Narrow Escape (30 page)

Eventually, I handed him a mug of tea and an early hot cross bun and studied him. It had been seven years since we started this little escapade and we'd made a lot of changes. Children had grown up and left home. We now had a grandchild and, all too soon, Sam would be gone as well and it would be just us. We were so close to being able to relax and mooch about I didn't want to lose it all now and I was fairly sure that Geoff didn't either. He looked tired. Sitting on the sofa, still in his work blues, he winced every time the TENS machine sent a particularly enthusiastic pulse through his sore muscles. We hadn't seen the sun for months and his extended hours were taking their toll, he looked sallow and grey, I was fairly sure that I didn't look much better. With no water we'd concentrated on making sure that our bodies and all our clothes were clean but the washing up only got done every two days and I know the mess was certainly getting me down. Eventually I plonked myself down beside him. “But we don't have to stay here,” I said. “You were never that enamoured of the place before we even got here.”

“But you like it, don't you?” He stared down into his mug. “It could be quite nice when the summer comes.”

I snorted. “I like Janis, the rest I could live without. You'd still have an hour's drive to work and we'd still have a long walk to the car.” I thought quickly, Geoff absolutely hated doing anything for himself, the man was a complete martyr. It was one of the reasons I adored him. “Anyway, you know we have to get out of here before spring,” I said.

Geoff looked up at me and frowned. “Why?”

I shrugged as though it was obvious. “Too much plant life around here.” I got up and gathered up the mugs. Wandering down the boat I placed them on the teetering pile of washing up. “Those trees are going to give of a huge amount of pollen in the spring. Sam will just become one wet pile of gripes and moans.” I caught a mug as it slid with a clatter toward the floor. “No, I never wanted to stay here for good. It was only going to be a pit-stop for a couple of months.”

Geoff grinned at me. “You are a terrible liar, you do know that, don't you?”

I nodded. “If
you
don't like it here and it's making you sad, we go. That's really all there is to it. We didn't give up a static life just so that we could take on another one. We only stayed in the last marina for so long because it was convenient.”

I wasn't lying to him about moving, that really was one of the things I loved most about my life. There are many downsides to this lifestyle and each season has its own challenges. However there is
never
any need to stay in a place you don't like, you don't have to put up with neighbours you don't like, you don't even have to put up with a rubbish view if you don't want to. There is always the option to move.

After our little conversation Geoff was much happier and, with something to look forward to, a little of the winter gloom lifted.

Chapter Fourteen:
And On …

At the end of February Elaine and Dion limped down the river to join us. Their boat still wasn't fixed but they were happy to have a mooring and with spring just around the corner were content to wait for better weather before they attempted to rebuild their engine.

We, however, had had enough and were just waiting for Salters Lode lock to clear before we were planning to be away.

Eventually, at the beginning of April, we got the news that boats were, once more, moving through the middle levels. Geoff confirmed this with a phone call and at his big smile I started thinking about what we needed to pack up.

Spring was definitely dragging its heels but the day we left the wind had dropped and the sun was shining. Sitting on the front deck watching the world go by I really couldn't think of anything I'd rather be doing.

It was as though the gods of boating were smiling on us that day and the whole trip was just textbook from start to finish. We'd been through Denver Sluice and Salters Lode on three previous occasions. Being so long our boats always caused a problem and today was expected to be no exception.

Geoff had spoken to the lock-keeper only the previous morning and it was planned that we would go through the locks as the very last boat of the day. This was evidently to keep us on high water. There was every chance that we would have to sit in the lock pound at Salters for the afternoon waiting for the water to go down naturally but it was something we were happy to do.

Making excellent time we pulled up at the moorings outside Denver at about twelve o'clock. Sitting in the sunshine with a cup of coffee we watched as a sparkly new boat began to pull in behind us. The lady sitting in the front looked a bit harassed.

Placing my coffee cup on the ground I stood up and held out an arm. “Sling us your rope if you like,” I said.

She gave me a great big smile and threw her rope to me. It was a good throw and I picked it up and wrapped it around one of the mooring bollards. Geoff walked to the other end of the boat to do the same.

The gentleman on the tiller swung it the wrong way and the boat's backside headed out toward the centre of the river. I looked up, wondering why the boat, that had been coming in so nicely, now seemed to be on a nose first collision course.

The lady on the front looked a little embarrassed. “First time out,” she shouted over to me.

