Narrow Escape Read online

  “I didn’t even think about it,” I said, “he just came out with me like he always does; I didn’t really notice he was there until he started eating the chicken.” I shrugged.

  “Hmm … well, he was nearly eating crow.” Geoff smirked at his own bad pun and studied the bird’s claws. “Why don’t you go and clear up the mess while I finish this, then I might just be able to get some sleep.” He gave a huge yawn and rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes, he looked like a ten-year-old that had been allowed to stay up too late.

  Wincing, I remembered that he’d just done a twelve-hour night shift. I’m sure that the last thing he wanted to do was play cat’s cradle with a sociopathic corbie. Dismissed and gently grumped at I went to do garbage detail. I didn’t complain, if I hadn’t been such a wimp and had done it last night none of this would have happened.

  I was still picking up the frozen rubbish when Geoff threw Eric out of the boat. Ruffled and obviously in a foul humour the bird stalked across the snow toward me. I don’t actually think he was really heading in my direction but I wasn’t taking any chances, picking up the bin bag I high-tailed it toward the skip. By the time I’d crept cautiously back to the boat, expecting a whispered ‘Nevermore’ in my ear at every step, Geoff had gone to bed and Eric had taken himself off only God knew where.

  Seven hours later, full of fish pie, jam roly-poly, custard and tea, Geoff was back to his normal good humour.

  “Why on earth did you try to pick the damn thing up?” He laughed. “I could hear you screaming as I got out of the van. But as Mort was barking I just thought he was up to no good and you were shouting at him. I couldn’t believe it when I came over the floods. It looked like you were being attacked by some sort of dark angel.” He sniggered. “There was just a ball of feathers and feet and dog and snow. I thought it was some sort of new extreme sport you were trying out.”

  Charlie looked up from her book. She’d slept through the whole thing and was very cross about it. “I hope you didn’t hurt poor Eric,” she said.

  “Hurt poor Eric?” I rubbed the lumps and scratches on my hand that he’d dished out by stabbing me with that great beak. “What about me?”

  Geoff, Charlie and Sam all turned to look at me. “Maybe you shouldn’t deal with animals, Mum.” Sam seemed to sum up everyone’s thoughts. “You always seem to come off worst.”

  I decided to change the subject. “Was that the last night shift?”

  Geoff gave a huge sigh of relief and nodded. “For a while, their electrician’s back so I can go back to my normal hours, thank goodness.

  Sam nodded. “Yeah and I can have my bed back.”

  This was rather an interesting conundrum. Geoff had been offered a week’s worth of nights with one of his company’s customers. The money for working anti-social hours was far too good to turn down and he’d accepted without either of us really thinking it through. It was only when he staggered home after the first shift that we’d discovered a rather sticky problem. When you sleep totally different hours to everyone else and you don’t actually have a bedroom to go and hide in, where do you go? You either have to sleep in your bed, which for us is still in the middle of the living room and everyone else in the boat has to tiptoe around you (our bedroom is going to be one of the last places that gets built). Or you throw your son out of his room and use that. The whining from Sam had been growing with every passing day. I was glad that that we’d soon be back to normal.

  Charlie gave a big sigh.

  “What’s up, chuck?” I knew exactly what she was going to say but, as she had taken to whinging about this ‘problem’ almost continually, I knew better than to ignore her.

  “College,” she muttered. “We go back on Monday and it’s just going to be the same old boring rubbish we’ve been doing since I started.”

  I nodded. “That’s the way things tend to go.”

  “Well I don’t want to do them, I signed up to do art, my art, not study someone else’s.”

  Charlie climbed to her feet and pushed her long dark set of dreadlocks out of her face, tying the front ones in a knot behind her head. “Why won’t they let me do my own stuff?”

  This same conversation had been going around and around for most of the Christmas holidays and I was now lost for something new to say. Sam, surprisingly, came to my rescue.

  “How do you know your stuff’s any good?” He gave her a big cheesy smile. “If you don’t learn other things you’ll just do the same old rubbish over and over again. By the time I go to college to take my A levels, you will have reached the heady heights of congratulating me on my results before asking me, ‘do you want fries with that?’ Art is such as waste of time, you should be doing something interesting, like maths.”

