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Narrow Escape

Page 20

by Marie Browne


  The next morning Bill stamped into the boat her face flushed with anger and waving a paper. “Have you seen this?” she demanded.

  My heart sank, “No, and I’m not sure I want to know who he talked to.”

  “Who do you think?” Bill snapped.

  I picked up the paper and read the piece with a sinking heart. As suspected the ‘reporter’ had gone straight to the owners who’d basically made it look as though we were moaning about being asked to leave (for our own safety) for just three months and then we’d be welcome back in the spring. It looked as though we were just looking for something to gripe about.

  “Call himself a reporter?” Bill was fuming. “Those of us that live aboard haven’t even been mentioned.”

  “If he didn’t ask the right questions, she won’t give him any answers, will she?” I kicked the paper down the boat and watched with a grin as Mortimer tore it to shreds.

  There was another knock on the door and I opened it to find Andrew, an older live-aboard from some way down the line holding a copy of the paper. “Have you seen this?” he said.

  I sighed. “Yes we have.”

  “I called the paper,” he said.

  Oh well that was interesting. “What did they say?” I said.

  “That they were very sorry and they’d try to print some sort of balancing piece,” he said.

  “Try?” Bill huffed in exasperation.

  “It’s too late, the damage is done.” I wandered over to put the kettle on. “This was the first piece and the first time we tried to do something about it and it’s failed.”

  “We can’t think like that Marie,” Andrew was obviously furious with the whole thing. “I haven’t got anywhere to go, I can’t just move, my daughters are here, what am I supposed to do?”

  “I have a job, Geoff has a job, Sam’s at school, Bill has a job, there are other kids here that go to the local schools. What are any of us supposed to do?” My brain had turned to mush.

  As I wandered out to see them both off, Elaine from next door waved at me.

  “Hey there,” I wandered over to their boat. “How are you doing with all this?”

  Elaine gave me a relieved smile. “We’ve found a place at a local marina,” she said and handed me a piece of paper with a telephone number scrawled on it. “Dion went out there yesterday to have a look, it’s a fair walk to the mooring but I hate the thought of not knowing where I’m going.”

  I could understand that sentiment.

  “Ring them now,” she said tapping the piece of paper that she’d put into my hand. “We’ll go together, we’ve been neighbours for so long I’m not sure I want someone new.”

  Well that was nice; at least we weren’t bad neighbours. I grabbed my phone and dialled the number. The lady on the other end was most encouraging; she’d already heard about the debacle at our marina and laughed as she said she was just waiting for the deluge of phone calls. She told me to call back on Tuesday but everything should be fine.

  Well, that was easy.

  Geoff, not being one to hang about decided that our first task was to clear out the storage unit. “We really need to get this done you know,” he said. “We should have done it ages ago.”

  He was right of course and grabbing my coat I followed him down to the unit.

  I pushed a bag of old clothes around the gravel with a gentle foot. “You know,” I said. “I can’t help thinking that kicking families out in January is about as low as you can get. It’s going to ruin the run up to Christmas for everyone with the worry. This is my home, my kids have been brought up here, they built swings in those doomed trees, they know all the walks around here and the animals and all sorts of things. Milestones have happened to them while they were here. Hopefully they’ve got a lot of good memories about the place.

  “When Charlie left her dad, here is where she came. When she made her first friends in Cambridge, here is where they came. I’ll always remember Jack mincing down that flaming muddy slope, complaining loudly about the country and desperately trying not to let his designer boots touch the common soil, or Scarlett coming up over the flood dressed in huge boots and a tutu, with the light behind her looking like an evil fairy. Sam learnt to ride his bike here; he must have face-planted himself about a hundred times before he got the hang of it, he was just one big bruise for days. He learnt how to climb trees and took part in all the odd things people do here. Like that time that Jo and Nat took him and little Jake to sing Christmas carols down the river in their rowing boat and he sat in the pool of water at the bottom and came home soaked. The terrible set of cars we all have and the mass jump lead sessions in the winter as everyone has trouble getting their vehicles started. Steve’s terrible parties and his awful music which nobody minds because he always takes them away. The barbecues, the laughter and the friends, all of this will just dissipate as we’re forced to find new places to stay. These sort of things have been going on here for over twenty years. Does she not understand that she’s not just closing the place to a couple of boaters, she’s breaking up a community. She’s like some sort of Victorian landowner, she’s a Scrooge. With one badly worded letter and the flick of a pen it all ends because some spoilt brat wants to make more money.”

