Narrow Dog to Carcassonne (26 page)

THE BASIN AT ST. JEAN DE LOSNE WAS FULL OF steel cruisers with relentless bows. There were hundreds, and they had all been polished that morning. Many were too big for the canal and must have come up the Saône. A chap in overalls waved us to a narrow slot on a pontoon, deep among the cruisers. A couple of dozen boaters came up on to their fly-decks, hoping to divert from their craft some of the destruction to come, and to have a good laugh.

The tiller on the
Phyllis May
has a brass frog sitting on a brass arm, with a long white tassel hanging under him. The tiller arm goes back horizontal for three feet and then bends down like a flamingo’s neck, and is welded to the rudder, which is crimson and heavy.

A narrowboat tiller has considerable decorative value, and is something to lean on in time of trouble, but its effect on the direction of a boat is small. When you go forward the propeller winds your stern round to the right, and drives water from under you, sucking you into the bank. When you reverse you swing the other way. The current or the wind can always take you over. Some narrowboats have thrusters, which push jets of water from either side of the bow, but the
Phyllis May
does not. Except in extreme conditions it is usually possible to steer a narrowboat without a bow thruster, and in extreme conditions the thrusters are not much use anyway.

I felt the wind on my cheek. First a three-point turn so I can sail between the rows of boats. Now reverse, to stop and pull the stern to the left. Now a forward burst with the tiller hard left to swing me some more. Try to miss that cruiser. My bow was sixty feet away but I had hit things often enough to know where it was. Now the clever bit. Stand there, look bored, do nothing, scratch yourself. Leave it to the wind—here it comes, slow man slow, sixteen tons kissing the pontoon. Want to see it again?

The audience went down, cheated, to polish their woodwork and drink gin. I don’t know what lieth ahead on the Saône and the Rhône, said Monica, but the fat old cross-eyed geezer sure plays a mean pinball. You never said anything nice like that to me before, I said.

And for us the Burgundy Canal was over—its locks, its trolls, its hills, its frogs. We would not pass above it again, forbidden to land, visitors in the sky.

Eleven

BATTLES IN THE CLOUDS

The Saône

T
he evening before we left St. Jean de Losne we had dinner out and when we came back to the marina there were flashing lights and vehicles and people on the quay. What’s happening? I asked a man in a blue uniform. Have a good night’s sleep, he said.

In the morning we went to pay our bill and in the office they told us that the lady in the cruiser next to the
Phyllis May
had killed herself. We knew her—she had come on board for drinks with her husband, Harry. They were long-time boaters, very friendly. They knew a lot about the Rhône and had given us a list of moorings.

As we were getting ready to leave the marina Harry came out on deck. He was a tall chap with thick grey hair. Did you hear anything last night? he asked. No, I said.

I barely heard it from the galley, said Harry. The gun was legal, a double-barrelled one, that we used for vandals. It fires rubber bullets or real bullets. It had rubber bullets last night, but she put it to her head.

It had rained in the night and the sun was shining and the air was soft, and there were white clouds. She used to get depressed at times, said Harry, but why do that? Why do that? We had been married for thirty-three years. She was clever, good-looking, we never left a row unsettled. Look at our boat, our cars, our life—going where we pleased. She would never tell me but I knew when she got depressed: she held her hands differently, with the thumbs like that. She had lovely hands. Don’t say anything, Darlington, I said to myself, just shut up. I will help you get out like I promised, said Harry, I must keep doing things—give me your rope.

Captain Bob, the retired aviator who lived in the marina, took a rope as well and he and Harry pulled the
Phyllis May
from her slot and set her up to sail through the ranks of cruisers.

Captain Bob came along the gunwale. We’ve all been there, he said. Anyone that says he hasn’t is a liar.

I thought of Bob the angel hovering by the carriers to rescue any guy who went in and how he waited for Virgil Grissom to ditch his space capsule in the sea and I thought of his photograph with John Glenn and I thought No one is safe: not the brave, not the young, not the virtuous, not the kind, not the mother with a baby on her breast—no one is safe from this enemy, this killer who will not show his face.

Harry was crying now and I thought Let it go, Harry. God bless you mate, I said, and shook his hand and Harry went back into his boat, into the steel hull, the woodwork, the brass, the instruments, the sofa, the death.
Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it
.

We sailed down the Saône, with its wide plain and the sunflowers and the poplars. Georgia’s baby, our new grandchild, had been born. He’s early, said Monica, but he’ll be all right. Poor Harry, poor, poor Harry.

Above us red kites wheeled, like risen souls.

