Narrow Minds (11 page)

‘Nor me.' Sam copied his sister's posture.

I sighed. ‘Well I need to go, because, if I don't, I won't have the right to moan if Geoff buys the boat and I don't like it.' I watched the kids glance at each other. ‘And I won't have the right to even have an opinion about what gets done to it.' I opened the door and pulled my coat around me, grimacing as an icy cold, wet wind cut through me to the bone.

Charlie and Sam, obviously also unwilling to have their opinion ignored, clambered out of the car and huddled up behind me. Sam stuck himself under my coat and holding me around the waist we paraded across the car park looking like a pantomime horse wearing a sou'wester. Charlie rolled her eyes and squeaked as the rain soaked her hair within seconds then started running down her neck.

Following in what we hoped were Geoff's footsteps, we clambered down the rickety steps that led from the car park to the Keel and, lifting the edge of the huge tarpaulin that was acting as a roof, I ushered the kids inside. Wow, it was huge. The space in which we found ourselves contained a generator, scaffolding poles, wood, power tools and there was still double the space that we had enjoyed on our narrow boat.

Charlie voiced my thoughts. ‘This is huge.' She stared around at the space. ‘We could have everything in here, kitchen, dining room, lounge, bedrooms.' She tailed off as she imagined it all finished and beautiful.

Sam rushed off towards his father's voice. ‘Dad, it's great, it's really big, can we buy it?'

I grimaced, this would be a complete rebuild, we might be able to cope under canvas for the summer but the steel to roof this and erect a proper wheelhouse would cost thousands. Following the kids through a door I found myself in another space of almost the same dimensions. it. This area had already been separated into four sections, which obviously were going to be bedrooms and a bathroom.

‘I want this one.' Sam sprang out at me from a small enclosed space, laughing when he realised that he had made me jump. ‘Look it's nearly the same size as my bedroom in Durham.' He rushed back in and closed the door.

‘Mum, MUM! Look at this.' Charlie's voice echoed strangely ahead of me. I pulled aside a curtain and found her in a steel-enclosed space right at the very front. ‘This could be our grot cupboard.'

Smiling and nodding, I backed away toward the main compartment where Geoff and Matt were discussing engines. I should have left the kids in the car, I was just going to have to disappoint them. There was no way we could afford to renovate this no matter how beautiful she could be, we just didn't have the time or the money. I wandered over to Geoff. Damn it all, I should have stayed in the car, I didn't want to have to disappoint me either.

Geoff and Matt were engrossed in a large hole at the back of the boat, I joined them. The cavity was empty except for the large prop shaft. Attached to nothing at either end and half submerged in a murky concoction of oil, mud and river water, it exuded a rather self conscious air, as if, by being caught without its connections to propeller and engine, it was somehow in a state of déshabille, I nudged Geoff.

‘Where's the prop?' I asked.

Geoff laughed and turned to me. ‘Probably at the bottom of the river,' he said, grinning. ‘Matt here thinks it may have fallen off when his granddad was taking the engine out.'

I smiled but, quite honestly failed to see the humour, any prop big enough to attach to that shaft was going to be difficult to fish out. I tried again. ‘Where's the engine now?'

Geoff half turned toward me, distracted by the huge generator he was studying. ‘Hmm?' He focused on me eventually. ‘Oh, it's in the shed.' He gave me a huge grin. ‘There's two dead ones we can choose from or we can probably cobble them together and make one decent one.

I gave him a tolerant smile. ‘Right.'

An hour later we were back in the car, lost in our own thoughts. I didn't really feel like visiting the town any more. Unlike the other barge, this one was a possibility, this one had
‘potential'
but only if we had the money.

The trip back to County Durham was peaceful but slightly sad. Geoff and I could both see what we could do to a boat like that, but as we were unwilling to discuss the finances we day-dreamed and plotted. Charlie caught up with the sleep she had lost the night before and Sam killed all the robots that paraded about the screen of his DS.

By the time we reached Harrogate I had given up with the scheming and plotting and the horrible reality had set in. I looked over at my silent husband. ‘Is there any way at all we could buy that?' I looked at him, hoping he knew about a secret cache of money that I had failed to notice.

Dragged unwillingly back to reality, Geoff clenched his jaw slightly, a sure sign that he didn't want to voice his thoughts. ‘We could afford to buy it, but that's about it.' He started tapping vague quotes off by banging each finger on to the steering wheel.

‘Ten grand's worth of steel work at least, engine fix and position, wheelhouse to set up, prop to fix.' He paused. ‘And that's just the stuff that I can't do, that's the stuff we have to pay someone else for.' Shrugging slightly he continued, ‘Then we have to do up the inside, there's no electrics, it all has to be insulated, walls, plumbing, floors, ceilings.' He shook his head. ‘The list just goes on and on, it's really better not to think about it.'