  Geoff sighed and opened his mouth to say something but I was still in mid flow and didn’t shut up.

  “I just want her to know how she has affected our lives so very very badly and I want her to feel ashamed. I want her not to be able to look my kids in the eye. I want …” I ran out of steam and stood in the drift of our possessions trying not to cry.

  Geoff stared at me for a moment then gave me a hug. He stayed silent for a moment just making sure I’d finally run out of things to say and then, as usual, tried to inject some sanity into my ranting. “But she doesn’t know about any of that.” He held me at arm’s length and gave me a long look. “They’re running a business and all she ever gets is grief. All she sees is that we are trouble and everything they try to do we kick against.”

  “Well maybe if she took the time to get to know us rather than prancing about like the landowner’s daughter and making up petty and ridiculous rules she’d see things differently. We kick against what she’s doing because a, it’s stupid, and b, we were happy the way we were.” I bent and picked up an old teddy of Sam’s that was laying face down and grubby in the gravel. Shaking it hard I flicked the bits of grit from its little tan paws and polished its eyes on my shirt. “Quite frankly I’d pay her money just to go away and leave us alone. I think we’d all do that.”

  Geoff nodded and, leaning on each other, we stood for a moment watching the black clouds roll in. Eventually, he became all business again. “What on earth are we going to do with this lot?”

  I looked at where he was pointing. Buried under boxes of books and black plastic bags full of old clothes was a fourteenth-century burgundian tent resplendent in blue and yellow and three complete sets of armour and weapons ranging from the middle of the 12th century right up to the Tudors.

  “Oh my goodness, I’d forgotten about this lot,” I said.

  Geoff looked sad. “I’d always hoped we’d finally manage to go back to re-enactment one day.”

  I picked up my barbute; it was very rusty and a lot heavier than I remembered. “I’m not sure I could still wear all this stuff and fight,” I said.

  “I’m not sure this would even fit me now.” I pulled my steel breast plate from the top of the pile and strapped it on. Armed with sword and buckler I gave Geoff a couple of experimental pokes just to see if I could prod him out of the dark humour I’d put him in with my rant.

  He never could resist a scrap and, after placing his own barbute on his head, he picked up his favourite weapon, an axe.

  Once, the fight would have lasted for at least ten minutes, today we could barely manage two before we collapsed in separate heaps, giggling uncontrollably and contemplating calling an ambulance due to the chest pains, nausea, and aching limbs.

  “What
the hell are you two playing at?” I looked up to see Bill and Drew standing behind us laughing.

  “Well, I’m playing at being a dead body and Geoff is playing at being fit and young and the winner,” I said.

  Drew laughed. We’d done a lot of re-enactment with both him and Bill over the years. “What happened to you, old woman?” he prodded me with his foot. “You used to be evil with that buckler, you used to wait until they were watching your sword and then brain them with that flaming shield. There’s more than one man with a crease in his armour due to you.”

  “I’m old.” I staggered to my feet and took my helmet off.

  “Well, I’m not.” Grabbing my helmet and sword he advanced on Geoff.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you …” Geoff laughed and backed away from him.

  “Why, are you scared I’ll break you … Granddad?” Drew began to back Geoff into a corner.

  “No …” Geoff took his helmet off and tucked it under his arm. “I’m scared that if you do manage to swing that sword, your wrist will break again and then you’ll be back where you flaming well started.”