  Charlie glared at him for a moment her bright blue eyes turning icy and cold. We all tensed waiting for the inevitable. “You are such a little creep,” she screamed. “Art isn’t a waste of time, not everyone wants to be a geeky little nerd like YOU!”

  Geoff held up a hand to forestall one of the scraps that seemed to be far more frequent these days.

  Charlie ignored him. “I’m going to my boat, I hate living here and I hate this weather.” She slammed out of the door and into the snow. Failing to shut the door behind her properly, she ignored it as it swung open letting a great blast of cold air into the room.

  Sam got up to shut the door. Before he did, he leant out into the white flakes and yelled, “Don’t forget to do that homework while you’re there!”

  I didn’t catch the vague words that drifted back to us through the swirling snow, but the short sentence definitely included the word ‘off’.

  He closed the door and, sniggering, looked around the room. He was greeted with almost matching looks of disapproval from both parents. He gave us a theatrical shrug and a big smile. “What?” he said.

  “I know she’s been winding you up for years.” I gave him a hard frown. “I know that you are now taller than she is and you’ve found your revenge bone …”

  Sam smirked.

  “… But you have to understand you are dealing with five foot and two inches of pure rage there. If she gets really angry with you I can guarantee you are going to regret it.”

  Sam’s smirk dropped and he looked a little uncertain.

  “Just keep it in mind. If you push her too hard you are going to find yourself swimming.”

  “Or flying …” Geoff said.

  Sam swallowed hard and gave the door a nervous look. “I think I’ll go and read,” he said.

  Geoff nodded. “I would if I were you.”

  Our youngest gave the door another quick look and then scuttled off to his room. Geoff rolled his eyes. “That boy has no sense of self-preservation, does he?”

  Since leaving school Charlie seemed to be either deliriously happy or heading toward psychopathic hysteria. We all found ourselves treading very lightly around her. She would morph into a screaming banshee at the smallest of things and I found myself trying to remember if I had been this psychotic at seventeen. From what little I could remember, I have to admit that I had probably been as bad if not worse. And we all say we’d like to be young again. No thanks, anything below twenty-two is just hormonal chaos.

  The snow lasted another week before the thaw set in. By this time we were all heartily sick of the cold, the treacherous icy lane, digging vehicles out of the snow because they’d missed the road, and we were all generally looking forward to spring. It seemed we had a long way to go.

  Just as there was a hint that winter might actually release its death grip on the land, the temperature dropped again. Everything that had been dripping and melting now, once again, became solid and slippery.

  Since the first major freeze in November we had been struggling to cope with our pumps, pipes, and water tanks. Quickly installed as they were, it hadn’t taken us long to find out that we hadn’t put anywhere near enough insulation around any of them. I was fairly sure that, since the weather had taken a ser
ious turn for the worse in December, we’d actually had only three days of running water. It wasn’t just us, all the boats were affected. It wouldn’t have changed anything even if our plumbing had been up to scratch; all the taps and pipes in the marina were also solid. The local supermarket was rapidly running out of big bottles of water and house-dwelling friends were getting used to us turning up and stealing fifty litres of water at each visit. I was sick to death of five-litre bottles. They lurked in the kitchen, in the bathroom, and lined up in military rows down the length of the boat. Unfortunately, most of them were usually empty.

  One bitterly cold Saturday morning, Geoff trotted past with three hot wheat bags in his arms. Doing a bit of a double-take I rescued ‘Beddy Bear’ from inside the steaming pile. Geoff’s expression switched between guilty and irritated. “I need more heat.” He reached for the hot, seed filled toy frowning when I held its dangling legs out of his reach.

  “There is no way you are taking this into that smelly engine room of yours. I ducked as he made a swipe for it and stuffed the bear into the back of my big woolly shirt. Ooo, that was really nice and warm.

