Narrow Minds (32 page)

‘What?' I wondered if I'd heard right. ‘Her bottom, how do you break a bottom?'

Mum reached over and turned the kettle off. ‘We can't stay, we have to get home.' She turned to regard a rather red-faced Charlie. ‘She decided that she was going to climb a tree and set up a swing.' My mother shook her head and looked disapproving. ‘Then she fell out of the tree and landed on the woodpile, they think she's cracked her coccyx, and there's nothing to do but wait for it to heal. Well they can't bandage it or put it in plaster, can they?'

‘Really?' I winced ‘Ouch, you're going to be standing up for a little while then.'

‘Thanks, Mum.' Charlie pouted at me. ‘Your sympathy is really welcome.'

‘Sorry, love.' I tried not to laugh. ‘It must be really painful, we'll have to dig out one of Sam's old swimming rings for you to sit on.'

Charlie stuck her nose in the air. ‘I'm going to unpack,' she stated and wafted out of the boat.

We were very good, we almost made it to a whole minute before we all fell about laughing.

Even with the kitchen and the fire in, the winter was, without doubt, one of the hardest we have ever had to face. The run-up to Christmas was particularly gruelling. The river froze and the snow came down during the day then froze at night. We had no water as the pumps had all frozen and the road to the marina became a mile and a half of skating rink. I gave up going out for a week and braved the school's ire by refusing to use the car.

Cars, bikes and delivery vans crashed and as we lived on the main corner of the road Drew, Dion and Geoff spent a lot of time digging them out of the snow, anybody with left over carpet became very popular and huge gangs of people gathered together to dig marina dwellers out of ruts. With the weather so cold and still, it was extremely difficult to get the fire going with any enthusiasm. It just wouldn't ‘go' and one particularly cold day Geoff caught me just as I was about to soak the logs in petrol and see if that would give them some oomph. He explained long and hard and in words of one syllable just exactly what was wrong with my idea then after removing the petrol can he went out and bought a couple of oil-filled radiators, they were horribly expensive to run but at least we could feel our extremities once more. Even so, we still spent most of the run up to Christmas wearing at least five layers, even the dog had a jumper.

With all the water in the marina frozen there were no showers, no washing machine and we spent a fortune on bottled water which we would buy in bulk whenever one of us was brave enough to face the frigid outdoors and the four-mile trip to the local supermarket.

Washing was done in a baby bath and after ten days of being frozen in, the house in Durham, even with the mad neighbours started to look like paradise.

Just to make our lives complete our little Daewoo Matiz finally died a complete death so, without any transport at all, we had to spend the last of our money on a new car, we finally settled on an old but seemingly solid Volvo.

Two days after we brought it home, the radiator froze and sprung a leak. Geoff was furious. ‘Why didn't you put any antifreeze in it?' he moaned. ‘How the hell are we supposed to get to your mother's now?'

I actually managed to hold it together until the children were in bed before I finally found the guts to voice my fears. ‘We're going to have to sell up,' I gabbled at Geoff, 'we haven't got any money, I'm cold, really cold, we don't have a car so I can't get the kids to school, so we're going to have social services raining down on us, the kids haven't got any presents, it's two days away from Christmas Eve and quite frankly I can't do this any more.

Geoff looked up, surprised, then came over and after giving me a long hug put the kettle on (we were down to our last ten teabags things had never been so grim). ‘It's not that bad,' he said.

‘What do you mean it's not that bad?' I shouted at him. Mortimer looked up, startled at the tone of my voice then sliding off the sofa he crept, tail between his legs, beneath the fire (it was getting to be a bit of a struggle, he was almost too big to fit). ‘How can it not be that bad?' Leaping up, I flung open the door of the fridge, apart from something horrible singing to itself, cuddled in its own little green fur coat at the very back (at least something was enjoying some warmth), there was a small lump of cheese, a half-used can of beans, a pint of milk and some slightly wilted broccoli. ‘Look at this, what am I supposed to do with this, I can't feed four on this.' I slammed the fridge door shut and slumped back on the sofa head in hands. ‘We should never have bought another boat,' I sniffed, ‘it's all my fault, nobody else wanted to move, just me and now I don't want to be here either and I'm fed up with saying ‘hey look on the bright side, it could be worse'. It can't get any worse, it's as worse as it gets.'

