Narrow Minds (13 page)

Mum laughed and grabbing her bag from the seat beside me wandered off toward the shop, re-emerging five minutes later with six ice-creams.

Dad was quiet as we wandered from pontoon to pontoon, licking our ice-creams and guiding Sam away from the edge of the swaying wooden structures. At the end of the furthest pontoon two elderly narrow boats rocked gently on loose ropes.

‘Here we are then.' Geoff looked at the keys in his hand, then passed one set to me. ‘Those are for
Probatica
,' he said and pointed to the boat on the outside of the pontoon, then pocketed the keys, ‘and these are for
Minerva
.' He waved a hand at
Minerva
then gave me a little push. ‘Go on then, open her up.'

Stepping over the bow and down into the front well, I firmly pushed thoughts of ‘Happy' away. Opening the doors before me was not going to reveal the pristine and designed interior that we had previously enjoyed. There would be no shining wooden floors, no polished mugs hanging from hooks screwed into the underside of a glowing wooden shelf on a welsh dresser, no gleaming bathroom, no beautiful fitted bedroom.

No, this was going to be damp, cobweb covered, smelly and horrible. I pushed the key into the lock and turned my wrist, grimacing as the key graunched in the lock. I kicked the door and, under duress, it finally swung open with a creak and a groan. I stuck my head through the door and clamped my nose shut to keep out the smell. Damn it, once, just once, I would really like to be surprised by something, oh yuck!

We all stepped, one by one, in silence, down into the interior of the narrow boat. Charlie and Sam wandered off down the boat, pointing things out to each other and making unenthusiastic noises.

The adults stood in silence, at the very end of the boat and stared down the long thin interior. It looked as though someone had shoe-horned a 1970s cafe into a narrow boat. Row after row of tables with benches fore and aft lined each side of the boat. Huge, greasy windows let in shafts of light which illuminated the dancing dust disturbed by our entrance.

At the side of each window, threadbare pink curtains hung in sad, uneven swags, each held back by an eclectic mixture of shoe laces, ribbons and odd pieces of material. Each curtain had undergone a certain amount of fading, the result made them look striped or patchwork. The whole thing smelt of mould, decay and ancient dust. Oh how well I remembered that smell.

‘Well this isn't as bad as I expected.' Geoff levered himself out of the group and set off down the boat with Dad wandering along behind him. Good God what had he expected? Mum and I looked at each other then followed mutely along behind.

There really wasn't that much to see, half the boat held tables and benches and behind those a small kitchen squatted, wallowing in its own grease and dust. There was a huge stainless steel sink, a small, two-burner, gas cooker, three sagging wooden cupboards and, for some reason, another tiny porcelain sink.

Mum and I picked our way through, trying desperately not to touch anything, there was no doubt it would leave a grubby mark. Beyond the kitchen two wooden doors barred our way, both had signs: one said ‘LADIES' and the other ‘GENTLEMEN'. I frowned and turned to Geoff. ‘Separate toilets?'

He shrugged and opened one of the doors. ‘Apparently so.' Stepping into the tiny toilet he turned to face us then sat down on the loo. Reaching forward he grabbed the door and pushed it closed. His voice echoed from behind the wood, ‘Good grief, what size person could actually use this toilet?' We could hear shuffling and knocking. ‘My knees are touching the door.'

The door opened and Geoff stood up and began knocking on the back wall. Frowning he emerged from the Ladies and entered the Gents and began knocking again. ‘Dammit.' He shuffled backwards towards us and stood with his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

‘What's up?' I stared at the wall. It looked perfectly ordinary to me.

‘Half the bloody boat is behind that wall,' he replied and stabbed an irate finger at the blockage, ‘and that wall's really good thick steel.'

‘So?' I didn't understand what the problem was.

‘The engine room is behind that wall, Marie.' He scratched his head. ‘It means that to get to the engine room and the boatman's cabin that's beyond that, we'll have to cut a doorway in this wall …' He reached forward and knocked again. The steel gave off a dull ‘bong' ‘And that steel's about five ml thick.'

