Narrow Dog to Carcassonne (3 page)

RANKS OF HIPPIE CRAFT ROTTING PEACEFULLY under the hedges—we were near the capital. At Bulls Bridge we turned left on to the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union. We have reached an historic junction, I said to Monica—it is time to pull out the big one.
Faire sortir le grand jeu?
asked Monica. Yes indeed, I said, the hour has come.

We went forward and opened the gas locker, which is the bit you sit on in the front of the boat. It held gas bottles, dead fenders, rusty saws, and the remains of creatures that had crawled in out of the cut, planning to set up home. There was also a bundle that looked like the construction kit for a light aircraft.

When the lavatory tank on the
Phyllis May
is full we call at a marina, which attaches a hose to the boat and pumps the tank out into a green lorry, which drives off and empties itself over the head of the man who runs Railtrack. But in France everything has to go into the cut. So we had bought our own pump-out kit, which we laid out on the bank next to the sanitary station. It looked like a sixty-foot brown snake that had died in congress with a lawnmower, gathering up in its final convulsions other gear and tackle and trim, including a stout hose.

An hour and a half later we had fitted most of the parts into each other. We laid the brown snake down the towpath and put the stout hose in the cut. There was a pump handle and I started pulling on it. The hose reared up out of the canal and stared at us, spitting and hissing. We wrestled it back and started pumping again but once more it appeared, coughing and farting and thrashing, until we twisted it down and it drowned. It was strong and it died hard. Sixty feet away water started coming out of the end of the snake.

Now we wound open the hole on the gunwale and screwed in the hose. Monica went into the sanitary station with the end of the snake and I threw myself into pumping. The little platform on which I stood was flexible, and I was losing my power. When I had lost all my power there was an old man with a face like a doughnut, looking at me with concern. I have been thinking of getting one of those, he said—do they work? I’m from Leighton Buzzard, he added. I’m sure it’s a nice town, I said, but personally we found it a bit violent. Violent? he said, well I suppose it is a bit violent. To be honest when I was there I was a bit violent myself.

He stood on the other end of the platform and held on to me. We rocked back and forth, while the snake bulged and Monica’s cries of encouragement and success echoed from the sanitary station. I do hope no one was watching.

THE NEXT NIGHT I RANG OWEN IN FRANCE. Owen was once a sergeant major in the South Wales Borderers—we had met on the cut and exchanged visits. Hiya, yelled Owen, as one consummating a bayonet charge upon a terrible enemy.

We’re under way, I said. You can steer it can you? shouted Owen. Not quite, I said. But next year we could be over—how are things down there in the Midi? Fine, cried Owen. I had a disagreement with Valmai, so me and Ianto are down the café.

Ianto is a three-year-old white and brown Jack Russell terrier, who shares the inside pocket of Owen’s combat jacket with a couple of hand grenades. The love between Owen and Ianto is wonderful, passing the love of women.

When are you coming over, boyo? cried Owen. Next year about this time, I said. How are you going to do it? he asked. The lorry, the crane, I said. There has been talk of sailing, I added with a laugh. Sailing? Owen shouted. You beast, you beast, sailing! He spoke off-mike and there were shouts and cheering. I could hear a table fall over.

You know, said Owen, when I met you I thought you were the biggest wally I had ever seen. I mean you are old and a coward and no good at doing anything. We only put up with you because of Monica. Thanks Owen, I said. In Montgiscard a dog-fight had broken out. Sorry, said Owen, Ianto bit someone. He seemed to think this was very funny. Deep down you are OK, he gasped, go for it, go for it I say, and Terry I shall be there, standing by your side at the tiller, breathing the fresh sea air with you my old boyo, riding the Channel swells my old darling, because Terry you are OK, I have made up my mind about you; you are not a fucking wally after all.

