Narrow Margins

by Marie Browne

  As usual in a crisis, I made tea while Geoff rushed around with a tape measure and tried to find a way to get a two-foot bath through a one-foot-eleven-inch doorway. My happy thoughts of hot bubble baths, chocolates, wine and a great book slunk off to hide behind that wretched, hated door.

  Geoff picked up his tea and put a piece of paper in front of me. My heart sank; more diagrams.

  ‘OK ...’ he muttered, ‘we can get it in through the back doors but we are going to have to be careful through the engine room. The wall between the bathroom and what will be our bedroom doesn’t have the door in it yet and I reckon we can get the bath through there. It will be a bit tight, but we should be OK.’

  ‘All right.’ I drained my teacup and gave him what I hoped was a confident and enthusiastic grin. ‘Let’s do it.’

  There is one thing that must be made clear before I explain the horrors of the next hour and a half, the back of a ‘Trad’ styled narrow boat is small, very small – at its deepest you have about three foot – and the whole back is styled as a curve with the tiller at the apex. To have even half a chance of getting the stupid bath through the engine room, the plan was to balance our bath on that back plate and then attempt to manoeuvre it through small, metal double doors into the four-foot, low ceilinged darkness of the engine room, down a deep step into the space that was eventually destined to become the main bedroom, tip the bath on to its side and just slide it through the door space and into the bathroom. It wasn’t the best plan, it left a fair amount to luck, but it was the only plan we had.

  At the back of the boat, Geoff leant forward over the two-foot gap between bank and boat, grabbed the lip of the bath and hauled the tap end aboard; it promptly wedged itself under the tiller, but this was easily taken care of by just removing the tiller – ha, one problem surmounted.

  At the angle the bath was sitting, with one end on the boat and the other on the bank, it was impossible to get it through the doors so we juggled the wretched thing up on end; now the end of the bath was higher than the roof. We needed to bring the back end down, and unless we suddenly discovered that we could walk on water, that looked like a very difficult prospect.

  After a fair amount of shoving and swearing, we decided that the only thing to do was turn the bath on its side and hang a large amount of it past the back of the boat and allow it to ‘hover’ over the water; we would then try to slide it into the engine room. To achieve this, Geoff, being river side, would have to balance on the four-inch gunwales as the bath was taking up the whole of the back of the boat.

  I’m still not entirely sure what actually happened, but I have a horrible feeling that it was all my fault. With all the shoving and pushing, I finally lost tolerance and gave the bath an almighty push, no doubt thinking that as planning and manoeuvring were proving a waste of time, I was going to go with outright thuggery. I am pretty sure it was me that pushed Geoff off the back of the boat and into the river, and I’m fairly sure it was me, watching the bath slide off after him, who made no move to save either of them. I know for a fact that it was me who thought, ‘I wonder if that bath is going to sink?’ I do remember thinking that I didn’t want to fall into the river; one of us splashing about risking Weil’s disease was more than enough, and I had a new pair of trainers on.

  With a certain sense of relief, I realised that, as the plug had been firmly wedged into the plughole to stop us from losing it, the wretched thing was actually floating. Geoff, floating with it, had pushed it around the back of the boat, stopping only when the bath bumped gently against the bank. He then stood up in the scant foot of mud and water in which he had been trying to swim and, narrowing his eyes, looked up at me. I was desperately trying to keep a straight face and still leaning nonchalantly on the roof of the engine room.

  ‘Do you think,’ he gave me his patented ‘I am just about keeping my temper but one more thing is going to make me lose it big time’ face, ‘that you could possibly – if you have nothing better to do – come and get this on to dry land?’