With shouted instructions from Geoff they finally moored up and joined us for coffee. It really was their first time out with their brand new boat. They'd moved on to it while it was being finished and it was now on its maiden voyage to its home moorings.

“Do you mind if we go through with you?” Julie stared up at the huge gates of Denver Sluice.

I was just about to laugh and say, ‘Oh you don't want to go through with us, we don't know what we're doing.' When it occurred to me that we
did
know what we were doing. It came as a bit of a shock.

After seven years of getting it wrong, sometimes quite disastrously, we were quite comfortable taking our great monster from place to place. I thought back over the latest trip. We'd turned her around with only about four foot to spare, we'd manoeuvred her into a fairly tight mooring space. I was no longer worried about going through the big locks.

Julie looked a little worried by my silence. “We won't if you don't want us to.”

I shook myself out of my reverie and laughed. “No, that's fine. Sorry, I was just thinking about the trip here. Of course you're welcome to go through with us.”

After making plans to meet them in half an hour for lunch at the pub we went our separate ways. I was still mulling this latest revelation over.

We'd managed to get a very dilapidated boat though a frankly hideous year and had ended up with no proper mooring and no electricity but we'd survived. We knew when things weren't right, when the engine note changed, when something smelled bad, when she was badly ballasted and we now knew what to do about it. I'd managed a minor repair on the generator in sub-zero temperatures and kept everyone warm and fed. Geoff … Well, Geoff had fixed everything else. Bless him. I could change gas bottles over and fill her with water and pump out. I was more than a little surprised to work out that there wasn't anything I was worried about any more.

I remember back to when we first decided to live on a boat, everything had seemed so alien. I couldn't remember, try as I might, when this life became ‘acceptable' and our old, normal, life began to seem like the one to avoid.

Fortified by this new found knowledge and a couple of glasses of beer I prepared to face the locks that I had previously done everything I could to avoid. Quite frankly I found myself looking forward to it but that could have been the beer.

Both boats pulled into the huge lock at about three o'clock. Due to the large banks of silt we were warned to come out one at a time and to make sure we stayed firmly to the right. The lock doors closed and the water levels began to change. The metal walkway high above dropped water on us and I grinned as Julie squeaked at the cold drips and the overpowering smell of mud and water plants that always marked a lock for me.

As the big doors lifted I could see why the keeper had asked us to stay to the right. A tall digger with an extraordinarily long arm stood silent above us on newly created banks. The Environment Agency had obviously had to do a lot of work to create this channel through which we now travelled.

Sam, wondering at the odd moon-like landscape through which we now travelled, stepped out of the doors and joined me at the front of the boat. He'd obviously just had a shower and he leant over the side so that the wind could dry his hair. Five years ago I would have wrapped a rope around his foot but now I knew it was unlikely he'd fall overboard and let him get on with it.

“What on earth is that?” He pointed to a rounded, slick grey hump that emerged like a plague island from the centre of the river.

I explained about the silt movements that had been going on because of all the flood water and he shook his head.

“When you said there was silt I imagined that maybe the river was a bit shallow,” he said. “I didn't expect there to be hills of the stuff.”

I nodded. “It's been a bit of an extreme year.”

Sam ducked back inside the boat and emerged a couple of minutes later with a mug of coffee.

I must have looked confused. “It's for you,” he said. “You didn't get to drink your last one.”

I stared at the mug of coffee and then looking up, studied my son. When had he changed from being pudgy selfish child into a casually thoughtful young man?

He looked worried. “Don't you want it?”

For the second time that day I had to shake my thoughts away. “I'd love it, thank you.”

Sam sat down on the side of the boat and looked happily smug. Obviously brownie points had just been earned.

I was just finishing the last mouthful of coffee when we approached the sharp left turn into Salters Lode.

Sam was seeing it for the first time. “Have we got to turn into that tiny little channel?” He stood up and peered over the front of the boat.

I nodded. “Yep, and with a boat this big it's a right pain in the ar–”

Geoff cut across me. “Give me a shout when I hit the wall, will you?” he called.

I gave him a thumb-up and leaned, with Sam, over the front. We both watched the approaching wall of tyres with some trepidation.

There was hardly a bump as Geoff brought us slowly and expertly in. Pushing the nose against the tyres, he swung the back end around and then we drifted slowly into the lock pound. We didn't have to wait, within ten minutes we were out and on our way again. Perfect.

