Narrow Minds (8 page)

‘What the hell is that?' The woman picked up the cat-shaped toy.

‘It's for Tyson here.' He took the toy from her and began to bash the dog over the head with it. ‘Come on, here look at this.' The dog yawned and farted again.

‘Why is it wearing a bikini, and why does it have a whip?' The woman frowned (good question, we'd all like to know that).

‘Who cares?' The man physically opened the dog's mouth and put the doll inside. ‘But I think it looks like your mum.'

They moved off down the aisle, both laughing, stopping occasionally to replace the doll in Tyson's mouth as the dog spat it out every ten steps or so.

We watched them go then Charlie shook her head. ‘Please tell me it was the dog that smelled and not him.'

I shook my head. ‘Not a dog that I'd want, I have to admit. Staffies always seem to be attached to that sort of person and if they're as brain-dead as their owners …' I shook my head. ‘Anyway where were we? Sam have you chosen a cage yet?'

‘Yes.' He picked up a box of glow in the dark hamster spaceship, all tubes and wheels. ‘She'll love this.'

Ho hum.

Lu took about three days to settle in and bit Sam on only one occasion. It seemed he was right about her, left in the quiet with good food and water she calmed down, and spent her time wandering about the living room, happily chasing after a trail of treats, sitting happily on the back of the sofa or wandering across our shoulders.

Charlie was horribly disappointed, I think she would have been happier with the Hamster from Hell, but as usual any animal that enters our family seems to take a shot of valium and become at one with the fairies.

Chapter Four
It's a Woman's Prerogative to Change her Mind

T
HE WEDDING WENT PRETTY
much as expected, the church bit was long. The photographer was intense and horribly artistic, Charlie moaned about her shoes (we had poured her into a dress for the day, I can't express how irritated she was by the whole concept), and Sam took approximately five minutes to get filthy and was annoyed that he hadn't been able to bring Lu in his pocket.

There were people there we had never met, people that even Geoff hadn't seen for about thirty years all in all it was very normal.

Sitting in the huge old house, at a table with Geoff's very distant relatives, we tried to explain how we'd been living for the last two years. The relatives decided that we were the poor cousins and either spoke to us slowly and loudly or ignored us completely. I gazed around at the huge amount of money that had been spent and smiled as I remembered our wedding.

As I was Geoff's second wife and he was my third husband, we had decided that the wedding was going to be as tiny and cheap as possible, preferring to spend the money on a deposit for a house.

So that fateful Wednesday, May 1st 1996, Helen, who was still masquerading, like the rest of us, as an IT professional, and Philip saw us arrive, resplendent in black leather on Geoff's old Moto Guzzi California at the registry office in Birmingham City centre. Helen had dressed for the occasion in jeans, boots and a woolly hat, which was perfectly acceptable. Philip had gone far beyond the call of duty and had a suit on. I had never seen him in anything other than paint-spattered ‘whites' or jeans and a jumper. I noticed that he had a T shirt with a rude slogan about beer and women beneath his suit jacket and his feet rested comfortably in paint spattered, steel toe-capped boots, strangely enough he still cut a dashing figure.

The registrar had looked a little nervous as we all piled in but she did mention at the end of the ceremony that we looked as happy as she had ever seen anyone, which was nice. Outside in the May sunshine, Helen took the photographs, and then we all piled over to McDonald's for a Macbreakfast of some kind. We toasted our happiness with pale tea and after that, we all went home. My mother had baked us a wedding cake but as she was seething that she hadn't been invited, had refused to ice it which was very sweet. I had tried to explain that none of the family had been invited; it had cut no ice at all.

Poor Lillian, Geoff's mother, didn't even know we were getting married and didn't find out for nearly a year, when she did, she took to her bed with a migraine. That was one Christmas day that we won't forget in a hurry.

While I was lost in reminiscence, the dancing had started and those that had been happily imbibing for the last three hours decided that it would be perfectly acceptable to get up and jump around a bit, this was our signal that we could leave.

We had decided to stay at one of the motorway inns and I was pleasantly surprised to note that the room was large and there was a huge bath. Leaving Geoff to sort out the kids, who still had no idea of our plans for the next day, I dumped the useless skirt and painful shoes and plunged myself into a lavish amount of pink bubbling water. By the time I emerged, waterlogged and wrinkled, Chaos and Disorder were both fast asleep. Geoff actually managed to open one eye and smile before he too joined them in the peaceful darkness.

