He stood on a platform, which rose slowly to table height. He rolled his eyes and looked around. He doesn't floss his teeth properly, said the lady vet, but he's a lovely dog, in the best condition. Here in the US we get a lot of fat dogs—it's like the people. But now this heartworm.
On the wall, posters showed the horrible things that happened when the heartworms set up home in the left ventricle of a dog. I come from Georgia, said the vet, and so many dogs there are sick with the heartworm. It is carried by mosquitoes.
Ah, I said—
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
I guess so, said the lady vet, very likely. Here, give him one of these pills every month, and y'all look out for the alligators. I don't have a pill for those.
I MET THIS GENTLEMAN CALLED STEVE ON THE quay, I said to Monica. I asked him for coffee and he's going to bring his father.
Norwood Thomas was eighty-four. He had white hair and his eyes were blue and though he was heavily built he moved easily. The Phyllis May has six feet four inches' headroom and Norwood Thomas was too big a man for it. His baseball cap carried the badge of the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles. Norwood Thomas was too big a man for most places.
I think we should get out of Iraq, said Norwood Thomas. I'm a Democrat. In the Depression my mother put cardboard in my shoes every morning. I was there during Roosevelt's New Deal.
The 101st Airborne were the first in at D-Day, I said. You dropped behind the beaches. Eisenhower said goodbye to you—with all the forces he commanded that day he chose the Screaming Eagles to say goodbye. He made the decision himself to drop you behind the beaches. He was told to expect 85 per cent casualties. He said to Kay Summersby, his English girlfriend—It's very hard to look a soldier in the eye when you fear you are sending him to his death. She said he was nearly crying.
Yes, he looked serious, said Norwood Thomas. He was in full dress uniform, stiff braided cap. It was late afternoon—we took off that night. He was congenial in a reserved sort of way. He talked to me as an equal—I am not even sure he called me Soldier. Do you have your own parachute? he asked. Do you have it issued like a weapon and look after it? No, sir, I explained, we used to pack our own chutes in training but now the riggers do it.
Most of you got back, I said.
Yes, we lost more people at Arnhem. On D-Day we dropped behind Utah Beach. Our planes got separated in cloud and nearly all our howitzers were lost, but we did our job. We knew what our objectives were and the Germans didn't, so we could take them on or pass by. The worst American losses were at Omaha Beach—we lost more than two thousand soldiers. The beach was supposed to be cleared by our air force but the bombs went too far inland and the German machine guns were still there. Omaha was butchery.
Monica brought Norwood Thomas a cup of tea. Did you spend much time in the UK?
Yes, I love the UK. I loved the people, how they suffered without hate, without profanity—Jerry was over again last night—and I nearly married one of you.
And you fought on through Europe? I asked.
Holland, then the Battle of the Bulge. We were surrounded in the Ardennes and they say Patton rescued us—but we were getting supplies and would have fought our way out. Patton didn't rescue the Screaming Eagles, and never let them tell you different.
Norwood Thomas accepted a book from us. I wrote in it To Norwood Thomas, with thanks and admiration. I thought afterwards that's not good enough, I should have put with gratitude and admiration, and then I thought whatever I put would not be enough to thank that twenty-year-old, going into action for the first time. He had come out to the plane the day before and then the weather was bad and he had to wait another day and now he was in the Dakota with seventeen of his comrades, coming over Guernsey and turning over the Cotentin Peninsula, to land in Normandy just after midnight on D-Day, behind enemy lines, the first in.
In the forties the enemies were evident and atrocious but there were giants in the earth in those days—Dwight Eisenhower and Norwood Thomas. Later the enemies were shadows. Many brave men fought them and there were pigmies and murderers too—Richard Cheney; William Calley.
But I know who the real Americans are, and so do you, and never let them tell you different.
• • •
THE NICE PEOPLE AT PORTSMOUTH MARINE TERMINAL had given us a bag of presents—scratchings for Jim and a ball of plush and for Monica and me T-shirts for the Cock Island yacht races. There were also umbrellas and rubber sleeves called cosies to keep beer cans cool. Later I realized they were trying to tell us something about the weather. The summer on the East Coast of the US is a desperate time, and to compound the situation there was the Luck of the Darlingtons—après nous le déluge. Wherever we go we bring the worst weather for a hundred years.