  I know that face, and, wincing slightly, I leapt off the boat and pulled the bath out of the river. Geoff hauled himself out and stood, shivering, dripping water, mud and weed all over my new trainers; somehow I felt that complaining wouldn’t really get me any sympathy. Three hours later, the bath was finally in the bathroom and Geoff was dry and full of tea (which always puts him in a better mood). It transpired that dumping the bath into the river showed us exactly how to get it lined up for the back doors, we threw it back in the river and brought it around the far side of the boat, then ( both of us dry and on the back plate this time), we dragged it aboard in exactly the right position, where it went through the doors with no fuss at all. There was one minor ‘hold your breath’ moment when we were juggling it past the bedroom wall but although it scraped on both sides, it went through. I can only hope that no one ever wants to take it out because, with the later addition of the bedroom door, that bath is there to stay.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Twenty-three Tonnes of Steel,

  One Man and a Rope

  WHILE ALL THIS HAD been going on, Charlie’s first and second visit to the boat had arrived and passed. It would be fair to say that on her first visit she had expected the boat to be bad. I think that by her second visit she half expected it to be completely finished. She loved the new bathroom but felt that, really, if that was as far as we had got, we ought to be putting a lot more effort in. She was willing to be slightly mollified with promises of graceful elegance in the future but we had sorely disappointed her with our present level of activity.

  It’s amazing really: you can completely ignore your living conditions until somebody points them out to you. I think her exact words were, ‘Oh yuck.’ I have to admit she was right. With one bathroom dismantled, tools everywhere, boxes heaped haphazardly in odd cabins, Happy was looking a slightly sorry sight. However, even with all the disappointment, we had a fun weekend and at least Charlie agreed to come back. But she did expect it to be a lot better by then. (We had our orders.)

  Hardly anything on Happy changed over the next couple of weeks (hoo boy, were we going to be in trouble) and one morning, with Sam safe at school, we decided to head into Ely for a pump out and a full refill with fresh water. It had been irritating to discover that the river had no turning spaces for a boat of Happy’s length. To travel into Ely, we had to spend three quarters of an hour heading in the opposite direction and turn her at the ‘Lazy Otter’, so every time we made the journey Geoff desperately searched for likely spots that might have just enough space for us to squeeze our way around and allow us to knock some time off the journey.

  He had spotted one such place where the bank had been eroded over time, forming a nice semi-circle shaped ‘bite’ out of the bank, where, he hoped, we might be able to jam her nose into the apex and use it like a winding hole. So bundled up in jumpers, woolly socks, hats and gloves, we decided to give it a try.

  I have always found it difficult to envisage 70 foot. You look at ‘normal’ narrow boats – most of which are around 55 foot – and then you take a look at our monstrosity. Well, that day we found out exactly how long 70 foot is ... About three foot longer than the width of the bloody river.

  Under normal circumstances being across the river wouldn’t have caused us any real problems. There would have been grumping and sighing, but we should have been able to kick off from the bank or use a pole to push her backwards, swing her straight and off we’d go. That day the circumstances were anything other than ‘normal’. We slowed right down as we approached Geoff’s possible turning place and turned Happy’s nose into the bank. All was going to plan, and as she was turning in, I increased the power just to get her turning a little faster and, in a foul and horrible moment of déjà vu, her nose lifted, and came to a complete stop. Oh damn. Well, at least, unlike the other times we had grounded, it was only Happy’s nose that was stuck; it should have been easy to get her afloat again.

  The river had e
roded the bank, but it was actually only the bank that had eroded. Two inches below the surface, the original line of the Old West River was still there, lurking under the water, a huge soft mud bank. Happy, like a pig hunting for truffles, stuck her nose in deep and there she contentedly stopped.

  For the next hour and a half we did every single thing we could think of to get ourselves free: we rocked her; we got off and pushed from the bank; we stayed on and pushed against the bank with bars. Happy just lived up to her name and with every action made a deeper nest for herself in the mud (oink!). Finally out of options, we sat on her roof, each clasping a cup of tea and thought about our predicament.

