Narrow Escape

by Marie Browne

  As the weather changed once more to the cold and wet that we’d been enjoying before our brief glimpse of summer, I found it even more difficult to drag myself into work. Every night I slept for as many hours as I could possibly fit in and a lot of the time the day-to-day jobs that I’d been able to do before I went full-time were left uncompleted.

  Charlie, of course, was the first to notice that things were beginning to fall apart.

  “There’s no food,” she said. She slammed the fridge door and frowned in my general direction. “What’s for dinner?”

  “I don’t know,” I looked up at her from under a pile of washing that I’d managed to get into the launderette on the way home. “How about you cook something?”

  Charlie shook her head and stared at the clock. “It’s gone seven o’clock, I have to go to work in ten minutes.”

  She’d recently taken a second job to get more money. She was slinging pizzas in Cambridge town centre. She was even more exhausted than I.

  This was getting ridiculous, I was definitely falling down on the job. Travelling an hour to and from work, a full working day, trying to live a life that was activity-heavy, and dealing with children was just getting to be too much. I could feel myself fraying at the edges, there was just too much to do and no time to do it in.

  It didn’t take long before my shifts moved around to give me a day off during the week. I’d planned to catch up on the all the jobs that I hadn’t managed to complete. My list was almost as long as one of my husband’s.

  “Did you order the coal?” Geoff asked.

  I nodded. “It’s coming today,” I said. “I ordered twenty bags, that was right, wasn’t it?”

  Geoff grinned. “Yeah, that’ll keep us going for a while.”

  The delivery was beautifully timed and as I staggered up the flood defences for the third time carrying clean washing and a week’s worth of groceries the coal truck appeared in the car park.

  I decided that, as I’d already spent a lot of time dragging things about, I might as well move the coal as well. It shouldn’t take that long to move the bags up the flood defences and stack them next to our boat. Geoff always did the heavy lifting so I decided that it would be nice if I did it for once.

  Sometimes I was really stupid.

  Grabbing the trolley from the engine room I began moving the bags three at a time. After the first two trips I couldn’t breathe, my legs felt like jelly, and I couldn’t feel my arms at all. I decided that maybe more trips with less coal would be the way to go. Three trips with two bags on the trolley and I felt even worse. I could hardly put one foot in front of the other and I wanted to cry as I looked down the hill and counted that there were still eight bags to go.

  The remaining bags came up the hill one bag at a time. By the time I was down to the last bag I was completely convinced I was having a heart attack. My chest hurt, my stomach hurt, but there was no way I was going to give up. The last bag was nearly my undoing, it took me nearly ten minutes to drag that one bag over a distance that would normally take less than a minute to walk. I tipped the bag of coal onto the ground and then collapsed, face down, on the grass. That was where Elaine found me.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  My mouth hurt, I couldn’t speak so I just lifted one of my jelly arms and managed to give her a thumbs up just to prove I was still alive.

  “Did you just move all of that coal yourself?” she looked around at the haphazard pile of bags that littered the top of the defences.

  I gave her another thumbs up.

  “I was asleep, Jake barking at you walking backwards and forwards woke me up,” she said.

  “Sorry.” I tried to lift my head to look at her but my neck wouldn’t work.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I didn’t mind being woken up. Why on earth didn’t you come and get me? I’d have given you a hand.”

  In all honesty I hadn’t realised she’d got the day off otherwise I might have asked, especially after the first three trips.

  I dragged myself to my knees and, spitting out some errant blades of grass, I rolled over to a sitting position. “I wanted to see if I could do it myself,” I said. Sometimes I say some really stupid things.

  She looked at me as if I was insane.

  She was probably right.

  “Well done,” she said. “You look as though you nearly killed yourself doing it but you succeeded, well done you.” She gave me a huge grin. “You’re going to need handfuls of pain killers later on, you do know that, don’t you?”

  I gave her a sad nod. The whole exercise now seemed like a fairly stupid idea. I hoped that Geoff would appreciate the effort but I knew that he’d probably just laugh. He’d have been able to move twice the coal in half the time. I really needed to raise my levels of fitness.

  Giving me time to get my breath back and my limbs in working order again, she wandered off to make coffee. I was on my feet when she came back but only because Jake, who obviously considered anything on the floor as fair game, kept dropping his ball onto my head in an effort to entice me to play.

  “So what do you think of the latest rumour,” she said handing me a big mug of steaming energy substitute.

  Elaine makes the very best coffee so I took a long swallow before answering. “Oh that is good, thank you,” I said. “What rumour?”

  “The marina is closing and we’re all being kicked off,” she said.

  I nearly choked on my coffee. “Where on earth did you hear that?” I said. “I haven’t heard anything like that.”

  She shrugged. “It seems to be the latest idea coming from quite a few people.”

  “Is this about that email that got sent out?” I said.

  “What email?” Elaine asked.

  “You don’t have email, do you?” I said. “Damn I forgot, I should have brought it round to show you.”

