Narrow Margins (15 page)

Usually, he will rouse himself for one of only two reasons. One: food in; and two: food out. With these two important things taken care of, he usually flops over in whatever comfortable place he can get away with (we don't allow him on either the sofa or the beds, you can't get the smell out for weeks) and within seconds starts to snore. It was nice to see him obviously enjoying himself.

He had managed to successfully navigate the gang plank the previous evening (he's too old to learn new tricks fast) and we were cautiously confident that he could now manage to get on to the bank on his own.

I still don't know whether it was just a senile moment or he was actually a lot blinder than I thought he was, but on this occasion, he completely ignored the gang plank and tried to get back into the boat by jumping onto the bow … he didn't make it.

There was a rush of fur and feet, accompanied by four adults screaming as we all worked out simultaneously what he was about to do. There was then a complete kerfuffle of people leaping to their feet and tripping over each other as we all tried to move 70 foot in 0.3 seconds. All of this noise and motion ceased abruptly as, with a muffled grunt, Herbert took off.

He jumped and splattered himself, legs akimbo, on the raised bow of the boat, then sliding down the side of Happy, he hit the water with a loud splash. Sam howled with laughter and there was a horrible moment in which I didn't know whether to laugh with him or tell him off for being so unfeeling.

Dave was the first to reach Herbert, and flipped him, soaked and shaking, on to the bank. Geoff smothered him in a towel and poor Herbert was subjected to a thorough rubbing down, which left him looking like a huge, dirty, yellow and grey puff ball with an ugly little face stuck to one side; he was a very sad sight. We sat him in the sun and waited for him to dry out, all the time trying to keep upwind of him (river water mixed with natural
eau d'Erbert
does not a perfume make).

After about an hour it was decided that, apart from being a little scared, he hadn't suffered major damage and it would be all right to let him go back to his bed. Helen carried him over to the gang plank and placed his front paws on the wood and pointed him in the right direction. He tottered two or three steps up the wide plank and then, obviously deciding that he wasn't quite dry (or that he had been dried beyond endurance), he stopped on the plank and decided to give himself a good shake.

Herbert is not what anybody would describe as graceful, and when he shakes, he does it with all the energy at his disposal. On this particular occasion, he started shaking with his normal enthusiasm and the momentum carried him sideways in tiny little jumps, straight off the side of the gang plank and back into the river. It took us another hour and another towel to dry him off again, and this time we physically carried him up the plank and put him back in the boat. He didn't come out for anything other than the necessary for three whole days.

Other than mud-covered husbands, a stunt-double dog and a small boy who had laughed so hard he had actually made himself physically sick, it was a pleasant afternoon. Martin the marina owner had come down and connected us up to the electricity point, only to find out that it wasn't working, so he'd kindly connected us to another one for free, while he organised for the installers to come back and swap ours for a new one; he assured us it would be done within a week.

It was an odd evening, the family were feeling a bit down, brought on, I think, by knowing that the travelling was finished and now the hard work had to begin. Helen and Dave took us out and treated us to a lovely Thai meal at a restaurant in Ely. We, however, paid them back poorly I fear, by being quiet and contemplative company, except for Sam of course, who, being fed late and having to eat unfamiliar food, went into manic mode and then dissolved into tears as he was told off repeatedly for poor behaviour. Helen understood, but I still felt guilty.

Sunday dawned, complete with beautiful sunshine and mixed feelings. On either side of the river the flood defences rise so high nothing can be seen from the water level. A short climb to the top, however, reveals miles of man-made landscape which stretches flat and featureless to the horizon. Having spent the last five years wandering the wooded Herefordshire hills I felt as though I was on the moon, exposed and strangely disconcerted by the expanse of ‘land' around me.

Dave and Helen left after lunch. We had spent the morning turfing out some boxes and getting them ready to go into a storage unit we had already booked in Littleport, about ten miles away. All the tidying had been done in near silence.

Over elevenses, Helen had stated, ‘I'm not going to ask how you feel, because if I do you will probably tell me and then cry all over me, and that's not going to do you any good. Dave and I were going to stay later but we are actually going to leave in about half an hour, to give you all some time to come to terms with what is going on.' God, I hate insightful friends.

‘I think it's just me,' I griped, staring into my coffee. As if to prove my point, Geoff wandered past the window sporting a huge grin, followed by Sam, wearing a matching grin and asking an unending stream of questions. ‘They seem quite happy.'

Helen lit a cigarette and stared at me through the smoke until she was sure I had become uncomfortable and I was forced to snap, ‘What!'