Next morning the phone rang. Terry, last night—did I say you should sail the Channel? Yes, I said. Look, said Owen, I want you to be quite clear about what I actually said. Men have died because they misunderstood my orders. I am not surprised, I said. Now listen, said Owen—I had a word with my friends Gérard and Benny who are
matelots
and we talked it over and I may have misspoke myself. You mean all previous statements are inoperative? I suggested.

Exactly, said Owen—do you know how long you have got before a narrowboat goes down?—two minutes. Do you know the temperature of the Channel in May? No, I said. Fucking freezing, said Owen. Twenty-five minutes and your core temperature has gone and you are dead. Look, I’ll be straight with you, I was pissed last night. Really? I said. Yes, said Owen, got carried away. Don’t do it Terry, I beg you—take the advice of one who has stared death in the face a thousand times.

You mean you don’t want to crew for us then? I asked. You don’t want to stand by my side at the tiller, riding the Channel swells with your old mate? The trouble with you, said Owen, is you are a smart-ass.

HOW GRAND LONDON WILL BE—WHAT WATER-SIDE boulevards, what rich craft, what shining people tripping along the towpaths, pursued by yelling paparazzi! We drifted under the M40, and then over the North Circular like Mary Poppins at rooftop height. Harlesden smelt of Lamb Rogan Josh, with ladies’ fingers and two poppadoms.

But the London canal world is a poor shrivelled thing. There are more canal pubs in Stone than in all London town, more chandlery, more boat-builders. Little Venice is a token, a publess wonder, a fraud.

We stole away on the Regent’s Canal in the dull heat of the afternoon, leaving rows of boats looking at each other and wondering where you could get a pint round here, or a bottle of gas or a piece of rope to hang yourself. As we slid through the Zoo, a scream arose from a vulture in its abolished tower—widowed, unconsoled.

In Camden thousands of gongoozlers from the Sunday markets leaned over the walls, overflowing on to the grass, staring as we sweated through the locks. Many were drunk or worse. I had to brush them off the lock beams like flies—we were on the run. There was only one place on the Regent’s Canal where the boat would be safe from attack by vandals, and that was Islington, and there were only six moorings in Islington.

Through a tunnel and into a dark cutting, overhung with trees. Plenty of room—there were not six boats on the move in London. A gentleman calling from the bank asked Monica to marry him. Perhaps I should reply on her behalf.

…slowly answered Arthur from the barge:

I am going a long way

With these thou seëst—if indeed I go

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)

To the island-valley of Avillion…

So clear off, wino.

It was four in the afternoon when we climbed out of the cutting. Empty side streets, roadworks, grey houses, grey heat. A café bar with stained shutters. Tin cans, litter. Graffiti: hopeless, inarticulate—
Fuck off
. City Road raged with traffic. Most of the pavements had been dug up. A line of faded trees had lost its way among hoardings and gaps. By my troth, quoth Lancelot, this is a dreadful place.

Going back we pushed at the door of the café, which was cool and spacious and sold thirty-eight Belgian beers. A barmaid with skin like Guinevere brought a bowl of water for Jim. He began to work the tables, beginning with the couple next door, who were dressed for the Tour de France. Then he vaporized and I pulled him by the loins out of a bin in the lane outside. This raised some laughter among the few couples present. They were friendly in their cautious southern way—not much was going on in Islington that afternoon. Look at his little face, someone said, and his big ears, like a mouse. He’s a very
narrow
dog, said someone else.

A young man with a guitar began to sing about how his love was making him suffer, but as he was only about seventeen I imagine everything will sort itself out in the end. Scattered applause—he had a nice voice. He sang another song to make it clear he had suffered even more than he had told us the first time. We paid our bill. It gets very busy later on, said Guinevere, and we believed her.

Back at the boat the cutting was darker than before. Monica’s suitor had departed. Good evening sir, madam—a man in green rushed by with a set of keys to lock the iron gates that protected us from the loyal citizens of Islington.