I shuffled down into my coat and grouched at him, ‘A simple ‘no' would have done.'

Leaning toward me slightly he gave me a sad smile, then gave my knee a squeeze. ‘Sorry love.'

My mood matched the clouds, sullen and grey, darkening with every mile up the A1.

Back at the house and with the kids sound asleep in their beds, Geoff and I stared at the computer screen as it rolled gently and accusingly through our horrible spending for the last couple of months. When the screen finally reached the total, there was a definite collective feeling of doom and despondency. What on earth where we going to buy for that?

‘This isn't good.' Geoff, once more, employed his awesome ability to understate any calamity that faced us. ‘We could just about buy some piece of junk, and that would be small, narrow-boat junk. But we couldn't live in it and we wouldn't be able to afford to do anything to it.' He turned with a pained look. ‘I'm really sorry, love, but I just don't think we can do it, maybe after the kids have left home and we can buy something smaller.'

I couldn't answer him, I couldn't physically speak. I didn't want to be stuck here, I didn't want to wait another ten years. I took a breath in, desperately attempting to keep the sudden flood of nausea at bay, feeling my lip begin to quiver, I swallowed, trying to move the huge lump that was inexplicably stuck in my throat.

Geoff looked distressed and reached a hand out to give me a hug but I avoided him, backing away and shaking my head, blinking furiously to keep the tears at bay.

‘I'm sorry.' Geoff grabbed my arm and pulled me into a huge hug.

‘It's not your fault.' I blinked rapidly. ‘Really, it's not your fault. We just got so close, even the kids had changed their minds. You wanted another boat, I wanted another boat and now we're going to have to tell them that we've changed again.' I took a deep shuddering breath. ‘Sam is going to be so upset.'

‘I know.' Geoff looked almost as upset as I was. ‘The figures are just too horrible, I can't see a way round it.'

‘I'm going to have a bath.' I managed to get the words out on the little breath I had left then fled to the sanctity and oblivion of warm water and a large whisky. Let's face it, if the bath became deeper and slightly salty due to a prolonged bout of crying, it would all get lost in the cheery bubbles and no one would ever have to know.

‘Marie …' Geoff's voice followed me as I pounded up the stairs, I blew him a watery kiss and tried to smile, there was nothing he could say to make me feel better, nothing at all.

Chapter Five
When the Going Gets Tough,
the Tough Go Begging

T
HREE DAYS LATER AND
life wasn't really improving, Charlie had tried to cheer me up, telling me that maybe if I got a job and stopped moping about, I'd soon learn to love the place. She, very quickly, learned that there is an art to a good pep talk and she really ought to stay out of my way until she learned it.

Wednesday morning, found me standing on the river bridge in the centre of Durham. Staring out over the wide shallow river. I watched the large group of cormorants that fished from the weir. I was also enjoying a truly appalling bagpipe player who was unsuccessfully busking behind me, matching my mood note for shaky, out of tune, note, It was the musical equivalent of poking a sore tooth with your tongue.

The River Wear is only suitable for boating from Sunderland to Chester le Street – about ten and a half miles in all, so the river was empty apart from the cackling cormorants and one lone fisherman standing in the shallows. I smiled, maybe it was a good job that it was impossible to run a boat this far, the river was said to be cursed.

A particularly discordant set of notes from the busker behind me brought me back to the present with a wince and, casting a last longing glance at the sun-speckled water, I decided that maybe a coffee would do me good and anyway if I stayed here any longer I was going to need paracetamol.

I wandered back over the bridge toward the town enjoying the sunshine, maybe it wasn't so bad here, maybe I just needed to get my mind right. At that moment my phone rang and after struggling to get the wretched thing out of a tight jeans pocket (I was definitely eating my misery away, I was sure they hadn't been that tight a week ago), I managed to get to it before it went to answer phone and Amelia's voice sang out from the speaker as soon as I took the call.

‘Where the hell are you?' she squawked in my ear. ‘I've been all over this benighted little town and I can't find you anywhere, mind you, ' she didn't stop for breath. ‘I can't find a Starbucks, only a Costa, so no wonder I can't find you.'

It took a moment for all this information to sink in. ‘Are you in Durham, Mills?'

‘Well, yes of course I am,' her voice rose to match the still faintly braying bagpipes behind me. ‘Did you think I'd be looking for you in bloody Reading?'

I beat my brain into some semblance of order. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘Oh nice.' she huffed down the phone. ‘Charlie called me,' she paused for a moment. ‘Look, meet me in Costa.' There was another pause. ‘I think I can find it again.'

Twenty minutes later I was suffering from severe role reversal. It transpired that Charlie, worried about my sanity and finding that my usual confidante, Helen, was away on holiday, had colluded with Geoff and called Amelia in to give me a good talking to. I personally think I would have preferred Helen, she beats me up with loaded silences and pointed looks, after fifteen years I can deal with those.

