Narrow Escape Read online

  The next bag took twice as long to carry up, and more than twice as long to carry carefully down the other side. By the time I got back inside the boat my fingers and toes felt like ice lollies but everything else was sweating up a storm.

  Sam wandered past with his head in a book. “It’s a bit cold in here.”

  I gritted my teeth and decided that, for once, I was going to follow my mother’s advice. ‘If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.’

  The only place I was truly warm was at work. Addenbrookes hospital must have a huge heating bill because the place always seems to be somewhere in the balmy 80s. Monday morning and, clutching a supersized cup of coffee I shuffled through the office shedding clothes as I walked. I must have got rid of at least three layers before ending up at the bright pink shirt that was part of my uniform.

  Throwing myself into a chair I stared at the glum face of my boss. “Erm. Good Morning?” At the complete and utter silence I began to worry. “Am I late, did you have a bad weekend?” Still no response. “What on earth’s the matter?”

  Angela, the manager, handed me a memo. “More redundancies, I’m afraid.”

  I stared at the memo. There, sure enough, was a long explanation of the problems the company had been facing. The only way they were going to stay afloat was to get rid of more staff. The first wave of people had already been removed and now it was only Angela and myself that covered the entire hospital which consisted of over a thousand units. I wasn’t really surprised, with the all singing, all dancing new units that had been installed, we still found time to watch telly and relax.

  “Well I guess I’m looking for a new job.” Angela had certainly been with the company longer than me, it was a foregone conclusion. “Damn,” I muttered into a cup of coffee, “I don’t want to get a real job.”

  “Well, you’ve got at least three months.” Angela produced a bag of cookies from her desk drawer and waved them in my general direction.

  I took a cookie and dunked it in my coffee. Damn it all, I actually enjoyed this job.

  When I got home that evening I grumped at Geoff. “Where am I going to find another job like that one?” I said. “It was perfect, the hours fit beautifully in with Sam’s school. Apart from that I really enjoy wandering around the wards fixing the televisions. It’s easy, the patients are great fun to talk to and I get paid for doing it.”

  Geoff handed me a cup of tea. “Well, you do keep saying that you’d like to go back to university and get your MA,” he said. “Maybe now is the time to do it.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think we could afford it, especially if I’m out of work.” I sipped my tea and stuck my lip out at him. “Good grief, I’m going to have to get a proper job.”

  Geoff laughed at me.

  Really, the man has no empathy at all.

  “Oh the horror,” he said and then, heaving himself to his feet, headed toward the bathroom.

  I waited until he was quite a way down the boat before I stuck my tongue out at him. I looked back at the list I’d been making of all the things we wanted to buy for the boat. We were still a long, long way from being finished. Even the bits that had been built weren’t completed, not a lick of paint had touched any of it.

  One of the additions to our boat had been a new kitchen. Geoff had built the frame, the doors, and drawers. We had then, due to our restricted budget, covered the working surface in tiles. I hated it.

  I’d been warned by a couple of friends that using tiles as a work surface was a bad idea as they were a complete pain to keep clean. Unfortunately, due to the strange angles and sizes of the work surfaces, tiles had been the best option. Despite their practical deficiencies they looked fantastic. British racing green and cream, we had set them in a random pattern and, against the natural wood of the cupboards, they glowed.

  Poor Geoff had experienced a certain amount of trauma building the units as my design had incorporated cupboards set at a forty-five degree angle. The design certainly got the best out of the space available but really caused him some constructional headaches. He’d spent at least a week muttering, “45 degrees, 45 degrees,” and rushing around with protractors, tape measures, and bits of wood. I suppose I had been a little unfair because the first time he’d complained about the design I’d stated loftily, “Oh you’ll work it out, you always do.” He’d really had no choice after that, and sure enough he’d come through as expected and presented me with a beautifully crafted set of units and drawers.

  After it was all finished he grudgingly agreed that it was certainly the best use of space and that he was quite pleased with how it had all turned out. I really didn’t want to tell him that I’d changed my mind about the working surface.

  We’d lived with it now for a couple of months and it didn’t matter any more how good they looked; those tiled surfaces were fast becoming my personal nemesis. Food and liquid settled in the dips between the tiles and, although I’d taken to scrubbing the wretched surfaces with a scrubbing brush and some bicarb., the cream grout was rapidly turning brown. In some places, where water collected, the dreaded black mould had already begun to appear.

  One evening, after I’d sat down to immerse my scrubbed fingers in a pot of hand cream, Geoff snapped his fingers and said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you – Vikki and Neil are moving house.”

  Vikki and Neil had been friends for years. Neil is the world’s greatest scavenger and the lord of re-use, he had sheds full of ‘useful’ bits and pieces. Most people save things ‘just in case’ but he, nine times out of ten, actually finds a good use for them.

  “Where on earth are they moving to?” I asked. “It’s going to have to be somewhere pretty spectacular to house all his junk.”

  “Hey, it’s not junk.” Geoff’s eyes lit up. “But no, they can’t take it all with them. Neil’s taking the stuff he really needs and he’s offered me the opportunity to see if there’s anything I want.” He grinned and rubbed his hands together with a little chortle.