  “Sam hasn’t used it for years.” Geoff grabbed the collar of my shirt and stuck a cold hand down my neck making me scream. “It just sits on the top of his wardrobe; I could give it some purpose in life.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” I sniggered and fell back onto the sofa trapping the hot toy between me and the cushions. “It’s a treasured childhood toy and it would scar his little psyche to find it wrapped around a set of oily pipes.

  Geoff grabbed my arm and tried to roll me onto the floor; his long fingers digging into the spots between my ribs making me laugh and scream. I retaliated by trying to poke him in the tummy button. Mortimer, wondering what was going on, decided to join in. He couldn’t decide who to protect so he just jumped over both of us until we all fell off the sofa and lay in a screaming, giggling, and barking heap on the carpet.

  The noise finally roused Sam from the model he was making. I looked up to find him standing above us, shaking his head and looking long-suffering. Reaching down he plucked Beddy Bear from Geoff’s hand and, with a muttered “Mine I think,” wandered off down the boat.

  Geoff stood up and brushed himself off before pulling me to my feet. “Well I’d better go and try to defrost that stupid pump.” He glared at me and gave me one last poke in the ribs. “And, now that you’ve stolen my teddy bear, I’m going to have to find something else to melt the ice with.”

  Standing by the door he pulled on another pair of thick socks, a pair of boots, his fleece, a waterproof jacket, hat, and gloves. Turning carefully so that his increased girth wouldn’t knock anything from the top of our new TV cabinet he gave me a meaningful look. “Are you doing anything useful at the moment?” he asked.

  I stared around the sofa, my book lay face down on the cushion and my empty coffee mug had been knocked over. The blanket that I’d been burrowing into lay in a heap on the floor, it didn’t look like an area that was being used by a busy person. “Yes?” Well, it was worth a try.

  “I thought not.” He nudged the log basket with his foot. “We could do with some more fuel.” Grinning at me from under his hat he turned and headed out into the cold.

  Watching him go I considered if mutiny was an option. Grabbing my blanket I wrapped myself back up and sat on the sofa. Nope, I wasn’t going to get away with this. Eventually I couldn’t put it off any more and after faffing about clearing the coffee cups away I sighed and went to find my own outside gear.

  The wood was cosy and protected inside a small log store which, like a lot of other things at this time of year, was also covered by a heavy tarpaulin. Every time we needed fuel for the fire we had to battle with this frozen covering which seemed intent on staying exactly where it was. The wood was being used up at an alarming rate during this very cold snap and I knew that I would have to get into the store on my hands and knees to get to the back. I shuddered, there was no end of multi-legged ‘things’ that liked to live in the protective dark of the wood store. I peered into the coal scuttle. Oh poo, we were out of coal as well.

  Trying hard not to think about Cold Comfort Farm, I peered under the tarpaulin and did a good job of ignoring the scuttling shadows that rushed away from the sudden influx of daylight. “There’s nothing nasty in the woodshed.” I told myself firmly and inched my way under the tarpaulin.

  Holding the tarp up with my back and shoulders I reached in blindly and grabbed as much wood as I could and passed it out into the log basket. I knew from past experience that four handfuls of short-sawn planks would be enough to fill it. Something danced lithely over my knuckles, light and hairy, it was there and gone within seconds. I drew a breath in and stayed still while it tiptoed off into the darkness. Well that was the end of anything resembling sanity. Grabbing as much wood as I could I threw it into the basket, all the while trying to ignore the imaginary hairy little feet across the back of my neck. Finally, I pulled out from under the tarp and stood up; breathing hard. I could still feel something huge and hairy dancing its way across my neck and shoulders. I pulled my hat off and frowned at the mass of dust covered cobwebs that festooned the crown. I brushed ineffectually at them and then gave up. Shrugging I pulled it back over my hair, my ears were getting cold.

  Sam and Mortimer arrived back from their walk and I called Sam over to take the wood into the boat. He gave a huge sigh and trudged through the snow toward me. Eventually he made it over to the wood shed and glared up at me from beneath his long fringe. “I don’t see why I should have to …”

  He stared at me and whatever gripe he had been about to make died on his lips. The blood fled his face and his mouth dropped open. He took a step back, his eyes fixed on my shoulder.

