Narrow Minds (16 page)

‘So let me get this straight.' I frowned as I ticked all the points off on an imaginary list. ‘You're staying with some bloke called Mick in his spare room, you're going back to college in September to study Sociology and Psychology, you're going to find a part-time job and you and Huw are definitely over, is that about right?' I wondered if I'd missed anything. ‘And you're sure you want to go and sort this out tonight.'

Amelia gave me a huge grin. ‘Yep.' She juggled half the contents of my larder cupboard, a couple of pairs of shoes that she'd nicked off me and her car keys, then sighed as she looked at her car. ‘Hmm I'm not sure I can fit this in.'

I laughed as I looked at her car overloaded with all her possessions. ‘Welcome to my world.'

Amelia stared at me for a moment. ‘I used to think you were mad for moving around like this.' She opened the back door and unceremoniously shoved all the stuff she was carrying on top of the pile that was already there, then quickly slammed the door shut before it could all flow blob-like into the car park. ‘But I feel great, I've got somewhere to go and a plan.' She smirked. ‘Sort of.'

Wandering over for a hug she shook her head again, ‘But it doesn't matter if it changes does it, or if something else goes wrong because I can always just change how I look at things and change the plan.'

I hugged her and laughed ‘Yep, that's the way it goes, duck any major trauma and call what happens ‘the plan' then it doesn't matter what goes on in life you are always sticking to ‘the plan', you can't go wrong really.'

Later that evening as we were all sitting around enjoying a moment of peace and a late tea in the final glow of the slowly setting sun a small, elderly man with a can of beer in hand wandered down the tow path and stopped with a smile at our boat. He glared at the kids. ‘Ah, there you are, you young reprobates,' he said.

‘Oh God, what have they done now.' I got ready to apologise and fetch the cheque book.

He laughed and shook his head. ‘I think they may have enticed my dog into a more rowdy way of life.'

I gasped, Capri was still asleep on the sofa, he was only small and I had become so used to having a nondescript hairy, smelly terrier around from when Herbert, our last dog, was with us on
Happy Go Lucky
that I had completely failed to remember that he wasn't actually ours.

‘Oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot he was still here.' I turned to Charlie and Sam. ‘Go and get the dog, guys.' Sam's lip quivered and I intervened quickly, ‘I said you could have a dog but we'll get one in Cambridge and you have to choose one of your own, you can't just pinch someone else's.'

The kids sighed and trooped off to entice our guest out of the boat. I turned to apologise again but the man held his hand up. ‘Don't worry, he'll have had a fine old time playing with those two today and I was keeping half an eye on him.' He laughed and accepted a chicken sandwich. ‘Truth is, it's nice to see him rushing about again, neither of us move very fast these days and after a day like today, he'll sleep for a week, poor old thing.'

I shook my head. ‘I can't believe I forgot he was there. It does seem strange without a dog on the boat.'

Geoff rolled his eyes. ‘I think it's quite nice,' he said hopefully.

I laughed and got up to put the kettle on again. ‘I know you don't want another pet but I think you may be out-voted on this one.'

The kids came out with a sleepy terrier cuddled up in Charlie's arms, they both gave him a lot of fuss as they handed him over. Capri's only response was to give a huge yawn and a slow wag of his tail. Michael (Capri's owner) smiled as he accepted the hairy package. ‘Right, well, thanks for wearing him out and feeding him.' (I had admitted that he'd had a fair amount of chicken casserole at lunch time.) Managing to get one hand out from under the dog he gave us a wave and headed back towards his own boat. Capri's eyes fluttered closed as he walked and we could hear the sonorous snores that grew with every step.

‘He was a nice dog, but I think I'd like a puppy, one that had a bit more energy,' Charlie said.

Sam nodded; Geoff groaned; I laughed and went to make more tea.

