Narrow Margins (25 page)

Poor Herb had become more and more senile and just plain old. He moved stiffly and had a huge amount of difficulty getting on and off the boat, his legs would give out at the most inopportune moments and in the days running up to leaving, we had fished him out of the river on four separate occasions. Obviously becoming worried by what was going on with his suddenly uncooperative limbs, he gave up and took to weeing in the boat; I was at my wits' end and took him to see the vet.

‘There's nothing really wrong with him,' Mr Davis, Herb's vet, informed me, ‘he's just old and well, well past his prime.' He took a long look at Herb, sitting on the examining table, and shook his head. ‘He's quite a sweet old thing, isn't he?'

I sighed. ‘We're just about to set off again,' I explained. ‘This is a four-week trip; he's never going to manage getting in and out of the boat, he wees everywhere, he gets upset with all the rushing about, then he wees, then he gets upset about that and I don't know what to do with him.'

Herbert staggered to his feet and shook himself, just managing to stay upright. Just to make me even more miserable, he came over and climbed into my arms, stretching up his ugly, little gargoyle face to lick my nose. Oh, this was horrible.

‘Well, it's not really fair to keep him in an active lifestyle when he is just watching it all go on around him.' The vet scratched Herbert behind his gammy ear. ‘I don't want to suggest putting him down, but he's too old to re-home ...' he trailed off. ‘Isn't there a family member with a more sedate life that could have him?'

I shook my head and buried my face in Herbert's stinky neck ruff. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I put him on the floor and picked up his lead. ‘I think I'll wait for a bit and make a decision tonight.'

Mr Davis smiled and nodded. ‘We're open tomorrow if you need us. Don't worry about making an appointment, just bring him in, and I'll make sure I see you.'

I thanked him and, picking Herbert up, tucked him under my arm. Next morning, I had a good whinge down the phone to Helen.

‘I don't know what to do with him. I'm damned if I'll have him put down when there's nothing really wrong with him apart from being a little incontinent, nobody else will have him and, if we keep him, I know he's just going to be stressed and unhappy. Then there's the problem of what do I do with him after we sell the boat, we can't take him to Lillian's – she's so allergic she'll explode –  and the only really nice and financially possible boats we've found have been in Holland or France so what happens if we have to go abroad for a couple of months?'

‘Well, I can have him while you're at Lillian's,' Helen said. ‘I'd like to say I'd have him for good, but Tara and Paddy would just eat him.' There was silence, then: ‘Give me five minutes.' Helen laughed. ‘I've had an idea, but I'll have to make a phone call, I'll come back to you in a minute.'

Approximately ten minutes later she was back on the phone. ‘I have an answer to all your problems.' She laughed. ‘Do you remember Linda?'

I struggled to bully my brain into some semblance of order. ‘Yes, lives in Scotland, has two boys, loads of mad old dogs, is that the one?'

‘Yes, that's her.' Helen paused. ‘She's happy to take Herbert, she met him at my place and thought he was lovely.'

‘Really?' I thought about it for a moment. I had never actually met Linda, one of Helen's friends from her greyhound rescue days, but had spoken to her on the phone more than once. She seemed lovely, dog mad and quite insane, but lovely. I made a snap decision.

‘Yes, of all the places I can think of where Herb will live out his days in the lap of tolerant luxury, she would be just the person to provide it.' I had a horrible thought. ‘How the hell am I going to get him to bloody Scotland?'

‘I'll take him,' Helen paused. ‘I'd like to come down and see you before you disappear again. Linda's coming to visit next weekend and she says she can pick him up then; he can stay with us for the week, what do you think?'

The relief washed over me like a huge, warm wave. ‘That will be brilliant. Tell you what, I'll meet you at IKEA in Birmingham, at least that way we only do half the journey each.'

Six hours later, Helen and I had wandered around IKEA while Herb waited in the car, had a good chat, numerous cups of coffee and I was giving Herbert a hug goodbye. ‘I shall miss you, you stinky, useless piece of carpet.' Herbert really couldn't have cared less, he was well acquainted with Helen, having stayed with her on numerous occasions, and, knowing that she was good for the odd piece of doughnut, he struggled out of my arms and leapt into the back seat of her car, where he sat poised, waiting for the journey to start. I smiled.

