Narrow Minds (3 page)

‘Yes … (Huff) … Hi … Simon … letter … (Huff).' I stopped speaking for a moment desperately trying to get my breath back. ‘I thought I would give it you now … (Huff) before the weather really got nasty and I'm not going to want to go out later … (Huff).'

Simon took the letter and stared at it. ‘Well … thanks for that …' He frowned a little. ‘You be careful going back down.' He scuffed his foot through the snow. ‘It's getting a bit slippery under there.'

I nodded but, as I turned, my foot slid on one of the icy puddles. Waving my arms in an attempt to keep my balance I endeavoured to run on the spot, and like most people would I failed horribly.

Down I went in a fluffy flurry of pale blue dressing gown, cow-print mac and matching wellies. As I fell my only thought was, oh great, now I'm going to have to attempt to stand up again and that's just not going to be an elegant exercise on this surface. However, as it turned out, I needn't have worried at all. As my backside hit the ground I began to slide back toward the house, the strong plastic mac slipping easily over the icy slurry; I had flashbacks of being twelve and sledging on a coal bag.

As I slowly travelled down the farmyard, I became aware of a certain warm stickiness that was liberally covering the backs of my thighs and calves and panicked, thinking that I had cut myself on one of the cobbles. The fear was fleeting and soon pushed aside by nausea as I realised that the little cracks and pops preceding each wave of warmth meant that I was breaking the icy crust on each cow plop I encountered. It didn't make me feel any better to realise that the contents, scooped up by my coat were being carried along with me. I really think blood would have been preferable.

After about six feet I stopped and gingerly placed my hands on the ground, readying myself for an attempt to stand upright. With my hands wrist deep in snow and my feet slipping and slithering ahead of me I must have looked like an amateur Cossack dancer attempting the Casatchok for the first time. Finally giving up I rolled over on to my hands and knees, inelegantly stuck my poo-covered rear into the air and then slowly and carefully stood upright, my shaking legs feeling like wet spaghetti.

I turned to look at the short, steaming scar that was my route down the farmyard. Attempting to regain some poise I stepped, very carefully, down the steps and through the gate wincing as each step sent a fresh wave of warm and smelly stuff cascading down my legs to add to the squelching mess inside my wellingtons. (I do remember wishing I had taken time to put some socks on).

‘You all right Mrs Browne?' a voice, filled with laughter, floated down from the top of the farmyard.

‘Fine, fine,' I called back. I knew that Huge one had been joined by his brother and his father, I could hear them trying not to laugh and failing. There was no way I was going to look back at them, that was an image that could scar a person's psyche for life.

Trying not to walk like a cat that had just had its paws buttered, I made my way carefully to the back door. After shutting it firmly behind me, I turned on the light against the rapidly approaching dark and stood, uncertain, on the mat.

‘Oh my God.' Charlie came into the small kitchen with her hands held firmly around her nose. ‘What on earth is that … SMELL?'

Sam, following closely on the heels of his older sister, crinkled up his nose and wailed, ‘Oh yurgh!' He coughed and clutched his throat theatrically. ‘WHAT is that?'

I gave them both the ‘look of doom' then began shedding clothes as quickly as I possibly could. I really needed to get everything off before the warmth in the room melted the rest of the frozen yuck and the smell became intolerable. My mad mac had a huge rip right down the backside, so I wouldn't be wearing that again. My dressing gown was streaked in what
could
have been mud but the smell told me differently. My long T-shirt was mostly unscathed but just to be sure I dumped that as well. When I was standing, stark naked except for a pair of pants that were destined for the fire, I opened the door just enough to get my foot through and kicked every piece of clothing out into the snow. Yelping at the cold I heeled my wellies off, and then stared down at my slimy toes in disgust. I stank, even more horribly, I was beginning to crust over.

