by Georgie Hall
When I was thinking through this narrowboat hijack last night, there was a bit too much angels-singing salvation going on in my head to see any ulterior motive, to acknowledge a hot, sweaty need to be alone that I’ve felt building in my soul like drums of late.
Being alone at home doesn’t count. There’s always something to do, to fold, to file, to cook, to tidy. I can’t relax; I need to be doing something. Aloneness isn’t just about solitude, I realise, it’s about independence of thought, that single-mindedness which sets itself apart and navigates its own course. And I like it far more than I expected. Maybe now I get why Paddy needs this all to himself so often. All this wind-in-the-face slow-motion river travel is pure oxygen. It’s doing everything and nothing at the same time.
Yet I can’t help feeling as though I’ve stolen my husband’s secret pleasure along with the boat and it makes me feel sad that we can’t share this together; that the theft of it is part of the joy of it.
Without him here to exert greater knowledge and prior claim, I realise how much I love being at the helm of The Tempest. She might be as slow-moving and stubborn to steer as my sex drive, but this gentle powerhouse stands for much more than conjugal rights and wrongs.
I need to do this my way, even if it might have been much better for my marriage had I simply admitted the truth to Paddy this morning: Miles is paying back a childhood debt by daring me to hide The Tempest until tomorrow in exchange for his share, so I’m going to call his bluff and do it to show how much I love you.
At which Paddy would want to take over, our anniversary turned into a Romancing the Stone-style mini-adventure in which he’s all wily and practical, hand on the tiller on a manly mission, and I’m dappy and flappy in high heels, recoiling at dirt.
Or even more likely, he’d flatly refuse to buy into the idea that Miles could be stupid enough to gamble The Tempest to honour a four-decades-old Bionic Woman-doll grudge match.
Is Miles that stupid? Am I?
*
I am a middle-aged woman in possession of a weak bladder and coffee habit, which is why I may be barely past the ring-road bridge, but I’m already going to have to stop the boat to go to the loo. Also, ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ has rung out for the third time and I’m worried Mum’s in difficulty with Edward, so I want to call her back.
I nudge the boat alongside the reed bank and drop the engine to neutral, then hurry below deck, but the bathroom lock has jammed again and I can’t get in.
Then I notice the luxury chocolates have gone, which is odd.
Grabbing the navigation guide from my case, I go back on deck to call Mum.
‘Thank goodness!’ she wails. ‘I’ve lost Edward! I’d just bought him a lemon sorbet from Shakees – it always settled your stomach after you were car sick – and was putting one of those silly sachets of sugar in my coffee, and when I turned back he’d gone!’
‘How long ago was this?’
‘Half an hour, maybe? I’ve been trying to find a policeman.’
My head is racing, panic gripping. ‘Where is Shakees?’
‘It’s the ice-cream barge, you know the one.’
‘You’re in Stratford?’
‘Yes. In Bancroft Gardens. I lost Edward here.’
‘Near the lock bridge?’ I ask, realisation dawning. When I heard a voice shouting ‘Mum!’ I never imagined it could be my own son.
‘I’ll never forgive myself if he’s been abducted by a paedophile ring,’ Mum cries, ever the dramatist.
‘You say the most encouraging things. Hang on, I have his location tracker on my phone.’ I put her on speakerphone and pull up Google Maps with shaking fingers. It centres on my watery location. Right on top of my avatar is Einstein. ‘I think I’ve found him, Mum.’
I go back inside the boat and knock on the bathroom door. ‘Edward?’
Silence.
‘Edward?’
‘Hoo! Just what I needed!’ comes a muffled Mario catchphrase, then more recognisably Ed: ‘I’m not coming out.’
‘Are you trapped in there?’
‘I’m fine! Oh you, it’s all you baby! The door jammed again but I’m – Niiiiiiintendi! Wahoo! I’m fine. You need me here with you. It’s not safe. You could drown.’
‘Mum, he’s here with me,’ I tell my mother.
‘How can he be? You’re in Leicester.’
I have to tell her the truth too, I realise. I might as well have posted it on my Facebook status.