Chapter Seven
Banjos and Beer

A
NOTHER COUPLE OF DAYS
' hard work and we were almost ready to go. The boat had been transformed into a sort of luxury floating camping thing, no real rooms but a lot of cushions and curtains and general goodwill made it exciting and good fun, the sun shone, the birds sang and the holidaymakers laughed and waved as they swished past in warm, beer fuelled, waves that rocked us and bashed us gently against the side of the canal.

Geoff had finally beaten the engine into submission and had fixed the gas water heater but the heating system had completely scuppered him. He announced that it was too warm to worry about a heating system, and, as we had just had our log burner delivered, he really couldn't be bothered with it and would take it apart when we got to Cambridge. Seemed like a good idea to me.

After the departure of Michael and Capri, another boat had taken their place. The lone occupant of this one had become a complete side show for Charlie who was completely in awe of this guy's musical talents. Having never heard a violin played like that before she would sit for hours listening to him play, picking up on his rather rude songs. Luckily Brian didn't mind being stalked by an impressed young teenager and cheerfully went about teaching her some of his more ‘colourful' creations. She could often be heard on the top of our boat with her guitar singing about people ‘who aren't like me'.

Brian also renewed her passion for real ale which was a little unfortunate as she now, at fourteen, decided that she was old enough to drink and we had long discussions about the function and collapse of the young liver and why she wasn't allowed to sink herself into two or three bottles of Fursty Ferrett or Old Peculier. These conversations usually culminated in her stamping off with a small glass of ale to the front of the boat where she would make up songs about the injustice of youth and the ridiculous rules of adults.

The boat in front of Brian's had an almost abandoned look. It had been there for our entire stay and we had yet to see anyone enter or leave it. Painted in waves of different colours with tinkly things hanging in the windows, the kids often went down and looked at it and tried to decide what sort of person would live in it. Sam actually became quite adept at imitating Lloyd Grossman and would stand outside the boat saying with a wonderful drawl, ‘Here we have imaginative paintwork, mismatched curtains, a skewed chimney, now who would live in a boat like this.'

The morning before we were due to leave Sam rushed into the boat. ‘Mum! MUM!!' he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. ‘There are people on the boat and they're …' he stopped and shook his head, trying to think of a good descriptive word, ‘weird.'

Charlie looked up from the book she was reading with an interested look. ‘Weird?' she asked, ‘What's weird about them?'

Sam was hopping from one foot to another desperate to get someone to come and have a look. ‘The lady has really fat hair.'

‘Fat hair?' Charlie looked confused. ‘How can you have fat hair?'

Sam frowned and huffed. ‘Oh I don't know, it's like snakes, come and look.'

Charlie jumped to her feet then grimaced as I shot in front of them and held out a hand to stop them. ‘Hold on a moment, you can't just go and stare at people, at least have a little courtesy and try to be surreptitious about it.' I held out a bowl. ‘Go and pick some blackberries, there are some really good ones down by their boat.'

The kids nodded and grabbing the bowl, rushed off to pretend to pick fruit. I, as usual, put the kettle on then settled back down with my book.

It must have been about an hour later when I realised that they'd been gone a rather long time. I expected them to be back with about five squashed blackberries in less than ten minutes. So draining my mug of the horrible cold coffee I had been drinking, I put my book down and headed out to find the kids.

Geoff was messing about on the roof, trying to work out the best position to cut a hole for the new flue.

I handed him a new cup of tea, which, like the previous one, he would probably completely ignore. ‘Have you seen thing one and thing two recently?' I stared down the empty canal path. ‘They went off to pick blackberries and spy on the neighbours.'

Geoff scowled at the roof and taking a sip of his tea poked at the metal. ‘Why were they spying on the neighbours?' He poked again at the metal and his frown deepened.

‘Sam said the woman had fat hair, so they went to see it.'

Geoff looked up at me, confused for a moment. ‘Fat hair?' He suddenly grinned. ‘She had long purple and black dreadlocks,' he said and laughed, ‘fat hair! I like it, they were pretty impressive actually, she had all these things like beads and bones and little silver tinkly things in them.'

‘Oh no.' I suddenly thought of Brian and his violin. ‘I need to go and find the kids now.'