  “What did it say?” Elaine looked worried.

  “Basically it said that …” I stopped. “Hang on a mo and I’ll get you a copy.”

  I went inside and printed out a copy of the latest email. As I was downloading I noticed another had appeared from the same address. I printed a copy of that one as well.

  The new email was short and succinct and very bad news.

  Once I had managed to claw my way out of the boat, I handed the first email to my next door neighbour and stood quietly by while she read it.

  “Oh dear,” she said.

  I nodded. The tone of the email was petulant to say the least. In part, it read:

  ‘Due to ongoing resistance to the continued investment in marina facilities / infrastructure and to the introduction of a residential service charge, it has been decided that the latter shall no longer be introduced.

  We maintain however that investment is vital for the future of the marina and we are therefore looking at alternative ways of continuing the improvements and giving the marina a proper foundation for a viable future.’

  “We tried to pay the first instalment only last week,” I said. “But the lady in the office couldn’t take it and would only say that the plans had changed.”

  Elaine nodded, “We tried to pay it as well,” she said. “I wonder why she didn’t tell us what was going on, she must have known.”

  I held out the other email. “I don’t think we need to worry about that either.”

  Elaine took the email and read it. “Oh dear,” she said again.

  The email was a list of new opening times for the office and to inform us that the man that mowed the grass would now be in charge of electricity cards and mooring fees. On the surface it seemed innocuous enough but when you read beneath the surface it appeared to mean that, for some unknown reason, the cheerful and helpful lady in the office would no longer be available.

  “Has there been ongoing resistance to changes in the marina?” Elaine quoted from the email.

  I shrugged. I hadn’t seen that many changes apart from surface tarting and I really couldn’t see why that
would cost so much.

  “Can I keep these?” Elaine waved the pieces of paper at me.

  I nodded.

  “I don’t think this is the end of this.” She looked mournful. “Do you think they’ll ask us all to leave?”

  I honestly didn’t know, I wanted to say ‘no, of course not’ but I just couldn’t bring myself to actually say it out loud, it would be a lie. These people didn’t appear to care that there had been a boating community here for over twenty years. They didn’t appear to care that we had children and jobs and a life here. All they seemed to see was the profit margin and, with that in mind, I was fairly sure that, like the newts and hedgehogs, we were merely an irritant that messed up their ‘KewGarden’ ideal.

  With the loss of our helpful lady in the office, morale on the marina went from bad to worse. Rumours ran riot and small knots of people could be seen gathering together and the talk was always of what was to come.

  Donna’s boat had all the repairs to the stern tube finished and was ready to go back into the water. She was telling me all about it when I bumped into her in the car park one cold and blustery afternoon.

  “Just don’t talk to me.” That was her opening sentence when I met her. “I’m so angry I may well say something I regret.”

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “The boat blacking has been cancelled.” Donna was almost spitting feathers.

  I must have been having a dim day because I couldn’t see the problem. “But yours is already out and fixed and blacked,” I said. “What’s the problem?”

  Donna fixed me with a glare. She was only tiny but I was eminently glad that that glare was obviously someone else’s fault even if it was currently directed at me. “If other boats don’t come out,” she said, “they won’t be going back in so mine won’t be going back in, will it?”

  I held my hand up, there were far too many ins and outs in that sentence. “Hang on, so yours is still out, it didn’t go back in with the others last month?”

  She nodded and slumped against the bonnet of her little white van. “I kept it out because there was supposed to be another round of blacking and mine was going to go back in with the next batch,” she said.

  “Oh … So what happens now?” Being part of a big batch of boats going in made the crane hire very reasonable. Paying to do it all by yourself was an expensive job.

  “Well I’m stuffed on both fronts,” Donna said.

  “Both fronts?” I was a little confused.

  She drew circles in the raindrops on her bonnet. “Hmm, I went and ‘had words’ and I may have got a little angry and said some things I shouldn’t. I’ve just been fired.”

  “What?” Well, no job and a boat to put back in, that really was stuffed on both fronts. “When did this happen?”

  Donna shrugged. “A couple of days ago,” she said. “I’ve just been told my services are no longer required. They’ve made up some excuse about cutting staff but I know it’s because I may have called her something not exactly complimentary.”

  “Oh dear.” I seemed to be saying that a lot recently. “So what are you going to do?”

  Donna gave me a big grin. “Well, I’m going to make sure all the work is done on that boat before she goes back in the water, which means it’ll be standing outside the office for a fair while yet.” She shrugged. “If it’s in her way I’m happy for her to put it back in the water.”

  I laughed. “Seems fair.”

  “I don’t suppose Geoff could have a look at the electrics for my new engine, could he?” Donna looked hopeful. “I have had someone look at it but they couldn’t work it out.”

  I pointed down the road, I could see Geoff’s van approaching, the ladders bouncing as the van dipped in and out of the huge pot holes that we were expected to negotiate. I always wondered where our mooring fees went, it certainly wasn’t on anything necessary like safe travel.

