Narrow Escape (29 page)

Grabbing my coat, hat, and gloves I wondered what he'd found. It had to be something fairly obvious otherwise there would be no reason to show it to
me
. Despite my luck with the generator I was no mechanic. I stepped out of the car and peered into the engine compartment. For a moment I couldn't work out what I was looking at and then the whole sorry mess seeped into my brain. “What the hell has happened to all the HT leads?”

Geoff grabbed my phone from my pocket and proceeded to take pictures. “I think we have either mice or a single mouse that's been living in our engine,” he said.

Every rubber cover on every HT lead had been eaten away. The car wouldn't fire properly because the sparks weren't contained in any way, they'd just been bouncing off the underside of the bonnet. Tiny little shavings of rubber and plastic covered almost every available flat surface of the engine. When we looked hard we could follow the dastardly little rodent's progress as it had made a meal of almost every bit of insulation that was showing.

“So what do we do now?” I picked up a palm full of rubber shavings and dribbled them back on top of the block. “Where's the mouse?”

Geoff shrugged. “I have no idea but I should think it's taken refuge in the side of the engine compartment. We're lucky that we didn't get far from the car park,” he said.

“Why?”

“I think I need to go and get some insulating tape.” He closed the bonnet and, pulling his hat down around his ears headed back toward where his van was parked.

About half an hour later and the engine of my poor car looked like a Christmas present that had been wrapped by a three-year-old. Silver insulating tape was wrapped around every electrical component in an effort to keep each one from interacting with its neighbours.

I looked in at his efforts and laughed. “Very pretty.”

Geoff frowned. “I don't care what it looks like,” he said. “I just hope it works.”

It did and we headed to the motor parts shop in Ely. We bought new HT leads and lots of other bits and bobs. In the coffee shop Geoff studied the bill and shook his head. “We should have fed the little chomper on filet mignon and champagne,” he said.

I looked up, confused. I'd been communing with my cream covered hot chocolate and hadn't really noticed what he'd been doing. “Why?”

“It would have been damn well cheaper to buy him a decent meal.” Geoff sighed and, after balling up the receipt, he shoved it deep into his pocket.

He hates unnecessary expense and I expected him to be grumpy for the rest of the day. He wasn't, Sam and a sledge full of clean washing fell down the hill again on the way home and that went a long way to cheering him up.

*                      *                      *

The deadline for all boats to leave our previous marina came and went. Elaine and Dion had been planning to leave on the very last day and then join us at the new place. We kept an eye out for them but they never showed up, it was a little worrying, but we were used to people taking their sweet time so we weren't unduly alarmed. On Sunday afternoon I got a phone call from Dion.

“We've got a bit of a problem,” he said.

It turned out that only three hundred metres out on the main river and their engine had gone kablooie. Luckily they had broken down merely yards away from where Bill and Drew were currently moored so they'd been towed across the river and settled into the unoccupied space behind The Blue Boar.

Geoff looked up as I was chatting to Dion. “Is everything all right?” He mouthed the words at me. I shook my head and waved a hand to indicate that I couldn't hear very well. “What's going on?” He mouthed at me again and poked me in the shoulder with his finger. “Hang on, Dion,” I said. “Geoff wants a word.” I handed the phone over to Geoff – it was just easier that way.

I listened to Geoff asking all the same questions that I would have asked: did they need a tow here? Did they need a lift anywhere? Could we pick up any engine parts for them? When he'd received the negative to all these questions he said goodbye and turned my phone off. “I don't know why you gave the phone to me,” he said. “
You
could have asked them all that.”

I resisted the urge to poke him in the belly button and instead asked, “So what's wrong with their boat?”

Geoff frowned. “I didn't ask that.”

“Is Drew going to have a look at it for them?”

Geoff chewed his lip. “I don't know.”

“Are they still planning to come here?”

He stared at me. “You're just making these questions up now, aren't you?”

I nodded and went to make tea.

About a week later and I was having coffee with Bill. I hadn't realised how much I missed everyone I normally hung about with until I saw her stagger, windswept and rain-soaked through the door of an Ely café.

We chatted for a while about where everyone had gone and what had been happening with Elaine's boat, then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded page of newsprint. “I don't suppose you happened to see this, did you?” She carefully unfolded the paper and placed it in front of me. “I assumed you hadn't which is why I saved it for you. I assumed that if you
had
seen it we would have heard your howls of rage all the way to Cambridge.”

I laughed and studied the article she was showing me. The picture was the same one that had been taken the day we'd tried to talk to a reporter about the early changes at the marina, however there was a new headline: ‘Owners can refurbish marina despite protests by boaters'. Confused, I glanced up at Bill.

She reached over and tapped the article. “Just read it,” she said. “It's another triumph for understatement.”

I shrugged and read on. There was a paragraph about the plans being confirmed and they got the numbers of boating families affected wrong. It did appear to point out our major issue that, with that number of boats hitting the system, it would be difficult to find moorings for everyone.

There was another paragraph stating again that the plans for the refurbishment had been given the go-ahead and, reading, I began to wonder what the whole point of this was. I glanced up at Bill who was watching me closely over the top of her glasses. She was obviously expecting a reaction about something.

The next paragraph had Mrs Owner saying how they understood that we were upset (upset? UPSET?) by the decision to have us all off the land and they did sympathise.

A grin began to spread across Bills face as I gave a derisive snort. “It gets better,” she said.

The next paragraph had me grinding my teeth in pure rage. It stated: ‘The majority of them have all gone now and it actually hasn't been as stressful as we all thought it would be.'

Bill laughed as I crumpled the page in my fist. “Yeah,” she said. “That's the bit.”

