by Georgie Hall
Not even pausing to take off the pearls, I dive into the river – total belly flop – and bog snorkel to the bank.
My heart is on fire, my head thumping with please be OK, please be OK, please be OK. My legs are already leaden, a stitch pinching. It’s like fighting through hundreds of student yucca plants circa 1988, and the sodden blue boiler suit is now heavy as chainmail, but I put my head down and push, push, push toward the sound that I know to be my brother whimpering.
When I track him down deep in the maize, Miles is propped up against a remarkably intact, albeit upside down, microlight, and clutching his shoulder in a very WWII bomber pilot way, tears dried, pupils large, pale beneath the fake tan. ‘Yay!’
‘Are you hurt?’ I rush across to check, aware he’s in the early stages of shock.
‘Not a scratch.’
I’m not First Aid trained, but I can confirm that he’s suffered no obvious injuries. Yet.
‘What the buggery fuck was that about, Miles?’ (I’m never very articulate when I’m scared and upset, something I inherited from our father.)
‘You sound like Dad.’ He looks hangdog, glancing over his shoulder at the upended microlight. ‘It’s only my second solo flight and I may have veered a little off course. Then I ran out of fuel and the engine cut out.’
‘We need to get help.’ We’re surrounded by walls of immature and green crop, already as high as my head. I clamber hurriedly onto the upturned microlight from where I can just spot The Tempest alone on the river. Although I can hear the distant drone of the A46, there’s no road in sight, not even a telegraph pole pointing to civilisation.
I sit down next to Miles, who is worryingly fix-eyed. ‘You came after me?’
‘The airfield’s not far. Following the river is standard beginner navigation. I thought it was worth a look.’ He pulls off his helmet and puts his head in his hands, shoulders shaking. ‘That was bloody hairy.’
‘Do you need me to call someone?’ I grope for the phone in my sodden pocket. ‘Emergency services?’
‘I radioed into the team as soon as I made the emergency landing. It’s fitted with a tracker so they’ll come and pick us up.’
We’re all being tracked, I think bleakly, like millions of little data dots.
‘I can’t believe what just happened!’ He rubs his face in his hands, which are shaking.
I’m still mainlining adrenaline, and I’m very angry with him, but I hate to see my brother this upset, and I know how dangerous shock can be, so I sit down beside him and put my arm round him.
Then I realise he’s laughing. ‘I found the fucking boat! I won!’
I could hit him, but there’s a manic tone to his laughter that makes me take a few deep breaths, heed Joe’s words about his uncle being in a bad place mentally, and grip the shoulders more tightly. ‘We’re in a field of corn on the cobs, Miles. This is just us. Talk to me. What is all this really all about?’
‘You’re so wet, sis.’ He shifts away.
‘It’s called emotional empathy.’ I take my arm back. ‘You should try it.’
‘No, I mean you’re soaked through. You swam across the river to save me?’
‘It was more of a wading thing and no saving was required, but yes.’
‘I can’t believe you did that for me.’ His pupils are even more dilated and otherworldly.
‘I love you, Miles, of course I bloody waded for you.’
He starts to cry again. ‘I’ve fucked it all up, Elz.’
‘It’s only your second solo flight.’
‘Not that! Everything!’
*
At the bottom of the road on which we grew up was a short, steep hill we called Freewheel Mountain because it was great fun to fly down on our bikes. It finished with a humpbacked bridge and then a sharp right-hand bend that took skill to handle to avoid pitching into a berberis hedge outside a bungalow called Shangri La. The trick was to get up as much speed as possible going downhill, fly the bridge, land, peddle like mad and lean right to spit up gravel.
As soon as he came off stabilisers, Miles wheeled down it faster than either sister had ever dared, straight through the hedge.
He was cut to ribbons and his bicycle bent beyond repair, but he refused to cry because he was a boy and he’d been brought up not to.
It was only hours later, third in turn to use the bath water, that he started to whimper, the cuts stinging raw, the loss of his bike and pride humiliating.