‘He hasn't been fed today, and he'll need another wee in about an hour.' Helen just looked at me.

‘Marie,' she said, ‘I've known Herb almost as long as you have, don't worry, he'll be fine.'

I nodded. ‘I know, it's just ...' I watched Herb snuggle down into her travel rug and laughed. ‘Obviously time to go.'

So dogless and slightly saddened, but confident that Herbert would be happy and well cared for in Linda's mad ‘Old Dogs' Home', I headed back toward Cambridge. On Monday morning, I called Charlie's school to start making the preparations for home schooling, a subject about which I knew nothing.

The school couldn't have been more helpful. They provided all the books she would need, as well as a list of all the subjects and the parts of those subjects that she would have been studying throughout that half of the term.

Sam's school were also helpful, but had some real problems when we couldn't tell them where to send his records. I could see it from their point of view – it wasn't normal to drag your kids out of a perfectly good school, sell your perfectly good home and have no idea of what you were going to do next. There was really nothing I could say in our defence.

Chapter Twenty-nine
‘Road' Trip 

W
E SPENT THE EVENING
of September 3 saying goodbye to all our neighbours. They had been great over the last year and a bit, and I was genuinely sad to leave them. Narrow boat owners make (on the whole) perfect neighbours, although maybe we had just been incredibly lucky, especially with Charlie and Dion next door. They were incredibly quiet and considerate and, much more importantly, they put up with our kids' occasional screaming moments, talked to them, listened to them, and were generally just nice to be around.

Steve, on the other side, had been helpful and, even though he really was the original party man, he always loaded his noisy, chattering guests into his boat and then took them away for the evening. The next morning they would reappear, much subdued and slightly bleary, but his entertaining skills had never caused us any problems.

The rest of the crowd down the line were hardly ever seen until you needed a hand and then they would be with you at a moment's notice; this was especially true of Lewis, a taxi driver who was also retraining to become an electrician. When I first met him, I'd had him pegged as ‘seriously grumpy' but that wasn't true at all, he just never felt the need to endlessly chatter.

It was hardest to take our leave of Dion and Charlie and Jude and Steve. Little Charlie was just about to start school; Ruby was now six months old, and had stopped screaming; Jude was now back at full health and they were starting to go through the process of moving to Australia. I couldn't believe how much I would miss them. Just those odd cups of coffee, not very often but just occasionally, it was great to know that you could go and have a good moan at someone who wasn't family.

Dion and Charlie were grumpy with us for going.

‘You do realise we are going to have to put up with new neighbours now,' Charlie moaned. ‘They might be horrible.'

‘Don't worry, I'm sure it will be someone you can laugh at.'

Dion grinned – obviously I had handed him the perfect opening. ‘Not as much as we laugh at you,' he said.

September 4 and we were up and about by six o'clock. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day and, looking at my steps gently warming in the sun – they were being left behind for Dion and Charlie to use – I experienced a horrible pang of sadness. By eight o'clock, we were packed, our mooring was clear and we were all standing on the banks saying a last goodbye to what had been our slightly strange but wonderful world.

As we pulled out, various neighbours leaned out of the windows and waved us off. There was lots of shouted advice and waving and ribald comments (no change there then). My last image was of Steve and Jude with Charlie and Ruby leaning out of their boat's windows and waving us off as we sailed on past; I almost cut the engine there and then.

Geoff had aimed to get to Denver Sluice at about midday. Having missed coming through it the first time, due to the major shopping trip with Helen, I was quite looking forward to it, even though Geoff was obviously worried. The trip to Denver was about as boring as life can get; I was amazed at the complete lack of landscape. The river is very wide, straight as an arrow and has bridges over it, and that's it, there really is nothing more to say. The land around is flat, boring and grows things – I kept looking out of the window to try and find a landmark but only the bridges stood out, dark against the completely featureless surroundings.

We had pulled into the moorings at Denver by 11.50 a.m. and Geoff wandered down to the lock to see what time they wanted us there. He came back and reported that we would have to wait for the tide to drop, but we should go up to the main lock moorings at one o'clock.

We hung around, had lunch and chatted to the people behind us. They were also heading through the lock. Not having seen the Denver Sluice before, when we pulled up and waited for our turn to go through, I was amazed at the size of it; it was huge, dominating one complete side of the river.