‘That means we'll have to cut through the engine room to get to the back bedroom, doesn't it?' I stared down the boat and tried not to breathe, The sunshine didn't really light up the interior but it did manage to highlight some of the more interesting features of the boat. I was particularly impressed by the miniature moss gardens that were growing around the edge of each and every window. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had just been a small green layer but the moss was so well established it was even growing long stalks, some of which had little yellow bobbles on the end. They waved cheerily at me as the draft from around the ill-fitting window sill moved them.

I wandered away from the group by the toilets and examined the ‘decor' in more detail, lilac, badly painted walls, a red plastic floor which was so old it had begun to perish and lift at the edges. At least the ceiling was nice, long lengths of varnished wood with small beams between each window gave the boat a cottage-like feel.

Set into the ceiling was the most fantastic thing, a recessed 5 foot by 2 foot panel which slid, on metal rails, across the roof and revealed the sky, it was lovely. The one thing about narrow boats is that it doesn't matter how many windows and doors you leave open in the summer they fill with heat and gently cook you. Opening this up would let all the heat out and create a relatively cool space to live.

Geoff and my parents clattered past, discussing the points that could be considered ‘potential'.

‘You coming?' Geoff turned to me as he stood in the doorway. ‘We're off to see the other one.'

Fastidiously rubbing my hand down my jeans I shuddered slightly and followed in their wake.

Probatica
was almost identical to
Minerva
, same state, same toilets, same wall, same moss gardens, she also had a shower and, instead of the cafe layout, had long benches set along each wall with a big gap running down the middle of the boat. She had obviously been used for shorter, day trips.

There really wasn't that much else to see, they were narrow boats, the engine bays were filled with greasy water and the battery bank was so old I couldn't actually read the writing on the sides of the batteries. Geoff and Dad did a thorough survey of what was available and working. They started up both engines and listened to them. There were comforting nods and smiles between the two of them so at least the engines were obviously acceptable.

About two hours later we had adjourned to the small pub on site and Charlie was enjoying a real ale shandy, she had asked Dad for a whisky and coke and he would have bought her one if my mother hadn't intervened. As we all tucked into various pub meals, the boats obviously became the main topic of conversation.

‘So.' Dad reached over and waved his fork at Sam's sausages, Sam screamed and tried to hide his plate under the table. ‘Are you going to buy one of the boats?'

Geoff leaned back and took a sip of tea. ‘Yes I think we are.'

I looked up in shock, it was really out of character for him to be so decisive. ‘Which one was best?' I gripped Sam's arm gently, told him to put his dinner back on the table, then told Dad off for winding him up.

‘It doesn't really matter,' Geoff said and shrugged, ‘they're pretty much the same, the only difference is that
Minerva
has a Lister Canal star and of course that brilliant sun roof.
Probatica
has a much older engine.' He frowned for a moment. ‘Hmm, I must be getting old, I can't remember what it was, another Lister but it wasn't as good.'

Mum, sensing that maybe a little discussion between the two of us would be a good idea, ushered Dad and the kids out in search of more ice cream. I watched them go and hoped they'd buy me one, or failing that a bottle of gin would be welcome.

Geoff stared at me over his cup of tea. ‘Are you ready to do this all again?'

I really hate it when he speaks my thoughts. I hesitated for a moment thinking about all the work that would be ahead of us and just for a moment wavered horribly, was the village of the damned really so bad?

I shuddered, yes it bloody well was, all I wanted was to be back at home and if it meant that I had to spend another two years in a floating building site so be it. ‘Yes, I think I am, how about you?'

Geoff stared into his tea. ‘I'll have to give up my job, I haven't got another to go to and we're going to be horribly broke because we have to pay your Dad back so we're going to have issues with both time and money.' He paused, shaking his head slightly and took a gulp of cold tea. ‘That's if I can even get a job, we're taking a hell of a risk.' He looked worried.