Amelia works in a different way. Like a rubber-band-powered engine, she goes at top speed, taking no breaths, her voice gets higher and higher and more and more strident, until you can't actually hear what she's saying any more but there are dogs rolling around in pain and you're in danger of being brained by the rain of bats falling around you.

‘Is this it then?' she demanded as soon as we each had a drink in front of us. ‘Just going to give up and wallow around in self-pity for the next ten years?' She went to take a sip of her drink then, thinking of her next sentence, put it back down onto the wooden table with a thud. ‘You're being totally pathetic and really beginning to irritate everybody, this isn't like you, you don't give up and you've always told me I'm not allowed to give up.'

I tried desperately to tune her out, and stared around at the cafe, I hadn't been into this one before, and it was quite nice, with big leather squishy sofas (all occupied by middle-aged women, staring over at us, unfortunately. Amelia's voice can carry quite a way, especially when she's trying to be quiet), and huge contemporary prints smothering the walls, it was a classic English version of an Italian coffee shop.

Amelia's voice hit the particular pitch that managed to break into my reverie about the dark, polished wooden tables. I switched my attention to the ceiling, strange how something can still be nicotine-stained even all this time after the cigarette ban.

‘Mother!' she shrieked. ‘You're behaving like a teenager, stop ignoring me and tell me exactly what you're going to do.' That was the note, about top C, I decided that I had better join in this conversation before she started breaking glasses and I had something else to pay for. I held up a placatory hand and watched as she shut her mouth with a snap.

‘Hello, Amelia, nice to see you, how are you, did you have a pleasant drive up?' I gave her a big grin, and laughed when she took an obviously difficult controlling breath and with quick decisive movements smoothed the travel crinkles from her checked shirt. I liked that shirt, it definitely gave out sort of hoe-down tones, but I always felt it clashed in style with the lip piercing and the long red and black hair. I felt the thump as she uncrossed her legs in frustration then re-crossed them, the huge New Rock boots with their buckles and chains jangled as they hit the floor.

She took another deep breath. ‘Sorry, I was worried about you.'

‘Hmm.' It was quite warm in here and knowing that this was a conversation that could take a while I shrugged out of my coat, then sat forward, rolling up the sleeves on my jumper, I rested my forearms on the table.

‘Look.' I took a sip of coffee, ‘Let me wallow, I'll get over this eventually and go and find something else to do.' I traced sun patterns in the ring of coffee I had made on the table. ‘There's nothing I can do, I can't make money appear from nowhere.'

‘You could get a loan,' she said and ferreted around in the inside pocket of her leather jacket. ‘Look I got you all these leaflets.' She placed a pile of slightly dog-eared and brightly coloured slips onto the table.

Picking them all up I glanced through them then smiled at her. ‘I do appreciate, it love, honestly I do, and I've considered this option.' I leant back and sighed. ‘There isn't any way we could get a loan for living expenses and doing some knackered piece of junk up. There isn't a bank in the world that would take on that sort of flimsy nonsense.' I stacked the leaflets into a neat pile and put them back on the table. ‘Honestly, I have thought of every stupid money-making idea I could, I even thought about
betting
what little money we have left, but even
my
sanity isn't that far gone.'

Amelia grinned at me. ‘I bet there's one bank you haven't thought of, it's the one I try and use all the time.'

I frowned. ‘I thought you were with Nat West?'

‘Pah, I don't go to them for money, I go to Dad, the bank of Dad, good interest rates,' she said, ‘the application process is a little scarier but it's worth it.'

I stared at her. I knew she didn't mean I should borrow money from my ex-husband. Simon and I are still on talking terms but I don't think he would be too happy to see me cap in hand on his doorstep. I frowned then it hit me, the bank of Dad. True I hadn't needed it for about twenty-five years, but it was an option.

I raised my eyebrows at her. ‘Dad?'

She nodded and grinned back. ‘Granddad!'

We had a pleasant hour drinking coffee and eating cake (my jeans wouldn't fit at all if I carried on at this rate), then she disappeared to head all the way back down to Reading. She did hit me for the petrol money before she left. Obviously there is a bank of Mum as well, nowhere near as grand or as rich as the Dad but still good for the odd twenty quid now and then.

As she climbed into her little red Peugeot I gave her a big hug, noticing as I did so that those huge boots of hers made her four inches taller than me. ‘Thank you for coming all this way.'

Amelia huffed and pushed me away with a slight kiss. ‘Oh poo, at least it'll stop Charlie bleating at me about how insane you're getting.

As I made dinner that evening, I pondered her words, I hadn't asked to borrow money from my father since I'd had the idea that I'd like to own a travelling burger bar back in my teens. He had bought it for me, I had worked it for two weeks decided that I hated smelling of onions and loftily stated that he could take it back and sell it again. We'd had words, a lot of words.