  I sniggered and went back to rubbing the cream into the dried-out husks that I used to call fingers. “Hmm and of course you said yes.”

  “Definitely.” He picked up a book and, pretending to read, hid behind it. “You’re working next weekend, aren’t you? I said I’d help them move and then I could see if there was anything we could use.”

  “Just remember we’re short on storage space ourselves, try not to go mad,” I said.

  “Of course.” Geoff grinned at me. “Perish the thought.”

  Oh dear.

  Geoff was absent most of that weekend but, as I was working, we passed like ships in the night. Sam and Charlie were old enough to do their own thing now and the whole family rushed in and out of the boat with various friends in tow. I’d found that, like cats, if I left food out they could be trusted not to kill themselves or anybody else for a couple of hours. It was quite an odd experience; it had been a long time since I’d been free of ‘small child’ responsibilities.

  As expected, Geoff came home with an assortment of ‘stuff’, an entire trailerful to be precise, and he was very pleased with what he’d got. A lot of it was wood and, I had to admit, I was pleased to get the additional winter fuel. Some was in such good condition that Geoff had got building plans for it. We spent most of Sunday afternoon trudging through the snow carrying logs, fence posts, sheets of ply, and other bits and pieces.

  “Well that’s it.” Dusting his gloves off he grinned up at the towering pile of old fence panels, bits of tree and pallets that he’d salvaged from the depths of our friends’ shed. “That’ll keep us going for a little while.”

  Lacking only a sad-looking Guy, the pile of wood gave the impression it was just waiting for bonfire night. I gave the whole thing a worried look; it appeared to be listing quite extensively toward the boats. “Will it stay like that? It doesn’t look very stable.”

  “Don’t worry,” Geoff gave the nearest piece of wood an affectionate pat. I held my breath as the whole s
tructure swayed alarmingly. “I’ll separate it out and put away the stuff I can use and then reduce the rest to firewood.” He gave me a big smile. “What’s for dinner? I’m starving!”

  “Nothing, I’ve been running around with you all afternoon carrying wood about.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said.

  I understood why he was being more vague than usual, his head was full of plans and lists.

  Well this was an opportunity not to be missed. “Tell you what, I’ll go and knock something edible up if you don’t need me any more.” My gloves were soaked and I couldn’t feel at least four of my fingers.

  He nodded. “Great, give me a shout when it’s ready.” Humming some Status Quo song he turned away to dive happily into his big pile of wood. “Oh,” he said, turning back. “We don’t have any use for three slabs of black slate do we?”

  “Where did they come from?” I edged toward the warmth of the boat. The kids had given up on the wood moving at least an hour earlier. Back inside the boat, they had put the lights on and Charlie had stoked up the fire, it looked wonderfully cosy in there.

  “They were the tops of old lab tables.” Geoff shrugged. “You know Neil; they could have come from anywhere.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “They could also be infused with e-coli or something else equally terrifying.”

  Geoff glanced up as he began dragging out what appeared to be half a tree from his wood stash. “Is that a ‘no’ then?”

  I held my breath as the tall pile teetered and tottered backward and forward, pieces of wood slid and bounced as they fell from the apex. Eventually the whole thing settled into a sort of half slump. “Yes … That’s a no.” I beat a hasty retreat.

  Standing at the kitchen window I watched him trotting backward and forward with his ‘booty’. He was entirely happy. I grinned and waved a mug at him, laughing as I got an enthusiastic thumbs up. Filling the kettle I carried it over to the stove and leant on the work surface as I waited for it to boil. I know he didn’t like to let a good thing escape but slate table tops, really? I looked around at my horrible kitchen work surfaces and then imagined them in black slate. Oooh, that looked good, and there would be no cracks for food to fall down, and they’d be so easy to clean.

  No! God only knew what had been on those work surfaces. Cambridge is well known for its rather experimental sciences. Wherever Neil had got them from they could have been experimenting with Anthrax or something.

  But … they’d look so great, but then how would we get them to fit? That forty-five-degree angle would be a complete pain. All this and more swept through my head and I stayed, leaning on the units and arguing with myself until the piercing whistle from the kettle caused me to jump.

  I looked up to find the kids staring at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “You’ve been muttering to yourself for the past five minutes.” Sam was looking a little perturbed. “Are you all right?”

  “Sam, I’ve told you before.” Charlie gave me her sweetest smile; it didn’t fool me for a moment. “They’re getting old and mad and we have to expect this sort of mental deterioration.”

  “Thanks.” I concentrated on making the tea.

  After dinner Geoff flopped down onto the sofa beside me.

  Grabbing his arm I wound it around my shoulder, the man was like a living hot-water bottle. “Am I allowed to change my mind?” I said.

  “I thought it was mandatory.” Geoff gave me a big grin. “So what exactly would you like to change your mind about?”

  “Do you think there’s enough slate to re-top the work surfaces?”

  “Oh. I’m not sure we can make work surfaces out of it.” He put his mug on the floor, then, grabbing a pencil and his pad, wandered over to stare at the kitchen work tops.

  He does a lot of ‘staring at things’: walls, floors, the cat’s cradle he calls the electrical system and, being used to this sort of behaviour, I settled down until he had finished ‘mulling’.

