by Marie Browne
The mouthful I was struggling with transmogrified itself into a lump of concrete, hit the pit of my stomach and lurked there. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry any more and spent the next half-hour poking at the rest of the contents of my plate. Geoff, however, having imparted his ‘good’ news, cleared his plate in record time and with obvious relish then started on what was left of mine.
After leaving the restaurant, we stopped at an electrical store, picked up a tiny kettle and a small flat-screen television. Sam was suffering from PS2 withdrawal and the sooner we got him a fix the better for all of us. We then headed back to the boat. It took another hour to make some sense of the chaos and disaster that Sam’s ‘unpacking’ had created but we finally got him into bed, where he passed out in the middle of a sentence about how much he didn’t like his new bedroom and would never get to sleep.
Making sure that our room was vaguely fit to sleep in, we took a last cup of tea out on to the roof. It was warm, dark and very quiet; the only sound was the occasional ‘splosh’ or an irritated hiss from a group of four or five adolescent swans, gliding about the marina, casing each boat in the hope of bullying a late-night snack from some unsuspecting resident. We watched them in silence for a while as they moved silently in and out of the pools of reflected light from the boats; it was a clear night and with no light pollution there seemed to be a billion stars.
Tea finished, we lay on our backs staring up into the night sky. It would have been nice to lie side by side but being an aptly named ‘narrow’ boat we had to lie head to head with our feet pointing towards either end, trying to work out all the constellations that we really ought to know. It was the second recognisable instance since I had had my ‘cunning plan’ that I actually felt this might have been a good idea.
Chapter Six
Fully Trained – and Still Terrified!
AS FAR AS SAM was concerned, training day was possibly going to be the best day of his short life. His dad had installed the television, he had a new game to play on the PS2 and, unlike every other day, there were no restrictions, he could actually play for as long as Mum and Dad were busy, instead of just the one hour he was normally allowed.
There were snacks provided (all healthy and good for him), a vast amount of drinks (no additives, no chemicals) and unlimited violence (brain-rotting and mind-boggling). So by the time Dave from the training company turned up, he couldn’t have cared less. He did manage to say hello, but that’s only because I wouldn’t let him past me with the huge quilt (nest-making material) he had stolen from our bed, until he did. He was quite obviously looking forward to his day immensely. I just wished that I could’ve said the same.
Waiting for the kettle to boil, in response to Dave’s ‘White, one sugar, please’, I watched Sam fluff up all his pillows, pull the quilt around him, arrange all his snacks and drinks in easy grabbing distance and, with a grin almost as big as one of his father’s, fix a steely gaze on the big-eared character and his robotic sidekick and completely zone out reality. I found myself unreasonably irritated with him. Here we were in the middle of this ‘big adventure’ and all he wanted to do was play stupid games, but he looked so happy sitting in his ‘nest’ I had to smile and pushed the growing jealousy to the back of my mind. I grabbed the cups of tea and fought my way through the cramped engine room to the back of the boat, hoping that the tea was enough to put off leaving for a little longer.
Dave was explaining to Geoff about something called ‘springing off’. He was a lovely guy who had obviously been around and aboard narrow boats for years, still finding them just as wonderful today as he did 20 years ago. He had run his own hotel boat business so Happy held no horrors for him at all. Unfortunately he had one huge flaw – enthusiasm! He was eager to be off, eager to impart his love for all things wet and sloshy, eager to get us trained and competent. Geoff seemed to be as eager as he was, while I, on the other hand, was eager to go and see how Sam’s new game was progressing, help him eat his snacks and drink his drinks and I was pretty sure there was room in that nest for two.
No such luck.
‘Right, come on then,’ Dave enthused. ‘Let’s get this lady turned round.’
For a moment, I thought he was talking about me and eyed him with wary confusion, where was I supposed to turn? He was, of course, talking about the only lady he had eyes for and, with a turn of the key, Happy came loudly to life and seemed as eager to be off as the two chattering men.