I bit my lip and stayed quiet, I couldn't manipulate this decision, to make this right we both had to be committed to the job. Actually I think we both needed to be committed, or at least sectioned.

After a couple of minutes Geoff nodded to himself and decisively set his tea cup down with a slight clank, then standing up he extended a hand to pull me to my feet. ‘Shall we buy a boat, dear?'

I let out a huge whoop which startled the poor man behind the bar. Then flung myself round the table to give my husband a huge hug. ‘Are you sure?'

Geoff nodded decisively. ‘I suppose we'd better have a final chat with the kids and if they're enthusiastic we'd better hope your dad has his cheque book on him.'

Stepping out into the sunshine, we found the rest of the family happily sitting under an umbrella eating yet more ice cream. Plonking ourselves on some spare chairs, we managed to get the kids attention. ‘This is your last chance to say no.' I prodded Sam as his attention wandered to the ducks still circling the marina. ‘Do you want to stay in Durham or are you happy with a new boat and we go back to our old life and do up another boat?' Much as I wanted them to agree, they had to know how it was going to go for the next year. ‘It'll be cold, smelly and we're going to have to rip most of it out before we leave just to give us some space.'

Charlie frowned.

‘We'll have to camp in the wretched thing while we're travelling and it's going to be a little crude for a while.'

There was silence. Finally Sam nodded and said, ‘I want to go home, I want to go back to my old school.'

I grinned at him. All eyes turned to Charlie who was still frowning at the table. ‘What about you Charles?' I reached over and gave her a small prod. ‘You must say what you're thinking; we all have to be together on this, if it makes even one person sad it's not worth doing because it's going to be really, really hard work.'

Charlie looked up at me. ‘Can we have a dog?'

I nodded. ‘Yes, we'll get one when we get to Cambridge, but we can't have one while we're travelling, it's just not fair to any animal to introduce it to a new life like that. Actually the animal would probably be fine, I'm just not sure that Geoff and I would cope, but when we get home we'll look into it.'

Mum looked aghast and rounded on my youngest daughter. ‘A dog?' she yelped, ‘All this change and all you're worried about is can you have a stupid dog?'

Charlie grinned. ‘I really, really want a dog.' She gave her ice-cream another decisive lick. ‘And …' she shrugged with a slightly embarrassed look ‘… I have missed it, but I'd made such a fuss I didn't want to say that I'd changed my mind, School's all right here, but I don't think that my friends and I want the same things, I'd like to go home as well.'

Half an hour later we were back on
Minerva
again. The cheque had been paid and we had decided against a survey. That was probably a stupid decision but we had neither the time nor the spare money to commission one. I watched as Geoff drew out the dimensions and then joined the kids in saying goodbye to Mum and Dad as they headed for home.

Sitting on the front deck I watched as Charlie stared at the water, her facial expression changing from happy to sad then back to happy again as she processed all the information. Eventually she nodded and looked over at the ducks with a smile. Standing up she stretched then, quick as lightning, thumped her brother and shot off up the gang plank with him in hot pursuit. I laughed, it looked as though she had finally considered all the options. It was great that she'd worked through it in a positive way, that sort of attitude might just cushion her against all the horrors to come.

I leaned back on the bow, wincing as my backside came in contact with the edge of the gas locker. It was so nice to be back aboard; I closed my eyes as the sun beat down. Well it was too late now, the cheque had been passed over and
Minerva
had been taken off sale. Trying to ignore the slow churning of my stomach, I determinedly imagined what she'd be like when she was finished and tried to ignore the journey we'd have to undertake to get her in that state.

Chapter Six
Déjà Vu

T
HE NEXT TWO WEEKS
were an absolute whirlwind of activity. Geoff gave in his notice on Monday, the kids went off to their last week at school very happy and I set to packing with a will. We also commandeered Helens big van and every third night we filled it with boxes and Geoff travelled the six hundred miles to dump the wretched stuff into storage and then return home. Once again I listed all of our furniture on eBay and watched happily as the furniture left the building and the money rolled into our PayPal account. It wasn't very much to be honest but with every item that left the house I felt lighter and more free, I hadn't realised that our possessions weighed so heavily.

