Narrow Dog to Carcassonne Read Free Page B

and the
Phyllis May
come level. The rope slackened and Monica pulled it free. The gongoozler had fled.
    We hung a knife under the throttle so next time we can cut the rope, then I will take the knife and Jim and I will go and find the gongoozler.
             
    NEAR DAVENTRY OUR SECTION OF THE GRAND Union Canal meets the main branch from Birmingham, and together they head south for Milton Keynes and London. The centre of Milton Keynes is black glass and concrete and does not allow dogs or people. Under the flyover the stalls of an outdoor market had sprung, like flowers between the tiles of a urinal.
    We moored for a sunny fortnight among the parks and lakes. In the mornings the swans woke us, tapping politely as they cleaned the waterline. In the afternoons we dozed as the ceiling swarmed with light, and in the evenings the radio played the songs we used to know.
    Before breakfast Jim would come into the cabin and fix us with his burnt gold eyes—Lazy buggers, what about the run? Your dog is taking over, said Monica, he’s gaining control, like it says in the books. No he isn’t, I said, he’s a whippet, they like to run, that’s what they’re for. I don’t like the way he stares at me while he does his stretching exercises, said Monica, and I don’t like the way he sits by the door, lacing up his running shoes and looking at his watch.
    As we jogged Jim did fast interval work, then long slow distance, drifting an inch above the ground. He drifted straight, not sideways like a wolf. If we met other dogs he always raced them and he always won. When he met an obstacle he would take to the air, pausing in mid-flight like a dancer.
             
    A DAY DOWN THE GRAND UNION TO LEIGHTON Buzzard. What a nice old-fashioned name, said Monica, and a supermarket right by the towpath. As Jim and I sat on a bench a girl in a leather miniskirt lowered herself alongside. Jim began to lick her blubbery knees lasciviously. Suddenly she rose and struck through the window of a passing car, punching and screaming as her victim fishtailed away. Then she swaggered by with a friend—a young man who had been thrown out of Hell’s Angels because of dress sense and body-fat ratio. Jim made a final pass at the knees, but his heart was not in it.
    Later we set out through streets paved with chewing gum and kebabs, to look for a launderette. We found one, but there were people fighting inside.
    Jim added to the sorrow in this strife-torn community by seizing a teddy bear from a gift-shop shelf and jumping on it. I mean, what do you say? What would you say in France?
Madame
, I am desolated, my small dog has ravished your bear of plush. But
madame
, I insist, I am going to buy it, because my small dog will amuse himself with it well—oh my God let’s get out of here.

    RANKS OF HIPPIE CRAFT ROTTING PEACEFULLY under the hedges—we were near the capital. At Bulls Bridge we turned left on to the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union. We have reached an historic junction, I said to Monica—it is time to pull out the big one.
Faire sortir le grand jeu?
asked Monica. Yes indeed, I said, the hour has come.
    We went forward and opened the gas locker, which is the bit you sit on in the front of the boat. It held gas bottles, dead fenders, rusty saws, and the remains of creatures that had crawled in out of the cut, planning to set up home. There was also a bundle that looked like the construction kit for a light aircraft.
    When the lavatory tank on the
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is full we call at a marina, which attaches a hose to the boat and pumps the tank out into a green lorry, which drives off and empties itself over the head of the man who runs Railtrack. But in France everything has to go into the cut. So we had bought our own pump-out kit, which we laid out on the bank next to the sanitary station. It looked like a sixty-foot brown snake that had died in congress with a lawnmower, gathering up in its final convulsions other gear and tackle and trim,