Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier Page 23

  The fight wound down into hissing and crouching but one was hissing and crouching better than the other and the loser slunk away.

  The chap on the next boat explained – It was a struggle to choose the dominant male. Must have been some sort of change of government.

  My God, I said, it was worse than a Stone Master Marathoners committee meeting.

  Remember Jim in Calais? asked Monica.

  You mean when he pissed against the mattress in the market stall and the big brown chap got threatening?

  No, on the beach.

  My word he was marvellous, wasn’t he? He can fly and he was flying then, in great circles in the sun. I measured his pawmarks and he hit the sand every ten feet.

  And we walked right down to the water and watched the ferries. They were so big, and seemed to stand in the water rather than float, and I could not believe there was enough water for them.

  There is a channel dredged I guess.

  And you could see England, said Monica, but it did not look near – the Channel was huge and the waves and you could feel the currents and I thought of how we sailed it and I was amazed.

  I couldn’t believe it either. Fancy messing with the Channel, with all that power, all that depth. In our little Phyllis May. I would say we must have been mad but that’s a corny thing to say. The only time the Channel did not scare me stiff was when we were on it.

  Jim remembered the Channel beach, said Monica, when we took him to Freshwater West in Pembrokeshire last year. He pulled us down the dunes with Jess and could not wait to reach the sand and they ran almost but not quite as if they were together. They ran and ran – I don’t know why sand suits them so well – they weren’t bred to it.

  But think of when we were in training – grass is soft and slows you down, and the roads are hard but sand is true and forgiving.

  The day we took Jim and Jess to Freshwater West there had been a strong wind and the waves were coming from America like rows of terrace houses. The sun was bright and the wind was shouting and tearing off the crests and throwing them to the side, along the line of the waves, in crystal and white fire. The waves rushed towards us and one by one fell crashing and then they spread and turned to glass and died at our feet.

  The beach had been empty but here is a man in a black rubber suit, fussing with some ropes on the sand. He had a red face and big shoulders like a farm labourer. Jim and Jess greeted him and he patted them absently.

  He walked down to the surf and threw a kite into the air and leapt up after it, flying along the waves, twenty, thirty feet up. What strength to pull himself up, what stamina to control the flight for so long. We stood and clapped but he could not have heard us in the thundering or seen us as air and water fought around him.

  Remember, every day whatever we are doing those waves are still coming in. Sometimes they are quiet, sometimes driven by a hurricane. They are breaking now as I write – see how that crest rolls over and the foam, the foam.

  Our mooring on the Macclesfield Canal is among the finest ever seen. I know I keep saying things like that but I guess I just like canals. Anyway we are on a viaduct hundreds of feet above a river valley so you have one valley crossing another and Christ how green and soft is the sun.

  I go for a walk back up the flight of locks with Jim and Jess. There are half a dozen boats coming down and five of them greet Jim and me by name and come and say hello to Jess. One of them is reading Carcassonne on a Kindle – I had never seen a Kindle and it seemed a strange little machine. Soon they will invent something to replace the dog. You will be able to have a different breed each day. You will switch it on and it will eat the zip off your best jacket.

  On the boat Monica is mixing up the Spam Lite with the dogs’ tranquillizers, ready for the Harecastle Tunnel. Hey, leave some for my lunch!

  Two tablets each this time because when we went through the Standedge Tunnel they were not happy.

  The canal water is turning orange – iron ore in the tunnel. The ducks don’t seem to mind – I bet they lay rusty eggs, and God knows what colour the fish are round here. No waiting today – the British Waterways gentleman waves Monica into the Harecastle.

  Monica is moving along and not hitting anything. It is an advantage to be small if you are going through a tunnel – you are less likely to be bashed on the head. I went down from the back counter and Jess was waiting for me. I turned on all the lights in the boat with Jess glued to me all the time. Now Monica can see the sides of the tunnel. Jim and Jess took up their emergency positions on and around me but they were not distressed this time. Steady, darlings, we’ll be there soon.