Geoff looked really confused. ‘What on earth's the matter with you? They didn't look like child molesters or anything, she was really nice when she was chatting to me and her other half is a big beardy hippy type, he was fine as well.'

‘Don't be silly, I know there's nothing wrong with them, it's Charlie and the hair.' I turned and headed up the path toward the multi-coloured boat. ‘I'll explain later, I've got to go.'

Geoff shook his head, shrugged and turned his attention back to the roof.

I found Sam and Charlie about half a mile down the tow path and as I feared they were with the new neighbours, chatting away for all they were worth and, having filled the bowl I had given them, were now helping to fill a bucket with the succulent shining berries for the neighbours.

I grimaced and wandered up to them. ‘Hi!' I turned toward the woman, Geoff was right those locks were really impressive. ‘I'm Marie, owner of these two horrors.'

‘Oh, hi.' She gave me a huge smile and swung round to shake my hand. ‘I think we met your husband earlier. I'm Sara and this is another Geoff.' A tall and heavily bearded man looked up from where he was holding down a branch for Sam to reach the berries. ‘Hi there.' The voice that emanated from behind the huge beard was surprisingly gentle for such a big man.

‘I'm sorry, we seem to have stolen your children,' Sara said and flopped down onto the ground with a huff. ‘They've been really great, though, we've picked twice as many berries with their help.' Folding her long purple skirt over her legs she kicked off a pair of ancient Birkenstock clogs and began rootling around in a gigantic striped beach bag. ‘Anybody want a drink?'

‘Yay!' Sam squeaked and rushed over to sit down. She gave him a big grin and passed him a small bottle of elderflower presse and a rather squashed piece of carrot cake. Charlie followed at a more dignified pace, her smile at the drink and cake fell rather as she watched me being offered a bottle of ale.

I looked at it. ‘I don't think I really deserve this, I haven't been doing any work with the blackberry picking.'

Sara laughed. ‘No your tiny minions have been doing it all for you.' She waved the beer at me again. ‘Go on, it's great beer, our friend makes it in his garage.'

I took a sip, she was right, it was good beer. ‘He must have a hell of a garage.'

‘Well, we call it ‘the garage' but really it's a proper small brewery, it's good, isn't it?'

I nodded then smiled up as Geoff (her Geoff not my Geoff) sat down with us, he gave me a big grin that only just showed as a flash of white between the hairs on his face, he tousled Sam's hair then began rootling around in the copious bag for his own beer and cake. ‘Your son picks a mean blackberry.' He laughed then poked Sam gently in the cheek. ‘But it seems to be one for me, one for the pot, two for me, one for the pot.'

I laughed, Sam's face below the nose, was indeed dyed purple with the juice from his spoils.

‘And that one,' he continued, pointing at Charlie, ‘climbs like a monkey, there was some early apples and she was up the tree and picking them so fast we had to rush to catch them as she threw them down.' He gently kicked Charlie in the foot. ‘You ever think about joining the circus?'

Charlie blushed.

‘She does seem to have a knack of getting into places others wouldn't bother with.'

We sat for about an hour chatting, they had just returned from a music festival where they ran kids' clubs in circus skills, both could juggle, Geoff could breathe fire and swallow swords, Sara could ride a unicycle, and did strange things with something called poi, they were both utterly lovely. Sam got bored after about twenty minutes of chat and went back to the boat to get in his dad's way, but Charlie and I were quite happy to sit and swap stories with these two.

As the sun began to set, we gathered up the bowls of fruit and Sara's big bag and headed back toward the boats. Waving goodbye I looked down at Charlie who was deep in thought. ‘I'd like dreadlocks,' she stated.

‘That was why I rushed off,' I said to Geoff later as we were washing up after tea, ‘I knew that she'd take one look at that hair and want hers the same.'

About an hour later we were all relaxing in front of the telly, various pets were mooching about the boat (although Sam was always irritated that Lu had to be relegated to the table because she scared the rats) when there was a sudden scream from Charlie.