  Looking back on the incident I have decided that while ‘necessity’ may be the mother of invention, she also had three other children: Stupidity, Danger and Futility (those three obviously left home early and didn’t go to university). Deciding that we needed better leverage it was decided that I would push with a pole from the front and Geoff would take a rope into the river and swim with it to the far bank in an attempt to provide extra ‘oomph’ by pulling her back end toward him. (It seemed like a good idea at the time.)

  Geoff prepared to clamber into the freezing cold, fast-running river. Looking at the speed of the water that day, and knowing that Geoff wasn’t the strongest swimmer in the world – he’s like a shark, if he stops moving he sinks – I insisted that we attach another rope to his waist, which I would hold, ready to pull him back if anything horrible happened.

  Taking a deep breath, he slipped into the river and headed for the far bank. Holding his safety rope, I held my breath until he was safely out of the water, then shouted over to him to untie the rope around his waist, as I didn’t want any chance of it getting tangled when, and if, we came free and I had to start the engine.

  ‘Untie the rope,’ I shouted across the water.

  Geoff was busy shivering. ‘What?’

  ‘Untie the rope,’ I bellowed again. Not sure that he had heard me, I demonstrated which rope by giving it a little tug.

  Completely unnoticed by either of us, as Geoff had been swimming, the poorly tied rope had loosened and, as he had pulled himself out onto the bank and had stood up, it had slipped down around his ankles. My ‘little tug’ pulled him straight off his feet, onto his backside. He then slid, down the muddy slope and straight back into the river. I winced at the splash; at least he was far enough away that all his screaming and cursing were muffled by distance.

  With Geoff out of the water for the second time, I took myself and the barge pole to the front of the boat. With a big shout of ‘go!’ Geoff pulled, I pushed and Happy grudgingly left her pig wallow and headed backward, swinging her back end toward Geoff heaving from the other bank.

  No one can think of everything in a situation like this and we found ourselves with a little problem. With Geoff on the far bank and me desperately trying to pull the barge pole back from where it had sunk into the mud at the front, there was no one at the tiller and before I had time to race down the roof, Happy had run backwards into the far bank, the current sweeping her nose sideways and ploughing it hard back into the mud wallow – again.

  As all movement ceased and Happy made happy squelching noises in the mud at the bow, we found ourselves diagonally across the river, and, rather than being a little stuck at the front as we had been, we were now stuck at both ends.

  At least Geoff didn’t have to get back into the water – he just stepped aboard the back plate and stood there, studying our latest predicament, dripping and shivering.

  ‘Go and get changed,’ I said to him, ‘we’re not going anywhere. Surely if we just wait a little while, another boat will come along and they can push us off.’

  Unable to speak through his chattering teeth, Geoff just nodded and went below to find some warm, dry clothes. I put the kettle on.

  Waiting for him to return, I sat scanning the river. Surely a disaster of such epic proportions as this should have provided entertainment for a hundred onlookers – an unrivalled opportunity for pointing and laughing; and then it struck me, this was the exception to the rule. We needed help, therefore, there wasn’t likely to be a boat down the river for another six hours.

  A well-wrapped husband, still slightly blue, appeared at the engine room door and reached, with a shaking hand, for his tea. I gave him a hug. ‘Sorry about pulling you into the river, I didn’t notice that the rope had slipped.’

  Geoff grinned. ‘Ah well, I was already wet, so you’re one up on last time.’

  Studying the back end, it was far worse than we feared. Happy had hit the bank rudder first, this had then sunk deep into the mud, and was acting like an anchor; there was no way we could just swing her off at the back end. We wandered down to the front and found the force of the current had lifted Happy so far up onto the mud bank that she was at least four inches higher than normal; completely and utterly stuck.

  So there we stayed, blocking the entire river. We had already been there for an hour and there were only another two before one of us had to go and pick up Sam from school. With the complete lack of onlookers, I was beginning to wonder if a bomb had dropped or aliens had attacked and we were the only ones left in the world; no joggers, no dog walkers and no other boats – it really was very unfair.