We were held on the lock moorings until just after two o'clock; I know that tide and time wait for no man, but obviously man waits interminably for the tide. Finally, the lock-keeper judged that we could get through safely and let us in. As we came out the other side, I was disappointed at the view; huge, slimy mud banks littered either side of the river, but there was less than half a mile to Salters Lode and Geoff assured me that, once through, the scenery would change completely. I was a little worried when I distinctly heard him mutter, ‘
If
we get through.'

It seemed only a matter of minutes before I could see the top of the Salters Lode lock and Geoff urged me to slow down. The water beneath us was running quite fast and I was horrified when he pointed out the tiny little channel over to our left that we would have to use to gain access to the lock.

With the river running this fast and our great underpowered beastie trying to make that turn, I felt that the whole experience was one that I would rather have avoided (shopping with Helen seemed a much better option and I sincerely wished she was here right then).

I pulled Happy as far over to the right as the mud banks would allow and then began the left turn; power on as hard as we could, tiller hard over, trying to gauge how far the river would carry us past the turn while going at this speed.

I
so
nearly made it, but not quite, and we ended up with Happy's nose embedded in a mud bank, just at the mouth of the turn, but at least the flow of the river brought the back end around, so finally we were facing in the right direction. With the back end being pulled around by the water and the front end only lightly embedded in the mud, it didn't take much for Geoff to push us back into free water again; the lock-keeper hailed us as we approached.

‘Aha, I thought there was someone coming, I could hear the screaming.' Oh, thanks a bunch, mate...

Once through the lock and into Well Creek, the scenery changed dramatically. Well Creek becomes very narrow and quite overgrown, and, being denied a good meal by the winds on the Ouse, the midges gathered here in this still, calm area attacked with enthusiasm. I took to standing at the back of the boat armed with fly spray and, with the terrors of the tidal Ouse behind us, we drifted happily down the narrow, green channel in the sunshine, leaving only a waft of insect repellent and coughing insects in our wake.

We bumbled along and Charlie, happier now that the scenery wasn't quite so alien and there were things of interest to look at, joined us. She sat in the sunshine with a book and one of the occasional glasses of real ale that she was allowed.

Over the last year and a half, we had completely forgotten how low the bridges were in this part of the waterway, and Geoff had to react pretty fast at one of them. We warned Charlie to get off the top of the boat as we watched it approach and she just lay flat on her back giggling, hoping to watch the underside of the bridge pass over her head. It may be that she was skinny enough to have achieved it, but it was doubtful, and Geoff grabbed her as the bow entered the bridge and bodily pulled her on to the back. She was still bleating and complaining when we heard a ‘crunch' and turning around watched the chimney hit the underside of the bridge and get sheared clean away. Charlie turned a little pale and she and I crouched in the engine room as the bridge went past, far too close overhead.

Once through, she jumped back on to the roof and collected our mangled chimney from the top of the boat and brought it back to Geoff.

He looked at the sad, sheared and crumpled piece of metal, and said, ‘Well, let's just hope it doesn't rain, otherwise the Morso is going to be full of water.'

As the evening progressed, I wandered off to make dinner and Geoff started looking for a suitable mooring. Once again our size prohibited us from a lot that were available, and we stared mournfully at other, longer moorings that were already packed with boats, their owners obviously having stopped at a sensible time.

Eventually, when we were about half an hour away from full dark, Geoff slowed down and turned us toward the bank.

‘We'll just stop under that tree,' he pointed over to the left at a huge willow that was dipping a vast amount of its leaves into the water. ‘It's not ideal, but at least we can keep the back end out. And it's warm enough not to need a fire.'

He pulled her over and I stood ready with a rope. The easiest way would be just to tie the rope to one of the thick branches. First there was a gentle thump, the bow lifted and tilted perceptibly over to the right, followed by a swishing, grinding noise as the whole left-hand side of Happy lifted about three inches up on a silt bank and there she stopped. Oh bugger.

It was our first night away from known territory for over a year and immediately, despite all our presumed experience, we were once again aground. I looked at Geoff as he stood there with his lips pursed and just laughed and laughed; it was all so ironic.

