by Peter Helton
Halfway up, we took a break in one of the side ponds to catch our breath and have a hasty lunch. I boiled spaghetti and stirred red pesto through it. ‘I can do packets and jars too, you know,’ I told Vince.
‘Food preservation is the greatest achievement of mankind,’ he assured me. ‘I have enough tins and packet food on board to last me for months.’
I imagined the inside of Vince’s boat to look like a WWII grocer’s shop, the walls lined with tins of whale meat casserole, baked beans, powdered egg and bottles of Camp coffee. It was then that I realized that Vince had not once invited me to step on board his boat to have a look around it – in fact, I had noticed that whenever he was on board Dreamcatcher and wanted to fetch something from his own boat, such as his tobacco tin, he habitually said, ‘Stay here, I’ll just fetch this and that.’ Whenever he was on board my boat, I could detect the faint odour of chicken coup that I thought came from his clothes, since he himself looked meticulously groomed. I imagined that he either kept his clothes in a very stuffy cupboard or else lived with a giant chicken. Now that the chicken had added herself into the mix, my mental picture of Morning Mist’s interior had become increasingly surreal. Naturally, I was far too polite to ask Vince to inspect his boat since he clearly didn’t want me on board, but I was also enough of a private eye to make snooping round Morning Mist at the first opportunity a firm goal of mine.
For the foreseeable future, however, I would be too busy or too tired, it seemed. ‘Try to enjoy it a bit more,’ said Vince as we resumed our ascent. ‘And, of course, once you’ve conquered Caen Hill, everything else becomes a doddle in comparison.’
‘You mean there are no more like these?’
‘Nope. A few flights of three or five once in a blue moon, but otherwise it’ll be all nice, gentle and relaxing …’
We continued our slog through the afternoon with me grumbling quietly and counting and recounting the locks, Vince cheerfully smoking roll-ups while pushing lock gates with his behind, gongoozlers staring into the churning waters and taking pictures on their mobiles. It gave me enough time to brew up a fine head of disdain for the hordes who stood and viewed the world through the rectangles of their telephones, and when I saw a man with a water bottle in one hand and mobile held aloft in the other drop his phone into the lock, I exhibited a distinct lack of sympathy by laughing out loud, which earned me a scowl from the man who stared down into the lock with something akin to despair. As I looked back down the flight, I could see that both Free Spirit and Moonglow had kept up with us. In fact, every time I looked behind I saw both skippers look back at me. It was only natural, of course, that they should be looking up and forward, but despite both wearing sunglasses, I acquired a paranoid suspicion that what they were looking at was me.
It was late afternoon when we finally made it to the top of the flight, watched by quite a crowd. Vince had kept my spirits up by promising me that an excellent pub was waiting for us where they ‘did great food’. Having experienced first-hand what Vince did to the Great English Breakfast, I fervently hoped that the chef at the pub did not use a vintage Ministry of Food cookery pamphlet as Vince obviously did. We moored not far beyond the Caen Hill locks and marched to the Black Horse with a thirst. Once the barmaid had furnished us with a pint of local ale each, we sat at a wooden table outside in the balmy evening air by the water and perused the food offerings. The menu was simple and so was the language; everything was either ‘homemade’, ‘breaded’ or ‘grilled’. If it was meat, they grilled it; if it was fish, they breaded it; and if it had even a hint of a vegetable in it, then they homemade it. I chose the Homemade Beef Hotpot while Vince, after less than ten seconds’ perusal, picked the Breaded Plaice with Chips and Peas.
We smoked and coughed and drank our beer while waiting for our food. Since having asked what I did for a living, Vince had exhibited no curiosity as to what the rest of my life was like. It seemed as though his chosen world did not reach further than the shores of the waterways and the pubs and shops you could reach on foot from the side of the canal. He talked of nothing much beside boats, and when he did, he would go into such intricate detail that all I could do was nod and try to remember it all since half of the time I had no idea what he was talking about. Electricity mystifies me, and no amount of talk about converters, inverters or alternators has made the slightest difference to that. Other parts of boats were just as mysterious. ‘What’s a stern tube?’ I would interject, imagining a torpedo compartment I had not been told about, and Vince would roll his eyes, roll another cigarette and start explaining. Apparently, Jake had sent me off on my cruise with just enough information to wreck the boat.