Stalking past the still wailing children, I suddenly realised that as I had turned the lights on and hadn't pulled the curtains. I had just given the farmers a complete eyeful of naked woman. Oh just great! A poo covered, naked, sliding southerner, this was a story that was going to get to the local farmers in about ten minutes flat. I was never going to be able to go out in public again.

After two showers, a long hot bath and a couple of medicinal doses of Jack Daniels, I began to feel better. Geoff had come home and after bringing me a cup of tea sat on the toilet to talk to me. He looked very professional in his bottle-green work gear. He was very good, I think that he actually managed to keep a straight face while I was whining on, but it's really difficult to tell when most of someone's face is hidden by beard, his shaking shoulders, however, told a very different story.

Later that evening, he helped out by rubbing Savlon into some of my more hard-to-reach scratches. I was worried that they might become infected from the cow poo, and that I would get mad cow disease. I had visions of standing in odd postures, showing nervous or aggressive behaviour and showing a lack of co-ordination. Geoff, safe behind my backside, just laughed and said that we had better get me tested because, from the list of symptoms I had just given him, nobody would be able to tell the difference.

‘Look,' he said and laughed, ‘you managed to last two years on the river and you never came down with Weil's disease, I think you're probably safe.'

‘I never bum-skated through six inches of frozen rat sh … plop.' I said as I twisted myself around trying to see my own backside.

‘Well,' Geoff spoke over his shoulder as he headed to the kitchen to put the kettle on, ‘you threw me into a dilute eight foot of it on two separate occasions and I'm still here, I think you'll live.'

He poked his head around the door and grinned at me, his teeth just showing through his rather exuberant salt and pepper beard. ‘How come you never fell in the river?' he asked. ‘Maybe this is just karmic retribution and I'm sorry I wasn't there to see it, I don't suppose you could do it again tomorrow could you?' He thought for a second or two. ‘If I rush out and buy a video camera in the morning we could make a quick two hundred and fifty quid from one of those funny clip shows.' Then laughing at his own wit he disappeared off to deal with the kettle.

Giving his departing rear end a sarcastic sneer, I parked myself gingerly on the sofa, angling over to sit on one thigh in an effort to stop my poor, abused backside from making contact with the cold leather seat. ‘Don't you miss it?' I called toward the kitchen.

‘Miss what?' Geoff appeared carrying two steaming cups. ‘The never-ending worry about getting disease?'

‘No! The river, the boat, the life.' I took the mug and took a deep breath, ah bless him, he'd doctored my coffee with a liberal splash of whisky. ‘Have you seen that lot on the table?' I gestured vaguely toward our so called dining room. ‘We've only been here two weeks and that whole pile of post is either bills or rubbish and every day more drops through the door. To make matters worse it's delivered by the cheery prat from hell who has made it his job to point out to me just how much rubbish we're getting and telling me I have to put up with it.'

Geoff heaved himself back off the sofa and wandered into my weird little alcove by the window. We had managed to get every one of our thousand and some books out of storage and into the house. It took a little effort to wedge ourselves into the chairs at the table for food but we managed it … just.

‘These are just mostly multiple letters from BT.' He shuffled through the pile and began throwing some of them onto the table, ‘Just throw away anything marked ‘occupier' and see what the rest say. We can't have that many bills at the moment, we've only just moved in. These are mostly set-up correspondence about the telephone line and the broadband line. Most of these can just be dumped or filed for reference.'

‘So … do you miss it?' I pressed.

Geoff wandered back across the room and then stood warming his backside at the open fire, crinkling his toes into the rug and occasionally bouncing a little. With his hands stuck deep into the pockets of his new Snicker work trousers he jangled the odd collection of radiator bleed keys, fuses and other little bits of ‘stuff' that he carried around these days. He was the very picture of a man in deep thought. I waited, almost breathless in the fear that he would say no.