The next day, with Geoff at work and the kids at school, I had busied myself for over two hours with ridiculous little jobs in an effort to put off the evil moment.

There is something very wrong about having to borrow money off your parents at the age of forty-five. By Forty-five you really should have sorted yourself out, you're a grown up for goodness' sake. You should have all the answers, a good job, a pension in place, a half-paid-off mortgage and some savings for a rainy day. I stared at the telephone and shuddered, just for once I wished I could be normal.

‘Hey, Dad.' I started out cheerily as he picked the phone up on the third ring.

‘Oh, hello, you.' He sounded happy and relaxed, that was a good start. ‘How're you?'

‘We're all fine,' I hesitated then, deciding that a little small talk would probably be a good thing, I added, ‘how're you?'

‘We're fine.' Dad hesitated. He has always hated ‘small talk' with a passion. ‘Did you want to speak to your mother?'

I smiled and took a deep breath then plunged in, ‘No, Dad, it's you I wanted.'

‘Oh yes,' my father's tone took on a slightly suspicious edge, ‘what can I do for you?'

I gulped, my dad is a lovely guy, small, balding, rotund and generally genial and fairly mellow, until he starts talking money. A businessman of many years, he has owned several of his own companies and has never failed to make a profit. He views it as a game, he develops houses, owns a printing company and within one sentence the Santa-like persona can disappear and suddenly you are facing an older version of Lord Sugar. The eyes harden, the stance becomes more upright, the lips purse and one eye takes on a slight twitch. I gulped again and taking a deep breath, plunged into the fray.

‘I need to borrow some money.' I held my breath if the next word was ‘no', that was it, there would be no swaying him.

‘Right.' The word was long drawn out then there was silence. Argh! He really wasn't going to make this easy for me.

‘I need to borrow a large amount of money,' I announced and took a deep breath. ‘We want to move back on to a boat, we have the money to buy one, a bad one, but we don't have the money to do it up, and get us back down to Cambridge and give us time to find jobs so I need to double the money that we've got.' I took another breath. ‘I need a loan, a proper loan. I'll pay you back the interest that you would have gained if you'd kept the money in the bank and I need it over a five-year period.'

‘… ' Silence.

‘Dad?' I held my breath again.

‘Hmm.' There was a grumbling mutter down the line. ‘Exactly how much do you need, what boat are you going to buy, what happens if you can't pay it back. I need a business plan and a spreadsheet of what it's going to be used for.' There was silence for a moment then more muttering, he was obviously speaking to my mother with his hand over the mouthpiece.

I waited until he had finished, I could hear Mum's voice but couldn't make out what she was saying.

I stood up and wandered around the sitting room, my twitchy feet and nerves needing to get rid of some energy.

‘How much are we talking here?' Mum's voice cut across his again.

I smiled, if you talk to one of my parents, you talk to both. ‘Twenty thousand.' I gave up trying to breathe and slumped back down into the chair. There it was, the ‘figure' out in the open, it sounded a huge amount when said aloud.

Silence … then, ‘How much?' I could hear my mother's squeak quite plainly.

I sighed, this was our last hope, if they said no we were really doomed to stay ‘oop north' for ever.

‘Actually we could do it.' Dad sounded thoughtful. ‘Email me all the details, I'll talk it over with your mother and we'll get back to you.' There was another set of mutters then he sighed and said, ‘Your mother wants a word.'

I bet she did. ‘Thanks Dad.' I breathed a huge sigh of relief, at least I hadn't been fired out of the cannon as soon as I asked him.

‘Hmmm,' he said again and then disappeared off the line. He was replaced by my mother.

‘What are you doing?' Mum was speaking quickly and about two octaves above her normal register. I sighed, this was almost harder than talking to my dad, Mum would want every little detail. Keeping the phone pressed to my ear, wincing occasionally as I listened to Mum's list of questions, I staggered out toward the kitchen and wondered if there was any scotch left. By the time this conversation was over I was going to need one.

Two days later and I had a headache, bits of paper all over the floor, a grumpy husband, two children on tenterhooks and more quotes, estimates and bills than I had ever seen before. Finally we had managed to cobble the whole thing together, wrestle our way through Excel and had a spreadsheet that we could sort of relate to. There was absolutely no way we could afford the Humber Keel, which was a shame.

However I had managed to locate two 70ft narrowboats in Birmingham that looked as though they had potential. They weren't exactly what we were looking for, being mid-engined and definitely having a traditional feel, but as they ticked enough of the boxes we decided that we could sort out the rest of the problems. So on Friday the fourth of July, with fingers, toes, eyes and other bits crossed for good luck, we sent the spreadsheet off to Dad with a suitably grovelling letter of explanation and waited.