‘You have to grease the stern tube every day – didn’t you know that?’
‘What with, an oil can?’
‘With a stern tube greaser! You have to give it a half-turn every day to grease the propeller shaft and to stop water from coming in and filling your bilges.’
I was shocked. Apparently, I had bilges that could fill with water because I had missed a few half-turns on the stern tube greaser. Which, presumably, resided in the stern. Near a tube. Vince dug out an interesting collection of horror stories to scare me with, from carbon monoxide poisoning to seized engines via overflowing sewage tanks, and he enjoyed every minute of it. Not even the arrival of the food stopped the flow. The food was edible but then I was so hungry it barely touched the sides, and Vince would have eaten anything as long as it was covered in orange breadcrumbs. He enthusiastically discussed the relative merits of pump-out toilets versus the chemical cassette variety while forking chips and spearing peas on his plate. ‘I mean,’ he said through a mouthful of green peas, ‘who wants to cruise around with a huge tank full of shit under their feet all the time, and then there’s the cost. Pump-out cards have gone up again …’
I interrupted his scatological discourse with an offer to fetch more beer. As I stood up with our empty pint glasses, I spotted the undertakers from Moonglow sitting at a table further along. Both were sitting facing us and both still wore their sunglasses, even though they were now sitting in shade. They sat side by side in front of empty pint glasses, not talking to each other. One was a thuggish-looking bloke with a round face and a coconut hairstyle; the other was in his fifties, with a moustache, a five o’clock shadow and a receding hairline. They sat so still they could have been waxworks. I turned towards the pub and saw that the Free Spirit crew were also here, standing near the building and also facing our table, though when I walked towards the entrance, they both moved away. Both were of very similar build, tall, broad, trim, and in their early thirties with identical short haircuts. And both had a sour expression despite the bottles of lager in their hands. Did I tell you about my little paranoid bone? Oh, yes. It was chiming and there was no Annis to tell me that, of course, they were all here, since this was where you went after you had conquered Caen Hill. Obviously. I tried to tell myself the same thing, but I’m not quite as convincing as Annis and it went on vibrating. The pub was doing good business and the bar was two deep in waiting customers which gave me time to let my suspicions develop. When I looked back, the thuggish one of the undertakers was now also queuing at the bar. He had his sunglasses pushed up on top of his coconut head and I could see that he had dark rings under his tiny eyes. Free Spirit had cruised straight past me when I had grounded the boat but was now forever staying behind me. Moonglow had followed us but always at a distance, taking her time and letting two boats ahead of her …
When I at last came back to our table with full pints, there was no sign of the Free Spiriters and the remaining undertaker now sat with his back to us. I forgot about them for a while as Vince had found more stories of mayhem and disaster on the waterways with which to worry me. So many of the things he now told me about I had neither heard of nor imagined, and had he warned me of a three-hundred-foot waterfall near Hungerford, I probably would have swallowed it along with the beer. As it was, we swallowed quite a lot of that, having both vow
ed to have a lie-in next morning after our staircase lock exertions, and it was dark and after closing time when we left the pub. The last people were dispersing into the night.
I was standing by myself near the canal since Vince had run back to use the pub toilet when I felt a sudden urge to hear Annis’s voice. I called her mobile and she answered almost instantly. Her work was going well, she was working on both murals and the weather was just great. But somehow she did not sound as exuberantly over the moon as before. The novelty of the swimming pool had worn off, Reuben Hitchcock was hardly there and his factotum, Harry Popik, was really a surly git and did not like being called Pop. ‘And he disappears when Reuben isn’t here, I’ve no idea where to, and I have to fend for myself. The nearest shop is miles away and everything’s frozen or in tins. If I see another steak and kidney pie, I’ll scream. Mind you, when Reuben is here, I get to eat very well, but I haven’t seen anyone for days. How’s boat life?’
‘Strenuous. Must have done thirty locks today.’
