Narrow Escape

by Marie Browne

  Eventually we slowed to make the right turn into the creek. I peered up at the bridge by The Ship Inn, it looked very low. Turning back to Geoff who was standing on the plate I pointed up at the bridge. “Bit low, isn’t it?” I had to shout over the sound of the engine, the water and the wind that had picked up over the last half hour.

  Geoff grinned and nodded.

  Well, either he knew that we’d have the clearance we needed or he hadn’t heard me and was just smiling and agreeing in the same way he used to when we had a motorbike.

  He slowed further and I peered up at the underside of the bridge. It really was far closer than I was comfortable with. I tried to ignore its looming presence. Geoff never left these details to chance, he would have checked the height, I hoped he had. Having to buy a new chimney (again) was never going to be high on my list of fun things to do.

  There was no problem with the chimney – Geoff had already removed the stack. The bridge cleared the little collar by at least twelve inches. It was a real shame, however, that the television aerial was at least eighteen inches higher than anything else. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the aerial had hit the edge of the bridge, bent, and collapsed on top of the boat but it didn’t. Being of fairly springy metal, it hit the edge of the bridge and was dragged along the horizontal concrete support, shedding little metal tines as it went. I winced, not because of the rain of metal that was bouncing all around me but because of the noise. Like someone with very long nails attacking a blackboard, it slowly scraped, screeched, and screamed its way across the concrete support at the near side of the bridge.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to get my teeth unclenched as the concrete ended and there was a gap. The aerial sprang into the gap and then hit the next support (steel) with a loud shuddering ‘Boi.oi.oi.oi.ng!’ that sent the pigeons roosting in the darkness of the uprights bolting, panicked and screaming, into the air. A rain of pigeon poo spattered the front deck along with a few more bits of metal. ‘Boi.oi.oi.oi.ng!’ the aerial hit the next support and ‘Boi.oi.oi.oi.ng!’, the next and the next and the next, still occasionally shedding the little bent tines that were supposed to pick up the television signal. Eventually there was only the other horizontal concrete support to go and sure enough it scraped and wailed its way across that, ending with another happy ‘Boi.oi.oi.oi.ng!’ as it sprang out from under the bridge and into the open air again.

  I looked up at it and sighed. The aerial resembled nothing more than a demented steel Christmas tree, one that had been left up until about February. Bent and naked, all it needed was some frayed tinsel and a couple of broken baubles and it would have been perfect. I looked back at Geoff.

  “Whoops,” he shouted. “I forgot about that.”

  No kidding? The neighbours in front of us, when we met them, seemed nice but due to the weather nobody really wanted to hang around and chat. The neighbour behind us, I’d already met and quite frankly she was terrifying.

  Janis is what I would class as a ‘real boater’. Standing about five foot ten, she dresses for the weather and pays not even lip service to the idea of ‘fashion’. Her naturally curly grey hair is usually caught up in a ponytail from which it spends its days trying to escape. You can always hear her coming due to the very serviceable and heavy boots she favours. Slightly older than myself, she takes no nonsense from anyone and in no way suffers from my vagueness and my psychotic need to worry and fret. If I needed help she would be high on my list of ‘capable people’. Since the sad death of her husband several years previously, Janis has been running two boats, completely alone. One boat, the larger of the two, is her living accommodation and the other, an overflowing workshop is where she creates elegant soft furnishings and cratch covers for boaters up and down the system. Highly trained and very professional, it’s no wonder she has a waiting list for the work she does. I have to admit to being a little in awe of her. She’s totally independent, the very idea of needing help is complete anathema to her and she is everything I like to think I could be but know full well that I would never even have the guts to do half of what she does.

  We’d been moored for about a week when she came stamping around to ‘sort out a problem’. I’d been expecting her. The moorings were so close together that when our two boats were parked in front of her two boats she couldn’t get out. Unfortunately there wasn’t really much we could do about it and, rather than have Janis angry at me I’d resolved to ask the landowner if we could move further down and get out of her way.

  When I suggested this to her she looked at me as if I was insane.

  “Well, I don’t want you to do that,” she said. Standing on top of the decking, with her grey hair once more creating a windswept halo around her head, she glared down at me.

  I felt as if I’d suggested a ridiculous project to a headmistress and had to get a firm grip on myself. “Well I’m not sure what we can do,” I winced and waited for her to beat me to death with her barge pole. “How about if we move Hedgepig further alongside Minerva? If we tie her to the front of our boat rather than at that back you’d be able to see around both boats and you’d have far more room to manoeuvre.”

  Janis flattened her lips and stared at me. “Yes OK,” she gave me a huge and genuine smile. “That’s a great compromise, thanks.”

  “Oh.” I was just about to start explaining myself again when I realised that she’d agreed. “Great,” I said. “I’ll move her now.”

  “No you won’t,” she said. “Move it later, coffee?”

  My mouth and my brain tripped over each other and I found myself nodding. “That would be lovely.” I managed to stammer out.”

  Trying to describe her to Geoff later I was definitely failing to find the right adjectives. “Imagine the outcome if Camilla Fritton …”

  “Who?” Geoff looked completely nonplussed.

