had been positive I'd been making up the prices just to keep her at home for another year.

“Really, I never would have known,” I said.

Charlie sighed again. “Yes, you were right … again. Can you come and get me at the weekend please?” she asked.

“We'll be there on Saturday morning, all right? Can you survive till then?” She was the skinniest person I'd ever seen before going on a budget-induced diet, I dreaded to think what she'd been eating.

“Thanks, Mum,” she said and hung up.

I stared at my silent phone for a moment before deciding to collect purse and shopping bags. If Madam was coming home, the cupboards had better be full.

“But … but … but what about my shed?” Geoff grumbled when I told him we were just about to become a family of four again.

“It's not a shed, it's a boat, and she needs to live in it again,” I said.

“Oh for goodness' sake.” Geoff sulked off to take out all the wood and ‘useful' stuff he'd been happily squirreling away in the depths of the little boat.

I had to laugh. It is always assumed that our life is so different from ‘normal' people, it isn't. Kids leave, they come home, they're always hungry, and there are never any socks. It doesn't seem to matter where or how you live. There are constants to parenting that run right across the board. Happy or sad, rich or poor, mansion or a hole in the ground, some things affect us all.

Chapter Six:
Rain And Wind And Yet More Rain. Frustrating Trip In The Slow Lane.

With Charlie happily ensconced back in her tiny boat, eating me out of house and home and generally contented with her lot once more, it was obviously time for daughter number one to have her moment in the sun.

On Friday the 1st of June at a very respectable eight o'clock in the morning I had the phone call that we'd all been waiting for. It was from Chris, Amelia's husband. I'd expected him to sound excited or panic-stricken but no, he was perfectly calm and as organised as ever.

“Hi there mother-in-law,” he said as I picked up the phone.

I laughed for a moment and then stopped as I realised what the phone call was going to be about.

“Better get your skates on,” he said. “We're just going to the hospital now but I don't think there's any major rush.”

“Oh, oh, oh my goodness, right.” I babbled at him. “Um … I'll leave in the next ten minutes and I should be there in about four hours, tell her to hang on.”

“I don't think I can do that, Marie,” he said with a laugh.

“Right, no of course you can't. I'll be there as soon as possible.”

“OK, no panic,” he said. Then he rang off.

Geoff had been listening and had already handed me the last half of my early-morning tea, made me a sandwich, and was looking for my bag. “I take it you're heading for Cardiff, are you?” he said.

I nodded and spilled my tea. “Oh, it's Sam's birthday tomorrow,” I said. “If I'm not back you know where his presents are don't you …?”

Geoff nodded.

“And, there's a meal already made in the fridge.”

Geoff nodded.

“And Charlie needs to be taken to the train station.”

Geoff stopped nodding and just looked at me. “I can cope with all of it, now go away.”

“Right, yes, I'm going, I'm going, and I'll ring you later, OK?”

Geoff nodded and, taking my empty mug, hoisted me out of the door. “It'll be fine, just go.”

Three hours later and I had just managed to make it to Birmingham. It occurred to me that Amelia had picked the very worst weekend to decide to have a baby. With the extra bank holiday for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the roads were packed to capacity with people making the most of a long weekend. It seemed that most of them were heading for Wales.

Stopping for petrol after driving very slowly for at least five hours I had taken the opportunity to call Chris and explain why I was taking so long.

“I'm so sorry, the traffic is horrible,” I'd said.

“Don't worry about it,” he'd said. “Things are going really slowly, we're having a wander around outside to get things moving.”

“How's Amelia doing?”

“Oh, hang on, you can talk to her,” he'd said.

A strained voice reached my ears. “I don't want to talk to anyone.” Amelia finished that sentence with a long drawn out groan. “Yes I do, give her here.”

“Uh oh.”

“Where the hell are you?” she screeched down the phone.

“The traffic's bad …” I was going to tell her what was going but she cut me off.

“Well just put your foot down and stop lollygagging about. I don't want to talk. Go away.” There was a rustle as the phone was obviously handed back to Chris.

“Did you get that?” he laughed.

“Yes, and I'm not going to do any more lollygagging and I'm going to put my foot down,” I said.

Chris laughed and I heard Amelia's voice again. “Chris stop talking to my mother and ow, ow, ow, ow, ow … OW !!”

“I think I'd better go,” he said.

I laughed “Yes we've both got our orders.” I'd hit the off button and headed back to the car.