‘Springing off’ went surprisingly well. Geoff stood on the bank with the stern rope wrapped around a bollard, with the tiller far over to the right and the engine chugging away. Happy’s nose moved gracefully out into the marina in a beautiful 90-degree left curve and, at a nod from Dave, Geoff unwrapped the rope from the bollard and just stepped aboard; we were off.
With Dave at the tiller we moved slowly and gracefully through the other boats; he turned her out of the basin and on to the canal then stepped aside and said to me, ‘Here, grab this.’
It is a fact that if someone says, in a casual tone of voice, ‘here grab this’, you automatically take what they hand you and there was a moment of panic when I realised I had control of 70 feet and 23 tonnes of steel; the panic bubble welled up and then just went ‘pop’, melting away into a sort of worried, pleased surprise. Happy was doing just as she was told. We were pottering along very slowly, the sun was shining and other boaters were waving and smiling.
There was definitely a sense of slightly dangerous contentment to be in charge of something so big and cumbersome but which also was incredibly stately and graceful.
Our first major encounter with another boat killed off any nerves I might have been experiencing and highlighted the weirdness that I probably would need to expect living on the river. I had the tiller and thought I was doing pretty well, getting the hang of it, puttering along. I was starting to see the draw of this lifestyle, passing slowly and stately around a sweeping bend. Smiling at Mother Nature’s decorative style and half drowsing in the sunshine, the throb of the engine was lulling me into a semi-hypnotic state.
Dave suddenly stopped slouching with his elbows on the roof and stood up to his full height, frowning down the canal in front of us. He reached down and pressed the horn, then grabbing my arm, reached past me to throw Happy into full reverse. It took me a couple of moments of complete confusion to work out that something was going on ahead of us and I looked along the length of the roof to try and work out what it was.
About 30 feet ahead of Happy’s nose, a much smaller narrow boat was floating sideways across the canal, no one at the tiller. For a moment I wondered if we were seeing the inland waterways version of the Marie Celeste, but then I noticed the raised buttocks of two people, leaning over the bow, trying desperately to fish something out of the water.
This is where I learned another, very valuable, lesson. Narrow boats don’t stop! That drowsy hypnotic drift is one of the most dangerous states to be in. You’d better pay attention to what is going on a good way ahead of your nose – and in our case, that’s a fairly long way ahead – because bringing 23 tonnes of steel to a full stop against forward inertia does not happen quickly, if it happens at all.
Luckily, Dave had been paying attention and his quick reactions meant that we just gently kissed the back of the other boat. It transpired that their kitten had taken a suicidal leap overboard and in their panic to get it out of the water they had both rushed to the front to try and fish him out, leaving their boat adrift.
Pandemonium reigned for what seemed like about half an hour but was, in reality, only a couple of minutes. Kitten retrieved, the young couple, suddenly aware that there were queues building up either side of them, rushed about getting their boat underway again.
Putting Happy in forward and taking up the tiller again, I hoped Dave hadn’t noticed that I had been wool gathering – fat chance!
‘Always best to keep a really good eye ahead,’ he murmured, smiling gently.
I smiled, and nodded, damn! Cau
ght red-handed.
Our next odd encounter of the day was with a lady going very slowly in the opposite direction. Geoff was at the tiller and, noticing her lack of speed and that she seemed to be looking in all directions, leaning out over her boat to inspect ahead and around her, he slowed down. Dave nodded in approval, while I sighed and hailed the woman.
‘Is everything all right?’ We had slowed to a crawl and were nearly alongside. She looked up and nodded.
‘You haven’t seen a stray man have you?’ she called back.
Dave just raised an eyebrow ‘Have you lost one then?’ he enquired. In his gentle Warwickshire accent he actually managed to make the question sound sane.
‘Oh yes,’ the woman put her hands into the pockets of her oversized, rainbow-striped woolly jumper and managed to look a little embarrassed. ‘He jumped off to walk for a bit and get some exercise but the tow path stopped and I sort of lost him, he said he was going cross country and I’m following him – I think.’