At the weekend, while sadly packing up all our books, I heard a car roll up and two minutes later Helen stuck her head round the door. ‘Anyone home?' She stepped into the echoingly empty lounge and stared around, ignoring me as I tried to shove a thousand books into boxes designed to hold about seven hundred and fifty.

She stared about the empty room and shook her head. ‘I hope you haven't packed the coffee.' Wandering past me she deliberately and nonchalantly knocked over one of my teetering piles of books ,then ran away laughing maniacally.

I ducked as the books cascaded around me, then, realising I wasn't going to get a lot of packing done I clambered to my feet and headed for the kitchen.

‘Thanks for that.' I rubbed my arm. ‘What are you doing here?' I accepted a hug with an ungracious glower.

Helen laughed. ‘I've come to help, you grumpy cow.'

‘Excellent!' I smirked at her. ‘All I have left to do is empty the loft and I could do with a hand.'

She sighed and said, ‘Great, leave the best till last eh?'

I laughed and turned to fill the kettle with water, coming to a halt as another knock came at the front door.

‘Expecting someone?' Helen asked.

‘Don't think so.' Plugging the kettle in and turning it on, I picked up a tea towel then wiping my hands we headed through the lounge toward the still open front door.

A tall woman stood on the doorstep. With her coiffured blonde hair and deep blue suit, high heels and blank expression she looked like a health inspector. She stared through the open door into the living room.

‘Hi.' I threw the tea towel over my shoulder and grinned at her. ‘Can I help you?'

‘Marie Browne?'

I nodded, she sounded very severe and a small knot of worry began to materialise in the pit of my stomach.

‘I'm from the estate agents.' She pulled a leather document file from beneath her arm and opened it with a frown.

The small knot of worry disappeared, she must be here to do the moving out inspection, it was a little early as we weren't leaving for a week, but at least we'd get our deposit back and that would be another £600 to add to the coffers.

I smiled at her. ‘Oh hi, I'm not sure we're really at inspection level, but you can see that no damage has been done to the house.'

She stared at me blankly, then a look of comprehension appeared on her face and she gave me a thin smile. ‘I'm not here to do your exit inspection.' She hesitated then smiled widely, obviously this was a woman that enjoyed her job. ‘Mainly because you're not going to be erm …' she searched for the word ‘… exiting.'

‘What?' The spinning knot was back with a vengeance, I could feel sweat beginning to form on my forehead and palms.

‘You signed a new tenancy agreement for a year and that was only four months ago.' She held out a piece of paper to me. ‘I'm afraid you can't leave for another eight months,' she hesitated, ‘well, actually, you can leave but you'll have to pay for those remaining months.' Having delivered her coup de grace she took a step back and waited for my reaction.

I stared at the paper in my hand then watched it leave as Helen whipped it away to study it.

‘I thought you'd gone on to a month by month contract,' Helen said as she read through the contract.

‘I did.' I racked my brains, thinking back to that day in the estate agents office. ‘Or at least, I thought I did, that was certainly what I asked for.'

Taking the paper back from Helen I handed the contract back to the woman on the doorstep. ‘This can't be right, I renewed the contract but it was supposed to move to a month by month.'

She shrugged. ‘Well, obviously a mistake's been made, but this is the contract that's been signed and now you're stuck.' She raised her eyebrows. ‘Eight months isn't that long, we'll make sure we get the right contract signed next time. Oh, by the way,' she said giving me that shark-like grin again, ‘I've already told Kevin and Val that you'll be staying so you don't have to bother squaring it with them.' She looked past me into our bare room. ‘I hope you can get your furniture back.' With that she turned on her heel and strutted back toward her car.

Resisting the urge to throw my coffee at her, I slammed the door in her wake then sank to the floor. Helen bit her lip then rushed out to the kitchen to make more coffee.

‘So what are you going to do now?' Two minutes later she broke into my dark reverie and handed me a steaming mug of sanity.