‘Beans!!' She rushed over to the telly and stuck her hand down amongst the wires. ‘Beans!'

‘Get her out,' Charlie was shouting at Sam who, after putting a rather stuffed Lu back in her cage had wandered over to see what all the hubbub was about.

‘I can't,' Sam shouted back, ‘she's gone behind the wall.'

Realising that something was going on, I put my book down, drained my mug and wandered around to the small group of family that was clustered around the television. ‘What's up?' I enquired.

Sam turned round. ‘Beans's gone behind the television,' he moaned.

‘Well, just leave her alone and she'll come out,' I peered over the back of the TV cabinet I couldn't see anything. ‘Are you sure she's down there, I can't see her.'

Geoff, who was scrabbling around in the wires stood up with a look of consternation on his face. ‘She's gone into that hole,' he announced, ‘we have to get her out of there, there's a gap behind there that goes under the floor. If she gets under there she could get anywhere and we might never get her back.' He stood up and wandered out of the front doors. ‘And apart from that there's a lot of wires down there; if she chews those she'll be one frazzled rat and we'll have no electrics.'

‘Great, decomposing rat in the bilges, just what we need,' I snapped. The kids looked around at me, twin looks of horror on their faces and I backtracked quickly. ‘Just making a very bad joke,' I said, ‘don't worry, we'll get her out.'

Within five minutes Geoff was back armed with a fair range of tools of destruction. ‘What on earth are you going to do?' I was alarmed at the sight of the hammer, screwdriver and crowbar that he'd brought back.

‘Don't panic.' He set about moving the TV cabinet. ‘I'm just going to take that section of wall off and get her out.' He started undoing screws. ‘I can't take the risk that she squirms through one of the little gaps and gets under the floor.' He paused for a moment to stare at the wall. ‘If she gets through there, we'll have to take some of the floor up.'

‘Come on kids, time for bed,' I sighed.

Both Sam and Charlie put up strenuous arguments about wanting to see the outcome of the great rat trap, but I managed to convince them that she would be far more likely to come out if it was peaceful and quiet. Sam's suggestion of putting Lu on a little string harness and feeding her through the wall as bait was firmly quashed and with only slight sulks both kids headed off for bed.

Two hours later and Geoff had found that our insulation behind the walls was nowhere near as good as it could be, the wiring was a mess, the walls were damp and the windows were very badly fitted. What he hadn't found was a rat.

Dangerous Beans wasn't the brightest of rats, she was certainly getting on a bit and was the oddest thing to look at. Beans was a naked, dumbo rat, the dumbo part of her name being more a comment on the size of her ears than her IQ, the naked part meant that she was entirely hairless. Charlie loved her to bits and I have to admit she certainly occupied a certain soft spot in my heart as well, even if she did look a little like a slightly quizzical oven ready chicken. Her huge ears made her look permanently surprised and if she got cold she would shake and make a beeline for the inside of your jumper, climb up into the warm hollow between your breasts and make soft whuffling noises. I really would've hated to lose her to anything other than old age.

Later, we sat and studied the devastation over yet another cup of tea. I couldn't stop yawning; it was now well past midnight and the boat looked as though a team of bad builders had been through it. The wall sections were stacked against the sofa, there were bits of polystyrene insulation everywhere and the whole place smelled of dust and mould.

‘I just don't know where she could be.' Geoff studied his handiwork and frowned. ‘There's no way she could have got past the metal supporting strut in that wall. I can only think that she's managed to wedge herself between the wall and the floor.'

We both stared in silence at the devastation and I wondered where I could get another gentle, ageing, naked big-eared rat at very short notice.

As we both sat in silence there was a very faint scuffling from beneath our feet. ‘Listen.' Geoff got down on his hands and knees and put his ear to the rug, I joined him and sure enough there was another set of scratching and chittering sounds.

Geoff rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Well at least she's still alive.' He shook his head and stared down at our 6ft by 10ft rug that covered the whole floor. ‘There's no way I can get under there without moving the sofa, the rug and taking half the floor up.'