I had to take a couple of moments to get my mouth to work. I took some deep breaths and concentrated on drinking my coffee. Eventually I couldn't be quiet any longer. “Not stressful?” I glared at Bill who grinned happily at me. Obviously I was reacting almost exactly as she had. “
She
didn't lose her job,
she
didn't have to move her child to a new school,
she
didn't have to completely refit the electrical system of her domicile to the tune of a couple of grand.”

On each word my voice rose just a little more and, as I noticed women at other tables turning to look at us, I clamped my teeth together and forced myself to calm down.

Bill used a little force and rescued the crumpled newspaper from between the fingers of my fist. She stroked it straight again and folding it put it safely back into her bag. “I think I'd like to keep that as a memento,” she said.

“Of what?” I could hear myself snarling but couldn't seem to be able to stop it. “Complete ignorance?” I stared into my empty coffee cup. “People who had lived on boats for more years than I gave up that lifestyle because she hurried them into leaving at precisely the very worst time of year. People had to sell their boats. Elaine and Dion now have a boat that isn't working. You don't have a mooring at all, Donna and Steve's isn't really ready yet, Lewis can't find one he likes, and we have one that is barely liveable. God knows what's happened to half the others. Half of them are still stuck in the floods.” I banged the mug down on the table. “And to top it all off none of us can actually get off the system because they did this in the depths of winter when the locks are undergoing maintenance and the weather is so bad that those that do work are actually silted up and closed. And while we've all been running around like headless chickens trying to get our affairs in order, she's been sitting there congratulating herself and thinking that it hasn't been
stressful
?” I took a deep breath and forced my voice to drop an octave or three. “I'm just trying to work out exactly what the issue is here.” I glared up at Bill. “What would you vote for? Complete ignorance, greed, or Narcissistic Solipsism?”

Bill laughed and then reached over and patted my hand. “You look a little wild around the eyes, dear, and you've started ranting in multiple syllables,” she said. “Would you like another coffee?”

I nodded and wondered if I had any rum in my handbag. While Bill was at the counter I read through the rest of the article, there wasn't anything else exciting. I had to admit it might be a misquote, it wasn't like a reporter hadn't got it wrong before. I couldn't imagine how anybody could be that blind. By the time Bill came back with two large hot chocolates covered in cream and sprinkles I'd calmed down again.

“I took the liberty of ordering something naughty,” she said. “Have you calmed down yet?”

I huffed a laugh and began poking the thick cream into the chocolate with the back of my spoon. “I have to hope …” I watched as the cream bobbed to the surface of my drink like a snow-covered iceberg in the middle of a liquid midden “… that the paper got it wrong and that she's as furious with them as I was last time I read an article about the marina.”

“Would you even go back if you could?” Bill asked.

I shook my head. “No, I don't think so, but Sam would, he still thinks of it as ‘home' and he's definitely mourning the change.”

There really wasn't much to say after that and the conversation moved on to more cheery topics.

As January slowly wound to a close very little changed and life became really quite hard work. The month started well enough but the waterways system was still trying to cope with the vast amounts of water that had been dumped into it the previous year. Stuck where we were, close to Denver Sluice, our little bit of river was one of the first to be affected when the Environment Agency tried to get rid of the flood water. Within hours the river would drop by as much as two foot and
Minerva
would settle onto the bottom of the river and tilt alarmingly to port. This made day-to-day living very difficult and we would stagger down the boat, the floor beneath us dropping away to the river side. If we hadn't come off the bottom by the time we wanted to sleep, both Sam and I would cling to the edge of our respective beds lest we inadvertently roll over and get tipped onto the floor. Geoff, who slept next to the wall, wasn't quite so affected. During the night however, he would roll across the bed until he was pressed up against my back. Determined not to be pushed onto the carpet, I would roll over and push him back across the bed and try to keep him in place with either hands or feet. Suffice to say none of us were happy with the amount of sleep we got and the whole family was a little grumpy and tired.

Trying to cook while the boat was like this was another trial. Baking was almost impossible. Every cake I created came out of the oven at an angle, burnt and crispy where the mixture was only a couple of millimetres thick and uncooked on the other side where it was deeper. Crockery slid from the kitchen work tops and I spent a lot of time clearing up spilt drinks. This odd, slightly drunken, existence lasted for about two weeks before yet another freeze set in and the river finally stayed at a decent level.

For the rest of the month, snow, hail, and wretched howling winds battered the boats and their inhabitants. We waited for it to howl itself out but the weather showed no signs of letting up and every day became a battle against the elements. Heads down against the wind, we would drag whatever we needed for that day to a car that was frozen solid. I would spend most of my days dragging necessities such as coal, gas, diesel, and groceries back again. The pipes that carried the drinking water to the boats froze for nearly two weeks and we had to start borrowing bathrooms from friends that didn't live in the boondocks. Even Geoff's cheerful and stoic personality started to crack from the strain.

“I'm really not sure I can do this for much longer.” He sat on the sofa and winced as he stretched his muscles. The deep cold played havoc with various old motorcycling and re-enactment injuries and after taking the last of the paracetamol he stoked up the fire and handed me his TENS machine. I stuck the little sticky pads to various muscles and then turned the machine on to its highest setting. He sighed with relief as the little machine sent electrical pulses through his back and shoulders.

His statement surprised me; he was usually the biggest advocate of the boating life. I could always be relied upon to find something to moan about but he was usually happy with our rather vigorous lifestyle. “You're not thinking we should sell up, are you?”

He looked up and shrugged. “If we have to stay here then I think I might consider it.”

Silence fell and, needing time to think about this, I got up to make tea. I looked around our boat. It was warm and cosy and, compared to the world outside, it was a positive haven of snug living. I had to admit it was the outside world that was letting us down.