When I blustered in to offer him my bike which was getting too small, he shouted that having a girl’s bike was just as bad as having girls’ feelings. I told him that it was OK for boys to be angry and hurt like girls, and that I sometimes cried in the bath too, at which he snarled, ‘You’re wrong! Only Mummy is allowed to cry in the bath because it’s a grown-up thing!’ Then he threw a soap on a rope at me and told me to go away.
I hated him for that.
Forty years must pass before I think to question why he was the only one of us to know that our mother cried in the bath. Like I cry in the bath. And it’s only now I ask myself whether Miles still cries in the bath too.
I know for a fact he’s still just as dangerous without stabilisers.
*
The trauma of the near miss has made Miles confessional and contrite; Joe wasn’t wrong: his uncle is very down and deeply embarrassed about it. And just as I hugged him when he’d bloodied both knees at six, I hug him now and listen as he apologises, sobs and curses, promising he’ll get a grip in a minute.
For a vain man, he can be refreshingly self-deprecating. He’s a mess of insecurities, the glossy charm skin deep. Some days he can barely bring himself to get out of bed he tells me, others he hardly cares if he lives or dies. ‘It’s all so stale and fake, this so-called bloody life!’ he groans, sounding like Hamlet had he lived to forty-seven.
I could point out that having a job might help, but he’s now talking about Paddy, apologising for the family rift. ‘I was such a berk, sis, and he was so uptight about it. I admit that’s what selling the boat is about. To punish him.’
‘For being awkward about your nineties crush confession?’
‘God no! That’s not why we fell out. I thought he’d have told you about it.’
‘Come on, Paddy’s a Fort Knox friend. He never betrays a secret.’
‘It’s not a secret. Lots of people know about it.’
‘Know about what?’
Miles waves away a cloud of midges. ‘It’s history.’
This is one of his teenage catchphrases and it still drives me mad. I point angrily at the microlight. ‘You could have just killed yourself here, Miles! Why? Because you want to win a bet? Life’s precious. Everything matters, especially history. We learn more from the past than anything else.’
‘Are you talking about your doll again?’
‘You need to grow up, Miles!’
When he looks up again, eyes wild and bloodshot, I realise this isn’t the best thing to say to a man in deep shock, and that I’m probably in shock too.
‘Fuck, I really could be dead, couldn’t I?’
The thought makes me feel sick.
‘I’m a snivelling suicidal failure, and I’m nearly bloody fifty!’
‘What’s so bad about fifty?’ (Hypocritical, I know, but I’m not taking that shit from a forty-something.)
‘It’s all right for you, Elz. You have everything you want! Your lovely home and solid marriage and adoring kids and award-winning job. You’re the happiest woman I know.’
‘Ha! Nice try, but according to Jules you all spent last weekend discussing my unhappy marriage.’
‘I didn’t say Paddy was happy, did I?’
That hit low.
‘Don’t tell me, he says I’ve changed?’
‘How d’you know?’
‘He’s wrong. I’m changing.’
‘Isn’t that a fairy child brought up by humans?’
‘That’s a changeling.’
‘I alw
ays thought I might be one of those.’
We can hear laughter from the river, a boat engine, an eighties anthem we both recognise: ‘You Are My World’.
‘Remember dancing to this as teenagers?’ Miles nudges me.
I nod.
He sighs, reaching across to take my hand. ‘Who was it said youth is wasted on the young?’
‘George Bernard Shaw,’ I squeeze it. ‘He also said: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing”.’
‘I like that. I believe I just won our game, Sis.’
‘Spoken like a true player.’
We watch the sun glinting off the microlight wheels.
‘I wish I could make Paddy happy again,’ I say out loud.
‘He thinks you don’t fancy him any more.’
‘On Sunday you said he complained nobody fancied him any more?’
‘I’m repeating myself? That’s practically senile.’
‘Miles, there’s a big difference between “My wife, Eliza, doesn’t fancy me” and “Nobody fancies me”.’
