Narrow Dog to Carcassonne (7 page)

THE GLOUCESTER AND SHARPNESS CANAL RUNS alongside the Severn estuary. It’s a ship canal—straight and wide to Gloucester.

On one side lay the Ocean, and on one

Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

Robin told me he had only done one narrowboat before, said Clive. Did they make it? I asked.

We drank and we boasted—We went past the Houses of Parliament, and we went under the great bridges.

For lust of knowing what should not be known,

We take the golden road to Samarkand.

We’ll take the narrow dog to Carcassonne—bunnies can and will go to France!

Jim knew we were inland—I had not seen him wag his tail before, but more than that, he was frolicking.

I’ve been thinking about the Channel, said Clive: about roping the boats together. It’s a question of the forces at play. Oh yes, I said, the forces at play.

There’s not going to be any forces at play, I thought. We were lucky today—it could have gone either way. Sail on, you mad bugger—for me, it’s the lorry, and the crane into Calais.

Three

DEAD MAN’S WHARF

Stone to Southwark

J
im and I walked down to Aston lock to look over the edge of the world. The cut was frozen but in a few months the narrowboats would be moving again—
thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
. We stopped at the Star for a pint and a bag of scratchings. The new landlord pulled Jim’s ears—They say a whippet makes a good dog—what’s he like as a boat dog? Terrible, I said.

I hear your friend Clive is taking you over the Channel, said the new landlord. Good heavens, I said, who told you that? Everyone knows, he said.

At home we had a second e-mail from the nice man with the beard and the capital letters. Perhaps he had remorse about the capital letters, for this time his letters were small. Ring the Royal Yachting Association, he suggested.

A weather window special, said the Principal of the Royal Yachting Association Dover Sea School, showing no surprise. It can be done—I took one across ten years ago. You must close up the front deck or it can fill and sink you. The ferries throw up waves three feet high, the Sea Catamarans six or eight feet. There is always a swell. It’s the busiest shipping lane in the world. It’s full of rubbish to get round your prop and the tides run fast. The Goodwin Sands is a very big place and very nasty. Your best plan is to go down the Thames and round to Ramsgate with a pilot and then across to Calais the next day with an escort boat. Sixteen hours to Ramsgate, six hours across the Channel. With two narrowboats it will cost you half as much, and it’s safer. You can have any level of support from me you want, except the Rolls-Royce option. There is no Rolls-Royce option.

Do you think I’m crazy? I asked. If you want to go up the Matterhorn, said the Principal, you can go over it in a plane, you can go up it in a cable car, or you can climb it. It depends what sort of experience you want, how close in you want to get—I know which I would prefer.

They tell me I can’t get insurance, I said. Write and explain, said the Principal—you never know. You’ll find a short-range radio operator certificate useful. You might look at a nautical almanac. I had not heard of nautical almanacs but supposed they gave you the lucky days for sailing.

I rang Clive—I think we’re on! You see, he said, I told you so—it is a question of patience and finding a way. He explained about patience and finding a way, and why people from Dudley were particularly patient and always found a way. He rang early next morning to explain again, and make whooping noises. All night long he had been out at sea.

IN 1771 THE TRENT AND MERSEY CANAL REACHED Stone, and the Star Inn was soon built alongside. In 1777 the boatyard in Stone was opened. Like much of the town it is built of red brick, smaller than we build these days. It was made without art, and it is very beautiful. At half past three the setting sun washed the walls with flame.

We had known Peter and his wife Karen since they were children, a long time ago. In the office of Canal Cruising there was room for them both and Monica and me and a telephone and a jar of instant coffee. There was no room for Jim or for Jim’s best friend, the boatyard lurcher, but they were there anyway, wrestling on the floor, growling horribly.

