Narrow Escape (3 page)

Sam and Mortimer arrived back from their walk and I called Sam over to take the wood into the boat. He gave a huge sigh and trudged through the snow toward me. Eventually he made it over to the wood shed and glared up at me from beneath his long fringe. “I don't see why I should have to …”

He stared at me and whatever gripe he had been about to make died on his lips. The blood fled his face and his mouth dropped open. He took a step back, his eyes fixed on my shoulder.

Knowing how my big butch son felt about spiders I rolled my eyes at him. “It's just cobwebs Sam,” I said. “We haven't got much wood left and I've had to dig about at the back of the shed.”

Sam shook his head and pointed at my shoulder. “Gah!”

I looked down and swallowed hard. Now, I'm not particularly bothered by spiders, I can pick them up and put them out. I can brush them calmly off if they're playing their usual yoyo tricks in the boat and land on my head. But even I jump when I'm taken by surprise and, quite frankly, the size of the one currently sitting happily on my shoulder would have surprised anyone.

I copied Sam's example. “Gah!” Convinced that this couldn't possibly be the only one, I ripped off my coat and, after shaking the spider off, dropped the garment into the snow, moving it around with my foot in an effort to entice out the other suspected hordes of arachnids that were sure to be hidden in the folds.

“Mum, that was HUGE!” Sam, once again, employed his wonderful ability to state the flaming obvious.

I ignored him; I was too busy trying to get the shudders under control. I was convinced that I could feel little hairy feet dancing down my spine and forced myself to leave my other clothes firmly in place. Naked screaming woman in the snow I'd already done once, I wasn't in any hurry to repeat the experience. Although, I suppose, at least this time I wouldn't be covered from head to foot in cow poo.

Sam warily eyed the basket of wood at my feet. “Can I put that on the front deck for a while?” He sidled toward me and picked it up with the least amount of hand contact that he could get away with.

I nodded. “Good idea.” I watched him carry the basket away and, as quickly as possible, put the tarpaulin back in place. Those things that wanted to live in the dark could stay there.

At least there shouldn't be anything living in the coal bag. The irritation with whoever had left precisely seven pieces of coal in the bag got rid of the last of the spider shudders. I sighed as I headed back out into the cold and over the flood defences and down to the car. I heaved the 25kg pack of coal onto my shoulder and then, after only two staggering steps, dropped it back into the snow. Geoff always managed to do this with such ease but he was far stronger than I could ever hope to be. He seemed to be turning into one of those wiry types, all grey hair and stringy muscles that, if pushed, could probably lift a small car without seeming to exert himself at all. I, however, as I got older, seemed to be turning into a small overstuffed cushion.

I kicked the bag of coal and wondered how on earth I was going to get it up the slippery, icy slope of the flood defences. Well I wasn't going to let a bag of rocks beat me. So I opted for a sort of drag and push routine. I would take three precarious steps up the hill, dragging the bag of coal behind me, then stop, pull the bag around me and push it ahead. With this sort of strange circling dance, me and my bag of coal made it up the hill. I was almost at the top when I slipped. My only thought as I slid backwards down the hill on my stomach was that I was glad the coal had managed to stay where it was.

Cold and wet I headed back up the hill, wishing that, despite it being full of evil vampiric spiders, I'd put my coat back on. At the top of the flood defences I stared down the other steep slope toward the boat and with a shrug decided that if I could slip and slide down a hill so could the coal, and gleefully kicked the bag off the top. It did slide, it slid very well. Straight down the hill, over the edge of the riverbank and onto the frozen river. I watched it closely as it settled on top of the thick ice, waiting for the crack that would signal its watery demise. Nothing happened and after holding my breath for a couple of seconds I sent a small thank you upwards and slid down after it. Leaning out over the ice I grabbed the corners of the bag and heaved, intending to get the coal back on to the bank. The bag split at about the same time as the ice cracked. Twenty-five kilos of coal headed for the bottom of the river, leaving me standing on the bank with an empty bag in my hand. The next thought I sent upwards wasn't so grateful.