At least Mum is gratifyingly onside, dropping her voice to a spy whisper. ‘I’ll keep Miles distracted. He has a flying lesson later, so he’ll have his mind on that. You do know how to sail the thing?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Act it, darling girl. Good luck.’
We ring off and I hurriedly address the bathroom door. ‘Don’t worry, Edward, I’m going to get you out of there.’
But I can’t get the Ashwell’s Patent Toilet Lock to come apart. Soon, several tool kits lie open around me. Nothing is working. It’s stuck fast.
‘How did Dad do it so easily?’ I complain, but Edward doesn’t answer because he’s put his headphones back on, so I have to shout.
‘I think it was a three-millimetre flathead, stork-billed pliers, tweezers and a miniature tension wrench,’ he explains wearily. ‘Possibly also a bradawl.’
‘What would that look like again?’ I gaze down at the rows and rows of screwdrivers, spanners and drill heads.
‘Honestly, I’m fine in here,’ he insists. ‘I have my survival kit and my new Sonic game. You need to get this boat moving, Mum, we’re far too close to Stratford to be safe. I’m going to put my headphones back on now. If you need me, you know where to find me.’
I’m not sure he’s really thought this through.
I’m not sure I have either, but I do know Ed’s right and we’re far too exposed this close to the road. And that I love having him with me, even if I do need the loo.
*
A good friend I met at NCT when we were both pregnant with our third children – increasingly rare, especially amongst older career-bruiser mums like we were – had a wonderful truism passed down from her mother: when our firstborn child drops its feeding spoon, we sterilise it thoroughly before handing it back; when our second child drops its spoon, we run it under a hot tap; when our third child drops it, we wipe it on our jeans.
And she was right. With experience, comes a warm glow of confidence that knows children are robust little survivors. I loved the idea of being a mother for the third time. I embraced it.
Except that Edward didn’t drop his spoon because he didn’t hold it. Mostly he ignored it or pushed it away. Occasionally he threw it, maddened by this world of taste and texture and the ‘let’s see the choo-choo train going into the big mouthy tunnel’ noise that expected him to behave like his brother and sister had at that age, something he would never be able to do. Realising he’s never going to be like the other two has been painful and frightening at times; the ups and downs of adapting to his needs remains a work in progress, but my continued humble joy at the sheer power of mother love owes no small part to my third-time lucky charm, to the boy who dared us to ‘do’ different in our family.
And Ed is turning into the ultimate robust little survivor. He endures a far harsher environment than the rest of us, adapting to a world that wasn’t designed for him. He’s resilient and resourceful and funny, even locked in a narrowboat bathroom, promising he’ll save me if I drown.
Ed knows he could never save me. But he has learned that making me feel loved is more important. And he is exceptionally good at it.
*
Weir Brake Lock, AKA the Anonymous Lock, AKA Gordon Grey Lock.
On this stretch of river between Stratford and Evesham – known as the Upper Avon – all the locks bear two names, the first referring to its location and the second a benefactor or volunteer who was a part of the grand navigation restoration in the sixties and seventies. Because one generous donor was initially
too modest to come forward, then later did, this one has three. Make your mind up, Gordon.
The Avon Navigation Guide informs me that it’s the biggest, best and last of the new locks and was built in thirty-eight days by boys from Borstal, along with its weir. Mental note made to mention that to the husband and sons who have been promising to reline our pond for almost a year, although perhaps best to wait until all this has calmed down.
The Guide advises: coming downstream, take care to bear to your left into the lock channel.
The Tempest and I oblige like pros, following in the wake of a little white twenty-two-foot pleasure cruiser, fresh off its moorings. We fork past the lock island, overshadowed by the earthworks on the bank where they’re building a new marina, gates straight ahead. Again, they’re open, the cruiser already tucked in neatly to the left, its occupants beckoning impatiently for me to follow, classic examples of the ‘Regatta Set’ Paddy grumbles about on the open river. The husband is even wearing a blazer and a captain’s hat.
‘Plenty of room!’ he commands. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’
‘Careful you don’t hit us!’ demands his wife, looking down her nose at my bright paintwork.