Now we struck at the heart of the US government, and compromised the dollar itself.
Floodwaters wreak havoc across area— reported the Washington Post-roads, rails, government buildings shut down. This isn't just water, this is dark, rushing water, cars moving, turning over sideways, rolling over in the current. A famous tree in the grounds of the White House, the one that appears on the twenty-dollar bill, didn't last a week after we arrived. Only the Daily Press found a ray of hope, telling the loyal citizens of Newport News that all records and national treasures remained safe and dry.
By the time I got to the shower block along the pontoon at six o'clock in the morning my umbrella had blown inside out and I was running with rain and sweat. Over ninety degrees my brain doesn't work properly. As for my body—there it was in the mirror, half destroyed by the heat. I looked like a frog. My belly had swelled up and even my sides. My ankles were swollen, my watch was tight, and my rings seemed to have corroded on to my fingers. My eyes were sore and rimmed with red and my ears were full of melted wax and my joints ached.
I stepped into my favourite shorts: the long khaki ones with lots of pockets. They were a bit tight but in these shorts I am Sanders of the River, I am Trevor Howard as Scobie the colonial policeman, Graham Greene's ruined hero in The Heart of the Matter, searching for salvation and having a bit on the side with a nineteen-year-old cracker.
A snatching pain in my groin—oh God I am ruptured! It's all over! I'll have to go to the disgraceful North Staffordshire University Hospital, and be carved up by Mr Pinstripe-Git and they'll get it wrong like they did for my friend Stanley and have to do it again and it will be years before I can walk or lift anything. And I have got dropsy and muscular dysfunction and I am going deaf and I am going blind. It's HAARTSC—Hartsee—Heat Assisted Age Related Total Systemic Collapse. Nature has taken its revenge on a fool in his seventies trying to be an adventurer. I shall be the laughing stock of the public houses of Stone—my children will be disgraced, my grandchildren will be bullied, and my publisher will say I always knew the old bugger would stiff before we made a profit—we should have stuck like everybody else with the 24-year-old lookers who were abused by their uncle and married a footballer.
On the way back to the boat my stomach muscles were tight and sore, and my eyes stung. Still the binding pain in the groin, and my legs seemed to be held back by rubber straps.
I won't say anything, I said to myself, I will wait for the agony to localize and then I'll break the news to Mon as gently as I can and then we'll all go home. I'll make light of it but we will have no choice. Jim will be thrilled.
• • •
WHERE'S THAT HUNDRED DOLLARS I GAVE YOU yesterday? asked Monica—it's time to count the money.
In my pocket, here, I said.
Come on then, said Monica, show me. I hope you haven't lost it like you usually do, or spent it on drink or given it away.
I can't find it, I said, it's gone. I had it in my back pocket. It's a mystery. It was there half
an hour ago. I have been robbed. It must have been in those terrible food shops—the 7-Eleven or the Food Lion. They all looked like pickpockets in there. One chap brushed against me at the checkout. He had plenty of time—it took me twenty minutes to check through a bottle of water for Jim. They train for years you know—they can take the watch off your wrist; they can take the teeth out of your mouth. There is no defence—it could happen to anyone.
Try your other pockets, said Monica.
They seem to have gone, I said.
What do you mean, gone? How can your pockets be gone?
I say my pockets have gone—they have disappeared, they are no longer there. They have departed. I have been the victim of a cruel and senseless crime. Not content with stealing my money they have taken my pockets too.
You are trying to tell me someone has stolen your pockets?—you must be barmy. Here, let me see. Oh Lord. Oh my God. Terry can I have a word about this whole trip? Do you think we should go on? Are you really the right man to take us a thousand miles on to the Gulf of Mexico? Through the hardships and through all the pain, through the hurricanes and the alligators, across the great sounds and across Lake Okeechobee, where eighteen hundred people were swept away? Are you sure you are up to it? How can you expect Jim and me to believe in you and your vision and give you our loyalty and obedience when you can't even put on your shorts the right way round?