  Only forty minutes and the world reappears in grey and green and a bright white sky. We always have a glass of rum after a tunnel, for the nerves and to warm us up – tunnels are cold.

  Oh yes, I will, thanks Mon, just to keep you company. What was it like after the Standedge?

  Like driving up the M6.

  Past pretty Westport Lake with its coots. Coots make a noise like a pebble being dropped into a bucket. In fact if you look closely under the bank you can sometimes see the little black chaps dropping pebbles into a bucket.

  Now past Longport basin, where the PM2 was built. The owner who designed her was not in but there was a mermaid. We roped up for some diesel.

  The mermaid lay up the arm and shoulder of the big chap on the next boat. He bent his arm and she waved her tail invitingly. He had other tattoos but the mermaid was best. You have cost me a fortune, he said.

  Moi?

  Yes, I read your book and sold my house and bought this fifty-footer. Very expensive boat. Many times I have blamed you for being an influence when I couldn’t really afford it but I’m glad now.

  The mermaid winked at me and her bosom heaved.

  Onward to the south. When we bought the Phyllis May fifteen years ago we sailed her right through the heart of the Shelton steelworks, through the blasting and clanging, but now the lone and level sands4 stretch far away.

  Etruria, to moor in the Festival Park. We can go to the pictures. Last time we saw a picture about Australia5 with Nicole Kidman, who looked as if she needed a cup of tea and a lie-down. Hugh Jackman was in it too, looking so handsome I almost fancied him myself.

  Tomorrow Dave is coming to help us down the locks into Aston.

  Dave was captain of Stone Master Marathoners before Monica. He is a young chap, ten years younger than me, and a devil with a lock key. He slung his bike under the cratch and in no time we were through the steep locks of Stoke.

  Poor derelict Stoke, so ill served by management and government. When I was teaching there, new council offices were built, looming over the five towns from high ground, ugly and arrogant. I called the building the castle of Mordor.6 Five years ago it was pulled down – it was never safe.

  Lovely, bonkers people. One day Monica and I were having a drink in a pub in Stoke when a chap sitting near us commented on her watch – the Rolex I had bought her when we became business partners. He showed us his watch, which was rather smart and curious and then rolled up his sleeve. He had watches all up his arm.

  Now we are alongside the great incinerator. The weak sun struck its corrugated walls and roof green and cream, as if newly washed. Blunt arches like a Norman castle, a fat chimney. Stoke’s beautiful dustbin.

  Barlaston and the Plume of Feathers. We had to have a pint after all that – I mean we always do – Come on Mon, be a sport – I know we never drink in the middle of the day but this is the Plume, the last stop before our destination.

  Jack Bissex used to run this pub, Dave. He was a jogger forty years ago – grand chap – older than us, probably dead now. If you are out there, Jack, do get in touch. But if you are dead it’s probably best if you work your side of the street7 and I work mine.

  Past the Star and on to Aston Lock. It all began at Aston Lock, where you can look out on the fields and spires. And now it is ending – ten years of adventure – France, America, England.

&nbs
p; On a summer evening in Stone any time not spent drinking beer by a canal is time wasted. We sat in one of those little cabins on the side of Aston Marina with Dave and Rose. Rose won many marathons as a veteran runner, some in less than three hours.

  The dogs were at our feet and there were bottles on the table and bags of scratchings.

  Jim is changing colour, said Rose. He’s going all white from the end of his nose – it’s almost reached his ears.

  Yes, I said, whippets go white slowly from the nose and when the white reaches their tail they die.

  How is Jess’s leg? asked Rose.

  Sometimes it seems stronger, then she stops using it again. It’s been months. We don’t know, we don’t know.

  She seems cheerful about it, said Rose.

  She breaks my heart,8 I said.

  What are you two doing next, Mon? asked Dave.

  In February we are going to Hong Kong and then up across Australia from Adelaide to Darwin on a train. It’s to celebrate our golden wedding. It’ll be lovely – I can let someone else do the organizing and the driving. A lady who is visiting Stone is going to live in our house and look after Jim and Jess.