‘I won’t,’ I mutter, clinging onto Mum’s ‘Act it!’ advice.
Most river locks are wide enough for two boats, and the turbulence reduces drastically if you double up. Method acting now, I crack the old girl’s boards a bit less, tie up better, turn my windlass with seasoned speed and focus cheerfully on the possibility of a waist reappearing if I keep this exercise up.
‘Out on your own, are you?’ the Captain shouts up as he lowers into the lock.
I weigh up the advantages of admitting there is a child trapped in my narrowboat loo, but I don’t want to blow my cover. Act it.
‘Yup.’ I smile easily.
‘Jolly brave,’ says his wife from the opposite side.
‘Friends slow you down. On one of these, that’s bloody slow.’ I indicate The Tempest and wait for them to get the joke. They don’t. Like beauty and romance, ironic wit isn’t something people look for in middle-aged women.
Or maybe I’m just telling the truth.
*
The urge to be alone is one thing, but middle age can be a fiercely lonely stage of life. We still have friends, don’t we? We trust they’re out there. We just don’t see much of them. Busy, busy, busy lives. As we grow older time runs away from us, exhausts us. Writing Must catch up this year! in Christmas cards is an annual ritual. Except hardly anybody sends those any more, and we all feel a bit lonelier for it.
We realise we see more of work colleagues, our children’s playmates, their parents, our parents, our hairdressers – and if you’re middle class, the cleaner too – than we see of old friends. Even a catch-up phone call takes careful planning. We pepper social media updates with positive reactions instead and increasingly rely on the big occasions as the rhythm of long-established friendships changes from regular small doses to landmark binges: fortieths, fiftieths, sixtieths, reunions, retirement parties, silver anniversaries. For each generation, they come in groups. Then fewer seem to come. Is it our FOMO or their JOMO?
And while our children appear happy to conduct their friendships online, my generation still craves sentient companionship. I recently worked out that of all my Facebook friends in the ‘old guard’ – those I’ve known longest or been through more with than most – I’d physically met up with just one in the past six months.
A measure of friendship is to make it real again. To do that, we need to live in real time, not the fast-forward blur we all pretend is normal. Sometimes I find myself desperate to press pause.
Instead I got menopause.
*
As the pleasure cruiser motors away from the lock, The Tempest and I dawdle to reclaim the river’s peace. I should check on my stowaway again, but my phone keeps buzzing, making me jumpy and I want to press on through the Heart of Darkness.
Before I can push forward the throttle, I hear a shout out of sight on the footpath that leads past Weir Brake lock from Severn Meadows Road. Was that ‘Eliza’?
I scour the bank nervously, grateful for thick rushes and willows as high as a fortress wall. There’s silence. I must have imagined it.
Pulling my hat lower, I try to think through my character as a lovelorn Brummy bargee, but the more I do, the less I want to act. I dared myself to take this journey because I want to make things better, and because I used to be braver and kinder before I started losing hormones and sleep, and I need to remember that humanity. I have no desire to be somebody else; I want to be more like me.
To do that, I need to take a leaf out of Ed’s book and block out the sensory overload.
I switch my phone status to Airplane – there is no ‘Boat’ – and slot my Bluetooth AirPods in. It has to be eighties, and it has to be rebelliously, singularly Annie: ‘Would I Lie To You?’
I am at peace. And oh, oh, oh, the riverbanks. The reeds are green fires burning bright, copper aflame. Weeping willows wash their hair. As the bow wave of the riverboat vanishes around a bend and we reclaim the water all to ourselves, the lap is too seductively in time to the music, my resolve weakening. I wish Paddy was here.
Annie sings on as we putter along the satin sash of water towards a lapis fan of sky.
‘It’s Alright (Baby’s Coming Back)’…
*
It’s hard to emphasise how slowly narrowboats travel.
Most of us can walk faster.
But ramble, jog or cycle along the banks of any navigable river in Britain and I defy almost anyone to feel as peacefully at one with it as puttering along in a barge, this other-worldly steampunk waterway snail with her house on her back, time-travelling between industry and idyll at her own sweet pace, a glistening ribbon of river ahead.