Geoff stuck his head out of the engine room and waved at me. “Is that bag empty?”

I slowly nodded; there really wasn't anything I could say.

“There's some more in the car.” He gave me a big smile. “Can you manage one bag? I'm a bit busy at the moment. I'll bring the others up later.” He looked down at his watch and shook his head. “Good grief, it's taken you almost half an hour to get out here? If you don't hurry up that fire will have gone out and we'll have to light it again.” His head disappeared back into the darkness.

The next bag took twice as long to carry up, and more than twice as long to carry carefully down the other side. By the time I got back inside the boat my fingers and toes felt like ice lollies but everything else was sweating up a storm.

Sam wandered past with his head in a book. “It's a bit cold in here.”

I gritted my teeth and decided that, for once, I was going to follow my mother's advice. ‘If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.'

The only place I was truly warm was at work. Addenbrookes hospital must have a huge heating bill because the place always seems to be somewhere in the balmy 80s. Monday morning and, clutching a supersized cup of coffee I shuffled through the office shedding clothes as I walked. I must have got rid of at least three layers before ending up at the bright pink shirt that was part of my uniform.

Throwing myself into a chair I stared at the glum face of my boss. “Erm. Good Morning?” At the complete and utter silence I began to worry. “Am I late, did you have a bad weekend?” Still no response. “What on earth's the matter?”

Angela, the manager, handed me a memo. “More redundancies, I'm afraid.”

I stared at the memo. There, sure enough, was a long explanation of the problems the company had been facing. The only way they were going to stay afloat was to get rid of more staff. The first wave of people had already been removed and now it was only Angela and myself that covered the entire hospital which consisted of over a thousand units. I wasn't really surprised, with the all singing, all dancing new units that had been installed, we still found time to watch telly and relax.

“Well I guess I'm looking for a new job.” Angela had certainly been with the company longer than me, it was a foregone conclusion. “Damn,” I muttered into a cup of coffee, “I don't want to get a real job.”

“Well, you've got at least three months.” Angela produced a bag of cookies from her desk drawer and waved them in my general direction.

I took a cookie and dunked it in my coffee. Damn it all, I actually enjoyed this job.

When I got home that evening I grumped at Geoff. “Where am I going to find another job like that one?” I said. “It was perfect, the hours fit beautifully in with Sam's school. Apart from that I really enjoy wandering around the wards fixing the televisions. It's easy, the patients are great fun to talk to and I get paid for doing it.”

Geoff handed me a cup of tea. “Well, you do keep saying that you'd like to go back to university and get your MA,” he said. “Maybe now is the time to do it.”

I shook my head. “I don't think we could afford it, especially if I'm out of work.” I sipped my tea and stuck my lip out at him. “Good grief, I'm going to have to get a proper job.”

Geoff laughed at me.

Really, the man has no empathy at all.

“Oh the horror,” he said and then, heaving himself to his feet, headed toward the bathroom.

I waited until he was quite a way down the boat before I stuck my tongue out at him. I looked back at the list I'd been making of all the things we wanted to buy for the boat. We were still a long, long way from being finished. Even the bits that had been built weren't completed, not a lick of paint had touched any of it.

One of the additions to our boat had been a new kitchen. Geoff had built the frame, the doors, and drawers. We had then, due to our restricted budget, covered the working surface in tiles. I hated it.

I'd been warned by a couple of friends that using tiles as a work surface was a bad idea as they were a complete pain to keep clean. Unfortunately, due to the strange angles and sizes of the work surfaces, tiles had been the best option. Despite their practical deficiencies they looked fantastic. British racing green and cream, we had set them in a random pattern and, against the natural wood of the cupboards, they glowed.

Poor Geoff had experienced a certain amount of trauma building the units as my design had incorporated cupboards set at a forty-five degree angle. The design certainly got the best out of the space available but really caused him some constructional headaches. He'd spent at least a week muttering, “45 degrees, 45 degrees,” and rushing around with protractors, tape measures, and bits of wood. I suppose I had been a little unfair because the first time he'd complained about the design I'd stated loftily, “Oh you'll work it out, you always do.” He'd really had no choice after that, and sure enough he'd come through as expected and presented me with a beautifully crafted set of units and drawers.