‘Stop being a paranoid dick, Elz. It’s you. He loves you, it’s always been you.’
I find I can’t swallow.
Beside me, Miles snorts with laughter. ‘We were like Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show on that narrowboat, all the old man grumbling we did. I miss that.’
I look up at the crows circling and cawing in an uninterrupted blue sky. Oh, poor Paddy. I’ve been so walled up in my survival bunker, feeling unattractive and dried up and rejected by a world whose gaze had moved on, I didn’t pause to think how he felt about ageing. That he might feel less sexy than he once had, might blame my fading interest on his own physical failings. I wasn’t the only one who started waiting for the other half to look away before undressing for bed last summer.
‘So why did you two fall out?’
Miles lets go of my hand.
‘I suggested we start up a boatmaking business together. He said no.’
*
As a young child, Joe loved playing at being a doctor or vet; for Summer it was dressing up as characters from her favourite books and films, and Edward’s roleplay was inevitably machine-or-space-related, the more superhuman the better. The humanitarian, the entertainer and the engineer. Strangely, this mimics the young Finches a quarter of a century earlier, when Dr Jules, Dame Eliza and Captain Miles saved the universe from almost certain destruction on a daily basis.
Paddy once told me that his childhood was very different; while his sister played ‘house’, he had an imaginary boatyard where he did up barges.
*
‘Fitting out narrowboats as weekend retreats, party pads and pieds-à-terre for hipsters,’ Miles is explaining the business concept to me. ‘It’s pure gold. I’ve got a detailed business-plan, the right contacts, the perfect backers, a name even: Argy Bargy. Paddy’s the secret weapon I can’t do it without, but he turned me down flat. He said he won’t risk putting you through what had happened last time.’
‘That wasn’t his fault! His dad died, his mum was ill, we had a new baby, my work dried up.’
‘Tell him that. He says he can’t do it to his family.’
I watch as my brother stands up with a groan of effort. ‘Are you serious about this?’
‘He loves those bloody boats. He could make them works of art.’
I sense how clever my brother’s idea is, an entrepreneurial Miles masterstroke. And like him, I believe Paddy’s skills and passion could make it work. But I also know prising him out of his workshop sanctuary wouldn’t be easy. His confidence is very low, and he’s dug in deeply with minimal overheads, very little pressure and a lot of cricket commentary. Plus trusting Miles is a tough call at the best of times; he has questionable sticking power.
I feel a competitive Finch spark. ‘Argy Bargy’s an awful name.’
‘He said that too.’ He offers a hand to help me up, then gasps with pain as soon as I take it, clutching his arm again. ‘I think my collarbone’s bust! Where’s that fucking rescue crew?’ Pulling out his phone, he presses a speed dial.
It’s only now I’m standing up that I realise how cold I am.
Miles is on the phone, crisply British. ‘Righty-ho. I’ll do that.’
He pulls a small red flag on a metal rod from the cockpit and holds it above his head, like a tour guide. Squinting into the sun, he extends it like a radio aerial until the flag is above the maize. ‘Be a love and put my shades back on for me?’ He nods towards his top pocket. ‘You know, I’m not sure flying is my thing,’ he confesses as I balance them on his nose. ‘I only took it up because my ground crew looks like a young Brando – that was him on the phone. Truth is, I’d much prefer cruising upriver with a sexy Italian.’ The red flag dips to waggle at me. ‘You have ruined my Russo’s boating trip, you realise that? I got distinct vibes.’
‘I hate to break it to you, Miles, but I don’t think you’re Matteo’s type.’ I clench my chattering teeth.
‘I know that. The man’s eyes were stuck fast to you last Friday. It’s his nephew Massimo I’m after. A hundred and fifty pounds of Puglian muscle wrapped up in a compression shirt who cooks like a dream and loves live events. We’ve exchanged numbers.’
‘What do you mean about Matteo?’