Eventually he sighed and turned around to give the fire a poke. ‘Yes and no.' He put another log on top of those already there and then came over to flop onto the sofa. ‘I don't miss the lack of money or the never-ending walks to take the rubbish to the skip. I do miss a lot of things: the fish in the river, the morning mists, the chats with the neighbours.' He paused and frowned, then ran his hand through his recently shorn hair. ‘Actually what I miss the most is that it didn't matter what problem you had, there was always someone willing to lend a hand.' He nodded, ‘Yes I do miss it.' He reached into the pocket of his huge green fleece, fumbling around in the monogrammed breast pocket for his tobacco. ‘How about you?'

I took a huge gulp of whisky sour hot coffee and coughed slightly, more to cover the moment of deep melancholy than too much alcohol. ‘More than I ever thought possible.'

‘Don't worry.' Geoff leaned over and gave me a hug crinkling his nose at the smell of whisky (at least I hoped it was the whisky and not a lingering odour of ordure). ‘Wait until spring and there'll be loads of boats for sale and we can get back to where we're supposed to be.'

Taking another gulp of coffee, I huffed. ‘Good, let's hope that we haven't run out of money by then. I was horrified when they filled the oil tank up and then charged me over six hundred quid.' I drained my cup and getting to my feet reached out a hand to pull Geoff to his. ‘Come on, let's go to bed, I'm sure I'm going to dream of cows.'

Geoff grabbed my hand and pulled me back down into his lap. ‘They're better than rats,' he grinned and wriggled a finger between my ribs making me scream. ‘At least cows don't eat through your rope lockers, raid your bins and make nests in the woodpile, leaping out at you, screaming and gnashing their teeth when you go for some kindling.'

Just for a moment I had a strange mental image of a cow nest in a woodpile, then, deciding I had had more than enough whisky I slapped his hand away and got to my feet. ‘Nah, I'll take the rats any day, much quieter, listen to that racket.' We both fell silent, the cows could be heard still screaming their heads off at the top of the yard. (Probably laughing at the woman they'd caught in their poo.)

‘Time for bed.' Geoff heaved himself to his feet and wandered over to put the guard on the fire.

‘I've always hated cows.' I grabbed the mugs and headed out with them to turn the lights off in the kitchen. ‘I've never really trusted them, they look sweet with those big eyes and those wet pink huffing noses, but I've always felt that they are far too curious for ‘our' own good.'

As we climbed into bed I reached over to turn the light off. Geoff gave me a huge hug and a big slobbery kiss then almost immediately fell asleep. I lay awake for a long time, positive I could still smell cow poo and listening to the non-stop mooing that echoed around the farmyard, muted only slightly by the ever-increasing snow.

I really didn't care what people were like all over the country I just wanted my neighbours back, Charlie and Dion, Disco Steve, Grumpy Lewis, Steve, Jude and the kids. The house next door was occupied but they had been away since we moved in and I had yet to meet them. I yawned and snuggled down into the warm Geoff-filled space. Maybe I was being unfair, maybe they would be fine. As consciousness drifted away on my cow-filled dreams, I was ready to see what the next five months would bring.

Chapter Two
In Bed, No One Can Hear You Scream

I
AWOKE THE NEXT
morning to that strange dead stillness that only thick snow can create, no birds and – wonder of wonders – no cows, no sound from the road, just that odd anticipation in the air. I lay there for about twenty minutes enjoying the warm bed before a blood curdling scream sent me up into the air like a cat that has just been confronted by a skunk.

‘Mum … MUM! Arrrrgggghhhh!!'

Leaping out of bed, I winced as my feet hit the cold floor and my poor abused gluteus maximus reminded me that I had seriously overdone it the day before. So alternately wincing, limping and muttering I rushed into Charlie's bedroom. I found her dressed only in her pyjamas with her face pressed against the window.

‘What?' I grabbed her arm. ‘What's the matter, are you all right?'

Charlie whipped round and screamed at me. ‘Look at the snow, look how thick it is, can we go sledging, can we?' She let go of my arm and rushed out of the door, I hurried after her.

