Narrow Minds (24 page)

Geoff dunked a biscuit into his tea. ‘The river's not going down at all.' He stared out of the window at the falling rain. ‘You could be stuck here for days.'

I shrugged and grinned, Mortimer had finished his biscuit and was now staring at me from beneath the fire, his big paws sticking out on to the tiles and his shiny eyes peering from out of the gloom.

‘Marie!' Geoff poked me. ‘Could you possibly focus for just a moment.'

‘Hmm hmm?' I grinned and turned resolutely away from watching the fire (Mort had turned around and there was now just a long black tail sticking out and waving at me).

‘Look.' I picked up a biscuit and dunked it in my tea, there was a sudden scrabbling from beneath the fire. ‘The river's up, we aren't going anywhere until the EA tell us we can, so what's the problem, we're stuck.' A cold wet nose poked me in the hand and I surreptitiously handed Mort my half-eaten biscuit. ‘There's nothing we can do about it so we do nothing, no point in moaning, I'm stuck here and you have to go to work.' I picked up another biscuit and dunked it in my tea. Mort climbed up on the sofa and grinned at me, I sighed and handed him the biscuit.

Geoff heaved himself to his feet and wandered over to put his cup in the sink. ‘I suppose so,' he leaned on the kitchen unit and stared out into the rain. ‘I don't want to go to work yet. I want to see us back to Cambridge, I don't like leaving you and the kids on your own.' He sighed again and frowned up at the sky. ‘What are we going to do if this doesn't stop and we can't get through Denver?'

‘Geoff,' I said, heaving myself to my feet, I joined him in staring out of the window, ‘let's not borrow trouble eh?'

Geoff nodded then, staring over at the sofa, he gave me a kiss. ‘I'll put the kettle on, you find some more biscuits.'

‘OK.' I gave him a hug then asked, ‘Don't you like ginger nuts?'

‘Love them.' Geoff handed me a roll of kitchen towel. ‘But the dog ate them all while we were talking and he's just thrown up.

I whipped around, Mortimer had indeed been rather ill, and was now sitting on the floor staring at the mess he'd made with a very guilty look, getting to his feet he looked up at me and gave a slow wag of his tail, then bending down he heaved again and added to the mess on the rug. I sighed. ‘Great, just great.'

Seven thirty the next morning and Mortimer and I were in the car park waving Geoff off to his new job.

‘Don't do anything daft will you.' Geoff leaned out of the car window, wincing as the wind drove the rain into his face.

‘Like what?' I untangled Mort for the third time from his lead (he really wasn't getting the hang of it very well) ‘My whole plan for the day is do some shopping, tidy up, probably read a book and empty buckets of water from under the windows.'

‘OK.' Geoff leaned further out of the car for a kiss goodbye. ‘See you later.' And with that he was off.

I waited until the car had disappeared out of the car park then wandered back toward the river. Mortimer, finally deciding that rain was something he really didn't like, bounding ahead of me.

As I headed toward
Minerva
, I was hailed by Brian the man from the unnamed boat.

‘Hello, hello and good morning,' he grinned up at the grey and purple sky, ‘great day, great day.' He paused and sauntered over, seemingly oblivious that his shirt was rapidly becoming sodden. ‘So who's this little chap then,' he bent over to give Mortimer a rub and was promptly knocked sideways by twenty pounds of loving and over-enthusiastic puppy. ‘Wow, he's strong isn't he.' He laughed trying to keep Mort's flapping tongue away from his bare knees. (Who wears shorts in the rain?) ‘Have you been abandoned for the day?' he indicated the car park with a wave of his hand, ‘I saw hubby heading off into the outer wilds,' he dropped his voice to a sonorous whisper, ‘where the normal folk live.' He gave a theatrical shudder and laughed. ‘I'm glad I'm retired.'

Finally managing to untangle the wretched pup from his long lead I laughed. ‘Yes he's gone off to earn money, and I'm left tending the livestock.' Mortimer made a leap for the boat, came up short at the end of his lead and began to cry. I sighed. ‘Hang on a minute, Brian, let me just get Pestilence into the warm.'

By the time I got back to him, Brian's shirt was now so wet it was turning transparent: I could see the string vest beneath. I huddled deeper into my coat and prepared for at least ten minutes of small talk about the weather.