YOUR CAT PISSED IN MY DESIGNER HANDBAG, said my elder daughter Lucy on the phone. I wish I hadn't said I would look after it. You should have had it put down. It's old, and it's only got one eye.
There's nothing wrong with being old and only having one eye, Lucy. How are my grandchildren?
They are fine, but your cat pissed in my handbag. It's an awful cat, and it's as old as God. Its time had come and instead of doing the kind thing when you started wandering about in your boat with your wretched dog you persuaded me to take it in and it has repaid me by pissing in my designer handbag. I thought it had just pissed over the bag but when I got out my lipsalve and began to put it on I realized the truth. It's a dreadful creature and will probably think of something else dreadful to do.
She's grieving, I said, poor soul, she's missing me. No one would take her from the cats' home because of her eye and she was small and the other cats had got the food first and when we got her she was a skeleton inside a ball of fur. She had forgotten how to eat—she was dying. I fed her on my own tits for a fortnight. She is very attached to me when we are at home.
You won't be home for a year, said Lucy, and the girls won't see their grannie and their grandad and I won't see my mummy and daddy. Other people in Stone see their parents like normal families. All we have is a one-eyed cat that pisses in our handbags. It's not right—you know it's not right.
THREE WEEKS MELTED AWAY BUYING EQUIPMENT that didn't work to get us over Albemarle Sound and seeing vets and fighting the heat and the ice storms and keeping out of Mike's way while he did the electrics and staying alive. But at last we arranged a farewell party for our friends from Atlantic Containers, and Portsmouth Marine Terminal, and West Marine, and the travel agency, and the city of Norfolk. We bought fifty pounds of ice and filled the bath with beer cans but you can't ice the whole of Portsmouth.
Our guests stepped into the front deck where the big brass tunnel light looked ahead and came down into the boat and saw the kennel where I put my laptop and saw how I sat on the log-box with my feet on Jim, and how the log-box had Phyllis May on the front side and Kiss Me Again on the backside.
Why is she called Phyllis May? they asked.
After my mother. That's her photo there when she was twenty. She still comes back.
Oh my Gard, oh my Gard, she's beautiful.
They marvelled at the narrowness of the narrowboat and how you could see right down the inside and out the back and they marvelled at the oak and teak panelling and the six-foot-four ceiling and how we cut our own wood for the stove and how it was never really hot or cold where we came from. They looked at the plates and the paintings and the horse-brasses and the lamps and clocks and the hanging tankards and the plaque with the roses and castles and Monica explained how in the old days the boatmen's cabins were decorated to make the tiny space more bearable.
They passed through the galley with its cooker and refrigerator and the bathroom with the shower that worked, and we explained we had a central heating system and carried a ton of water and enough diesel for two hundred miles.
They saw the cabin with the double bed and the engine room that was the drying room as well and they climbed out and stood on the back counter and waggled the tiller arm with the brass frog on it and gazed forward along the roof looking resolute and stepped over on to the pontoon and admired the fairground lettering on the stern and had another beer.
Jim worked the crowd for treats—Oh the little greyhound puppy—isn't she sweet?
Jim is half bald and has a long tongue for panting and was coping better with the heat than we were, and was scoring freely.
We told Sarah from Norfolk City public relations how there had been a second storm yesterday and the wind had torn branches off the trees and strafed us again with ice. You've got the right boat, said her husband Alec, a nice low boat, but try not to be out at sea if it happens again. Are you going across Albemarle Sound? Oh dear.
My nay am is Pay Am, said a blonde girl. She was eighteen and she was beautiful and she came from the Barbie-pink boat alongside. The boat was all sharp end, with lofting curves. It climbed forty feet in ladders and poles.
Pardon? I asked.
My nay am is Pay Am, she repeated.
Pardon? I asked.
Pay Am, she said, Pay Am Rossiter—we come from South Cay Arolina.