‘Sam, SAM!' She grabbed his covers and pulled them, and him, off the bed and onto the floor. Sam, unused to this behaviour and woken from an obviously deep sleep became wide awake and completely incoherent for a couple of minutes. He tried to stand up but both legs gave way simultaneously and he landed face down on his deposed duvet. It was at this point his subconscious noted that, as Charlie was screaming, obviously something was very wrong, so he'd better scream as well.

Charlie, wide-eyed and a bit overwhelmed by the sounds that her brother was making, shut up and backed away. Hiding behind me, she peered out at him from around my back.

Sam just lay face down and screamed and screamed. Geoff, worried that his young son was being murdered, arrived wild-haired, wild-eyed and resplendent in elderly underpants.

I laughed and picked Sam bodily up off the floor. ‘Sam!' He carried on screaming, completely stiff and unresponsive. I placed my face right in his line of vision. ‘SAM … SAMUEL!! Look at me!' The use of his full name usually meant that he was in big, big trouble and with a snap of teeth the screams cut off and I watched him focus on my face.

‘Wha …' He looked around at the devastation of his bed, the shocked looks on the faces of his family, then at me, his little face crumpled slightly and I could see tears beginning to glimmer in those huge amber eyes of his.

‘It's all right,' I hurried to explain, ‘it's just Charlie woke you up a little too quickly and I don't think you were really with us for a while.'

He looked at me, confused, then at Charlie as she bounced out from behind me and grabbed his arm. ‘Oh for goodness' sake you big twit, look.'

She dragged him, resisting all the way, over to the window, then grabbing his long and sleep mad hair she turned him physically to look out at her personal nirvana. ‘Look at THAT.'

Sam looked blearily out of the window and I could almost hear the ‘click' as he registered what he was seeing.

Fifteen minutes later Geoff and I were once again face down on our bed. We were pretending to get dressed but really were stealing five peaceful moments before facing the great outdoors. We tried not to listen as Chaos and Disorder planned their day (and ours) as they rushed backward and forward, each having ideas about what they should do first. I had to smile, first a big cooked breakfast, then they were going to make a big snowman. Then they were going to come in for hot chocolate, then sledging.

For a moment there was silence. Beside me Geoff muttered, ‘Here comes trouble. I give them to the count of 5 … 1,2,3,4,5.'

‘MUM!' Both of them came careering into the room. ‘We don't have any sledges, what are we going to do?'

Geoff clambered out of bed and rootled around in the pocket of his trousers, he then turned and threw his keys to Charlie. ‘Go and have a look in the van, I'm sure you can find something in there that will act like a sledge.'

As the sound of feet faded into the distance I turned and raised my eyebrows at him, he laughed.

‘I was in one of the DIY stores yesterday and they were selling sledges, as it was snowing outside I thought a couple might come in useful.'

I laughed. ‘Oh that's not fair.' I dragged myself off the bed and started searching in the cupboard for a pair of his thermal long johns to steal. ‘Aren't you going to be voted ‘Best Dad in the World'? I can't compete with that.'

By the time we were dressed and downstairs, the kids had finished their first snowball fight, Sam had been hit in the face twice and had had a big handful of snow forced down his back, Charlie hadn't even had to duck. Sam, irritated and frustrated at his own lack of aim had given up, leaving Charlie trying to use one of the new sledges on flat ground, much to her annoyance it wasn't going well.

Over a huge breakfast of hash browns, beans, bacon, sausages and Sam's favourite, fried bread, we decided that we were all going to trudge out to the big hill behind the house and test the sledges.

Charlie stared out of the window, the snow was still falling. ‘It's really deep.' She looked a little hopeful. ‘We have to start school the day after tomorrow.'

‘It's not that deep,' Geoff said, ‘it's only about seven or eight inches and the roads will be clear.'

I laughed at her expression of woe. ‘This really isn't that bad love.' I began to clear the plates away. ‘You've just never seen more than a couple of centimetres of snow before. I'm sure your dad has seen it much deeper, coming from Cumbria.'