  And when you get back, more crazy expeditions on your narrowboat?

  I don’t know, I said. It’s too soon to say. I am still on painkillers and there is poor Jess. But the main thing is I really can’t think of anything I want now out of life that I haven’t got or haven’t done, including adventures. I know it’s a negative view and arrogant even and I haven’t done that much really and the world is a big and marvellous place and maybe it’s the shingles and there is so much out there but at the moment I am saying to myself I’m seventy-five and I have had my share.

  Why did you do your adventuring?

  We wanted to show that old guys can have adventures, same as when we all proved that you could become an athlete in your forties or even your seventies. We wanted to push the omelette and change the way people think. In the process we had the best and most successful years of our lives, and I hope we showed some others the way.

  But what’s next?

  Dave, I bet when Ulysses arrived at Ithaca he felt he would just like a bloody good sit-down.

  He went off again, said Monica, with his old mates.

  Death closes all:9 but something ere the end,

  Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

  Not unbecoming men who strove with Gods.

  We didn’t strive with Gods, I said.

  No, but we strove with the Thames, and the Severn, and the Channel, and the Rhône, and the Albemarle Sound, and Lake Okeechobee. I bet those places would have had Gods in the old days.

  The Severn has got a God, said Rose. She is called Sabrina. I saw her statue in Shrewsbury.

  When I was in business, I said, I thought it would be marvellous if our telephonist could say – Mr Darlington cannot speak to you today, he is navigating the drains.

  The Norfolk drains, said Monica. Yes there are quite a few places even in the UK that we have not navigated yet.

  You have written a Narrow Dog Trilogy, said Rose. Every writer should have an ilogy, and you’ve got an ilogy. Terry and his ilogy.

  That may be enough, I said. Terry and his ilogy. There should be something ere the end, said Monica – some work of noble note.

  The dogs look so happy, said Dave. They know what they want – they are home and that’s fine and they don’t want you to go anywhere.

  On the floor Jim and Jess were trying to push both their bodies into the same bag of scratchings.

  Jim looked up and grinned and Jess farted.

  News of the PM2 and its crew can be found at

  www.narrowdog.com.

  NOTES

  A reader with nothing worthwhile to do could seek entertainment in some of the sources mentioned. (The poem by Lord John Wilmot is rude, so you won’t want to bother with that one.)

  Some of these notes may appear obvious, but bear in mind that the book will be read in savage lands, where people may not have heard of Kathy Kirby.

  Chapter One – Stone

  1 Jim Francis is Dead – poem by Terry Darlington.

  2 Parable of the talents – Matthew 25. All biblical references are to the King James Version, and I should think so too.

  3 Horseman, pass by. Inscription on gravestone of W. B. Yeats.

  4 I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways/ Of my own mind – poem by Francis Thompson, ‘The Hound of Heaven’.

  5 Ancient person of my heart – poem by Lord John Wilmot, ‘A Song of a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover’.

  6 Consummatum est – John 24.

  7 Go, litel bok – poem by Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, V.

  8 Othello’s occupation’s gone – Othello, IV. iii.

  9 Wreck upon the sand … one thing worse – song by Alfred Williams, ‘A Man Without A Woman (Silver Dollar)’.

  10 Young Hearts Run Free – song by Candi Staton.

  11 What spires, what farms? – poem by A. E. Housman, ‘Into My Heart an Air that Kills’.

  12 The Grimpen Mire – deadly bog in The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.

  13 Creature from the Black Lagoon – film directed by Jack Arnold, written by Arthur A. Ross and Harry Essex.

  14 They fle from me that sometyme did me seke – poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

  15 To every thing there is a season – Ecclesiastes 3.

  16 To die, to sleep – Hamlet, III. i.

  17 Nothing left remarkable – Antony and Cleopatra, IV. xv.

  18 All her bright golden hair – poem by Oscar Wilde, ‘Requiescat’.

  19 Moving finger – poem by Edward FitzGerald, ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’.

  20 Gone with the Wind country – Margaret Mitchell’s novel is set in South Carolina.

  Chapter Two – The Mersey and Liverpool

  1 I never loved the Phyllis May – sentiments by Jim the Whippet, words by Terry Darlington.

  2 Russell Newbery – engines developed in the twenties and thirties.

  3 Jam ’Ole Run – until 1970 pairs of narrowboats would travel from Atherstone to Brentford carrying coal for the Kearley and Tonge jam factory. The trade ceased when two crew members and a journalist died of boredom while talking about it.