  “Oh phut!” Bill had obviously forgotten about Drew’s newly healed bones. “That could have been awful.”

  Geoff sighed and threw the axe back into the big basket of weapons. “Let’s face it, I’m winded after a couple of minutes and I can’t even lift the basket of armour without giving myself a back injury. I used to be able to wear it all and still do cartwheels.”

  Packing everything back into the basket he dragged it into the storage unit and, with a shove of his foot, slid it along the floor into a far corner. “It’s too late to do anything now,” he said. “You lot go back, I’ll lock up and be up in a minute.”

  I nodded. “I’ll put the kettle on.” Geoff was such an easy-going happy person that it was very easy to forget that he had feelings as well, he was always dealing with mine. I wandered over and gave him a hug. He sighed and rested his forehead on my shoulder.

  “Aww,” I said. “It’ll all come out in the wash, we’ve been worse off than this.”

  I felt him nod and then, determined to give him some space, shepherded everyone else away.

  “He’s not a happy boy,” Bill looked back, we could just see Geoff against the coming dark leaning against the unit wall and staring up at the sunset. “What’s the problem? Loss of home, loss of youth, loss of possessions?”

  “A bit of all of them I imagine,” I couldn’t believe we had to go through this again. Luckily this time our home moved with us, and due to my almost obsessive need to keep our possessions down to a minimum we had very little that was actually precious to us.

  As we walked along the tops we could hear one of the boaters having an argument with a woman that sounded suspiciously like Mrs Owner.

  “But this is our home …” It was a male voice, I couldn’t see who it was talking. “No,” the woman snapped at him. “ʻThis’ is your home.” She gave his boat a push with her foot.

  Bill’s eyebrows disappeared into her heavy fringe.

  “This …” she tapped her foot on the grass, “isn’t”

  We looked at each other and as one walked down the flood defences and crossed the field. We stood and watched as the owner stamped away back toward the marina.

  “Well …” Bill murmured. “I guess that’s how she feels about all of us.”

  After his one little ‘moment’ Geoff became, once more, completely obsessed about getting us all moving. He packed all the re-enactment stuff up and we spent a happy day putting the tent up one final time and taking pictures of all the armour and weapons. The whole lot was put on to a sales site on the net and was sold within the week.

  I hadn’t realised how much it was all worth and it was a huge relief to finally have a decent slush fund into which we could dip to purchase all the things we needed to take ourselves elsewhere.

  Charlie, who, tired of the fast food industry and suitably irritated by working with feet-eating fish, was now working for one of the large supermarkets, had been more than a little worried by our upcoming change of circumstances. One morning she sat us down and said that she wanted a little talk.

  “I’m not coming with you when you leave,” she said.

  I sighed. “We’ve been through this before, love,” I said. “Even with your new job you still don’t earn enough to get a place in Cambridge, it’s so stupidly expensive here. I’m sorry but I don’t see that you have a choice, your job’s only temporary till Christmas and after that you could find yourself jobless, homeless, and broke.”

  “I’m not staying in Cambridge either,” she said. “We’re moving to Cardiff. I’ve applied for some jobs there and, if I get one, Tash and I are going to share a flat, they are so much cheaper than here.”

  Tash spent most of her time with Charlie and at over six foot (with a six-inch multi-coloured Mohican) found living on a boat to be quite a trial. I liked having her around, she unintentionally dusted the ceilings for me and I didn’t have to worry about the spiders.

  “I have to go, Mum,” Charlie shrugged. “I’ve been trying to do my own thing for ages and I think this might be the push I need.”

  “What jobs have you applied for?” I hoped they were ridiculous and unrealistic I didn’t want this situation to make her feel as though she was forced out of her home.

  “There’s a big toy store opening in Cardiff,” she said.

  I couldn’t see it, she always said that children should be put in a bin and rolled down a big hill into a lake. “You do realise that ‘toy store’ will equal vast amounts of screaming kids? What about Tash, what’s she going to do?”