We'd planned to stop for the night at the lock moorings but, as they were full and we had a fair amount of daylight left, we decided to press on so we waited for Julie and her husband to come alongside to tell them what we were up to.

We said our goodbyes and they went on ahead. Determined to make their mooring by nightfall they were going to be much faster than we were likely to be. Sure enough within half an hour they were lost to sight.

By five o'clock we'd found a mooring at the strangely named place of Gady Dacks and pulled in for the night. It was wonderful, quiet, empty and just long enough that
Minerva
took up the whole thing.

As the sun was setting we amused ourselves by sitting out on the mooring to eat our dinner.

Geoff, full of pudding and tea heaved a happy sigh and stared down the river in both directions. There was nothing and nobody to see, idyllic. He turned to Sam with a big grin. “I don't suppose you want to change schools again, do you, Sam?”

Sam spluttered into his ice cream and looked at his dad. “No,” he said. “I really don't.”

He was just about to launch into a full argument about how much he liked his new school and how it was going to be GCSEs next year when I nudged him into silence. I knew Geoff was joking but I knew why.

“He's joking, Sam,” I said.

Sam subsided with a huff of exasperation.

“He just means that it's so nice to be travelling again that he doesn't want to stop.” I had to agree the thought was terribly tempting.

Sam grinned and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “I knew that.”

We all sat in silence and watched the sky darken. Eventually Geoff got to his feet. “I suppose we'd better close up for the night before we get a boat full of flies,” he said.

An hour later and we were all sprawled across the sofa watching
Dr Who
. When the program had finished we turned the telly off and Geoff got up to make tea.

Sam watched him for a moment and then turned to me with a worried look. “Where would we go if we kept going, Mum?” he said.

I shrugged. “I really fancy heading for home, Sam.”

He looked confused and I realised that, to him, this was home. The inside of the boat was what he called home and the outside really didn't matter to him. I clarified, “I'd really like to head toward Worcestershire and Birmingham.”

He shook his head. “Why?”

“Well it would be nice to go full circle, it's where we started from after all.” I thought about it for a moment. “Nanny and Granddad are there, your aunt, your cousins, and loads of old friends.”

Sam looked down at his feet for a moment. “I could change schools again, if you really wanted to do that,” he said.

“What?” I pulled him into a hug, he was really getting too big for hugs. “No. Two more years and you'll have your GCSEs and then we can think about where you want to go for your A levels. I can wait another two years, especially if you're in a school you really like.”

Sam nodded slowly. “I think I'd quite like to do my A levels in Worcester.” He frowned.

“What's the matter?” I pushed him away to study his face. “Don't worry about it, it's going to go really quickly.”

Geoff wandered up and handed me a mug of coffee. “What's going on?” He grinned at both of us.

I took the coffee. “I was just explaining to Sam that we're happy to wait for him to finish his GCSEs before we move on.”

Geoff nodded in agreement. “Of course we are,” he said. “I was only joking, we fully expect to stay here for the next couple of years while you're studying.”

“It'll be nice actually,” I continued, “the girls are doing their own thing, your dad's got a job he enjoys so maybe we can have a little peace and quiet for a couple of years. Maybe we could even get
Minerva
's paint job finally done. We might, just might, get a summer this year.”

Sam peered up at me through his hair.

“I'm really looking forward to just spending some quiet time living on this boat. We've got some decorating and bits and pieces to do but she's nearly finished. You're studying for your exams, we're just going to puddle on till you've finished and nothing …” I glared up at the ceiling. “NOTHING, exciting is going to happen this year. We'll all just carry as normal.”

Sam looked down at his feet. “Can we go to the cinema soon?”

“Huh?” I was always taken aback by his ability to change the subject so quickly. “Erm… yes if you want to.”

“I do like the school,” Sam said. “I'm really happy with my options for my exams but there is another reason I like it there so much.”

I buried my nose in my coffee and stared down the river, happy and contented at the view and the complete lack of anything even vaguely representing a problem. “What's that then?”

“Can I bring a friend to the cinema?” Sam studied his trainers.

Oh, we were back to the cinema again were we? I nodded. “Yes if you'd like to, who is it?”

His voice was muffled beneath his hair. “Well, there's this girl ….”

I took a deep breath in, swallowed coffee and began choking and spluttering.
That
scenario did not represent a nice quiet life. I could hear Geoff laughing over the sound of my coughing and all I could think was …

‘OH NOOOOO!!'