I finally pulled into the Cardiff hospital no less than ten hours after I'd set off. I wasn't sure how Amelia was holding up but I was a frazzled mess.

Walking through the hospital, well, sort of jogging really, I was struck by how hospitals were all alike. There is a definite smell that is all pervasive. Like all others this one was a complete rabbit warren and, by the time I'd finished following the directions I'd been given, I was on the wrong floor and at the wrong end of the hospital. Very good.

Eventually I found the maternity unit and, after taking a moment to catch my breath, the door clicked and I pushed it open. The midwife on the desk looked up with a smile. “Can I help you?” she said.

I explained who I was and she knew immediately who my daughter was which made me a little nervous. “Ah,” she said, “Amelia, oh she's doing really well.”

Uh oh.

I cautiously opened the door and peered into the room. Amelia, although sitting on a huge ball and clasping the gas and air mask to her face was obviously floating somewhere near the ceiling.

“Hello?” I waited for the fury of a woman in pain to fall on me.

Chris gave me a big smile. “Ah, there you are, did you manage to park OK?”

I nodded while I studied my oldest daughter – she seemed to have developed cross-eyes.

“Is she OK?” I asked Chris.

He laughed. “Lots and lots of drugs.”

“Oh, right.” I walked around so that Amelia could see me. “Hello, you,” I said. “How's it all going?”

Amelia managed to focus and gave me a very airy grin. “Is all goinso kay at the mo,” she slurred around the nozzle that she had clamped between her teeth. “Hellooo Mummy,” she said and then winced as the baby made another bid for freedom.

I winced right along with her.

As the day stretched into evening and the evening into night Amelia became more airy and the midwives more agitated. Her temperature kept rising and the staff's professional smiles were becoming rather fixed. Eventually a well-dressed woman strode in through the door.

“This isn't going well, I'm afraid,” she said.

Amelia managed to uncross her eyes for just a moment before sinking back onto the bed. The spinal block that she'd demanded had given her a very positive view of the whole procedure. “It isn't?” she said.

The consultant shook her head and decided to talk to Chris. “Her temperature is very high, we're worried about the baby, and I think we need him out
now
.”

Chris swallowed and glanced over at his wife who was currently examining her fingers very carefully. He nodded slowly.

“We're going to have to go for an emergency C-Section.” The consultant wasn't going to give him the chance to say no. “She's just stopped and the baby's getting distressed.”

Chris nodded more firmly and moved over to discuss it with Amelia who obviously wasn't as airy as she appeared. She managed to get all her ducks in a line long enough to tell everyone in the room, very firmly, that a Caesarean was a fantastic idea and the sooner the better.

Within seconds the room was full of staff. Surgeon; anaesthetist; various midwives, all bustled about getting Amelia ready to move. I felt like a spare wheel and shuffled myself into a corner so that I wouldn't get in the way.

I held her hand as we were whisked down the corridor. They were moving so fast that I was hard-pressed to keep up with the porter as he trotted along pushing Amelia's bed. As we got to the doors of the theatre a midwife laid a gentle hand on my arm. “She can only have one person with her,” she said.

I was confused for a moment, I was her mother, of course it would be me. I looked over to the bed where Chris was gently pushing Amelia's hair out of her eyes, they both looked terrified but they were still smiling at each other. No, it wasn't going to be me. She had someone of her own to rely on now. I took a deep breath and grinned at the midwife. “Where would you like me to wait?” I asked.

She gave me a big smile and pointed to a bed in a ward of four. “She'll go in there when she comes back.” I nodded and waved Amelia and Chris through the doors of the theatre and into the brightly and terrifyingly lit room beyond. The door swung gently closed and clicked with a quite hideous finality.

I sat in the hard chair next to the empty bed for about half an hour. There wasn't really anything to do and I tried hard not to think about what was going on next door.

In the quiet of the darkened room I remembered my own times in hospital wards very similar to this one. Each birth was different and each birth should have given me an idea of what the child was going to be like. Amelia had been early and then, at the last minute, changed her mind. She'd decided that the outside world was too fearful a place in which to venture. She was dragged, kicking and screaming into the light, looked around, decided that she liked it, and thrived from that moment on. Charlotte, as always, was in a rush. She shot out at speed only to be caught and stopped by a rather deft midwife. She had spent the first two hours of her life screaming in anger; nothing had changed. Sam, on the other hand, was late. He had to be encouraged and cosseted through the birth process. Even after all the intervention, he was so determined to stay attached to the warm safe haven in which he'd brewed for the previous nine months that he eventually had to be lifted out through an exit created by surgery. I had the feeling that getting him out of the house and forcing him to use his own wings might yet prove to be met with the same reticence.

