Narrow Margins (13 page)

Geoff had obviously heard the panic in my voice and was hovering anxiously, waiting for the phone call to end to find out what the problem was. I cut the call and slumped onto the settle, which, strangely, didn't seem half as cosy as it had the previous evening.

‘What's the problem?' Geoff poked me in the knee with a stiff finger. ‘What time do we get through?'

‘We don't,' I sighed. ‘There's a neap tide and they can't get a boat of this size through the lock for about a week.'

‘Oh bugger,' Geoff huffed, ‘what are we going to do now? While you were on your phone to the lock, I called the school, and told them Sam would be there on Thursday.'

‘Why did you choose this Thursday?' I asked, curious. ‘Why not the Monday after?'

‘Well,' Geoff shuffled a bit. ‘It's a new school and I thought it might be nice for him to just do a couple of days in the first week, you know, get him used to it?'

OK, can't argue with that logic; so our plans were to be changed yet again. If this whole boat debacle had proved anything it was that life is like riding a unicycle, just when you think you have got the hang of it, you hit a rock and fall flat on your face; I personally think that strategically placing rocks is the gods' recreational endeavour. When plans fall flat there is only one thing to do: make a new plan.

After yet another cup of tea, we decided that we would stay moored in Whittlesey but would still go and retrieve the car. We could bring the van down another time, but having one vehicle here would make life much, much easier, and after another lengthy pore over the map it was also decided that we would move Happy to March, an easy half-day run down the river, and stay there to await the tide dropping. Taking stock of our life, we had decided that a launderette would become very important very shortly, and we had been told there was a good one in March.

By the time new plans were made it was about 11 o'clock and we decided that lurking around for the day, although nice, would serve very little purpose. As the railway station was only down the road, we spent another ten frustrating minutes trying to persuade Sam into some state other than stark naked and, making sure we had the keys to the car, set off.

The walk to the station, the train ride and then a taxi to Braunston took four hours, which included an hour's wait as we missed our connection somewhere in the middle; it was odd, the same journey by water had taken us seven days and that had been pushing ourselves – we had originally estimated nine. Even odder, the car ride back to the boat took only two and a half hours. It was fun to look over the side of the A14 just before Oundle and see the viaduct that we had travelled under only a few days before. Now we
knew
where that river went, hmm, straight into a willow tree if I remembered rightly.

We got back to the boat at about eight o'clock in the evening and having fed Sam on the road we managed to bribe him into bed with promises of no travelling the next day. We were going to have a day of fun.

The gods once again proved me a liar, as we were woken at 5.30 a.m. by the sound of torrential rain hammering on the roof. Geoff leapt out of bed and rushed around making sure that all the windows were closed, and then came back to bed accompanied by two cups of tea. I thought once more that if we ever became land-bound again, I would definitely miss being tucked up warmly inside, listening to the sound of torrential rain on the roof.

We spent the morning playing silly board games, and then, as the sun finally put in an appearance just after lunch, we all piled into the car and drove out to March, hoping to locate a good mooring for the next week.

I had missed my dose of speed over the last couple of weeks, so I was driving – not that I was likely to break any laws in a 750cc Daewoo Matiz, but I found myself plodding along at 30 in a 60-mile-per-hour limit and worrying that I was going way too fast.

Geoff kept saying, ‘Come on, put your foot down,' until in the end, I pulled over and let him drive. ‘Slow down', ‘Speed up' – one of these days I might actually find myself going at an optimum speed for a particular situation, but, to be frank, I doubted it.

Just for once, we were in luck. Parking the car in the marketplace, we wandered down to the river and found superb moorings just under and beyond the town bridge, beautifully deserted and, apart from a bit of litter, nicely kept. It didn't look as though anybody would mind if we outstayed our 48-hour limit. All the kids were back at school and ‘silly season' on the rivers had mostly come to an end.