  “The headmistress of St Trinian’s.”

  Geoff sniggered and nodded.

  “… and Attila the Hun got together and had a child, I’m fairly sure the outcome would be Janis or someone very like her.”

  Geoff leaned back on the sofa. “Jolly hockey sticks with an axe?” He shook his head and howled with laughter.

  As I got to know Janis better I found out that my initial thoughts about her personality had been way off base. Yes, she had a ‘can do’ attitude and yes, not much scared her but she had a sense of humour second to none and a wry view of the world that was both refreshing and catching. I was very pleased that we’d managed to end up with her as a neighbour. She seemed to put up with us as well, she also learnt to deal with Mortimer’s over-affectionate nature and he, like the rest of us, would rapidly subside when she turned her steely gaze in his direction.

  Being out on a ‘wild’ mooring was quite new to me and it certainly took a little time for me to get myself in gear and sort myself out. There were so many things to do to keep the boat running and, due to Geoff’s increased travel time and decreased daylight as the year drew to a close, I found myself trying to juggle all of them.

  Bags of coal were no longer delivered but had to be collected and then manhandled (or in this case woman-handled) up a flight of steps and then along a quarter mile stretch of bank to the boat. Gas and diesel also had to be collected. Luckily there was water but as the weather became colder we just knew that the water would freeze and we’d be left with nothing.

  One Saturday afternoon I was staring out at the horrible weather. Horizontal sleet carried on strong winds battered the boat and I really didn’t want to go outside. I’d been putting off turning on the generator all morning but I knew that any minute now the batteries would run out and I’d be forced out into the cold.

  Of course, almost as soon as I’d had this thought the television clicked off and the fridge, humming away to itself under the sink, shuddered into silence.

  “Mum, the electricity’s gone.” Sam looked up from where he was working on a piece of homework about the Great Fire of London.

  “Thank y
ou, Sam.” I heaved myself to my feet and began looking for gloves, hat, scarf, and anything else I could layer on to keep the wind from stripping the flesh from my bones. “I think I noticed that.”

  Sam grinned and went back to writing his screenplay. The laptop, with its own battery, would run for at least another half an hour, long enough for me to get the generator running.

  I clambered out of the boat and, pulling my hat firmly down over my eyes and ears, battled my way to the back of the boat. I climbed down into the back cabin and glared at the generator, squatting big and red just above the engine. Checking the fuel levels I noticed that the red fuel indicator was nowhere to be seen. I groaned and lifted the jerry can of diesel just to make sure there was some still there. We had loads, the can was so heavy and full it was difficult to lift. “Oh that’s just great,” I whined to myself. Heaving the can to the step, I positioned it so that I could just tip it and grabbing the plastic jug that I used to fill the generator I carefully held it beneath the can and began to pour. When the jug was full I carefully carried it through to the engine room, climbed the step that I had to use to be able to reach the top and poured the diesel into the reservoir. Three trips like this and the tank was full, job one done. Once the generator had fuel there was a checklist of things to do: turn off the inverter, there’s no point leaving the inverter on as the batteries don’t charge nearly as quickly as they do when it’s off. Walk back around the generator, making sure to duck under all the cables and other bits of engine. Once in position run through the start-up checks: generator on, check. Lever one moved to run, check. Lever marked decompression pulled down, check. Cut-off switches in the up position, check. Turn the key, check.

  The generator coughed loudly into life and I waited for the engine note to settle into its normal steady chug while I climbed around to the other side of the engine. Change switch from battery to generator, check. Turn on exhaust fan system, check. I stood and watched as the battery charger illuminated and then, confident that this would run for a couple of hours, backed out of the cramped engine room and into the open air. I waved to Janis who was sitting hunched at her sewing machine and then made a bolt back into the warm; I put the kettle on and then went back to watching my interrupted film.

  About half an hour later, Sam and I looked up from what we were doing at exactly the same moment. The engine note from the generator had changed. One minute it would be humming along and then it would dip as though disappearing over a hill and then come back loudly for a moment.

  Sam voiced my thoughts. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  I shook my head and without even bothering to dress for the cold hopped out of the boat.

  Black and grey smoke billowed in huge clouds from both rear doors. I only hesitated a moment before running at full pelt down the length of the boat. I swung in through the back doors in a mad rush to get to the generator.

  I could hardly see a thing. Thick smoke filled both the engine room and the back cabin. Feeling my way around the boat engine I grabbed the emergency cut off switch and pushed it upward. The generator whined and shuddered into silence and the smoke began to clear.

  “Are you all right?” Janis stuck her head into the back cabin and was almost pushed overboard as I barrelled out into the open air coughing and spluttering, my eyes streaming tears. “What happened?”

  I couldn’t answer her for a couple of seconds, I was coughing so hard. “I have no idea,” I finally managed to get some words out.

  While I indulged in another bout of coughing, Janis went to make coffee and we stood staring at the back of my boat as the last wisps of black smoke escaped from the engine room.

  “What are you going to do?” Janis shook her head and gathered up the cups. “I’m not sure that’s fixable.”