Ah, I said—my nay am is Terry.
Pay Am's chap was Chris. He was twenty-two but looked fourteen. He had trouble getting served in bars, which start at twenty-one. He was looking after the pink boat for the owner, who was colour-blind. When you came, Chris, I said, I called to Mon—The hairdressers are here.
Chris thought this was very funny.
What is the tower for, I asked, the one on top of your pink boat?
Well sir, said Chris, the tower is for the tarpon—it is a tarpon tower. They feed on the surface and splash around. You can see them from a long ways and then you go after them. The big poles out at the sides are so you can run lines out and they don't get snarled. Excuse me, if you don't mind my mentioning your tattoo, ma'am, it's the finest dragon I've seen.
I showed Chris the Maori tattoo on my arm. It means within my immediate social group, my sexual performance is above average, I said.
Chris showed me the compass rose tattooed on his shoulder. It means within my immediate social group, my sexual performance is below average, he said.
Pay Am showed us her tattoos and so did Dave from Atlantic Containers and so did Kerry from West Marine and so did Mike and Christie, his secretary. Nice Amy from Portsmouth Ocean Terminal had her parents' initials tattooed in colour at the nape of her neck, with the dates of their death. The lady from the travel agency had barbed wire round her ankle. They turned Jim over and admired the tattoos on his naked belly and we explained he had them when he was born and we knew there was a map and a secret message there but his belly is dirty sometimes and when you try to read him he wriggles and gets up.
People came across from the boats nearby. One of them had a shipwreck across his chest, with drowning sailors. Another was illuminated from neck to ankle in full colour. Nice Amy took Monica down into the Phyllis May to show her the tattoos on her bum.
WE SAILED AT DAWN. AWAY FROM MILE ZERO and into the Elizabeth River and past the flat-tops, the cruisers, the destroyers, the cranes.
I had imagined a departure of high ceremony, saluted by naval guns and trailing a creamy wake. But it wasn't going to be like that—this was not even a real start to our journey. We had to go to Atlantic Yacht Basin and having the air-conditioner fitted would take at least a fortnight, should
we live so long with the temperature pushing a hundred, and the sopping air and the hot wind and the blasting sun. It looked like we would never get started, and if we did we would drown in Albemarle Sound in an ice storm.
An adventure will deliver if it wants to, and if it doesn't, tough luck—You should have stayed at home like everyone else and Who the hell do you think you are?
WE HAVE SAILED MANY A WATERWAY, BUT NONE so dreadful as the Elizabeth River out of Portsmouth. All the smokestacks of Belgium, all the building sites of Paris, all the industrial death of Wolverhampton, could not match this fatal shore. Chimneys and rotting ships and a scabbed and uncertain margin. It was eighty-five degrees at seven o'clock, and the breeze was corrosive and the cranes and rusting towers stood in a foul haze. Monica came along the gunwale to where I held the tiller on the back counter and we kissed—We are under way! But we weren't really and it wasn't very nice.
You said the bridges had a clearance of sixty-five feet, said Monica.
They do, I said—it was in the book.
That one doesn't, said Monica.
The river was three hundred yards wide and the bridge was girdered and threatening. We idled in the stream while I climbed on the roof and took down the generator windmill, and we scratched under the bridge.
You lied to me, said Monica.
No, I said—they must mean they have sixty-five feet clearance when they are up, but this one is down.
While I was climbing on to the roof something dreadful had become clear to me but I did not want to face it or tell Monica.
The next bridge was down too. Monica got out the handheld VHF radio, the one they made her promise at the VHF school never to let me use. The handset squawked and fizzed—Y'all party on—plenty of room—what boat is that? How long you staying? Monica told him. Lovely boat, y'all have a nice trip now squawk squawk. From an office slung in the girders high above us a shadow and a wave.
Now a few green fields and trees and we began to follow the red triangles set on posts every half-mile or so. You have to keep them to your right or starboard going upstream and to your left or port going down, or perhaps it is the other way round.
Narrow Dog to Indian River Page 4