In a good mood, we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the town, buying useless decorative items and being talked into purchasing a small collection of DVDs by Sam, who felt that owning the entire Pokémon series was necessary for him to carry on breathing. After indulging in yet another fast-food meal, we wandered back to the boat. Even Sam agreed it had been a very acceptable afternoon; well, he grunted and waved vaguely at us from his statue-like position in front of the telly.

We pulled into March at about three o'clock on Monday afternoon and the moorings were still deserted. Knowing that we were definitely going to be outstaying our allotted time, we pulled her as far up to the end of the mooring as we possibly could, sticking her nose in amongst the greenery. It is nigh on impossible to make 70 feet of grey, red-and-white painted steel inconspicuous without army camouflage netting and possibly a deep cave but we did our best, figuring that if we left as much of the mooring available for other boaters as possible, we would be suffered for a while. We settled down for an extended wait.

Even with all the rushing around over the last 48 hours, we had at least four more days in which to just to hang about; it was very strange. On the Tuesday we all got up early then stood around, looking at each other, for an hour or so after breakfast, trying to decide what to do with our day. I'm not sure why that morning was so slow to gain momentum, as once we finally got our act together it only took an hour to make a huge list of jobs we could accomplish while stationary.

First – and most necessary – was the washing. We had managed for over a week and still had
some
clean clothes but they were getting few and far between. We had really got to the point where the huge stinking pile was starting to get out of hand, especially as it contained the soaking wet clothes from the ‘day of disasters' as it had become known. So, we all agreed, the washing was first priority.

The launderette in March is out on the Ely road and a very poor thing it is too. I hadn't used a launderette since I was at college and had completely forgotten how the etiquette works, or rather the lack of it. I had also forgotten how bloody annoying it is to watch one idiot wander in with a small bag of wet washing and then use three different dryers. I had also completely forgotten how mind-bogglingly infuriating it is when someone fills a dryer and then pushes off and doesn't come back to take their stupid washing out.

In short I had forgotten everything that bugged me about launderettes when I was at college, but even as I walked through the door, the memories started to come flooding back: the smell, the decrepit decoration (or lack of it), the ripped seating and the cheap plastic patio chairs resplendent in their differing shades of nicotine white and fingerprint grey, each complete with a set of wobbly legs that threaten to tip you to the grimy floor at the least provocation.

Loading my washing into three machines (have the machines actually got smaller?) I eased gingerly down into one of the wobbly chairs and amused myself by reading the graffiti; it was definitely more interesting than the aged selection of well-thumbed men's magazines that littered the cigarette-scarred plastic table.

By the time all the washing was finally clean and I had laid claim to a dryer with the simple ruse of waiting till I was alone, then quickly emptying the contents of the machine I wished to use into a washing basket (I had no idea whether the owner of washing and basket were the same person), I was completely exhausted and for some reason felt vaguely dirty. But all our clothes were clean and dry, and, as that was the object of the whole yucky exercise, I had to count the experiment a success, although not one I was in any hurry to repeat.

The rest of the day was spent trying to find space in which to store the clean clothes. Geoff had taken the opportunity of a movement-free morning to reorganise all the boxes in the spare cabins and was also attempting to re-pack some items, thereby getting rid of any box half filled or broken. The boat was littered with escaped contents, strange toppling piles and a small boy intent on box diving.

While Geoff had his mind on other things, Sam had managed to unearth a fair few toys that, given the amount of space available in his bedroom, Geoff and I had quietly put away in the vain hope that he either wouldn't miss, or find, them. No such luck. With the crows of pleased excitement growing with each new ‘discovery', he carried all his ‘treasures' into his room and dumped them on the bed.

Geoff had made a deal with him; he could keep the ‘new' toys in his room if he would agree to return an equal number of ‘old' toys back into the storage cabin. He agreed and Geoff had left him to it, desperately trying to decide which toys were doomed to go back in a box.

As I arrived back with the washing, I found the boat filled with flying boxes and toys, and at different ends of the boat, frustrated husband and son were both trying to smother expletives that differed only in strength of meaning.