‘Good for you. You’ll lose some weight at last. No sightings of Verity yet? Have you been asking around? No one’s seen her?’
‘Well, actually …’
‘Actually?’
‘She must have quite a head start on me. And I’ve sort of been enjoying the boat and I felt like leaving the private-eye thing behind for a while. I’m also a painter, you know?’
‘Done any painting?’
‘Haven’t had time.’
‘You’ve got to do one or the other or preferably both.’
‘I know. But it felt quite good not having to explain about what I do or being asked to establish the whereabouts of expensive iguanas.’ I heard a noise behind me and turned around. Vince was standing a few paces away, mouth half open, looking at me. He looked quite drunk.
‘Where are you now?’ asked Annis.
‘Moored at Devizes.’ Vince was walking away, hands stiff by his side, into the dark, towards our moored boats. ‘You’re not that far away then. Look up Ufton on a map. The canal doesn’t pass all that far from Bearwood Hall. Come and visit. You can tell me what you think of the murals so far and I’ll introduce you to Reuben.’
‘And the swimming pool.’ I promised to find Ufton on the map and started walking after Vince towards the boats, along with many others on the towpath. When I got to the boats, Morning Mist lay dark and silent and there was no sign of Vince. He had looked drunk and angered for some reason, but he was not staggering so I did not worry he might have fallen into the canal and drowned. As I went to unlock Dreamcatcher’s stern door, I found it unlocked. I had assumed I had locked it, but after that many pints I could not be sure. Perhaps, in my eagerness to get to the pub, I had just pushed the door shut and not done it properly. I now locked it from the inside and sat on my bed, asking myself if I wanted another drink. Two minutes and thirty seconds later I was fast asleep.
I woke in a sweat. The morning sun was beating down on the boat and with all the windows closed it was now baking inside. I threw back the covers and sat up, looking blearily out at a duck paddling by. I got up, opening windows as I went, and stood under the shower for a luxuriously tank-draining time until I was awake. Today I would try to sneak a peek at the inside of Vince’s boat, I decided, and what better excuse than to knock at his door with breakfast? I’d just not take no for an answer. My hair still damp, I rushed to the galley, hoping to get it done before he was up and about and able to turn me away somehow. Kettle and frying pan on the stove, I softened some onions, whisked eggs with curry spices and scrambled them with the golden-brown onions. Divided it on two slices of bread with a dollop of spicy aubergine pickle on each, unlocked my back door and balanced two plates and two mugs of tea on to the deck. That was as far as I got. The mooring space in front of my boat was empty; Morning Mist was gone. On the other side of Dreamcatcher a woman was washing the sides of a seventy-foot boat called Dragonfly in the sunshine. She was in her mid-forties, with her blonde hair stuffed under a faded blue baseball cap, dressed in white T-shirt, denim shorts and pink trainers. I called to her. ‘The boat downstream of me, what happened to it?’
She looked up, sponge dripping with soap suds, bright in the morning sun. ‘That one? Left at sunrise; the engine woke me up. Why?’
‘Oh, just an acquaintance. We had a few beers last night and I thought I’d wake him with breakfast.’
She dropped the sponge into a bucket and stood with her hands on her hips and her head tilted, squinting against the sun. ‘A spare breakfast, eh?’
‘Shame to waste it,’ I agreed.
We ate at the table on board Dreamcatcher. Her name was Sue. ‘This is such a blokish breakfast,’ she complained, devouring it, ‘curried eggs and Indian relish. Not bad, though, but I couldn’t eat this first thing. Fortunately, I’ve had breakfast already. So, you on holiday, Chris?’