NEXT MORNING THE GRANDEUR OF LIMEHOUSE Marina, once Regent’s Canal Basin. Tall apartments full of bankers shaving before they shuffle on to the Docklands Light Railway. Here we go, here we go—a million desks, all in a row. The tower and clock of St. Anne’s standing back a step, the castle walls of the old basin, a great pool, yachts, cruisers. A few narrowboats in the corner, their roofs piled with herbs, flowers, and bicycles.

From his tower of glass, momentous in his British Waterways overalls, Joe the lock-keeper, God’s green deputy, watched over us all. He kept the gateway between the quiet inland waters and the Thames Tideway—turn right for Westminster, Hammersmith, Reading and Oxford, and left for the vasty deep. For a Midlands canal-boat skipper the Thames Tideway is vasty enough, and deep enough too.

Joe said practically all his inland boaters who went out of Limehouse lock on to the Thames lived through the day. I wondered if they were all as frightened as we were and Joe promised they were. Run at normal speed, he said, let the tide do the work, don’t push your luck, don’t hammer the engine just because you’ve got some water under you. It’s not used to the vibration and something could break.

What’s the water quality like in the Thames now? I asked. Last year we had a dolphin in the Tideway, said Joe. He was frolicking. He was happy with the water then? I asked. I don’t know if he was happy or if he was not happy, said Joe, but he was frolicking.

Did you know the man who cleaned up the Thames was called Sir Huge Fish? I asked. Joe thought I was joking. There were funnel clouds in the Channel last night, he said, and it may be rough tomorrow.

Back to the boat to fight with our life jackets and brace ourselves to steer through fleets of thundering craft captained by bearded men all born afloat, all with large and disrespectful vocabularies and all drunk.

We did not sleep well.

AT LAST WE HEARD BOATS MOVING INTO THE lock in the darkness. Terrified we followed them, our ropes held by Joe and his Jolly Green Giants. They were cross because we didn’t have navigation lights—and surprised we had never heard of them. At first light they let us creep into the throat of the lock and waved good luck. A grey dawn, short jostling waves.

From the bow Monica shouted All clear and I revved on to the great tide and swung right, and we were carried towards central London. Full fathom five for a boat that had rarely known a foot of water under her flat bottom. The water was looser than the muddy element we knew, and there was a lot of it in all directions, some of it in the air. The prop faltered and thrashed but the
Phyllis May
was steady because the waves ran along the hull and held it up.

What had they done with the drunken sailors? There were no drunken sailors; there were no sober sailors. We were alone, except far behind where two more narrowboats out of Limehouse drew white chalk marks in the grey. No docks, no ships, no wharves, no cranes—it’s all over—though you can still see places where things used to happen, some of them quite recently.

I leaned on the tiller round a forgotten brood of lighters and we passed the Tower of London on the right, which sailors call the starboard side. I fancied forty beefeaters lining the walls blowing bugles into the wild wind. They didn’t raise Tower Bridge but I felt as if they had.

Then bridge after bridge, all known from memories and books. I was standing inches above the water and could feel the strength of the supports as the tide heaved us through, and see the massive mouldings, the colours.

Under Blackfriars Bridge, past the offices where I had for so long worked for a soap company, coming into the City by train. Save me Lord, in my tower of glass. Monica and I quit, and we made it in our own place, in our own time, and we were free, and now we are back, and sod the lot of you.

The London Eye on the port side, and on the starboard the Houses of Parliament. We had dreamed that one day we would sail the
Phyllis May
past the Houses of Parliament, and now we were doing it. All the MPs came out—we could not see them for the dim light and the spray but we could hear their thin cheers on the wind. They were clapping each other on the back and saying By Jove, if these
Phyllis May
people can do this with the aid of a half-starved dog, heaven knows where they might land!

The bridges swept over us and we were the still centre—the engine roaring, the prop shuddering and gargling, Monica and I at the tiller, Jim brooding below. The
Phyllis May
drove on into the wind, foaming at the neck, most like to a swan.