‘Be careful there, sis. He’s a hustler under all that charm. He knows what he wants, and he doesn’t waste time.’ A clatter of axles nearby makes him turn away, the Land Rover and trailer from the flying school crashing through maize. The driver is indeed a dead ringer for young Brando. Miles retracts his flag, looking shamefaced. ‘Here’s my lift to a court martial.’
The microlight crewman is calm and professional, and far more concerned with checking out Miles’s shoulder injury than attaching blame. I stand by and start to shiver with cold.
‘I must get back to The Tempest,’ I interrupt eventually, my teeth castanets now. ‘I’ll return her to Stratford for you, Miles. Matteo’s offering a good price. I’ll square it with Paddy somehow.’
‘What are you talking about?’ He turns to me. ‘I can’t see a boat.’
‘But you said it: you found her. You won.’
‘Can you see a narrowboat?’ he asks Brando Instructor, indicating the maize.
‘No, I can’t see a narrowboat,’ Brando says obligingly.
‘Turns out I found something far better.’ Miles smiles, eyes glistening at the edges. ‘And you have changed, Elz. I remember you like this.’
‘Can I just clarify what you’re saying?’ I check anxiously.
‘Talk about ruining a moment. Keep the change. Keep The Tempest. And please try to talk that stubborn man you’re married to into thinking again about the business idea.’
Kissing him gratefully, I run back through the yucca plants and out onto the riverbank.
But I can’t see a boat either.
She’s gone.
24
Together Time
There’s a public right of way that runs alongside the entire length of the river called Shakespeare’s Avon Way which follows its course, alternating from bank to bank and using existing footpaths and bridleways to allow those on foot to stay as close to the riverbank as possible.
Along this stretch, it’s on the south bank.
I am on the north bank, listening to a Land Rover roaring away out of sight.
There is no path. There are crops and hedges and barbed wire and livestock. And despite the dry weather, there’s also mud; a lot of marshy, gloopy, sticky riverside mud. Even so, I think I’m probably moving faster than a drifting narrowboat.
Where is The Tempest?
My phone is stubbornly blank.
I am criminally irresponsible, leaving an emaciated dog and three puppies adrift. But even without the anchor down The Tempest shouldn’t have drifted this far out of sight, should she?
I have visions of her upside down in Harvington weir, a tragedy unfolding: the blue lights and police tape and media furore
, the mourning grief, the British public catching hold of the story and swirling into an angry online hate mob: ‘There were puppies on there! Little puppies!’
I deserve to be locked up. Throw away the bloody key.
What was it Jules said, that women are more likely to inflict death upon themselves or others when they are menopausal than at any other stage of life? Well, she’s right.
*
There’s a canoeist coming upstream! That means he will have come through Harvington Lock. Surely he must have seen The Tempest?
I scrabble my way to the bank to shout for his attention.
Red helmet, glinting ring, tattoos.
It’s the Kayak Sexist on his return leg.
He draws alongside the bank. ‘Fuck, what happened to you, love?’
‘Fell overboard. Have you seen my barge?’
It takes him a moment to register who I am. ‘Oh, trapped up against the weir walkway down at Robert Aickman.’
She’s drifted as far as the next lock, where I was planning to hide out by Harvington Mill.
‘She’s stuck in the reeds; you’ll need to clear your prop again. You left the cute young brunette in charge I take it? Women drivers, eh!’
‘Actually men cause four times as many driving offences as women,’ I quote a recent Sheila’s Wheels’ ad campaign.
‘Avoiding you lot.’
‘Or chasing us along dual carriageways to shout insults.’
‘Come again?’ He looks at me as though I’m insane.
I feel slightly insane. ‘You road-raged me last week.’
‘Tell it to someone who gives a shit.’ He makes to push off from the bank with his paddle. But I grab it.
‘What are you doing, you mad old bitch?’
‘It’s mad old bitch again, is it?’ With all my strength, I wrest it off him and start clambering back up the riverbank, shouting at him, ‘I’m leaving you up a creek without a paddle, you bigoted bastard!’ Summer’s voice in my head, making me add, ‘I hope this will help you address your innate sexism, ageism and bigotry on a personal level!’