As the old truism goes, it’s only on the occasions we slow down in life that we get to look around and realise how unique it is. On a narrowboat there’s no choice.
The undulating skirts of willows and reeds drop away to reveal a scattering of houses that drift by to our right, close-cut lawns immaculately striped like ironed damask on which retirees gongoozle from sunloungers and dogs bark. Developers snap up the old dormer bungalows along here to bulldoze and replace with architect-designed, zoned lifestyle homes. The gardens all flood, especially along the short stretch where the River Stour joins the Avon. I suppose living by a river is like a marriage to a man who bottles things up: you know every now and again it will be hell as it pours out, but the rest of the time makes you forget.
‘Thorn in My Side’ is succeeded by ‘Don’t Ask Me Why’…
*
Luddington Lock, AKA Stan Clover Lock. Lucky for some…
My Avon Navigation Guide helpfully informs me this was built by prisoners from Gloucester Gaol and that I can empty my loo waste here (chance would be a fine thing). Bonus is that Shakespeare supposedly married Anne Hathaway at the village church on the riverbank, although the current one’s a nineteenth-century replacement because the original burned down – which might be God’s way of saying he should have written more parts for women over fifty.
As I draw closer, I see my Regatta Set friends coming back, bow wave high with irritation. Realising they’re shouting something at me, I pull out an earpiece.
‘GHASTLY bloody wedding boat moored up bang in front of the lock,’ he warns as they draw level. ‘Not budging until the photos are all done.’
‘Typical bloody youth!’ she quacks furiously. ‘Could be waiting ALL day!’
Away they whirr, chins forward.
I chug on. A wedding boat at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday? Really? I celebrate their quirkiness.
It’s true, the lock gates are totally obscured by a wide-beam restaurant cruiser with ribbons and flowers decking her bow. The name Lady Charlecote glitters in gold Tuscan font on her side.
Luddington Lock is a well-favoured turnaround point, reached in the time it takes to serve two courses
of a wedding breakfast. She’s come downriver from Stratford and winded (that’s boat-speak for turning 180°) before reversing past the weir barrels to tie up against the lock island while the guests get out to stretch their legs beneath the trees and pose for photographs.
I moor on the opposite canal bank, bashing the portside just a few times, then watch them over The Tempest’s roof, the sun in my eyes. It’s a small, glamorous wedding party – no more than ten, all very young and fabulously dressed – and the photographer is an equally stylish neo rocker with skintight jeans and a Lenny Kravitz afro, familiar enough for me to wonder if he’s well-known. He’s a shouty sod, his voice so rock-stadium loud it penetrates even my AirPods. I pull one out to confirm the accent’s Mancunian. ‘Come on, show me some fooking affection newlyweds!’
Bloody hell. It’s Kwasi Owusu.
I secretly observe the object of my daughter’s desire: the self-styled digital Banksy is, it seems, wedding photographer for hire.
‘At least try to look like you fancy each other, people! I’m losing the will to fooking live here.’
I put my AirPod back in – Annie launches into ‘Missionary Man’ – thinking things have certainly moved on since ours called for ‘Bride, groom and bride’s family, excluding cousins!’ in St Luke’s Gardens.
*
When Paddy and I married in Chelsea Register Office in the nineties, I wore lime-green silk matched with purple heels and a raspberry cowboy hat which I thought was wildly boho (photographic evidence suggests ‘eye-watering’ would be a safer description). My mother and Ruth outdistanced each other with lethally wide hat brims, and my sister’s on-trend fascinator looked like a satellite dish (which is what she would have needed to make contact with Reece, delayed trekking on Mount Toubkal at the time, their ‘on’ about to go ‘off’). Later, Jules refused to catch the bouquet even though I aimed it directly at the dish, and instead it ricocheted into the arms of my Best Woman, Lou, resplendent in orange and red Karen Millen, accessorised with a hangover matching mine. Lou and I looked like Opal Fruits when we stood together, bright smiles guarding a secret early-hours Smirnoff-fuelled debate as to whether I should go through with it…