Geoff made tea and waited for the emotional tide to recede. Then, carrying two steaming mugs, came over and sat on the sofa. He started to hand me a mug then thought better of it and put it on the floor. ‘Look, I got paid today and bought some radiator welding stuff so that should put the car right and we should be able to get to your mum's, the kids presents have already been bought, or at least the main ones, and we can rely on your mum and dad to get them all sorts of little bits and pieces, she's already told us what's waiting for them there.' He handed me a hanky. ‘We only need to buy food for one more day then we're off up to Worcester.'

‘You got paid today?' I frowned. ‘I didn't think you were being paid until after Christmas.'

He nodded and gave me another hug. ‘Yep, and they've paid me in advance for all the time I'm off over the holiday.'

‘Really?' I felt like a drowning woman who had just been thrown a lifeline.

Geoff shuffled over and snuggled up with his arm around me. ‘Look, I know it feels cold and miserable at the moment but if we can limp along till spring.' he tailed off. ‘I don't want to sell the boat do you … really?'

Shrugging, I stuck my nose back in my tea. ‘No, I don't but the kids are cold and fed up with being broke.' I stroked Mortimer who sensing things had returned to a more even keel had crawled out from beneath the fire and had climbed up into my lap. ‘The weather's so bad that even when I do manage to get them to school we're always late.' I studied Mort's paws. ‘I haven't managed to buy you a Christmas present either and I feel horrible about it.'

Geoff grinned at me. ‘I don't want a Christmas present.' He hugged me harder. ‘Although I'll tell you what.'

‘What?' I sniffed.

‘I bet you'd love a stocking full of coal right about now, wouldn't you?' He laughed.

Christmas was over way too soon, we managed to limp the car to my mother's and spent a happy week there, sitting in her Jacuzzi, luxuriating in front of her fire and being fed an extraordinary amount of food.

Mum, knowing me all too well, took me to one side on the morning of our departure and pressed a surreptitious envelope into my hand. ‘This will keep you going for a little while.' She grinned. ‘Don't tell your father.'

I opened the envelope and looked inside; two hundred pounds in twenties looked happily back at me. Not really knowing how to thank her I just burst into tears on her shoulder. That seemed grateful enough and it reduced her to tears as well. ‘I wish you weren't so far away,' she said, ‘I could help more if you were closer.'

‘Ah, Mum, I sniffled, ‘I shouldn't need help, I'm too old to need help. I feel like a teenager again who just can't stop getting into debt or can't make her money stretch to the end of the month.' I shook my head and took a deep, deep shuddering breath. ‘I should be way past that by now, in fact I should be making plans to help you as you slip happily into your dotage … OW!'

Mum gave me a half-hearted slap. ‘Dotage indeed.' she frowned. ‘Well you could always just give up, sell up and go back to a normal life again.' She looked hopeful.

I thought about it for a moment. ‘If you'd said that three months ago I would have given you a resounding no!' I shook my head and felt sad. ‘But now? I really don't know, we're so broke and so cold and every time it rains some of the windows are still leaking and the water's frozen so we can't wash,' I tailed off as I caught sight of Mum's look.

‘Marie,' she gasped, ‘there are poor people in Nepal that live a better and more luxurious life than you do, this is getting ridiculous, what about the kids,' she broke off for a moment to prod a finger into the kitchen worktop emphasising her argument. ‘This can't be healthy for them.'

‘We're fine, Nanny.' Charlie, who had been listening to the argument from the shadow of the bookcase in the hall, wandered into the kitchen, her stockinged feet making no noise on the parquet flooring. ‘Honestly my little room is lovely and warm, it's the warmest room on the boat and Sam just wanders around in bare feet and a T-shirt – he doesn't seem to feel the cold at all, it's only these two old worry-worts that sit and gibber.'

Mum humphed and shook her head. ‘It all sounds absolutely terrible.'

I wandered across her huge kitchen toward the kettle. ‘It'll be better when the spring's here.' I laughed and pocketed the envelope. ‘At least things can't get any worse.' Even as I said it I regretted the words and desperately tried to think of a way to undo the curse … ‘At least I hope they can't,' I amended.