‘Well,' I managed, between gulping air, ‘here we are again.'

Geoff looked at me sniggering and giggling, still standing there holding the rope, and took a look around at the ‘mooring' and just joined in. Charlie, appearing to find out what all the howling laughter was about, just took one look at us, another at the mooring, shook her head and walked away.

When we could breathe again, Geoff hopped onto the bank and stretched the ropes across the water, attaching them to the spikes set in the ground and just left her there with her bum waving around in the waterway. We figured nobody would come past in the dark and, as we were planning to leave early in the morning, we quite frankly didn't care at all.

Next morning, we were still aground and with two years' worth of experience, we were old hands at this; there was no shouting or panicking, we just kept pushing, rocking and using the engines and eventually we came away into the middle. Yes, there was no shouting, pouting or whinging, it was efficient, but it seemed so dull. Where was the excitement? The adrenalin? Once back out into water, I frowned and turned to Geoff.

‘It doesn't seem so hard any more, does it?'

Geoff raised his eyebrows. ‘Would you want it to be?'

‘I don't know, not really I suppose, but I think it proves that we are ready for something new.' I looked at him leaning nonchalantly, sun-browned and messy-looking against the top of the boat – he looked like every other long-standing boater we had met. ‘Do you think I have a pathological problem and need excitement?'

He turned to me and grinned. ‘You're a woman, yes of course I do.' I hit him.

We followed Well Creek into Outwell and, from there, on to the River Nene which, while wider and easier to navigate with our great lump of a boat, was again completely devoid of features. On one occasion, I dragged the kids out of the boat to have a look at one of the huge wind turbines that were dotted across the landscape, but other than that we reached March by ten o'clock and took the same mooring that we'd had on the way down, just facing the other way; it seemed rather significant.

The plan for that day was to leave the boat in March and take a family trip back into Cambridge to purchase all the kids' books and study guides for home schooling. I'm not sure that either Sam or Charlie had quite understood what was going on as they only seemed to hear ‘train ride' and ‘buy ... for Sam and Charlie' and were looking forward to the whole thing immensely. Geoff had taken the idea of home schooling very seriously and, as we walked into the train station at March, began explaining Victorian railway architecture to the kids. They stared at him in horror for about two minutes before both of them shook their heads and ran away down the platform, at which point, deprived of an audience, he tried to explain it to me. Lasting slightly longer than the children, I began to hunt around in my handbag for a bag of toffees I had seen in there that morning. Offering him the bag, I smiled and he just said, ‘Am I boring you?'

‘Hell yes.'

‘OK.' He took a toffee and we lapsed into blessed silence. When he had finally finished the toffee, he started again.

‘In 1847 ...' I pursed my lips and squinted at him; he just laughed.

Luckily, the train arrived and we all leapt aboard. The sun was still shining and the day's shopping was a real break. It was actually nice to have spare money to spend for once. We treated ourselves to pizza for lunch and raided the city's excellent selection of bookshops. The children were a little miffed when they finally realised that we weren't buying anything of interest, but soon rallied together and by six o'clock, we were staggering back through the streets of March, laden with books and bags. Back on the boat, we unpacked all our purchases and the kids spent the next hour looking, with growing horror, through all their study guides.

As I unpacked the groceries, Geoff held up a new can opener. ‘Why did you buy this? We already have one.'

‘I don't know,' I took it from him and put it in the drawer. ‘I saw it in Lakeland and just bought it.'

I always bought them when I saw them now. We didn't have ‘one', we actually had four and I had them hidden all over the boat ‘for emergencies'. I didn't think he needed to know that, so I didn't tell him – he would have only given me the ‘look'.

We stayed overnight in March and were back on the water by six o'clock the next morning. The children had taken to sleeping in until about nine so Geoff and I had three hours of sunshine, hot tea, early morning mists, local wildlife and a leisurely breakfast; it was complete bliss.

As we travelled through the villages, relaxed and just enjoying the ride, I wondered if the children were feeling the same way. I noticed that a lot of the schools had started their autumn term and, watching the students walking together in little chattering groups, resplendent in obviously new uniforms, I was pleased that Charlie and Sam weren't around to see it, as I was entirely unsure as to whether they would be smug or sad; they seemed to change their views from day to day.