I took a sip of coffee then, placing the mug carefully in the fireplace, sank my head into my hands.

‘Look at this place, we can't live here, the boat's been bought, Geoff's handed in his notice, the kids are booked into new schools and I am this close,' I held up my thumb and forefinger about an inch apart ‘to getting out of here and back to my life. There is no way I'm staying here for another eight months.'

Helen looked up from opening a packet of chocolate digestives. ‘So what are you going to do?'

Smiling happily, I took a deep breath and picked up my coffee. ‘Something I never thought I would have to do at the age of forty-five.' Grabbing a couple of biscuits I dunked one into my coffee and watched as the chocolate melted from the surface and slid slowly into the cup. ‘We're going to do a runner.'

Helen spluttered, coughed and spilt her coffee onto the carpet. ‘Whoops sorry,' she muttered and stealing the tea towel that was still resting on my shoulder, tried to mop up the spill. ‘A runner, really? But what will happen when they catch you?'

Taking the towel away from her I threw it back over my shoulder. ‘Don't worry about that staining, I'm not going to get my deposit back anyway, not now.' Staggering to my feet I reached down a hand to pull Helen to hers. ‘Look, the way I see it, we have the moral high ground here. I know what I asked for and it wasn't another year's flaming contract on this place.' Picking up the coffee mugs I moved toward the kitchen. ‘Yes I should have checked the contract but they're obviously unwilling to negotiate on this so phooey to them. I have done everything I should, I've paid on time, I asked for the right thing, I sent in the letter telling them we were leaving and they, quite frankly, are just messing with me.' I set the mugs down on the kitchen counter and turned to Helen with a big grin. ‘Nothing's changed, the plan remains the same.'

Helen frowned, she's an inherently law-abiding person and this idea didn't sit well at all. ‘But what if they catch you?'

‘Do you know the best thing about living on a boat?' I rinsed out the mugs and set them to drain. ‘No address: once you get into that boat and turn on the engine you are, essentially, untraceable.' I turned to Helen and grinned. ‘Don't get me wrong, people can be found but it takes far more effort, a boat could be on any one of a hundred waterways.'

Helen shook her head dubiously. ‘I'm not sure this is the best way to handle this,' she said, then she sniffed and laughed, ‘but it doesn't matter what I say, does it?' She shrugged. ‘And I suppose you have done everything you could to sort it out.'

I leant back on the draining board and sighed. ‘Look, I know it's not the ‘right' way to deal with things but I can't think of a way out of it, we've bought the boat, we now owe my dad a huge amount of money which we have to start paying off next week. If we stay here even another week, we need another tank of oil and that's going to cost us the equivalent of eight weeks payback to Dad.' I shook my head. ‘If we stay, we're bankrupt and my family never talks to me again, if we go, the worst that can happen is that I'll never again be able to rent a house from that particular estate agents.'

Helen sniggered, ‘Well if you put it that way, maybe we'd better go and sort out the loft.'

I laughed and pushed away from the sink but as we walked up the stairs I couldn't quite get rid of the nagging little feeling that I was planning something very, very naughty and the feeling was making me quite nauseous.

Exactly eight days later, at three o'clock in the morning, I found myself marshalling the troops. The last of our possessions, those we needed with us to take
Minerva
down to Cambridge, had been squashed into Helen's van.

The last week had been a bit of a nightmare. Geoff hadn't been happy with the idea of ‘doing a runner' and had made his objections very clear. But, after twenty-four hours of denial and some rather intense conversations with the estate agents and the owners, he had also decided there was no other way and had joined me in my surreptitious packing and moving habits. We loaded the van in the middle of the night and crept around keeping things as quiet as we possibly could.

The pressure had built and built until finally the fatal day had arrived and I was almost beside myself with trepidation and anxiety that, as we left the house, Kevin, accompanied by Huge one and Huge two would come strolling around the corner of the barn with a shotgun and order us all back to our beds.