  Geoff parked his van and climbed out into the rain, he looked a little alarmed as both Donna and I approached him with big smiles. “Uh oh,” he said, “this looks like trouble.”

  He was quite happy to re-wire Donna’s engine and, before the next weekend was out, the engine in her boat was happily turning over and ready to go. When I asked him how come the neighbours get such prompt service and I’ve been waiting for him to put up a blind for six months he happily informed me that sometimes doing something different was as good as a holiday.

  At the very end of September the rumour mill took off and once again everybody was worried that the marina was no longer going to be open to live-aboards.

  Half the boaters were getting ready to go, the other half were debunking the whole idea. It really wasn’t a cordial place to be.

  Chapter Ten:

  Then October Adds A Gale, A Bad Time For

  Boats Trying To Set Sail.

  On the 3rd of October, the question on everyone’s lips was answered with gut-wrenching finality:

  ‘…(‘the company’) hereby gives you notice that the licence by which you occupy a mooring space … (‘the Marina’) will be terminated with effect from 4pm on Wednesday 9th January 2013 (‘the Termination Date’) and requires you to vacate the Marina by no later than the Termination Date.’

  There was a lot more: Threats of what would happen if we failed to comply, threats of what would happen if we didn’t leave and, on the back of the letter, the threats were repeated in legal jargon.

  There was a second letter that accompanied the first. In a totally different tone it informed us that due to the works to improve the marina it was going to have to be closed for at least three months while these ‘essential’ works were being done, however, they hoped to open the marina again in April and we would all be welcomed back with open arms.

  Oh well, I thought that’s not too bad. Geoff caught my expression and silently pointed to a line I’d missed. It said: ‘However, please note that when the Marina reopens NO residential use of boats moored at the Marina will be permitted. This will be a rule which we will enforce strictly, and once it reopens the Marina will be exclusively non-residential.’

  “I’m not sure I understand.” I handed the letter back to Geoff.

  He took the letter and handed me a cup of tea. “What don’t you understand?” he asked.

  “Nobody in their right mind would throw sixty-plus live-aboard boaters, some of whom have children, most of whom have jobs and cars and responsibilities out of their moorings in early January.” I couldn’t believe what I’d just read. Boaters don’t move much in the winter, we live a hand-to-mouth existence as it is and the idea of having no safe haven in the worst months of the year just convinced me that I was right to think how incredibly stupid and ill-informed this woman and her chump husband were.

  Geoff slumped onto the sofa. “Well we always suspected that they had absolutely no idea about this lifestyle.”

  I nodded as the whole thing sank in. “Oh my God! What are we going to do?” While Minerva was perfectly capable of moving under her own power, we still depended on having access to an electricity supply and Charlie’s little boat didn’t have an engine at all. I took a breath and waited for Geoff to be the voice of reason and calm.

  There was silence for a couple of moments.

  I nudged him … “Geoff?”

  He stared at the wall for a couple of moments and then he shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Well that wasn’t what I was expecting at all.

  We were sitting there in silence when there was a knock on the door. I opened it and Bill climbed in waving the same letter, Drew was no more than a step behind her.

  “So, what are you going to do?” Bill looked down at her letter and shook her head. “Three months is nowhere near long enough for people to get ready to go,” she said. “Some of these boats don’t even have engines, some of the people down here have no other electricity than shore line. These aren’t travelling boats, these are boats that are lived on and occasionally taken out for a nice jaunt.”r />
  Drew shook his head. “This is bullshit,” he said. “Where on the local river will sixty-plus homeless boaters go?” He looked out of the window as the rain dropped like stair rods from the glooming clouds. “This weather is just terrible, how on earth are we supposed to get ready to move in this?”

  Bill took over. “And what are we supposed to do with all the stuff in the storage units and where are we supposed to go?”

  ‘Where are we supposed to go? Where are we supposed to go?’ Those six words were to become everyone’s mantra for the next three months. There were no answers and, as usual, I got up to put the kettle on.

  That week things began to look really grim. By Thursday evening groups of angry boaters lined the flood defences and cluttered up the marina car park. People moved from group to group but the conversations were all the same.

  A car drew up and a photographer for the local paper got out. “Hello,” he gave us a cheery wave. “I’m looking for some pictures of the boaters that are going to have to move.”

  I knew he was coming, I’d called the paper. I’d had a nice chat with the reporter and given him the bare bones of the story. I was a little confused to see just a photographer though, I’d been expecting the reporter as well. I asked what had happened to him.

  “Oh, he’s already got the story,” the photographer didn’t pause from lining us all up on a rickety staging. “He just needs this picture and I have to be quick because it’s going in this evening’s issue. Now come on, no smiling, you’re supposed to be sad about all this.”

  “We ARE sad about this,” I said. “Where did he get the story from?” I had to push because I know I hadn’t given him any major details at all.

  “I don’t know, I just take the photos,” he said.

  I stared, stony–faced, into the camera and hoped that the reporter had taken the time to talk to another of the boaters.