  After about half an hour he scratched his head and then sighed. “Do you really think they’d look good?” he asked.

  I wandered over to stand beside him. “Does that mean that you could get them to fit but you’d really rather not go through the anguish of doing it?”

  Geoff nodded slowly and we stood in companionable silence, both studying the problem in our own way.

  Oh great, two of us staring at inanimate objects! It’s no wonder our children think we’re ‘odd’.

  The slabs of dull black stone turned up the following weekend. After bribing the neighbours with rum-laced coffee and cake we managed to drag the wretched things up the steep flood defences and get them positioned in the ‘garden’.

  I waved goodbye to our small troop of ‘lift it’ people as they happily staggered back to their respective boats, dumped the last drops of rum from my once-full bottle into my cold coffee and began to gather up the various mugs and plates that were strewn along the top of the boat.

  Although we have found that the neighbours don’t need an incentive to help, any nasty job we ask them to undertake always seems to be a far gigglier affair if I offer ‘pirate coffee’ as it’s been dubbed. I’ve sort of shot myself in the drinks cabinet because now it’s expected. Anyone that turns up to help always has that sort of hopeful look about them. Luckily, Geoff doesn’t drink, he never has, so at least there is one sober soul to organise the group of sniggering, staggering helpers. He occasionally gets a bit grumpy that every little job turns into a social affair and it takes us all twice as long to get anything done but we do have a lot of laughs.

  “Right.” Geoff downed his tea and studied the slabs of stone. They were very, very thick. Each one was about five foot long, three foot wide, and a good two inches deep. “I don’t remember them being this big in Neil’s shed.” He nudged one with his foot, it moved not an inch. “Do you think they may have swollen in the damp?”

  Two mugs of coffee had rendered me pretty much incapable of rational thought. It took me a good couple of minutes to realise that he was joking. “Are you actually going to be able to cut these?” I said.

  “I think so,” he said. “I need to take some measurements.”

  “You don’t need me then?” I planned to wash up the plates and then probably go and lie down in a dark room for a little while until the world stopped spinning.

  Geoff looked up at me. “Feeling a little wobbly, are we?” He poked me in the shoulder and laughed as I had to take a step backward to steady myself. “I think a bit of hard manual labour will get rid of that feeling. What do you think?”

  “Erm …”

  He pointed down at the slate. “I’ve got some great gritty stuff that you could use to give these a really good scrub, it will just take the top layer of the slate off and get rid of a lot of those marks and rings and things.” He grinned at me.

  “I hate you.” I grinned back. Oh well he was probably right.

  Three hours later I was well on the way to getting frostbite in my fingers. I had, in order of importance: a hangover, pink wrinkled hands, a sore back, wet knees, one soaked foot, and a beautifully matching set of matt black stone sheets.

  Geoff had been puttering around making plans and taking measurements, he wandered up carrying a jigsaw and a notepad. He studied the outcome of my efforts. “Wow!” he said. “They look really good. Nice one.”

  I squatted back on my heels with a groan and threw my rather shredded sponge into the three inches of tepid grey water that was lurking in the bottom of my bucket.

  He ignored my obvious pain as he poked and prodded at the little nicks and dips in the stone face. “Well I suppose I’d better bite the bullet and start cutting,” he said.

  I nodded and staggered to my feet.

  “Tell you what,” he said looking up at me. “How about I make a start after lunch?”

  I nodded again. Seemed like a fair plan.

  Geoff looked at me hopefully. “So, what’s for lunch?” he said.

  It was
only with the utmost restraint that I stopped myself from pouring the contents of my bucket over his head.

  Over lunch he outlined his plan to cut the stone. “I’ll need to use two angle grinders,” he said.

  “Why?” I pushed the soup around my bowl and tried to tune out Sam’s complaints about how much he hated vegetable soup, even the ‘homemade stuff that smells like Dad’s feet’.

  “Because I can only make short cuts; even using a stone cutting blade it’s going to heat up really quickly so I’ll have to keep swapping tools and giving one the chance to cool down.

  “So, do you need me?” I looked around the boat. Sam, bless him, had done the washing up and the table was strewn with unfinished History homework. Not his favourite subject, he’d obviously felt that doing the washing up would be a good way to get out of doing it and get him some brownie points at the same time. “I really need to go shopping, otherwise we’ll be eating veggie soup for the next week.”

  “Oh great!” Sam leapt to his feet. “I’ll come and help.”

  He rushed off to find his coat and boots.

  I groaned and, leaning over, gently banged my head on the table. It always seemed to work for my husband when he was feeling overwhelmed.

  Geoff sniggered. “It’s your own fault, you know.”

  “I know.” I muttered into the wood of the table.

  A couple of weeks before Christmas, Sam had announced that he knew what he wanted to be when he left school. Geoff and I had looked interested, both waiting for the usual ‘IT developer’ or ‘Games designer’.

  “An accountant.” Sam looked around in confusion at the stunned silence.

  “Erm … OK.” I’d tried desperately to get my brain around what appeared to be a fairly sensible idea. “Why an accountant, hun?”