Geoff nodded. ‘I remember walking down a lane and after the plough had been through the snow at the side of the road was up to my waist.'

Both kids looked at him and rolled their eyes. ‘Yeah right!' Charlie got up and went to put her wellies on. ‘Come on Sam, let's get out before they start on the
old days
.' Both went out muttering about the parental lies that they had to put up with.

‘Do you remember that day we were visiting my mum and the car got stuck halfway up that hill in the snow?' Geoff laughed.

‘Yes I do.' I poked him in the arm. ‘That was when I got out to push and you drove off and left me, I had to run to catch up.'

‘I didn't dare stop, I'd have got stuck again.' He put on a wounded look. ‘I was only going slowly, I thought you'd be able to jump in.'

I waved a knife at him. ‘I did jump in, but as soon as both feet were in the car, I found myself hanging on to the open door, couldn't hold on and fell out again.'

‘I had to stop the car and pull you out of that snow drift that you were bum-first in. We couldn't get the car going again and had to abandon it and walk to my mum's.'

‘Well if your mum didn't live halfway up bloody Stainmore we wouldn't have had any problem.' I looked out at the snow. ‘It's amazing that this is the deepest snow the kids have ever seen.'

Geoff took the plates out of my hand and dumped them on the table. ‘Come on, leave them, let's go sledging before it all melts.'

Four hours later we arrived back home. The kids, soaked to the skin, were shivering uncontrollably. They had given up walking and were perched on their sledges forcing Geoff to drag Sam and me to drag Charlie. I couldn't feel my feet and the wild excitement about the snow had dulled to the usual moaning and griping.

‘I can't feel my legs.' Charlie staggered upright and kicking her boots off at the door fell into the lounge.

‘Don't stand too near the fire,' Geoff warned, ‘as you warm up it's going to really hurt.'

Charlie looked at him dubiously. ‘Why?'

Geoff just winked at her. ‘Trust me, it's going to hurt.'

I chivvied both children upstairs. ‘Come on out of those wet clothes, who wants the first bath?'

Charlie was quicker to shout for the bath than Sam and although I made it only lukewarm she still yelped as she got in. ‘It's really hot!' she moaned.

Sam stuck his head through the door all snug and warming up nicely in pyjamas, socks, slippers and big fluffy dressing gown.

‘What's hot?' He ducked as a naked Charlie screamed at him and threw a bar of soap.

‘Just get in,' I coaxed, ‘in about ten minutes it will seem really cold and you'll have to put some hot in.'

Hearing a car pull up, I checked out of the window. ‘I think our elusive neighbours have just arrived,' I told Charlie, ‘come on get yourself warm, while I go and say hello.' Leaving Charlie to her muttering and whinging I wandered downstairs and opened the front door, Geoff just behind me.

A tall dark woman, a robust-looking man and two children were just emerging into the snow. This looked fairly good, their kids were about the same age as ours and it would be really nice if they got on.

‘Hello.' I wandered toward them. ‘You must be the neighbours. Kevin and Val said you'd be arriving soon.'

‘Hello.' Both of them smiled. The man came around the car to greet us. ‘I'm Mike and this is Gill.' The woman nodded and huddled further into her coat, the two kids gave us a cursory once-over then shot into the house, hitting each other as they went, the boy wearing a Newcastle United football shirt and the girl a short pink skirt which clashed with her bright orange hair.

‘I'm Marie and this is Geoff,' I said. ‘Have you moved here from somewhere local?'

‘Oh yes.' Gill smiled and nodded emphatically. ‘We had a bit of a problem with the house we were living in so it was really nice of Kevin and Val to let us have this place at such short notice.' She paused. ‘Especially as we have the baby.'

‘The baby?' I looked into the back of the car and sure enough there was a small carry seat containing a tiny, red-faced baby, I took a closer look. ‘He doesn't look very old.'

