Narrow Dog to Carcassonne Read Free Page A

pit. This is the fault line, where the newly dead meet those soon to die, and trade in drugs and sodomy. As the boat slips under the tower they stand in the darkness and watch. If you are not currently in the drugs or sodomy business they let you pass.
    One wraith, a boy in a white singlet, stepped forward to help Monica close the lock. He was frail, dying or dead already—his weight on the beam made no difference. Why don’t we go back, said Monica, and save him and bring him up as one of us? I know, I know, I said, but I have got enough on my hands with you and a sixteen-ton boat, not to mention a dog that knows no respect, without getting mixed up with the walking dead.
    So we were not afeared when we moored at Leicester, by Abbey Park, gathering our strength for the six-hour leg the next day. Until there came a knocking and a huge figure in rainbow leathers sprang aboard, a spaceman helmet under his arm. Good gracious, said Monica, he’s come to kill us all. Showing no fear Jim leaped on the giant as he advanced down the boat, ready to bear him to the ground, lick him into submission, and take him to the pub to buy scratchings.
    I am your ranger, said the giant. In fact I am your lone ranger—the other one is off today. I understand you have had your boat let loose. Yes, I said, we had to fetch it back from under the bridge. We have never had boats loosed before, said the Lone Ranger. Yes you have, I said, the security man opposite said it happened on Friday. Ah, said the Lone Ranger, there was Friday. And on Saturday, I said, they let a big barge loose and blocked the whole navigation. There is some truth in that, said the Lone Ranger, but you should not think badly of our city—look how secure this mooring is. But they stepped over the fence, I said. Yes, I suppose you can step over the fence, admitted the masked rider of the plains, but this vandal reputation is not fair. People expect trouble and the kids see the fear in their eyes and take advantage. It’s only fun, with a bit of theft and intimidation thrown in. You must take a positive attitude—ours is a peaceful and beautiful city. What time are you leaving tomorrow? Six o’clock, I said.
    The sun rises at five, said the Lone Ranger, you don’t want to leave it too long.
             
    TO STEER A NARROWBOAT YOU STAND ON THE back, look forward along the roof, and grip between your buttocks a brass broom-handle which is bolted to the rudder. Every ripple strikes to the roots of your teeth. A moment’s inattention and sixteen tons of steel and crockery smash into the scenery. If you hit another narrowboat you bounce off, and if you hit a fibreglass cruiser you pass through it, making practically no noise at all.
    But boat-owners don’t go boating—they leave their craft where moth and rust do corrupt, and mink break through and steal, and sit at home watching
Star Trek
. So we laboured alone down the wide locks of the Grand Union. For days we hit no bridges nor knocked anything off the roof. Then we met the most fearful danger.
    I was filling a lock and a gongoozler leaned over the side—Is this your boat, have you come far? A gongoozler is someone who stares at boaters. Monica answered from the tiller, trying to be polite, holding the boat steady with a rope through a ladder in the wall. But the rope had jammed and as the lock filled the stern of the boat was being pulled under. In seconds water would flood through the engine-room and the
Phyllis May
would sink. Jim was shut inside; Monica had no life jacket and she can’t swim. Last year four people drowned like this.
    Time stopped and I seemed to watch myself from the outside. I engaged the lock key and dropped the paddle in the lock gate to stop water flowing in. Then I hurled to the other end to let water out. I was barefoot and there were stones and nettles but in my own dimension I was safe from harm. Returning to Greenwich Mean Time and working on my oxygen debt I watched the lock empty