The arrival of the washing turned disaster into pure chaos. After tripping over each other for about ten minutes, we all abandoned the mess and hid in the front cabin using lunch as an excuse. It took about two hours to restore a certain amount of order and by three o'clock we were all annoyed, bruised and several items had been broken but at least they were broken and back in boxes. Taking a look at our newly organised living space, we decided to make a run for it and went to the cinema.

By about eight o'clock that evening, we returned to the boat, slightly wide-eyed from the big screen and the surfeit of chocolate, popcorn and other less nourishing, but vibrantly coloured, sweets. We were just about to start bringing Sam down from whatever sugar-induced cloud he was currently inhabiting and try to blackmail him into bed, when my mobile rang; it was Helen. Well, as far as I was concerned she was far more important than any wifely or motherly duty, so leaving the lads to fend for themselves, I settled down for a good gossip. After the usual hellos and stuff, she asked, ‘Where are you at the moment?'

‘In the boat,' I answered, knowing full well I was going to get shouted at.

‘No, you silly moo,' she laughed. ‘Where are you in the country?'

‘Oh right ... March,' I answered and told her why we were stuck there.

‘Brilliant,' she said, ‘I know March; when are you moving on?'

‘Saturday,' I replied, hopefully, ‘If we manage to get through the lock.'

‘Great, we're coming down – can you cope with visitors?'

‘Yes, yes, of course we can,' I almost bellowed at her. ‘Are you staying over at all?'

‘Yeah, we thought we would meet up with you, deliver Herbert back to you, see you into your new mooring and stay till Sunday if you think you can cope with us that long?'

‘Not a problem.' Oh this was excellent, real people, people we knew. I was suddenly really very, very happy.

‘OK then,' she said, ‘I gotta go, Paddy has just been sick on the floor. I'll give you a ring on Friday and you can tell us if you will be moving or not – byeee.'

And with that, she had dashed off to clean up yet another of her ageing greyhound's misdemeanours.

Smiling at the normality of it all, I wandered over to where Geoff and Sam were having their usual nightly argument about ‘why you have to clean your teeth', but before I could tell Geoff the content of my conversation with Helen, my phone rang again. This time it was my mother, who advised me that she had bullied my father into coming to visit us again, they were bringing Amelia and Huw with them and they would be arriving tomorrow.

Wow. A little shell-shocked by the sudden possible invasion of people, I realised that the only person we wouldn't be seeing was Charlie and although we had made sure to call her nearly every night, it wasn't the same as actually seeing her, but for that we had to wait another two weeks which would see us at the mooring and well settled.

‘Who was that?' Geoff asked as I sat down.

‘Everybody.'

‘What did they want?' He got up to put the kettle on.

‘They're coming to visit.'

‘Who is?'

‘Everybody.'

He frowned at me. ‘Don't be irritating. Who's everybody?'

‘Mum, Dad, Amelia, Huw, Helen and Dave.'

‘Oh! Right. When?'

‘Tomorrow.'

‘Oh dear!'

I did finally get around to explaining that they weren't all actually turning up at once and that the ‘Mum and Dad' crowd were only visiting for the day, that it was only Helen and Dave that were staying with us overnight, and they actually wouldn't be turning up until the weekend. So it wasn't as bad as it had first appeared.

My mother never does anything half-heartedly and rang me at 6.30 the next morning to get our ‘address' as she put it. They must have been halfway down the A14 when she called because an hour later they were hammering on the roof. It was a very noisy and crowded boat for the next two hours, with everyone trying to talk at once. Geoff and I spent the first hour trying to explain why we hadn't finished fixing Happy up yet and why we were stuck in March, then we had to go into why we had only got this far, and why Sam wasn't in school yet (Sam, by this point, had decided that if they couldn't see him, they couldn't ‘organise' him and bolted for his bedroom).

In the end we just gave up, made copious amounts of tea and just listened to the advice, nodding in the appropriate places. It was definitely a coward's way out to treat them all to lunch, but we felt they might just hold back on their questions and advice if we were in a public place.