  Over yet another cup of tea, I stood at the back leaning on the immobile tiller and watched Geoff now trying to dig us out with a spade. Finally losing my temper with the whole situation, I grasped the tiller in both hands and gave it a good wrench backwards and forwards.

  What’s this? What’s this? The wretched thing actually moved, only about an inch but it had really, truly moved. I rolled my sleeves up and shouted at Geoff that I had got the tiller to move a bit and that I was going to try and just keep moving it backward and forward in the hope that it would dig its way out of the mud.

  It took me about ten minutes, and to this day I hate to think what damage I caused to the already dodgy shims, but eventually the rudder began to move more freely in wider and wider arcs. Eventually, I managed to get it facing in the other direction. Geoff had come to give me a hand about halfway through the exercise and, seeing that we now had a possibility of movement, he rushed off to the front of the boat and leapt off on to the bank to give her another push. I turned the engine on and with the rudder no longer attaching us to the bank, Happy moved her bum elegantly round into mid-stream and we were finally back in free water.

  Happy and I were now in the middle of the river, Geoff was on the bank – not the best place for him really. He motioned me to keep going and trotted alongside, both of us looking for a good launch point from which he could jump on. Approaching on the left was a flattened muddy area where cows came down to drink, which Geoff pointed to, giving me the thumbs-up sign. I slowed right down and watched him sprint ahead, readying himself for a big jump.

  He jumped. He slipped. Grabbing the gunwales, he only ended up waist deep in the river; he struggled onto the boat and sloshed toward me.

  ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘we’re all where we are supposed to be and at least I’m only half wet this time.’

  With him still dripping on to my feet, we rounded a corner and both watched in silence as a perfectly good, man-made mooring slid past. We looked down at his trainers and jeans gently trickling over the back deck, we both looked back at the mooring, we did not look at each other and neither of us said a word.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Breaking in a Boyfriend

  BY THE BEGINNING OF November, we had pretty much become accustomed to our new life. I found myself spending a fair amount of time in the bathroom as that was the only clean, well-decorated area in the boat, but apart from that one small sign of neurosis the rest of life just pottered slowly by.

  Geoff had sorted out a lot of the electrics and other minor irritations, such as gaps around the windows, through which the wind whistled, and he had taken our rather fragile central heating system apart in an attempt to toughen it up; even with his intervention, t
he heating was still temperamental and I had actually become quite handy with a ten-millimetre spanner.

  All of these little jobs took a vast amount of time but didn’t really make a lot of visible difference to the decorative surroundings. So, by the time Charlie visited again, we had to endure a few quiet comments about laziness and how nothing much had changed. She was charitable enough to inform us that, even though her living environment was no better than a kennel, she did enjoy her visits and would continue to grace us with her presence for a little longer, but really we ought to be putting a lot more effort in.

  As the weather grew colder, we had to move a couple of jobs to the top of the ‘urgent’ list. Inside the boat, the temperature plummeted at night and we desperately needed to install a wood-burning stove. The ridiculous central heating system was even more at the mercy of cold weather than we were and although Geoff dealt with the cold in his normal stoic way, I was completely fed up with going to bed fully dressed.

  The dropping temperature had also highlighted several extra external problems. Since arriving at the mooring we had been clambering down the steep flood defences, trusting that, if we fell, the late summer grass was soft and lush and the most we could suffer was a slightly bruised bottom and maybe a bag of spilt shopping. As the weather turned, the bank become muddy or icy – in either state, it was hideously slippery. With the dark nights drawing in, it became imperative to construct a set of steps before one of us ended up in the river. A wide, strong and safe gangplank was also needed for pretty much the same reason.

  Huw and Amelia were due to visit and it was decided that, with their help, we could actually moor the boat near the builders’ yard and just pick up all the wood required for steps and gangplank in one trip. There was far too much to fit in the car and, with our savings dwindling rapidly, delivery charges were a luxury we weren’t about to indulge in.