Dave put his hand over his mouth and coughed slightly. ‘No, sorry, haven’t seen anyone walking.’
She nodded philosophically and waved, returning to her search of both water and hedgerows. Dave waved back and watched her potter past us.
‘Lesson to the wise,’ he mused, ‘this is the one thing that mobile phones are good for.’
For the next six hours, Geoff and I took it in turns to face the ‘normal’ day-to-day perils we would likely have thrown at us on the long journey down to Cambridge: locks (don’t stand on the gates and look down – makes you sick); winding holes (make sure that you actually have some wind and that it is going in the right direction before you try to turn round); straights (can get boring); curves (anything but boring, can’t see what’s coming the other way); tunnels (cold, dark, wet and just terrifying); open water turns (three attempts at this); what to do when you run aground (after the second attempt at an open water turn); mooring up (make sure you are actually close to the bank before you jump off with a rope) and casting off (make sure the boat is still within jumping distance when you try to get back on).
We also took it in turns to try and engage Sam in the different aspects of the day and keep him company; sadly I think we just managed to irritate him, although he did enjoy going through the tunnel. However, as soon as we cleared the exit, he grabbed another handful of grapes and a yoghurt, bought some more ammo for his Morph Ray and went back to turning robots into chickens, giggling every time he did it. Kapow! Zap! Fizz!!! Cluck!!! Ho hum.
We returned to Braunston at around four o’clock in a heroic frame of mind and moored up perfectly, without Dave’s assistance, just outside the marina on the canal tow path. We were qualified Inland Waterways Helmsmen and there was no peril, no danger that we couldn’t face.
We said our goodbyes to Dave, thanking him profusely; it wasn’t so much the training, which, in itself was invaluable, but all the information and useful tips that he had also imparted. I can honestly say without that information we would have faced far more nasty surprises than we actually did.
Geoff finished his post-training cup of tea and jumped to his feet. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we need to pump out and fill her up with water, let’s do it now.’
We informed Sam what we were up to and he waved vaguely at us over his shoulder. He had now been on the game for six hours with only a few breaks and his eyes were beginning to glaze; I made a mental note that, as soon as we finished with pumping out, it would be a proper meal and a long walk along the tow path for him – just maybe we could anchor him in reality again.
We fired up Happy’s engine and backed her carefully into mid stream to make the sharp right turn into the marina. Strangely, without Dave there, it seemed much more difficult. I pulled myself together. For goodness sake, I had been doing this all day and with my backbone firmly held together by willpower, I managed to get her around the corner and perfectly positioned by the pump-out for Geoff to step off and tie her up. I was still smugly congratulating myself 20 minutes later when Geoff shouted that we were full of water and all pumped out. I re-started the engine and backed her carefully out onto the canal again.
One thing Dave taught us was that narrow boats do NOT go backwards well, as they lose all their steering. You have to guide the back end by doing short bursts forward and swinging the nose round, then reversing again. I was still watching the bow and trying to get her in a good line to get back on to our mooring when I ran her hard, backwards, into the trees on the other side of the canal. There was a horribly loud, cracking thump, and a handful of pointy twigs impaled the back of my neck.
This is when I learned a lesson that has stayed true ever since: when you perform a perfect manoeuvre, there is never a soul to be seen, but mess it up and you will always have an audience. Size is relative; the bigger the mistake, the bigger the audience. The only exception to this rule is when you actually need help and then it doesn’t matter how big a screw-up you make, there won’t be a soul around and no one will turn up to point and laugh until you have sorted yourself out.
As complete screw-ups go, this was one of the minor ones, mainly embarrassing, rather than dangerous. It took us three or four minutes to disentangle ourselves from the tree and get back to our mooring. By then, I was so flustered, still trying to stem the blood from multiple scratches on the back of my neck, that I bought her in nose-first and way too fast. As a result, we hit the bank with another resounding thump and Geoff’s imminent jump to the bank was aided by a sudden stop in forward momentum, so much so that he was propelled off the bow in a tangle of arms, legs and rope accompanied by a cartoon-like short scream.