Four weeks later at six-thirty in the morning I was ‘enjoying' my morning walk around the boat for my normal attempt at raising the dead. ‘Charlie!' I shouted through her door. ‘Come on, time to get up, breakfast's ready.' There was silence and I sighed. ‘CHARLIE!!' I kicked the side of the boat. ‘Come on, don't ignore me.'

Very faintly from inside the back cabin came a faint moan and I felt alarm bells begin to ring in my head. Jumping on to the back deck I stuck my head through her door (after the first week she'd decided that there wasn't anything that was likely to ‘get' her and had left it unlocked). ‘Charlie, are you awake?'

A white face peered at me from under the covers, she looked awful, red eyes ringed in dark skin stared at me from beneath flat wet hair. ‘Mum,' she whispered, ‘I feel awful.'

I felt my stomach turn over and knew immediately that she had the dreaded ‘swine flu'. The story had been on the news for a fair while and living in such conditions we had really hoped it would pass us by, obviously not.

Jumping down into her cabin I stuck my hand on her forehead; she was burning up, her eyes seemed to stare through me and off into the distance. ‘Come on.' I gently pulled her into a sitting position. ‘I need to get you into the main boat.'

She nodded and tried to swing her legs over the edge of the bed. ‘I just can't move,' she whispered and sank back onto her pillow.

I wondered what I was going to do, I couldn't carry her, she was now way too big for that, well, what I needed was muscle. Sighing I reached up and pressed the doorbell above her bed – five or six quick rings.

A couple of minutes later Geoff stuck his head into the cabin. ‘What's up?' He looked over at Charlie and paled then without a word jumped down into the cabin and gathering her up, quilt and all, just hoisted her up on his shoulder and left the cabin.

Taking two minutes to feed the rats, I gathered up her pillow and a blanket and followed him. By the time I got back into the boat, he had arranged her on the sofa and had taken her temperature. Charlie, oblivious to everything tossed and turned in her quilt.

‘Thirty-nine point two,' Geoff frowned down at the digital readout. ‘She's definitely not pulling an ‘I want a day off school' sickie.'

Sam wandered up and stared down at his sister, his expression concerned. Reaching forward he gave her a gentle poke on the arm. ‘She must be sick.' He shook his head, frowning. ‘Normally she'd have hit me for that.'

‘Go and get ready for school, Sam.' Geoff turned Sam toward the other end of the boat and gave him a small push. ‘I'm taking you in today.'

‘Oh dear, is that going to make you late?' Geoff had only recently started his new job and was enjoying it a lot. However he was on a three-month trial and the last thing we needed was for him to get into trouble at work.

‘No.' Geoff wandered toward the kitchen and began making his lunch. ‘Luckily I'm working near Sam's school so I can drop him off then go on. Are you going to be all right with Charlie?'

I looked up from where I was rummaging through the drawer trying to find the paracetamol. ‘Yep, I'll give her some of this and set up her old bed for her, if her temperature doesn't come down within half an hour of taking it, I'll just call an ambulance.'

For two weeks Charlie coughed and spluttered, moaned, slept, complained and generally did everything that a teenager with a bad case of flu tends to do. By the time she felt ready to go back to school and back to her own room I was a complete wreck. Her coughing kept everyone awake all night and we all felt very frazzled. Being in such close proximity to each other only made things worse, you could almost taste the germs in the air.

On the day Charlie returned to school I came home from dropping them both off, set an alarm for the pick-up run, collapsed on the sofa and slept the day away. I was woken at about two by Geoff staggering through the door.

‘Hey.' I shook myself awake. ‘What are you doing here?'

Geoff winced as he stepped carefully and slowly down into the boat. ‘I've got no work on so I've taken a half day.'

‘Oh, right.' still more than half asleep, I yawned and stretched. ‘Put the kettle on, can you?'

Geoff winced again as he sank down onto the sofa. ‘Could you do it? I've put my back out.'

Well, that woke me up. ‘What? What do you mean you've put your back out?' I jumped up and put the kettle on. ‘Do you want some painkillers?'