I was just wondering if I'd have time to get a cup of coffee when alarms went off and flashing lights lit the corridor outside. The sound of running feet brought me to mine.

I stuck my head out of the door and asked the nearest midwife what was going on. I didn't like the look of the flashing alarm light above the theatre door. Looking down the corridor I could see two nurses racing toward me with what I recognised as a crash cart. My whole insides turned cold.

From the colours on her uniform the midwife I'd asked was way up in the scheme of things and she turned to me with a look that I'm sure had been withering trainees for about twenty years. “Nothing that you can help with, keep out of the way!”

Cowed by the tone I nodded and backed into the ward. When I felt my chair hit me on the back of the knees I sat down. Five minutes later she was back. “What are you doing in here?” she demanded.

Well, I hadn't broken in, that was for sure and her tone was beginning to irritate. “I'm where I was told to go,” I said. “How's Amelia, how's the baby, is everything all right?”

She pulled herself up to a full five foot one and snapped “I don't know, I'm not in there I'm out here dealing with you.”

Oooo, get you, lady. I didn't ask to be ‘dealt with'.

“I do know that you are not supposed to be in here, you can wait in there.” She stabbed a finger toward a door across the corridor. “Go on, off you go. Take a seat and someone will let you know what's going on as soon as they can.”

With a sigh, I grabbed my bag and trotted across the corridor. There was no point arguing with her, I worked in the same sort of place, I knew it wouldn't do any good. Through the door was a tiny waiting room which, obviously due to a lack of space, was also being utilised as a store room for maternity supplies that were waiting to be unpacked. The room was white, bright, and completely featureless, I felt as if I'd been shoved into a cupboard. I'd been tidied.

A nervous hour later and a young midwife finally stuck her head around the door. “Oh, there you are,” she said. “We've been looking for you, Amelia was getting worried you'd gone home.”

I opened my mouth to tell her exactly how I'd managed to get here but then thought better of it. What would be the point? “Is everybody OK?” I asked.

She nodded with a big smile. “Everyone is fine,” she said. Trotting ahead of me she led me back to the ward. “Look,” she said. “there they are.”

With a swift pat on my hand she whisked away. I wandered over to the bedside. Amelia was lying on the pillows, she looked tired and very pale. “Where were you?” she said.

“I got tidied into a cupboard, don't ask.” I gave her a long look. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I've been run over by a truck,” she said. She waved a languid hand toward a clear Perspex crib that had been wheeled to the side of the bed. “But look what we made.” She gave me a huge smile.

Chris reached into the fish tank and gently picked up the little red person inside. He gave his son a smile and said to him, “This is Grandma, you'll get used to her, she's a bit mad but you learn to live with it.” He handed him to me and after a long look at my new grandson I came over all odd and tearful and had to sit down so that I could study him.

“So,” Amelia demanded, “what do you think?”

I stared down at him again. What could I say? It's not like I was commenting on a new pair of shoes.

The baby fluttered his long eyelashes and gazed blankly over my shoulder with that big blue stare of all new-borns. He scrunched his little face up and then relaxed again, his little fingers curling and uncurling. “He's absolutely beautiful,” I said. Suddenly I didn't mind being a grandma at all.

Amelia gave a huge yawn. “I can't believe how tired I am, I've been lying in bed all day as well.”

Chris laughed. “Well, you have been a little busy even though you have been flat on your back.”

I shook myself away from staring into those big blue eyes. “So what happened? What was with all the alarms and running and shouting?”

Chris glanced at Amelia and they both looked more than a little haunted. “He wasn't breathing when he came out and it took them a little while to get him up and running.”

Amelia swallowed hard and sniffed a little as Chris took her hand.

“The surgery team didn't realise, so when he came out they told me to go and have a look. When I tried to see him the baby team told me to go away again. All I caught was just a quick glimpse, he was a really odd blue colour.” Chris let go of his wife and rubbed his hands together. I could see he was itching to take the baby back just to make sure he was all right. I didn't want to give him up but I could well understand that if I'd seen one of my children blue and lifeless I'd want exactly the same thing. I handed him over with a smile and Chris gave a huge sigh of relief.