Through the window of
Minerva
I could see Mortimer staring out at the rain he seemed to be smiling, you can go off your pets.

‘I don't suppose you're feeling strong, are you?' Brian shuffled a bit in embarrassment. ‘I was hoping to ask Geoff but he scooted before I could catch up with him.

‘Well,' I hesitated, ‘It depends how strong you want me to be, I'm pretty strong for a
girly
.' I put as much sarcastic emphasis as I could on the last word but it didn't really have much of an effect.

‘I need to get something into that skip.' Brian pointed to the rubbish skip. ‘It's not that heavy, it's just unwieldy and I can't do it by myself.' He shuffled again. ‘I'll understand if you say no.'

‘What is it?' I put my hood up and winced as the water that had collected there rolled in a short wave down my neck.

‘A fridge.' Brian gave a sort of hopeful grin. ‘It really is quite small I just can't get it out of the boat over the side and then up into the skip.'

‘A fridge?' I raised an eyebrow at him. ‘I suppose it's broken, is it?'

‘What?'Brian frowned. ‘Oh no, it works, it's just old and needs a really good clean. I bought a bigger one, but I shouldn't have really. It's 12v and 240v and everything, but there's a hole in the plastic moulding of the door and really it has seen better days.'

‘How would you feel about throwing it into my boat rather than the skip?' I gave him a hopeful look. ‘We haven't got a fridge and I'm having a lot of trouble keeping milk and other stuff fresh.'

Brian hopped up and down a bit with a huge smile, his big feet in their open-toed sandals making a flapping, slapping sound as he leapt about in the puddles. ‘That's a brilliant idea, fantastic!'

I looked at him, worried that he might be being a little sarcastic, but he was honestly ecstatic about the idea. ‘Come on,' he said and turned toward his boat, ‘let's get it into yours now, oh I love this idea, I love things being reused and passed on, that's how I got it, you know.'

Half an hour later and I was the proud owner of a small, slightly dingy fridge. It had a wooden-effect door and one of its feet had fallen off so it rocked if you nudged it, but it had a small freezer compartment and all its bits were there so it was great. I have to admit I had opened the door with a certain sense of trepidation, but it really wasn't that bad at all. There were some odd blackened ‘things' lurking in the corners, a couple of rings where milk bottles had stood and the seal around the door was a complete e-coli breeding pen but on the whole it was OK, certainly nothing that some strong bleach solution wouldn't solve.

After about half an hour I had finished and was carefully pouring the used chemicals into an old coke bottle so that I could throw it into the skip. Wedged up on folded cardboard, polished and scrubbed the little fridge hummed away and was wonderful. I placed Lu's empty cage on top of it and was just standing and admiring my handiwork, when screams of laughter made me jump.

‘Mum, MUM!' Charlie screamed at me from the sofa, ‘You have to come and see this.'

Taking a last glance at my handiwork I wandered off down the boat, I'd only taken my eyes off them for half an hour, what was going on this time?

‘What's up?' I enquired.

‘Look, look,' Charlie pointed at the dog, she could barely speak for laughing, tears rolled down her bright red cheeks.

‘What?' I stared at the dog, ‘What's the matter with him?'

Mortimer was in the corner, eyes wide and ears flat he looked the very picture of terror. He shook and made little gruffling sounds, he had backed up so hard against the television cabinet that his front legs were on his little round hairless stomach and his back legs stuck out in front of him.

I took a step toward him, both kids screamed at the same time. ‘Mum stand still!' Charlie bellowed.

‘Argh, Mum, watch out for Lu!' Sam screamed at the same time.

‘Lu?' I looked down into Mort's bed and there was the hamster. She had her teeth locked into the very end of one of Mort's bone-shaped biscuits. The Bonio was longer than she was and obviously heavy as she seemed only capable of going round and round in circles with one end of the biscuit acting as an anchor, she seemed to be getting quite cross about the whole thing. Mortimer had his eyes fixed on the angry little rodent. Every time she put it down, taking a moment to shout and swear at her recalcitrant snack, his eyes would widen again and he would once again attempt to levitate himself up the wall.