I decided to come clean and tell her why I was here and was immediately glad I had because Sue, after telling me I was just like someone off the telly, said, ‘I think I saw your Verity, though I didn’t get to talk to her. I do remember the name of the boat, though, now you mention it. I thought then that Time Out was appropriate because she needed to take time out to learn the rules. We were moored up for the night, just beyond Bradford, me and my husband, Tom – he’s gone shopping; you’ll meet him later if you hang around. He’ll be chuffed to meet a real detective; he watches crime series on telly all the time. Yes, we were sitting on deck, it was such a warm night, especially for September; we had the candle lanterns out and a bottle of wine on the go. It was dark, an hour after sunset at least, when this narrowboat comes up from the direction of Bradford. Got her headlight going on the front and comes steaming past, way too fast. The people next to us were on deck too and they shone a torch at her and called to her. Didn’t she know she wasn’t supposed to move her boat at night? And I heard her shout back. “Really? Why not?” She had no idea the headlight was only for going through tunnels. Didn’t stop either, kept going full tilt and disappeared upstream.’
‘When was that?’
Sue thought for a moment. ‘About six days ago? Something like that.’
Verity moving too fast and even travelling after dark could only mean one thing: she was getting away from me at a rate of knots, though I hadn’t the faintest idea how fast a knot might be. My breakfast musings were interrupted by Sue excitedly tapping the window. ‘There’s that idiot again!’ she exclaimed.
I looked and was rewarded with the arresting sight of a naked chap coming up the towpath. He was a tall, muscular man in his late forties or early fifties. He had long dark hair, a wiry-looking beard and an impressive amount of chest hair that connected via an uninterrupted line with an equally impressive forest of pubes. He was not completely naked since he wore thick walking boots and carried an enormous rucksack on his back. He did not seem to have lost his clothing and didn’t display any sign of urgency to get to any. ‘You’ve seen him before? Was he naked then too?’
‘Oh yeah, Martin something-or-other. He was even in the Wiltshire Times because he got himself arrested for running around starkers. He refuses to wear clothes when he’s out and about.’ He came past our window so I got a close-up view of his dangling freedom only a few inches away from my scrambled eggs. Just then shouting erupted outside. A man and a woman were hollering, too far away and scrambled to hear the words, but it didn’t sound friendly. ‘He gets screamed at to put on some clothes wherever he goes,’ said Sue knowingly. ‘You’d have thought he’d go walking where there are no people.’
When we had finished eggs and tea and went outside, the naked walker was out of sight, but Sue’s husband Tom had just returned from his shopping trip. His attire mirrored Sue’s exactly apart from his trainers which were grey. ‘New to canal life?’ Tom asked happily. ‘Make the most of any shopping opportunities is my advice.’ He pointed at the two big canvas bags bulging with grocery bargains.
Good thinking. I was sure I could cram a few more provisions
on to my floating home and followed Tom’s directions to the nearest supermarket where I loaded a trolley full of food and beers and even remembered the sugar and the washing-up liquid. When I returned to Dreamcatcher, I found that Sue and Tom had also left but at my door lay a packet of chocolate digestives (20% Extra Free) and a note ‘Thanks for the second breakfast. Sue.’
Due to my late start and shopping trip, it was now more or less lunchtime and I was hungry again. Annis’s hopes that canal life might help me lose a few pounds were dashed when an hour later I tumbled oven chips and piri-piri chicken wings on to a huge plate, added a few tablespoons of coleslaw on the side and reached for the ketchup bottle. I was going to have to negotiate locks by myself from now on and had to keep my strength up, I argued with my invisible accuser. Then I cast off and left Devizes behind me, moving ever further east.
By now I had become completely used to the pace at which narrowboats moved. I did not fret when I had to drop my speed due to anglers or moored boats, and after the news that Verity had been seen speeding away from Bradford a week or so earlier, I also came to terms with the thought of never catching up with her. All of which meant that, until I had a new idea about how to prove that Janette Blinkhorn’s fishy husband Henry was alive, I might as well go easy on the guilt and enjoy myself. And I began to enjoy myself.