She tapped the end of her cigarette into the ashtray and finally said, ‘I'm going to work tomorrow, what are you going to be doing?'

That threw me and I had to concentrate on what I actually
was
doing the next day.

‘Um ...' I stuttered, ‘I don't know, find the closest launderette, find out where the nearest supermarket is, get some shopping in, take Sam to school, pick him up from school – you know, just stuff.'

She raised an eyebrow. ‘And the next day?'

I thought again … ‘I honestly don't know. At some point we will have to start ripping all this out.' I waved an arm vaguely at the sad and dilapidated furnishings around me.

Helen stubbed her cigarette out and leaned back with the air of a spider that has just successfully trapped dinner.

‘So what you are saying,' she paused for emphasis and I winced, knowing exactly where she was going with all this but unable to stop her kicking my blues, ‘is that, while 80 per cent of the population are trapped in boring jobs and doing things that they “have” to do, you are swanking around pleasing yourself.'

I know when I'm beaten, and it suddenly dawned on me that she was absolutely right; no wonder Geoff had such a huge grin, he had worked it out. No responsibility, nothing we ‘have to do', just get on with it and do what you like for a while – hey, this might actually be some fun. The idea so turned my feelings around I even let Helen wallow in smug righteousness for a while.

Helen and Dave left about an hour later and, after waving them off, Geoff, Sam and I were left feeling slightly self-conscious in the peace and quiet to contemplate the next phase of project life. It wasn't so bad; this was going to be easy. All we had to do was rip out all the old woodwork in the boat and replace it with new, move all the electrics and put in new plumbing – piece of cake. We should be finished in about three months.

Chapter Fifteen
I Think We Broke the Neighbour

O
UR FIRST MORNING AT
the mooring I woke a little confused, unsure where I was. I stood staring out of the window with a cup of coffee, just letting the caffeine pull my brain together and going over, once again, the events that had led to this moment. I found myself watching the river. In the early morning chill, little spirals rose up from the shallow covering of mist and dissipated into the warmer air. It was a glorious sight and I found myself just staring, cold coffee in hand.

Beneath the mist there was less ephemeral movement and, taking a closer look, I spotted a fair number of fish slipping through the weeds, disappearing beneath the boat, and then re-appearing. Occasionally, they broke the surface to gulp at floating specs, their big wet lips causing the mist to eddy and curl, then, leaving only ripples, they would sink back into the spiralling mist, the Piscean equivalent of the Cheshire Cat's grin.

‘I wonder if they like bread,' I muttered to myself and wandered over to the cupboard. Ferreting around in the dark, looking for the bread bag, I became infuriated and reached up to open the curtains.

‘Ah, that's better.' I reached into the cupboard, grabbed the bag and as I stood up I found myself staring into a pair of big brown eyes above a nose that was pressed hard to the land side window.

I jumped backwards with a bit of a shriek at which the animal threw its head up and also stepped backwards. I had forgotten for a moment that Happy would be floating well below ground level which is why my early morning voyeur looked so huge – that and the fact that it had its huge wet nose rammed against the porthole. I couldn't work out what it was; my mind said ‘strange, skinny, copper-coloured cow', but no cow ever had ears like that.

As it snorted and danced backward on elegant, stick-thin legs I worked it out: it was a red deer. Good grief! The thing was huge. Even without my strange perspective, it must have stood five foot at the shoulder, it was obviously female and we stayed staring at each other for about a minute, then, blowing spit-filled steam all over the outside of the porthole, she turned and climbed effortlessly up the flood defences where she continued her unhurried wander down the riverbank.

I stood, with the bread momentarily forgotten, watching her make her elegant way along the river, stopping every so often to climb back down the flood defences, stare into another boat, before climbing back up and wandering onward.

Shaking my head slightly and wondering what she was hoping to find in the boats, I remembered the fish and turned to the other window. As I suspected, the fish were more than happy to be offered an easy breakfast and within ten minutes I had about 30 good-sized freeloaders splashing around the boat. This became a ritual, with all the breakfast crusts and edibles being thrown to the fish, which performed acrobatics to delight Sam and myself every morning.

A week later and we were still no nearer to starting the ‘refit' than we were on the day of arrival; we had puttered around pretending to start. This had involved mowing the mooring and clearing out a load of junk from the boat which we then put into storage. Anything more constructive than that we had avoided strenuously.

Sam had settled into school well and Herbert had managed to keep dry, so it was on a Monday morning that Geoff finally announced that the real work could be put off no longer and, even though we had managed to take procrastination to a new level, we really would have to start on the big stuff.