Once Happy was all safely tied up, I looked about, wincing, to check just how many people were still standing around, sniggering at our amateur dramatics: not a single one. With the entertainment over, they had melted away, back to their jogging and cycling, leaving the tow path completely deserted.
Chapter Seven
Why is My Kitchen a Cardboard Cut-Out?
AFTER ANOTHER MUCH-NEEDED cup of tea, I decided to make an attempt at dinner. Incredibly, Happy was equipped with a diesel hob, expensive things, but much safer than gas. Leaking gas tends to drop into the bilges and then explode at the least provocation, or so we had been told. It was one of the things Geoff liked about her, as every other boat we had looked at had gas installed.
To install just the hob alone would have cost over £500, hob and cooker together came to a massive £1200. So with budget restrictions in mind, we had decided that, for now, we would make do with just the already installed hob and the microwave, and the diesel oven could wait for our overdue lottery win.
The hob’s controls were basic to say the least and, with a certain amount of trepidation, we had dragged the instructions out of Happy’s collection of how-to booklets in an attempt to make sense of the wretched thing. Half-an-hour later, we had a pool of fuel in the cupboard space under the hob, the whole boat stank of spilt diesel and every time the hob actually lit, rather than just running through its array of flashing lights, it made this odd whistling, screaming noise before cutting out and dropping more diesel into the cupboard.
Tired and hungry, Sam had hit manic, I had got to the point of screaming and Geoff was talking slowly at me with slightly gritted teeth, a sure sign that he was approaching furious. I was voting to rip the whole thing out and throw it into the canal when Geoff dumped the instructions on the side and said, ‘Sod it, let’s go to the pub, we can get something hot to eat and Mr Hyper there can run off some of that energy.’
We stared at each other and listened to Sam who had taken to bouncing on our bed, each creaking thump accompanied by rude songs of his own devising. Both the bouncing and the singing were enough to make any parent wince.
Holding Sam down with one hand, I made him eat a slice of bread and butter to tide him over until proper nutrition could be found and we took a walk down the tow path, in search of a peaceful beer garden, some alcohol and someone else to do the cooking.
It was a lovely evening and watching Sam tire himself out on the climbing frame in the pub garden we were happy. Geoff let the peace of the evening, a good meal and numerous cups of tea restore his equilibrium, and I let three-parts of a bottle of decent red restore mine.
The next morning dawned clear and bright. I, however, didn’t. Too much wine and the overpowering smell of diesel from the kitchen were just too much for my delicate sensibilities so, deciding that both Sam and my headache would benefit from some more exercise and fresh air, I wandered over to the office with him to see if they had a list of handy diesel engineers that could come out in an emergency.
Sam and I left Geoff with his head in the electrics, muttering imprecations against whichever hapless soul had installed our, in his opinion, ‘stupidly small inverter’. What I gathered, from amid the swearing, was that we only had 1.5kW available to us at any one time, which meant that whenever we had the microwave on we couldn’t use the kettle, as both together blew the inverter and cut out all the electrics.
There was also a problem with the fridge, which appeared to be completely non-functional, but Geoff couldn’t work out whether the fridge was actually dead or if it was just another problem with the electrics.
This is one area where I neither get involved, nor make suggestions; I am terrified of electricity, so I just made him lots of cups of tea and kept Sam out of his way.
Despite Mary’s taciturn personality, she was very, very helpful and spent a good 20 minutes trying to find us someone who could come at short notice; there are very few people who can deal with diesel cookers. Kuranda are the main suppliers of this type of cooker and hob but they are based in Yorkshire and although they were more than happy to fix it for us, we would have had to send it up to them.
Mary finally found us a couple of diesel heating engineers who were willing to have a look at it and would be going past in about an hour.