  “I honestly don’t know.” I reached into one of the little drawers in the back cabin and pulled out the user’s manual. “I can’t wait until Geoff comes home, he might not be back until late. I’m going to have to try and work out what happened.”

  Janis and I looked at each other. Really, there was no need to say anything at all, we both knew how likely that was going to be.

  “Let me know if you need any help,” she said.

  I nodded, thanked her and then began to study the manual. It didn’t make any sense at all, most of it seemed to be in Chinese.

  Opening the side hatches gave me a good view of the generator and, in an effort to find some sort of inspiration, I squatted down and stared at the infernal machine. I knew I was going to have to take the damn thing apart but I really wasn’t sure what I could do with the bits after that.

  Leaning forward I peered into the wooden box that Geoff had made in an attempt to make the generator quieter. A particularly vicious gust of wind blew and after a stumble I fell forward into the engine room. I didn’t hit the floor. My reaching hand had found a spar to hold on to. But, from my slightly prone position I noticed something a little odd and, reaching down with one hand I wiped my fingers across the floor. Black oil dripped from each digit back into the dark pool beneath the generator. “I’m sure that wasn’t there yesterday.” I muttered. Pushing myself back onto dry land I reversed and slid through the hatch to stand on top of the battery box. Using my phone as a torch I shone a light into the generator box. The bottom was slick with oil; the metal feet of the generator were completely submerged in a little pool of the stuff.

  A spider dropped down from the ceiling and before it could touch the oil I grabbed its strand of web and deposited it into the back cabin as I was gathering screwdrivers and other implements of destruction. “I’d stay out of the way if I were you,” I told it. “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing here.” The spider eyed me balefully and then scuttled off into a corner. “Good choice,” I muttered at it.

  Armed with every tool I felt that I could possibly use, some that I hoped I wouldn’t have to, and some that I wasn’t even sure what their function was, I made my way back to the generator and started to disassemble the case. Oil trickled everywhere, making holding the tools very difficult. Eventually I managed to get the sides of the case off and I could see the machine. A small yellow plastic prong thing lay half submerged in the oil. I picked it up and wiped it off. It looked very familiar. I looked up and spotted the same spider watching me from the top of the door. “That’s the damn dip-stick for the oil,” I told it, it didn’t care.

  Climbing over the mess I’d made and around to the other side of the generator I triumphantly went to put the dipstick back in its place. I couldn’t, there was one already in there. “Is this a spare?” The spider, obviously fed up with being addressed by some eminently confused and oil-stained human completely ignored me and amused itself by dangling from one of the lights, waving its legs around to cast Poe-like shadows on the wall.

  I placed the yellow stick into my pocket and began to search through the exploded diagrams shown in the manual. I was really hoping to find out if this was something important or something Geoff had just left in the bottom of the box for want of a better place to put it. Eventually, on a small diagram, uncoloured and unlabeled I saw that there were indeed supposed to be two. Placing my hand beneath the generator I felt around for a wet, cold hole. It was difficult, the sun was setting and the temperature had hit minus three. My fingers felt numb and my teeth had begun to chatter. Eventually I found what I was looking for and after only a couple of swear words managed to get the wretched thing back in place.

  It turned out that both yellow sticks had the same use just in two different places. They both kept the oil in the sump. One, however, was used as a dip stick and the other would be the only way to change the oil. I could only assume that, with the vibrations of the generator, it had worked its way loose and had fallen out, thus dumping the entire contents of the sump out of the machine and onto the floor.

  I tightened the stick as hard as I could and set about cleaning up the spilled oil. This took longer than the repair and by the time I’d finished I had
more on me than the floor. The sun had set and I was working by dim 12-volt light. I refilled the generator with oil and went through all the normal checks. I decided I had two chances, either I was going to be lucky and the gods of heavy machinery would smile on me and the thing would work, or the head gasket had vaporised and I was going to be smoked out like a wasps’ nest in an attic. The engine turned over and I held my breath. Apart from the normal wisps of exhaust smoke there didn’t seem to be a problem. Unwilling to trust my luck I tucked myself on to the step and sat, listening to the generator for a good five minutes. At the end of this time, the generator was still running perfectly but I was sure I was hovering on the edge of hypothermia. I decided enough was enough and climbed out of the boat.

  Two hours later and the generator was still running. Geoff stepped through the door and was greeted by Sam yelling, “The generator blew up but Mum fixed it. Dad! DAD, Mum fixed something.”

  Geoff looked a little surprised. “What happened?”

  I told him about my day and, when I’d finished, he got up and made tea. “I know I said you were going to have to pick up slack,” he said. “But I think this goes well above and beyond the call of duty, you know.”

  “Once I got over the panic it was actually a fairly simple problem.” I had to admit I was feeling quite good but I did have to also admit this hadn’t been the mechanical nightmare that it might have been. “I didn’t actually have to take the generator apart, I just found something that had dropped off.”

  “Did you find out what was wrong?” Geoff said.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Did you put it back together after fixing it?” He grinned at me.

  “Well, yes but …”

  “Did you recognise what the yellow thing was?” He raised his eyebrows.