As I crept around in the darkness, opening cupboards and drawers, throwing any final forgotten things into a black bin bag, all I could hear was my heart beating. My palms were sweaty and I could feel my chest tightening as the adrenalin surged around my panic-stricken body threatening to cut off my breathing entirely.

Eventually, we were all assembled in the empty living room, the van and the car were packed to the point of bulging and we were finally ready to leave.

‘Now listen,' I hissed at the kids. They stared back at me in silence, their big eyes showing the amount of discomfort all this creeping around and late night activity was causing. ‘We're leaving, so I need you to walk out of that door in silence, get into the van in silence, stay silent until we are on the main road and that will be it. After that you can scream and jump up and down as much as you like because I know that's exactly what I'll be doing.'

Both Chaos and Disorder nodded. ‘What if I have to cough or sneeze?' Sam grabbed my arm and looked worried.

‘Hold your breath.' Charlie pinched him gently.

I nodded. ‘Come on then, all aboard; let's get the hell out of here.'

I felt a bit guilty as I watched them holding each other's arms and heading (in relative silence) toward the van. Geoff nodded to me as they got in and I gathered up the last bag and headed out through the door. Carefully and silently locking the door behind me, I posted the keys back through the letterbox. As I turned toward the car some night creature streaked across the lawn and set off the security lights on the barn. Caught in the sudden blazing shaft of light, I felt sick. I could almost hear the howl of wind up sirens and the shouts of the guards.

Argh! It was ridiculous. My limbs locked and I stood in full floodlit glory, a black bin bag in one hand a small desk lamp in the other. It was the final straw, my breathing stopped entirely. Swivelling only my eyes I could see Geoff, Chaos and Disorder as they all pressed their faces up against the van windows. They looked confused, Geoff rolled the window down. ‘What the hell are you doing?' he enquired. His calm and normal voice breaking into my strange Colditz-type fantasy.

Trying not to move my lips I hissed, ‘The lights.' I remained standing stock-still in the middle of the drive.

Geoff heaved a sigh and just stared at me, I could hear Sam asking, ‘Why is Mum standing there like that, has she got her foot stuck?' Charlie just hit him on the head with a gentle fist.

As the lights went out I darted to the car and fumblingly started the engine. After checking that Geoff had managed to get the van running I pulled out into the driveway. It was now 3.45 a.m. As I passed the entrance to the main farmhouse I checked the drive and was horrified to notice a light come on in the upstairs window, a dark figure moved behind the curtains.

For a moment I panicked then, realising it would take a fair while for anyone to get downstairs, and he was were probably only going to the loo anyway, put my foot down and sped toward the road and freedom. I turned right on to the main road with only a slight squeal of tyres then headed toward the A68, the lights of Helen's van large in my rear view mirror, the lights from the farmhouse rapidly fading into the distance.

It must have taken about twenty minutes for my heart to slow, my palms to dry and my breathing to ease, but as I headed through Barnard Castle for the last time and turned toward the M6 I couldn't stop grinning. I felt as though I had got away with a bank robbery. As I passed the turning toward the museum I had a momentary flash of sadness, It had been lovely seeing Helen so often, God only knew when I'd see her again, but the grin soon returned, we were out of the twilight zone that was the village of the damned and heading south toward normality again. No one could find us. From the moment we were out of the drive we were free; free of bills, free of that horrible house and completely free of the strange half lives that inhabited the village, I honestly couldn't remember a time I'd been happier.

At seven o'clock in the morning we pulled into Mum and Dad's drive. Mum had offered to look after the kids for the weekend while we tried to make the boat at least clean, if not really habitable. With the maximum amount of noise, Charlie and Sam clambered out of the car. Sam was carefully carrying Lu in her cage, as he walked, he made little cooing noises that he hoped would calm her down. The long bumpy ride in the car, the noise and the smells had made her completely insane again and she was currently running backwards and forwards throwing herself with piercing screams at the bars of the cage. Charlie wandered over to the car to check on her rats but they were all fast asleep, all that could be seen was a selection of little pink feet and a ball of long tails; she shrugged and left them to it.