Beans? said Peter—you want us to fill your boat with beans? Any particular sort of beans? Baked beans? Broad beans? Perhaps runner beans? suggested Karen. No no, I said, let me explain. If a narrowboat is out at sea the weak spot is the front deck, because it is low down and enclosed at the sides. If the waves fill it we will sink, so we have to enlarge the drain holes. But if we enlarge the drain holes we could fill up from the drain holes. But I have the answer—we fill the front deck to the top with those little foam beans they use in parcels, and cover it over with a net. Then it will never fill with water—how could it?

The lurcher had won the wrestling match and had licked Jim all over and was starting to swallow him. Peter leaned down to pull them apart. That’s a very good idea, Terry, he said, and I am surprised it is not standard practice. But we are only an inland yard and it may be a bit advanced for us. Tell you what, I’ll put a removable wooden deck on the front to keep the water out and see what you think. Oh all right, I said, but if you run into trouble call on me and I’ll help with the beans.

And look, asked Monica, would you like to come across the Channel with us? You have been so good and you might like the ride. And you can change a belt or mend the engine if things go wrong—Terry is so helpless.

Peter is a big chap and when he laughs, which is often, it is a seismic event. As we walked back up through the town cracks were appearing in the pavement.

At home the phone rang. It was Beryl. She and Clive were not coming. She had decided they couldn’t take the risk of losing their boat.

It’s their home, said Monica, and all their things—it’s everything they’ve got.

We felt numb and lonely and afraid. But the adventure was all ours now, if we wanted it.

THE GENTLEMAN ACROSS THE TABLE WAS GOING down eight miles south of the Great Orme. But I had spotted him.
Pan pan seelonce
, I said slowly into the microphone.
Yacht sinkerman in fairisle jumper on deck waving. Sinkerman repeat Mayday. All ships all ships, seelonce feenee, go to 67, transmit for ten seconds and repeat. Pan pan medico—roger and out.

The gentleman across the table looked as if the winter sea had just reached his Y-fronts. That really wasn’t very good at all, said the instructor, a captain with a beard—he would have sunk while the coastguards were trying to decide what you were on about. It would have been kinder to ram him and keep going. Fortunately you were on the wrong channel and you forgot to press the transmit button.

We’ve got this dog, said Monica later. He’s a very thin dog. Will he lose his core temperature and die? I don’t understand, said the captain, we’ve all got to go some time. I mean, said Monica, the dog is on the boat. When we transmit
Mayday Mayday
and nature of danger, and number of crew, do we include the dog? When they send a helicopter do they need to know about the dog? We are very fond of our dog. He’s only a small dog, perhaps they would winch him up as an extra. If it’s the British coastguard, said the captain, tell them about the dog. If it’s the French, find a moment to say goodbye.

In real life, said the captain, if I come up the estuary and call the coastguard it’s
Joe you drunk get that tug out of my road was that your wife under a Dutch whelk fisherman on Tuesday?
If you say everything by the book they will know you are not real sailors, and finish their breakfast, and all is lost. Do you mean that what you are teaching us is no good? I asked. I’ll explain that one over coffee, said the captain. We were given our examination papers. Does he want a pencil? the captain asked Monica.

The next day I rang the insurance company. They told me my details were lost but no doubt someone had thought it was a joke. If I wanted I could apply again har har. I sent a copy of my application, and a saintly letter forgiving the delay. This went to the holiest in the height of the firm. Most sure in all his ways, he decided the
Phyllis May
would be covered for the Channel crossing at a cost of £125.

WE’VE HAD ONE OF THOSE CATALOGUES, I said—I thought perhaps something for the voyage. But it’s full of terrible things—penis-enlarging pumps, versatile trimmers to get rid of unsightly nose and ear hair, a bunion corrector that goes to work while you sleep, Soxon to help you put your socks on with ease, non-rustle incontinence pants. My God—is this what happens next? If we go down in the Channel it might be for the best.

Yes, said Monica, we’ll drown, then we’ll be all right. But ring the Small Ships Registry and ask them where our certificate has got to. They will let us in at Calais if we have unsightly nose and ear hair and our incontinence pants are rustling, but they won’t let us in without a registration certificate. Jim and I are going for a run.