It was decided that the first thing to go would be the second bathroom; it was situated right where Geoff had envisioned the lounge-diner would go and the wall jutted out, obscuring the entrance to the boat. It would be the easiest thing to start with, as there were no major changes to be made and we weren't keeping any of it – piece of cake.

When I returned from taking Sam to school, Geoff had already made a start. He had removed the front wall, which he informed me had taken about three minutes as it was only joined to the other walls at the side, and I joined in with vigour. It was a lot more fun than I had expected, finally taking something apart.

We were a little surprised to find that the shower tray was actually made of concrete, especially when we tried to pick it up, and whoever had installed it was, like Geoff, devoted to over-engineering. I tried not to laugh aloud at his swearing and cursing as he tried to detach the wretched thing from the wall.

It took both of us to ‘walk' the shower tray out of the boat, and looking around at what was left we decided that the next easiest thing to remove would be the wash basin, which was a tiny little porcelain affair.

Geoff capped off the water and removed all the taps and pipes, while I huddled underneath removing any screw that I could see. At the last two screws, I advised Geoff to hold on to it ensuring that it wouldn't fall on me. He took a firm hold and I removed the last screw then gave him a thumbs up, telling him that he could take it away. I watched his muscles flex as he changed his grip on the sink, then he frowned and just let go. Squeaking, I crabbed away beneath it, taking a breath to give him a good telling off for trying to brain me with a sink … No need, the sink didn't move.

Geoff nudged me with his foot, then reached down and took the screwdriver away from me.

‘I think you missed one,' he laughed.

I looked at the sink which appeared to be performing some trick of levitation.

‘Must have done,' I frowned. ‘I took out all the screws I could see.'

Geoff squatted down and had a good look underneath, then getting up again he wandered out and around the back of the side wall making small humphing noises, before returning and giving me back the screwdriver. Stepping up to the sink, he grasped it with both hands and applied a gentle downward pressure; nothing. He frowned and, getting a better grip, began wrenching it backwards and forwards trying to dislodge it from the wall ... nothing.

‘This is ridiculous,' he gave the sink a hard stare, ‘there is nothing holding it on, just the silicon sealant around the top.' He flexed his muscles again and went back to wrenching on it. Still nothing.

‘Can you pass me that big screwdriver?' He flapped his hand vaguely in the direction of the toolbox, never taking his eyes off the sink.

I passed it to him and he began digging out the silicon. An hour later he admitted defeat and, using a jigsaw, basically cut out a rectangular section of wall with the sink still attached. We made quite a few attempts to remove that sink over the next few months and were defeated every time. Later, when Geoff was looking for a piece of wood to form the base of Sam's new wardrobe, he re-used that wall. One day, someone is going to dismantle the wardrobe and wonder why in hell there is an upside-down sink still firmly attached beneath the floor.

It occurred to me at this point that maybe this wasn't going to be as easy as we had expected. When discussing the whole ‘let's do up a boat thing', we had expected to be able to take walls out and put walls in and just generally move things around and have it finished in about six months – it was certainly never going to take more than a year. We had allotted one day to remove this bathroom and now, at the end of that time, we had managed to remove one wall (that hadn't been attached to anything much), a shower tray and a sink. I had a nasty feeling that this was just a taste of things to come.

We stood in our dust-ridden gap and surveyed the damage,

‘Oh well,' I turned to Geoff with a grin, ‘at least that's probably going to be the worst thing to get out.'

He pursed his lips, looking at me with a very odd expression, then, very gently, reached up, grabbed my face and turned it toward the outside wall, ‘No,
that's
going to be the worst thing to get out.' He let go of my head and, taking a step back, hunkered down on his heels and stared into our former bathroom. I stayed where I was, confused. I couldn't see what I was supposed to be looking at, or at least nothing that I would class as a major potential problem, just a little, round porthole and an expanse of wall.

‘What am I supposed to be looking at?' I asked eventually.

Geoff sighed. ‘You're looking too high,' he said, ‘look down.'

I did. ‘What, the toilet? That's just bolted onto that step, you can see the big bolts holding it down and look ...' I stepped forward and grasped the toilet bowl and gave it a good wiggle. ‘It moves. I don't think it's cemented down, what's the problem?'

‘It's not the toilet, you twit.' Geoff stepped forward and gave the step a kick; it made a hollow, metallic bonging sound. ‘It's the tank that the toilet's attached to.'

I must have been having a stupid day because I still couldn't see a problem. ‘It's not that big,' I said, following its line with my foot. ‘Look, it stops here, that makes it about one foot deep by two foot wide by two foot long, what's the problem?'

Geoff rolled his eyes, grasped me by the arm and gently propelled me along the corridor and into the next room, then pointed under the bed.