Smiling to myself as I listened to the soft snores from Charlie, the muttering and yelping from Sam and Geoff's gentle breathing. I tried to read for a while but sleep soon overcame me as well, my last thoughts were of the show that I was hoping would change everybody's minds the next day.

Just for once, those in charge of the weather heard my pleas and the morning was beautiful. Bright spring sunshine made even the motorway service buildings glow with an inner spirituality. Sam and Charlie were now asking questions. What are we doing today? Why didn't we go home?

To distract them, we introduced Sam to another spiritual experience, the Premier Inn breakfast. Seeing all his favourite foods laid out in lurid colour on the menu before him he became almost speechless: sausages, bacon, eggs, fried bread, tomatoes and black pudding (not going to bother with that, thank you very much) beans, cereal, toast and jam.

With his knife and fork poised for action and occasionally sipping his apple juice, he waited in rapt anticipation for the food to arrive, oblivious to everything around him. Over his shoulder, in the next booth along, three women and a man sat down and began talking about boats, Charlie eyed them suspiciously. Ten minutes later another set of business bods sat down in the booth behind her and also began talking boats and engines, the suspicious look deepened.

‘Geoff.' She leaned back in her chair, the better to hear the conversation behind her. ‘Where exactly are we?'

Geoff shot a look over to me and grinned, the game was up. ‘Just outside of Crick.'

Charlie frowned as she tried desperately to remember what went on at Crick, her expression becoming one of long suffering as she put two and two together and obviously came up with 7,865.

‘The boat show!' she grumbled, rolling her eyes and pursing her lips together. ‘It's the stupid boat show isn't it?'

Geoff and I nodded.

‘I don't want to live on a boat again.' She slammed her glass down for emphasis. ‘I like my friends, I like my school, I like living in one place, I like having space and I like a computer that works.' She turned to Sam. ‘You don't want to live on a boat again do you?'

Geoff and I held our breath. We had found that while Sam and Charlie, for the most part, will fight like cockerels, the rest of the time they feel the need to gang together, usually against us. We had found out to our cost that once they do this they seem to make one very stubborn person and it is almost impossible to get around them.

Sam stared at his sister, then round at the rest of us and swallowed nervously. He really hated to be the one that had the final say. I could feel my heart dropping, if Sam said he definitely didn't want to live on a boat again, that would be the end of it and I might as well dye myself orange, scrape my hair back, don a fake fur and some high heels and try to fit in with my neighbours for the next ten years. I honestly thought I was going to scream.

There was a loaded silence for about thirty seconds while Sam considered his answer. (Finally he put his knife and fork down and pushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘Actually,' he said, staring at Charlie and shaking his head. ‘I wouldn't mind living on a boat again.'

Charlie whipped around and went to smack him around the back of the head, this usually had the desired effect of making him fall in with her wishes, luckily Geoff was quicker and caught her hand.

‘Charlie,' I snapped, ‘you asked him what he wanted and you can't get grumpy if his wishes don't match yours.' I turned to Sam who was rubbing his head. Ducking to avoid her hand he had smacked his own head on a beam behind him. ‘Go on Sam,' I continued and gave him what I hoped was an encouraging smile, ‘what would you like to do?'

Sam gave Charlie another wary look, his eyes widening as he saw her draw her finger slowly across her throat and point at him menacingly, he gulped, then resolutely turned away from her. ‘I want to go home,' he spoke slowly, ‘I'm always cold, I don't like my school, I miss the marina and little Charlie, I liked feeding the ducks and fishing, we could have another dog if we were on a boat. Dad's always playing on the computer so I don't get to go on it, he doesn't make things any more and I miss the ducks and the fish.'

There was silence for a moment which was broken by the arrival of huge breakfasts. The silence continued as we all tucked in. I looked over at Charlie, expecting her to be pushing her food around her plate as she always did when things weren't going well but to my surprise she was eating her breakfast with a thoughtful look on her face. Geoff looked thoughtful as well, ‘Are you all right?' I asked.

‘I didn't realise I spent so much time on the computer.' He stabbed a blacked piece of blood pudding. ‘I'm sorry love, you should have said something.'

I thought back to all the
something's
I'd said over the last five months, then decided that discretion was probably the better part of valour and nodded at him. ‘Maybe I should have said more.'

‘I think I'm just bored,' he said, ‘I can't work on the house because it's not ours and there's really nothing to do.'

‘You still enjoy work don't you?' I asked.

He shrugged. ‘No, actually, the boss bought a run-down nightclub and all we do is work on that.' He dipped his sausage into Sam's ketchup.