  Charlie shrugged. “She’s lucky, her company will just transfer her to another of their coffee shops.”

  Geoff, who had been watching the television piped up. “If you’re moving to Cardiff you might want to have a look at this,” he said.

  We all turned to look at the presenter on the news.

  “Twelve people have been injured in a series of hit-and-runs in Cardiff which have led to the arrest of a van driver.” She sorted out her papers and turned to the camera. “Both children and adults were hurt, and the driver is in custody after a number of apparently deliberate collisions. Eyewitnesses have said pedestrians were deliberately targeted in five or six locations by someone driving a van.”

  “Wow,” Charlie looked a little nervous. “Nothing like that happens in Cambridge.”

  “I’m glad,” I said.

  For the next two weeks it was all move round one, just like the mad hatter’s tea party.

  Amelia’s friend Vera was wonderful and, once Charlie had her job, offered to let her crash at her flat until Tash could join them in Cardiff.

  Amelia and Chris, deciding that their tiny one-bedroom flat was far too small for a growing family decided to move into a house closer to where Chris worked. Charlie of course moved straight into Amelia’s old flat. With us moving and the kids moving there came a point where I wasn’t sure where any of us were, it was a very odd experience.

  Finley laughed and smiled through the whole experience. Now four months old, he had turned from pudgy baby into a real little person. I began to get pangs that the girls and my grandchild were too far away and, for a while we toyed with moving the boat to Worcester. This would cover all aspects of life. We’d be closer to my mother and father and we’d only be an hour away from Cardiff; close enough to be there quickly if needed, far enough away that we weren’t cramping their style.

  The day Charlie left was harder than I ever thought it would be. Possessions crammed into Tash’s tiny car, she was leaving early so had to wake me to say goodbye.

  She shook me awake and gave me a hug. At four thirty in the morning I’m never at my best so I just said goodbye and went back to sleep.

  About thirty seconds after the door closed I jerked awake.

  “Oh my God!” I screamed at Geoff who jumped and grabbed for his trousers completely convinced that the boat was in
imminent danger of hitting the bottom of the river.

  “Wha … WHA?” He looked at me blearily as I rushed around throwing any clothes on I could find, half of them were his.

  “Never mind.” I leapt out of our boat and into Charlie’s hoping that I hadn’t missed her.

  I hadn’t, she was standing in the middle of her little boat, tears running down her face and just turning helplessly on the spot.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I panted as I grabbed her and gave her a huge hug. “I don’t think I was awake.”

  “I didn’t think you cared.” Her voice was muffled into my shoulder and I wondered when she’d managed to get so tall.

  “Of course I care.” I had to sniff hard to try and stop myself from dissolving into tears. Oh well that was the end of that, with two of us trying hard not to cry both failed and we ended up in floods of tears, each making the other cry harder.

  Picking up her last box I staggered with her down the flood defences and toward the car. We loaded it into the back seat and then there was a moment of silence. I looked down at her. We’d always had a slightly odd relationship especially as I hadn’t managed to get her back until she was nearly eleven. But she was a survivor. I couldn’t imagine what life would be like without her. Quieter, that much was certain. If anyone was going to tell me about ridiculous events it was Charlie, if anyone was going to make me laugh it was Charlie. If I was going to have to bail anyone out of trouble it was always going to be Charlie.

  I’d always laughed at women who were worried about empty nest syndrome and had said loudly and often that a child leaving home is a sign that the parents have done their job. One thing was certain; her life was just about to get much more exciting, more difficult perhaps but exciting nevertheless. Mine however would be diminished in ways I already realised and, no doubt, in ways I had yet to discover.

  I gave her a last hug and handed her physically into the car. “If you don’t phone me and tell me that you are alive at least once a week, I will hunt you down and beat you to death with a dirty shoe,” I said between tears.

 

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