‘Have a look under there,' he suggested.

Shrugging, I got down on hands and knees and peered into the dank recess under the bed. Even after my eyes adjusted, it took a moment to work out what was lurking under there. When I finally grasped what I was looking at, I was
really
confused.

‘Why is there another tank under there?'

Geoff looked heavenwards. ‘It's not another tank, it's the same bloody one. It comes through the wall, and carries on under this bed.'

‘But ...' I spluttered, getting down and having another look, ‘that's huge – it's got to be eight foot long.'

‘Don't be silly,' Geoff gave me a condescending look. ‘Eight foot indeed – you never have had much of an eye for lengths, have you?'

I looked up at him and made a conscious effort to keep my mouth shut as a couple of ‘length' jokes ran through my mind. ‘Well, how big is it then?' I asked.

Geoff grinned at me. ‘Seven foot ten,' he said, and then ran like hell before I could find something to throw.

We decided that the only way to even attempt to get this thing out was to remove absolutely everything around it. So, with that hastily constructed plan in mind, we de-constructed the rest of the bathroom. We removed the plumbing for the shower, the shower itself and the bed in the next room (which at least gave us some more free space to stack our seemingly never-ending range of boxes). By the time we had finished, there was a huge tank with a toilet perched on top of it, looking slightly embarrassed to be so revealed.

Lounging in the corridor, with a cup of tea, we contemplated this strange modern sculpture; I was just about to comment that we could probably sell it to the Tate when a horrible thought occurred to me.

‘What's under that toilet?' I asked Geoff.

He frowned, ‘The tank.' He pointed at it.

‘Yes, I know but what happens when the toilet comes off? Is there just a hole that leads directly into the tank?'

Geoff's frown deepened. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘what did you think there was going to be?'

‘So, let me get this straight,' I took a deep breath. ‘We take that toilet off and there is just an open hole, and we have to get this tank up on end and manoeuvre it up those steps and outside with a load of … poo slopping around, is that right?'

Geoff laughed. ‘No, I cleaned this tank out as best I could before we left Braunston and we haven't used it since. Obviously I couldn't get it completely clean – that would be impossible – but it should be OK to move.'

‘Right ...' I wasn't completely convinced, but obviously there was nothing for it but to give it a go.

Geoff removed the toilet. It came off so easily that we just knew the next stage was going to be a complete flaming nightmare. We stood at either end of it (Geoff had the end with the hole in it – I had made sure of that) and, taking a couple of deep breaths, reached down, grasped the tank and heaved ... Good grief I had never felt anything so heavy in my life. Geoff managed to get his end off the ground by two inches, my end didn't move at all. Oh dear, oh dear.

After an hour, which consisted of mostly grunting, straining, scuffling, sweating and swearing, we had finally both moved to the same end of the tank and were inching it around the boat to the tune of ‘1 – 2 – 3 LIFT, Argh! Thump! 1 – 2 – 3 LIFT Argh!! Thump!'

We had managed to get it diagonally, widthways across the boat with one end perched precariously on the first of the steps and the other end wedged solidly into the wall on the opposite side of the boat, and there it stuck solid. The tank was actually seven foot, six inches long, and the width of the boat was seven foot. We were in deep trouble.

It was like some horrible antique comedy sketch. With the tank wedged against the wall, we couldn't move it back, we couldn't stand it up on end because there wasn't the headroom, we couldn't stand either side of it and lift it because the steps were in the way, and we couldn't climb over it and lift it from the outside because it was just too damned heavy. We were completely at a loss.

It's one of those moments where the boating community shows its true colours; these people are absolute diamonds. Don't think for one minute that they won't laugh at you when you are in trouble, because they will, uproariously and hysterically, but even while laughing, they will always pitch in and help.

We had only met our next-door neighbour on two occasions and everybody had been polite and nice and that had been about it. We had been a bit worried about living next door to Steve because everybody referred to him as the ‘party boat', which did not bode well for a quiet life, but so far we hadn't heard a peep.

Steve was off work due to having damaged his back, but he limped past at the point where the swearing was loudest, had sized up the situation in one glance and, grinning, enquired whether we were having fun or would we like some help. He then piled in, bad back and all, and gave us a hand. There was a lot more swearing, pushing and lifting and a fair few ‘ouches', but eventually the wretched thing lay on the grass outside. Looking back at the boat I noticed that with the removal of the concrete shower tray and this huge monstrosity, she had developed a definite list to the right; obviously Geoff would need to do something about that pretty soon, at least before we took anything else out. I had horrible images of her just rolling over.