Twenty minutes later and the plates were clean. Charlie hadn't said anything throughout the entire meal, preferring to ignore her family and just occasionally kicking Sam under the table. As Geoff and I were finishing our tea and Sam was on his third piece of toast (I swear that kid actually does have hollow legs), she pulled herself upright and fixed me with a frown.

‘If I was to agree to move back onto a boat,' she paused for effect, ‘does this mean we could have a puppy?'

Geoff choked slightly into his tea.

I decided that I would give a vaguely affirmative answer. ‘Eventually, yes.' I ignored Geoff's muffled snorts and coughs. ‘Maybe next year, in the spring.'

‘Could I choose what type of puppy?' Charlie sipped her orange juice and stared at me, unblinking over the top of the glass.

‘Yes, but there would be restrictions.' I ignored Sam's howl of protest. ‘It would have to be quite small, and friendly and preferably be able to hover so it didn't bring in any mud.' I laughed.

Charlie wasn't amused. ‘So I could have a puppy for my fifteenth birthday?'

I paused to look at Geoff who was shaking his head slightly and looking rather panicked. I chose to ignore him. ‘Yes.'

Charlie jumped to her feet and grabbed her coat. ‘Come on then,' she said kicking Sam in the shins yet again, ‘let's go and look at boats.'

Once again we spent a lovely day at Crick, we wandered around, in and out of the boats, admiring the layouts, the woodwork and intricate little hidden bits that all the new boats seemed to have. Geoff and I both noticed that there seemed to be more people this year but whether that was to do with the lovely day or more people were looking at becoming live-aboards was unclear. All the vendors were doing a brisk trade and once again we gathered a huge bag of paper advertisements regarding everything from snake drives to water purifiers; it was great fun.

My only irritation of the day was with British Waterways, we were discussing the mooring issues with the young man that was manning their stall and he very loftily told us that their mooring policy was as fair as it could be. ‘Just check the website,' he advised us, ‘you can see that you can tender for any mooring and ‘most' of them go for far less than the advertised price.'

This is true, however ‘most' moorings are not residential and it appears that nearly every residential mooring goes for far, far more than the guide price. This seems unfair, as many people living on boats have a fairly restricted income. But worse than that, a common moan seems to be that those that need to stay in one place, people with children or with a job, have to commit to continuous cruising. The whole system seems designed to keep families off the waterways.

Maybe we're just too messy to be considered a tourist attraction. Let's face it, there's nothing pretty about a line full of kids' pants or a winter's worth of firewood and coal parked on top of a boat, flowers and painted pots look so much better, how dare we try to actually live on these things, it's so utterly selfish of us.

Apart from my frustrations with British Waterways, the day was a huge success and once again Charlie fell silent as we pulled away into the twilight and headed back north.

‘Actually,' she finally muttered into the sleepy silence of the car, ‘even without a puppy, I think I would like to move back on to a boat.'

‘Why's that?' Geoff asked carefully.

‘I miss it.' Charlie frowned. ‘I didn't think I would, but I do, and if we can get a puppy as well that would just be perfect.' She snuggled down into her coat and yawned, pushing Sam's arm away as he had flopped down, starfish like, to get some sleep. ‘But could you hurry up and get a new one please, I'd like to be back at school for the new term.' Having given us our orders she snuggled further down into the back seat and as silence fell, Geoff and I grinned at each other, surely at this time of year there would be lots of boats available.

There were literally hundreds of boats for sale, but, by now, with our finances literally pouring away (usually into the oil tank of the house, or into the local garage's coffers to keep our poor little Daewoo on the road – we had long since sold the Maverick) they were well over our budget.

By the next weekend I had found two possible live-aboards to look at. Keeping in mind that we still would like a potential sea going vessel, I chose an old Humber Keel (Geoff was very excited by this one) and just to keep in mind sense and finances, one possible narrow boat down near Nottingham. All of these vessels were in need of some major TLC so we resigned ourselves to another two years, or more, of camping and living in a building site, the prospect wasn't daunting in the slightest. I was so excited I could barely sleep.

We had arranged to see the narrow boat on the Saturday and the Humber Keel on the Sunday, I really couldn't decide which one I was more interested in.

This particular Saturday was beautiful, with warm winds and sunshine and we rather enjoyed walking down beside the canal in our seemingly endless search for a boat called Calendula. The kids rushed ahead, enjoying the sunshine and Geoff and I wandered hand in hand through the puddles and undergrowth that had leaked out on to some parts of the path.