‘Oh, for goodness' sake.' Leaning over I grabbed Lu and, making sure that she had her teeth firmly embedded in the biscuit and wasn't in danger of attaching herself to my fingers, I manoeuvred her to the kitchen table. Grabbing a handful of muesli I laid out a trail for her and as she pottered off, happily filling her cheeks with the cereal, I stole back the biscuit and put it in Mort's bed.

Mortimer wasn't so easy to appease. It took nearly twenty minutes to coax him on to the sofa, where he shook and whimpered for another half an hour, before finally calming down and flopping out into a terror-filled sleep.

‘What happened?' I frowned at the kids who were still grinning cheerfully. ‘No, Sam, take that maniac rodent away and put her in her cage, she needs to do something with all that food she has stashed in her face.' Lu blinked at me from Sam's fist, her fat cheeks pushing up her eye sockets and giving her a slightly smiley look.

Sam wandered off with a huff, leaving Charlie to explain. ‘Mort and Lu were on the sofa, and Mort was holding his biscuit between his paws and just licking it.' She looked over at the dog and sniggered again. ‘Sam decided that they should meet and we were just waiting for Mort to have a go at her then we'd snatch her up and she'd be fine.' She shrugged and said, ‘But it didn't work like that, Sam put Lu down and she marched up to the dog, bit him on the lip then nicked his biscuit. He screamed and leapt off the sofa and into his bed, Lu and the biscuit got bounced into the air and went over the edge and landed in Mort's bed as well.' Charlie grinned obviously remembering the furore that had gone on. ‘Well, Mort panicked as she landed at his feet and took off over the other side of his bed and into the cupboard.'

Charlie stopped for a moment and looked up at me, her smile faded slightly as obviously the look on my face didn't quite meet with her memories of the incident. ‘We did try to catch her but she kept growling at us and wouldn't let go of the biscuit so we were scared to pick her up and then the dog had a hissy fit and we just couldn't stop laughing.' Her voice tailed off as she looked at me and she frowned, ‘Erm … poor dog?' she hazarded a sentiment.

‘Hmm, did you, even for a moment, think what would have happened if Mort had actually managed to bite her?' I sighed. Obviously entertainment was needed or else I was going to have two psychotic animals. Actually scrap that, I was going to have another psychotic animal. Lu was already wearing that badge and holding an axe. ‘Come, on get your coat.' I shouted the instruction again down the boat for Sam to hear. ‘We're going out.'

Charlie looked aghast out of the window, the rain was now so hard that it was impossible to see anything through the glass – it was just a smeared grey impressionist scene. ‘But it's raining and Geoff's got the car.'

‘That's right.' I got to my feet and making a quick trip down the boat came back with wellies and coats and umbrellas. ‘You obviously have time on your hands and if it takes torturing a puppy and a gnarly hamster to fulfil your need for amusement then we need to go and run off some of that energy, don't you think?'

Charlie frowned. ‘This is a punishment, isn't it.'

I handed her a coat. ‘Give the lady a cigar.' I smiled.

That evening I relayed the story to Geoff in an attempt to cheer him up. His first day at the new job had been an unmitigated disaster.

‘There's nothing for me to do,' he moaned, ‘we all just sit about drinking tea, the day's so long.'

I felt awful, he had really enjoyed his job in Durham. I tried to make light of it. ‘Look, it's your first day, maybe they thought they were giving you an easy time and it'll get busier.'

Taking a sad sip of tea he put his head in his hands, muffling his voice. ‘Nope, the other lads said it's been like this for months, they were really surprised when I walked in, they hadn't even been told I was coming.'

I sighed. This had not been in my plan when I had physically moved my family to suit my whims back on to the boat and into a lifestyle that I loved. The kids weren't talking to me after having a very wet walk this afternoon, and now it seemed that Geoff was blaming me as well because of his job. I felt rather sick. ‘I'm really sorry,' I muttered.

Geoff looked up at me from under his hair and gave me a tired grin. ‘It's not your fault, what are you sorry for?'

‘I moved us here, I made you give up your nice job, I made you take this one.' I could feel my throat tightening ‘I'm really sorry. Maybe we should have just stayed where we were, I'd have got over it, eventually.'

Geoff frowned. ‘Well, thanks a lot.'

I could feel my lip begin to quiver. ‘What for?'

He shuffled over the sofa and put his arm around me. ‘Thanks for thinking me such a pushover.'