  4 May there be no moaning – poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, ‘Crossing the Bar’.

  5 Tits Magee – see Narrow Dog to Indian River.

  6 Cutty wrens – cutty is a corruption of petit and is Pembrokeshire dialect (like elligug for guillemot and laverack for mole).

  7 Drowsed with the fume of poppies – poem by John Keats, ‘Ode to Autumn’.

  8 Divinely formed and fair – poem by Cecil Day Lewis, ‘The Unwanted’.

  9 Zounds – the oath is more than five hundred years old, as is Odds Boddikins (God’s little body).

  10 There rain’d a ghastly dew – poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, ‘Locksley Hall’. (Blood falling from fighting airships.)

  11 Inferno 1940 – paperback by Vernon Scott. Western Telegraph publications.

  12 Strange images of death – Macbeth, I. iii.

  13 Have you got your shorts on the right way round? – Narrow Dog to Indian River.

  14 Over the mirrors – poem by Thomas Hardy, ‘The Convergence of the Twain’.

  15 Yours – song by Gonzalo Roig and Jack Sherr.

  16 The White Cliffs Of Dover – song by Walter Kent and Nat Burton.

  17 Jane – Daily Mirror strip cartoon.

  18 Big Eggo, Corky the Cat – front-page characters in Beano and Dandy comics. (Big Eggo was an ostrich.)

  19 Of paradise, so late their happy seat – Milton, Paradise Lost, VII.

  Chapter Three – Liverpool and the Rufford Branch

  1 The kingdom of the mad – poem by Robert Lowell, ‘Man and Wife’.

  2 Dr Morelle – I made this extract up.

  3 Dear dead days – song by James Lynam Molloy, ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’.

  4 ’Tis
all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days – poem by Edward FitzGerald, ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’.

  5 I saw Eternity the other night – poem by Henry Vaughan, ‘The World’.

  6 Blood on the leaves – from ‘Strange Fruit’, poem about Southern lynchings by Abel Meeropol, music by Sonny White with Billie Holiday. ‘A prime piece of musical propaganda’ – attack by Time magazine, 1939. ‘Song of the century’ – Time, 1999.

  7 O how amiable – Psalm 84.

  8 Roger – if you are out there do get in touch. Tony and I would love to see you again and I might be able to fix a gig at a harvest festival in Penkridge.

  9 Yukkers – Pembrokeshire schoolboy slang for unfledged birds.

  10 Lord, send me some comfort; Gulls’ wings; I hang from a rope of light – verses by Terry Darlington.

  11 Roswell High – US television series, 1999–2002.

  12 A placeman – from Ben Pimlott’s biography Hugh Dalton – ‘The County Durham educational system was highly politicised, with key appointments in the hands of the Labour party machine … when you saw a teacher in the party you should beware. He was there until he got his headship, and then that was all you ever saw of him.’

  13 State scholarship – national award based on papers outside A-level syllabus – carried a rather bigger grant. Monica got one too. In the fifties few went to university and it was normal to have a grant which covered nearly all the cost.

  14 Heidi – 1880 novel for children by Johanna Spyri. BBC Wales was strong in drama; attracted large audiences.

  15 When I go mad – verse by Terry Darlington.

  16 Jack Nicholson and Nurse Ratched – in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jack Nicholson played Randle McMurphy, a mental patient, and Louise Fletcher the power-hungry ward sister.

  17 Post-War Credits – refunds of wartime taxation finally repaid in 1973.

  18 Deep insulin treatment – now discredited.

  19 Between my teeth – verse by Terry Darlington.