  Knowing how my big butch son felt about spiders I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s just cobwebs Sam,” I said. “We haven’t got much wood left and I’ve had to dig about at the back of the shed.”

  Sam shook his head and pointed at my shoulder. “Gah!”

  I looked down and swallowed hard. Now, I’m not particularly bothered by spiders, I can pick them up and put them out. I can brush them calmly off if they’re playing their usual yoyo tricks in the boat and land on my head. But even I jump when I’m taken by surprise and, quite frankly, the size of the one currently sitting happily on my shoulder would have surprised anyone.

  I copied Sam’s example. “Gah!” Convinced that this couldn’t possibly be the only one, I ripped off my coat and, after shaking the spider off, dropped the garment into the snow, moving it around with my foot in an effort to entice out the other suspected hordes of arachnids that were sure to be hidden in the folds.

  “Mum, that was HUGE!” Sam, once again, employed his wonderful ability to state the flaming obvious.

  I ignored him; I was too busy trying to get the shudders under control. I was convinced that I could feel little hairy feet dancing down my spine and forced myself to leave my other clothes firmly in place. Naked screaming woman in the snow I’d already done once, I wasn’t in any hurry to repeat the experience. Although, I suppose, at least this time I wouldn’t be covered from head to foot in cow poo.

  Sam warily eyed the basket of wood at my feet. “Can I put that on the front deck for a while?” He sidled toward me and picked it up with the least amount of hand contact that he could get away with.

  I nodded. “Good idea.” I watched him carry the basket away and, as quickly as possible, put the tarpaulin back in place. Those things that wanted to live in the dark could stay there.

  At least there shouldn’t be anything living in the coal bag. The irritation with whoever had left precisely seven pieces of coal in the bag got rid of the last of the spider shudders. I sighed as I headed back out into the cold and over the flood defences and down to the car. I heaved the 25kg pack of coal onto my shoulder and then, after only two staggering steps, dropped it back into the snow. Geoff always managed to do this with such ease but he was far stronger th
an I could ever hope to be. He seemed to be turning into one of those wiry types, all grey hair and stringy muscles that, if pushed, could probably lift a small car without seeming to exert himself at all. I, however, as I got older, seemed to be turning into a small overstuffed cushion.

  I kicked the bag of coal and wondered how on earth I was going to get it up the slippery, icy slope of the flood defences. Well I wasn’t going to let a bag of rocks beat me. So I opted for a sort of drag and push routine. I would take three precarious steps up the hill, dragging the bag of coal behind me, then stop, pull the bag around me and push it ahead. With this sort of strange circling dance, me and my bag of coal made it up the hill. I was almost at the top when I slipped. My only thought as I slid backwards down the hill on my stomach was that I was glad the coal had managed to stay where it was.

  Cold and wet I headed back up the hill, wishing that, despite it being full of evil vampiric spiders, I’d put my coat back on. At the top of the flood defences I stared down the other steep slope toward the boat and with a shrug decided that if I could slip and slide down a hill so could the coal, and gleefully kicked the bag off the top. It did slide, it slid very well. Straight down the hill, over the edge of the riverbank and onto the frozen river. I watched it closely as it settled on top of the thick ice, waiting for the crack that would signal its watery demise. Nothing happened and after holding my breath for a couple of seconds I sent a small thank you upwards and slid down after it. Leaning out over the ice I grabbed the corners of the bag and heaved, intending to get the coal back on to the bank. The bag split at about the same time as the ice cracked. Twenty-five kilos of coal headed for the bottom of the river, leaving me standing on the bank with an empty bag in my hand. The next thought I sent upwards wasn’t so grateful.

  Geoff stuck his head out of the engine room and waved at me. “Is that bag empty?”

  I slowly nodded; there really wasn’t anything I could say.

  “There’s some more in the car.” He gave me a big smile. “Can you manage one bag? I’m a bit busy at the moment. I’ll bring the others up later.” He looked down at his watch and shook his head. “Good grief, it’s taken you almost half an hour to get out here? If you don’t hurry up that fire will have gone out and we’ll have to light it again.” His head disappeared back into the darkness.