THE CLOS DE VOUGEOT IS A CHATEAU SURROUNDED by vineyards. It is the sort of place you are supposed to visit. In reception there were a few maps and corkscrews—no, we don’t sell wine but in forty minutes there is a tour—four euros each please. Don’t give the lady a tip—it is formally interdicted.

A vineyard is a good place for a walk—there are lanes between the rows of vines, and the vines were fresh like lettuce and the grapes were small and green and the sun shone and the leaves were giving off oxygen and you could feel it in your lungs. Jim walked with us and sometimes he jumped into the air and lingered a moment, then turned round and made a four-point landing, and shook himself and looked at us sideways so we could see the whites of his eyes, making sure we had noticed. The vines ran away up the slope of the Côte d’Or. It is called the Golden Slope because in the autumn it turns to gold, but this was July.

There were four of us on the tour—Monica and I and a Frenchman of a certain age with the young wife of one of his friends. When he thought we weren’t looking he would squeeze her.

The lady who did the tour was small and pretty. She took us under the ski-slope roofs to where the monks had first pressed the grapes eight hundred years ago. The presses looked like siege engines and lay under a cavern of rafters.

There is a particularity about the roof, said the lady. I know, said Monica, putting up her hand. I know, it is the chestnut, which will not abide the spider. You are right about the properties of the chestnut,
madame
, said the lady, and about the importance of denying the spider, but these rafters are oak because of the size and strength and for the spider we have another particularity. We have
les chauves-souris
, the bald-mice, the bats, which eat the spider. Ah, said Monica, the bald-mice.

Up the stairs in the building next door, said the lady, is a
son et lumière
that will astonish you, and afterwards please pass through into the auditorium where there is a presentation of importance about the burgundy.

We went up the stairs in the building next door and the lights went out. Floods shone on the rafters and a deep voice, with music, explained that since man first drew himself erect and walked out of the valleys of Africa on to the Mediterranean shore, rafters have been important to hold up his roof. There are rafters that go sideways, said the voice, and told us all about them. There are rafters that go up, the voice continued, and explained about the rafters that go up. The picture was completed with a short address about the rafters that went off at an angle. We passed through into the auditorium, where there were a hundred seats.

The slide-and-sound presentation was about an organization of fat old men who said they ran the burgundy wine industry. They wore dark suits, and red hats like inflated berets. They gave banquets and stood on platforms and hung medals round each other’s necks, with the Tonnerre Noise Society in full support. At one of the banquets was Catherine Deneuve, looking desperate. Nothing was said about the burgundy wine or why we should buy it or where we might buy it or what was in it for the customer.

Monica and I laughed at the old men, and the Frenchman and his friend’s young wife laughed at them too. They are so far up their own arses, I said to Monica, they should have worn the red hats on their feet.

IF SWANS WERE RARE, PEOPLE WOULD TRAVEL the world to see them. They pass across the sky like angels singing. They are powered by discreet rubber paddles, and asleep they are lilies—

His breast is moulded in a globe

They say that white camellias glow

But the white satin of this robe

Is like the sun on morning snow

The only trouble with swans is they are not very nice.

At Seurre Jim and I went for our walk before breakfast and when we returned to the boat a family of swans had arrived. There was Mum and Dad and four youngsters the size of ducks. The youngsters had been stitched together roughly from that woolly grey fabric they used for sofas in the fifties, and then they had been stuffed, but not well, because there were lumps and rough bits and their back ends were wrong.

Dad Swan saw Jim and opened his mouth, showing a fat pink tongue with pie-crust edges. He began to make a noise like the pressure cooker before it sprays your dinner on the ceiling. Jim crouched and pressed down his tail to cover his rear. Go and get some bread, darling, I said to Monica, and throw it up the other end, so Jim and I can get on board. Dad moved closer. He had plans for Jim, including using his skin to line his nest.

The family was very hungry. Dad managed to get a few pieces of bread while still blocking the way on to the boat, and I had to smuggle Jim across the bow. He went below and hid. It took a long time to empty the
Phyllis May
of spare food and persuade the swans to Please please go away it’s all over and then we sat down to breakfast.

After ten minutes there was a knocking and a thumping and a splashing against the boat. Dad Swan had come back for Jim. He attacked the boat for half an hour, pecking and beating with his wings. Jim lay in his kennel, in no hurry to come out.

THE SAÔNE WAS THE WIDEST INLAND WATER we had sailed. My God, what will the Rhône be like? They say that on the Rhône you can see the curvature of the earth.