‘Three days.' Mike gave Gill a hug, she smiled at him but I noticed that the smile was more of a wince.

‘Good grief!' I poked Geoff with an elbow. ‘Don't stand around here in this cold, you get inside and we'll meet again when you've had some sleep, can we help with anything?'

Mike breathed a sigh of relief and shepherded his wife toward the door. ‘I don't suppose you could just bring the baby bag could you?' He turned and opened the back doors to the car, then handed a blue nappy bag to Geoff. I poked my head around my husband and was just about to coo over the baby when I noticed that, under the blanket, it was wearing a tiny little Newcastle United outfit. He'd already had one ear pierced, the gold stud looked huge and brassy jammed through the tiny, perfect pink ear. I recoiled in horror. Watching Geoff and Mike carry the bits and pieces indoors, I decided with the boys in football gear and one daughter in pink this probably wasn't going to be a friendship made in heaven.

I got exactly the response I expected from both Charlie and Sam later that evening.

‘Football!' Sam turned his nose up. ‘Stupid game.'

‘Pink!' Charlie snorted. ‘Stupid colour.'

The neighbours were never mentioned by the kids again, in fact over the next five months there seemed to be a certain intolerance that grew between the two sets of kids, if theirs went outside mine would come in, if mine went out theirs would go in, they never spoke to each other, just sneered and made snide comments. Between Charlie and the young lady it seemed to be a never ending round of ‘Barbie girl or Ginge' with a riposte of ‘Goth git or scruffy cow'. Sam and the young man weren't so vocal but would follow their sister's lead and make menacing faces at each other.

On Monday morning I had two worried children to deal with. Starting a new school is always horrible and ours were expecting the worst.

Driving carefully through the snow I was determined that the school run was going to be excitement-free. We had left at least twenty minutes earlier than we needed to just in case I couldn't remember where the school was or the snow actually became a problem. I wanted the kids at school, on time and as calm as possible.

As we plodded along the country roads heading for Durham our Ford Maverick seemed to be making fairly light work of the snow-covered roads. Or at least it would have if we'd have been in hill-free Cambridgeshire. Feeling the wheels begin to skate on one fairly steep hill I put the car into 4x4 and began the climb, we so nearly made it. About ten meters from the top the car hit a rut and began to slide. I made the whole thing worse by jamming on the brakes and for about three minutes we followed our own tracks in the snow back down to the bottom of the hill.

I had a moment of déjà vu as we slid backward. There were, of course, some differences, this one wasn't covered in cow poo and my interesting slide yesterday hadn't been accompanied by Charlie and Sam screaming blue murder.

The screams finally cut off as our little trip finally terminated in a hedge. Making sure everybody was still in one piece, I pulled slowly out of the hedge and making sure I drove on virgin snow managed to make it to the top. It really wasn't that bad but the kids were now completely freaked out and neurotic, just the right frame of mind to start a new school. Ho hum.

Dropping Charlie at her secondary school in Durham, I took a couple of minutes to reassure her that everything would be fine, she had already visited the school so she knew what to expect. I watched her go with a slightly heavy heart, she didn't look at all happy.

It's always a little difficult to integrate into a new school, not just for the child but the mother can have a couple of problems as well. As we headed toward the gates of Sam's primary school both of us were nervous as children and mothers turned to watch us approach.

There were a few that, like me, were bundled up against the weather but most seemed to be dressed for a party. One group of women were dressed alike in tight tracksuits, high heels, and vast amounts of gold jewellery. Two of them were particularly brave and had on tight-fitting skinny jumpers designed to show off the pink jewels that pierced the blue and goose-bumped skin about their belly buttons. They winked occasionally in the winter sun as the over-abundant folds of flesh parted at every movement. Huge gold hoops dangled from each ear, accented by the tight ponytails that sprung bi-coloured above stretched faces sporting pinched lips and hard eyes.