After it was all finished he grudgingly agreed that it was certainly the best use of space and that he was quite pleased with how it had all turned out. I really didn't want to tell him that I'd changed my mind about the working surface.

We'd lived with it now for a couple of months and it didn't matter any more how good they looked; those tiled surfaces were fast becoming my personal nemesis. Food and liquid settled in the dips between the tiles and, although I'd taken to scrubbing the wretched surfaces with a scrubbing brush and some bicarb., the cream grout was rapidly turning brown. In some places, where water collected, the dreaded black mould had already begun to appear.

One evening, after I'd sat down to immerse my scrubbed fingers in a pot of hand cream, Geoff snapped his fingers and said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you – Vikki and Neil are moving house.”

Vikki and Neil had been friends for years. Neil is the world's greatest scavenger and the lord of re-use, he had sheds full of ‘useful' bits and pieces. Most people save things ‘just in case' but he, nine times out of ten, actually finds a good use for them.

“Where on earth are they moving to?” I asked. “It's going to have to be somewhere pretty spectacular to house all his junk.”

“Hey, it's not junk.” Geoff's eyes lit up. “But no, they can't take it all with them. Neil's taking the stuff he really needs and he's offered me the opportunity to see if there's anything I want.” He grinned and rubbed his hands together with a little chortle.

I sniggered and went back to rubbing the cream into the dried-out husks that I used to call fingers. “Hmm and of course you said yes.”

“Definitely.” He picked up a book and, pretending to read, hid behind it. “You're working next weekend, aren't you? I said I'd help them move and then I could see if there was anything we could use.”

“Just remember we're short on storage space ourselves, try not to go mad,” I said.

“Of course.” Geoff grinned at me. “Perish the thought.”

Oh dear.

Geoff was absent most of that weekend but, as I was working, we passed like ships in the night. Sam and Charlie were old enough to do their own thing now and the whole family rushed in and out of the boat with various friends in tow. I'd found that, like cats, if I left food out they could be trusted not to kill themselves or anybody else for a couple of hours. It was quite an odd experience; it had been a long time since I'd been free of ‘small child' responsibilities.

As expected, Geoff came home with an assortment of ‘stuff', an entire trailerful to be precise, and he was very pleased with what he'd got. A lot of it was wood and, I had to admit, I was pleased to get the additional winter fuel. Some was in such good condition that Geoff had got building plans for it. We spent most of Sunday afternoon trudging through the snow carrying logs, fence posts, sheets of ply, and other bits and pieces.

“Well that's it.” Dusting his gloves off he grinned up at the towering pile of old fence panels, bits of tree and pallets that he'd salvaged from the depths of our friends' shed. “That'll keep us going for a little while.”

Lacking only a sad-looking Guy, the pile of wood gave the impression it was just waiting for bonfire night. I gave the whole thing a worried look; it appeared to be listing quite extensively toward the boats. “Will it stay like that? It doesn't look very stable.”

“Don't worry,” Geoff gave the nearest piece of wood an affectionate pat. I held my breath as the whole structure swayed alarmingly. “I'll separate it out and put away the stuff I can use and then reduce the rest to firewood.” He gave me a big smile. “What's for dinner? I'm starving!”

“Nothing, I've been running around with you all afternoon carrying wood about.”

“Oh yeah,” he said.

I understood why he was being more vague than usual, his head was full of plans and lists.

Well this was an opportunity not to be missed. “Tell you what, I'll go and knock something edible up if you don't need me any more.” My gloves were soaked and I couldn't feel at least four of my fingers.

He nodded. “Great, give me a shout when it's ready.” Humming some Status Quo song he turned away to dive happily into his big pile of wood. “Oh,” he said, turning back. “We don't have any use for three slabs of black slate do we?”