If you are looking for Essence of England, then the Vale of Pewsey should do you (other quintessentially English landscapes are available), especially if you have the leisure of looking around it at less than walking speed. Dotted with villages, dimpled with gentle hills, criss-crossed by hedgerows and the canal, fringed with trees and encroaching vegetation, snaking through it. Half of the time I was drifting through a jungle that allowed no views other than that of wildlife, a deer springing away at my approach, a kingfisher dive-bombing the water, a bird of prey circling high under a blue sky and, closer to my floating home, a grass snake swimming in the margins, whether for food or pleasure was hard to tell. When I could see further than the jungle fringes, the views were as rural as an abstract artist-turned-landscape painter could wish for. If I was no longer chasing Verity, why didn’t I stop standing three feet from my boat’s diesel exhaust and park the thing somewhere in the sunshine? Somewhere with a view? I had once more managed to completely lose my bearings, as though Devizes had simply been a strange dream and now I was back in a world where I could not name any of the villages and hills I saw. Out here my quietly puttering fifteen-bhp engine was the noisiest thing for miles, with very little competition from a tractor here and there, pulling a trailer across a field in the hazy sunshine. Roads and bridges appeared in front and passed out of view behind on the canal, and if I had thought to bring a map of the network, the numbers on the bridges would have told me where I was and what I was looking at. Naturally, I hadn’t. Being preoccupied with my new and deliciously vague plans and standing in glorious autumn sunshine had the effect of putting my little paranoid bone to sleep. Since leaving Devizes behind, I had drifted along even more slowly than usual with the result that several boats overtook me where the canal was wide enough. While again making polite way for a hire boat in an unseemly hurry, I saw Free Spirit crawling into view far behind. Once more the fibreglass cruiser was behind me and it wouldn’t have surprised me if they had the undertakers in tow. Had I been driving along in a car and seen the same two vehicles in my rear-view mirror, I’d have just put my foot down for a bit and taken a few left and right turns to see if they were following me, and, if so, tried to shake them off, but on a canal that’s rarely an option. I had just passed a winding hole where I could have turned around and travelled back towards Devizes to see what would happen, but apart from not being quite sure what the procedure for turning a boat around was, all that unexpected and frankly undeserved September sunshine was making me lazy. I decided to stop somewhere and moor up for a bit and let them pass me instead and so lay my ridiculous doubts to rest. I was just passing another picturesque village and looking out for a good place to stop when I heard angry voices and shouts from the towpath. The towpath was quite busy this morning with walkers, cyclists and boaters and some kind of bottleneck had occurred, with several people crowded into the space between two moored boats. As I drew up to the place of the commotion, I saw that it involved two couples, several children, two cyclists and a naked man. Several people were yelling at once, the loudest one a burly man who had shouted himself bright red in the face. He wore a white T-shirt and dark-blue shorts, making him look like a walking Union Jack. He was shouting into the naked man’s face while two women, holding on to bawling children, backed him up by interjecting obscenities. The naked man, with his rucksack on his back and his hands slack by his side, seemed to be saying nothing. From what I could hear, the language of the offended strollers was a great deal more obscene than the mere presence of the unclothed man. Without warning, Union Jack took a swing at the naked man, who staggered back towards the water’s edge. Now one of the other men sprang forward and kicked out at him, connecting with a thigh and propelling the naked man backwards into the canal. He went under immediately, pulled down by the weight of his luggage. I had throttled back and turned Dreamcatcher towards the place where he had gone under. The people on the towpath were still shouting; the young cyclists looked shocked. The naked man’s head bobbed up. I could see he was struggling to free himself from his rucksack. When Dreamcatcher’s stern drew level, I threw the engine into reverse until the boat had stopped, then reached out towards the struggling man with my boat hook. He thrashed around in the water, ignoring it, perhaps uncertain whether I was friend or foe. At last I got the hook under a strap on his rucksack and heaved both it and the man towards the boat. When finally he realized that I wasn’t trying to drown him, he struck out with his legs and after some scrabbling, heaving and pulling, I landed a wet naked chap and his soggy possessions on the stern deck where he lay panting and flapping for a moment like a fish out of water. The people on the towpath weren’t finished, however, now shouting that I should have left ‘someone like him’ to drown. I made a couple of succinct internationally recognized hand gestures which prompted the other man to lob a stone in my direction. It overshot. He reached for another but one of the women pulled him away. This was the second time in so many weeks that people had lobbed rocks at me. Since when had we become a nation of stone throwers? I put the engine into forward gear and drew away with my catch into the centre of the canal.