The valley still flat—welcoming margins, fields and lawns and occasional trees. On the waterline a heron on a branch, and just below him another heron, upside down. Forty-two kilometres—a marathon day.

Push down the Morse handle, a diesel likes to work; get it up to six knots, never mind the noise, sit and watch the clouds, let the wind dry the sweat off you like a hot towel. The sun, the spray from the prop: the jewels, the bright crystal. Every quarter of an hour a boat comes by, always with a wave of the hand, even the hire-boaters, who don’t need a licence and know nothing. But their plastic dish-boats hung with fenders are pretty and practical and why shouldn’t they have a mess-about holiday? That’s how Monica and I started, forty years ago—across the sky on the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the family of grass snakes swimming by, the old couple on a narrowboat, the pub like Granny’s front room. And now we are an old couple on a narrowboat. It was the family of grass snakes that did it.

A two-hundred-yard lock, gates open, over it a tower, too high to see anyone. A noise over the Tannoy—
Life jacket please
. I put on my life jacket and twenty thousand tons of water were emptied just for us. When a lock empties it is quieter than when it is filling, and we did not bang around. It was downhill now until the sea.

Monica did an hour on the tiller and then I took the
Phyllis May
towards Chalon-sur-Saône. An island, a display of flowers only a big town could afford, lots of boats. A man waving his arms—You can’t come in here. Yes I can, I shouted, plenty of room. We have five boats to come, reserved, he said, but look on the old pontoon. An English couple beckoned—Breast up, breast up. But we would overlap their cruiser and block the boats both sides. I waved thanks and we sailed past.

A chap with a German accent leaned off his boat—Do not go that way—go behind the pontoon. Why? I shouted, there is space in front. Do what I say, shouted the chap, do what you are told—no argue, do not discuss, what I say you do, do not discuss, you understand? Better go behind the pontoon, called Monica, I think the first chap said it was safer.

We moored up and walked around to thank the English couple. They were very old—We have a narrowboat back home, they said. I said Excuse me a minute. Along the pontoon there was a big chap in blue shorts. Are you the gentleman who shouted instructions just now? I asked. Yes, he said. Well, I said, I found you to be rude. If you are to shout in English you should know the language better. I leaned forward and put a foot behind so I would stay upright as I was being pushed into the river but the German made no response and I walked back to my group.

I knew you were going to do that, said Monica, you are so weak, you have no self-control, what about your resolution? You said you were going to be nice.

Thank you, said the old lady, for putting him straight. He shouted at us yesterday. All we were doing was going down the one-way system the wrong way. He is just a hire-boater passing through and he is throwing his weight about because he knows a little English.

Perhaps he doesn’t know we won the war, said the old chap. They never stood a chance, I said—how can you win a war if you can’t go the wrong way down a one-way street?

Both sides of the pontoon filled up with boaters during the day. It was the holiday season and all the hire fleets that had lain at anchor were on the move.

SOMEONE HAD DROPPED A BOMB ON GENEVA. We could see the mushroom rim up in the night fifty miles away and the fires reflected under it. The other side of Chalon-sur-Saône was in flames. Nuits Saint Georges exploded and then Beaune and then Oh my God they got Mâcon. Sheet lightning, forked lightning, battles in the clouds.

You have chosen? Yes, I said, for both of us the snails. And for
madame
the zander, and for me the frogs,
les grenouilles
. I spoke without expression, as if in Stone, Staffordshire, we ate little but frogs.
Pardon?
said the waitress. You said it wrong, said Monica, you made it sound like Granville, which is a town by the seaside.

We were sitting at our table in the middle of the road, as were all the tourists in Chalon-sur-Saône and most of the population. It was eight o’clock and the town had fulfilled the destiny of all French towns and turned itself into a restaurant. Jim panted under the table and sweat ran down my neck and a bolt hit Châteauneuf, leaving not one stone on another.

I had never eaten frogs before. I’ll eat cows and pigs and ducks and fish because they are neutrals in life’s struggle but frogs are on our side. There is something in my blood that draws insects for miles, and a single bite will give me misery for a week. This season the boat is barbed with machinery: blue-light zappers, poisonous lamps, and whistles that imitate the sound of a mosquito saying Let’s get out of here. Meanwhile in the engine-room and on the roof the spiders work with patience and cunning and in the waters around us the frogs hunt in posses—the fastest tongues in the West. Three-quarters of all living things are insects, and the only reason they do not grow bigger than us is that they breathe through holes in their skin and the air can’t get in deep enough, and if the spiders and frogs weren’t hassling them they would have solved that one long ago.