EVERYTHING TO DO WITH A BOAT TAKES seven times as long and costs seven times as much. I allowed three days to polish and lacquer the brasses inside the boat, and finished three weeks later. My right arm had doubled in size, my shoulder will never work properly again and I think something happened to my lungs.

The night we finished Jim pulled me to the Star. He started a relationship with a lady of a certain age which became tender, bordering on passionate, but did not deliver any pork scratchings. Then the gentleman next to me took half a yard of raw black pudding out of his pocket, and with a schoolboy penknife from the forties, cut Jim a length. Jim had not tasted black pudding before, and this was the one they make in Adie’s Alley off the High Street, the one with the sweet bits of fat. Jim sat back and looked up—this had turned into one of the best days of his life. The gentleman cut another length and gave it to him. Then he cut another and gave it to me. I barked and wolfed it down. I had another pint and my shoulder stopped hurting.

Sitting opposite was a chap with curly hair and muddy boots. Do you go lamping for rabbits? he asked. We did once, I said, but it was a bit quiet. Mine likes to chase squirrels, he said. Oh yes goodness me squirrels, I said—Jim goes mad. But they run away up the trees—I hear they are good to eat. Curly looked at me and spoke quietly, as if he had realized we were both Freemasons, or gay, or listened to the Carpenters—Look, my brother has got squirrels, all over his garden and in his roof. I’m going round on the weekend and we will get a couple of sacks-full. Not much mess—airgun. Lovely with a few carrots, bit of curry powder.

Monica, I said when we got home, if by any chance a chap comes round with a sack of dead squirrels you won’t be nasty to him, will you? I mean show no surprise.

You shouldn’t be allowed out on your own with Jim, said Monica. He can’t look after you, he’s only a dog.

I HEFTED MY NEW YELLOW ELECTRIC DRILL. They’ll know us by the colour of our weapons, I said. Don’t try to use it, said Monica, you’ll lose a hand. Who will know us? They, I said: the poets, the gypsies, the circus performers, the philosophers. When we are in Paris they will all want to meet us. We don’t know anyone in Paris, said Monica—who are you planning to meet? Gérard de Nerval, I said, with his pet lobster on a string; Arletty, the dark angel of the Hôtel du Nord; Jean Marais, the lover of Cocteau; Charles Trenet, writer of ‘La Mer’ Louis Aragon, fearless poet of the Resistance.

All those people are dead, said Monica. Gérard de Nerval has been dead for a hundred and fifty years. And what are you going to talk about with people like that? Will you show them your electric drill?

IT SEEMS TO HAVE GONE FUNNY, SAID THE fifteen-year-old girl in the hairdresser’s. Won’t it do a ponytail? I asked. There’s not enough of it, said the child, and it’s all patchy. It’s like those dandelion clocks you blow bits off, when it’s late in the afternoon and it’s nearly all gone. It’s coming out of your ears. How long have you been growing it? Two years, I said, but it keeps falling out. What are you trying to grow a ponytail for? she asked. Well, I said, I used to be in business but now I’m retired, so now I can be myself; I can be free. I want to look like Willie Nelson, the country singer—he looks free. Oh, said the child, having a bit of a rebellion, are we?

It was time to visit Raymondo’s parlour. Thank you for waiting, he said. I had spent an hour among a rout of twelve-year-old girls, bikers, babies, and people shouting in Estonian. We don’t get many like you, said Raymondo. Nothing too fancy, I said, it’s my first time. OK, said Raymondo, though it’s not as if you will regret it when you are sixty-five. How about ‘Mother’ or perhaps a naked lady, very daring, or a big one, a shipwreck, across the chest, with drowning sailors. I think I would prefer one of those Maori ones with wavy lines, I said.

Here we are, said Raymondo, look at this. Black, lovely on the upper arm. What does it mean? I asked. What do you want it to mean? asked Raymondo. I want it to mean
Within my immediate social group, my sexual performance is above average
, I said. That’s it, said Raymondo, that’s what it means.