‘It beats me every time,’ Gray moans, shaking his head as he stares at the charred pile of kindling inside the open door of the stove. The cabin is smelling very smoky, it’s true, but there isn’t even a hint of a flame now. After several attempts, I think it’s finally gone out.
Gray moves back towards me, making room for Abe and his sacks to negotiate the two steps down into the hull. That’s the trouble with a narrowboat, everything is so compact. Abe places his load in the opposite corner and stands with his hands on his hips, surveying the mess Gray has made trying to get the fire going.
‘Oh my. I’m guessing you weren’t in the Boy Scouts, then, or went on camping trips when you were a nipper.’
Gray gives an apologetic look. ‘No, and no. This is usually Tollie’s job, but he’s with Mrs Price.’ Gray drops his tone, reverentially. ‘They’re printing out the silver ticket letters today, ready to go out in the post on Monday.’
Mrs Price is about five-foot-two, very slim and is always smartly dressed. She’s a dead ringer for the smiley female chef who features on the packaging of my favourite pancake mix. With her hair up in a clip and perfectly made-up, she always makes me wish I glanced in the mirror more often. However, looks can be deceiving because she’s not a jolly, ‘life and soul of the party’ sort of woman. She’s rather reserved and I only see her around if it’s something to do with her community work. It’s not that she’s sharp, I muse, it’s more that she gets straight to the point.
And it’s rare, indeed, to see her at a purely social event – which is a relief, as, if you find yourself next to her, Mrs Price is not the easiest of people with whom to exchange small talk. You instinctively feel personal questions are not permitted and she can be a tad frosty if you unwittingly say the wrong thing.
Before I came to live with Tollie, she was his housekeeper and kept him very firmly in line. Shortly after I moved in she quit, saying I ‘wasn’t house-trained’, as if I were a stray puppy. At the time I thought that was rather harsh and very hurtful, given my situation. But with hindsight I came to see that she had a point. I was a lazy teenager with a chip on my shoulder, and I did nothing except feel sorry for myself and make a mess.
It was the peak of my angry phase and because Tollie, in his grief, didn’t know how to address it, suddenly we had to muddle through together. The cottage wasn’t always a pretty sight at first, but we learnt as we went along. When you are forced to live in the chaos you create, you soon begin to put things away and wash the dishes, and clothes, before you run out of clean stuff.
So really Mrs Price did us a favour when she quit. She is a dispenser of tough love. Rumour has it that she’s a widow; she never mentions family at all. I’d say she’s in her early fifties and I will admit I am a little curious that she appears to have cut herself off from her past. However, you learn to respect the secrets that people choose not to divulge. She’s another of the marina’s waifs and strays, I suppose. But life here wouldn’t be the same without her, despite the way we all tend to tread cautiously whenever she’s around.
Abe is already kneeling in front of the stove, moving things around with a poker.
‘Right, Gray, take note. If Tollie sees this muddle he’ll laugh his socks off! First things first. Immi, my lovely, can you fetch me a couple of pieces of kitchen towel and run them under the tap? Not too wet, ta.’
Placing the box of silver baubles back on the dinette table, I give Abe a little salute, before heading off to the galley at the far end of the boat. It’s next to the head and the rain locker. I laughed when Fisher first showed me around his pride and joy, taking time to educate me about the nautical terms. Head for toilet? Rain locker for shower made sense and I rather liked that, but head had me scratching my head.
When I return, Abe has already re-laid most of the semi-charred kindling that Gray had piled inside the stove. He takes the tissue from me, sticking his hand inside the cavity of the fire to dab it onto the ashes at the very back.
‘There,’ he says as he rubs the now smutty paper onto the blackened glass in the stove’s door. ‘Keep rubbing like this and there’s enough abrasion to clean this up without scratching the surface. No point lighting a fire if you can’t see it,’ he declares loudly.
Gray kneels down next to him, a serious look on his face as he takes instruction. I return to my task of dressing the three compact little Christmas trees. One will go on the foredeck, opposite the gangplank, one on the towpath and one in the saloon.
It’s quite an art decorating the two four-foot and one three-foot-high potted trees. The smaller one for the saloon requires trimming so it will fit snugly back into the corner. It sits on what is normally a storage locker doubling as a seat. This narrowboat is almost seven-feet wide, but in the saloon area we have the Villager Puffin stove, Santa’s bench – which is a double storage locker with a padded cushion – and the tree. Once the fire is lit I’ll put down a special mat for the older children to sit on. Little ones often prefer to sit on a parent’s lap at the dinette benches until it’s their turn to talk to Santa.
I have already entwined lights on the two outside trees, begun hanging the baubles and have moved on to the snowflakes. Thank goodness there are four dinettes, as the fourth table has all the decorations laid out neatly, like a little production line.
Hearing the two men bantering away in the background causes a satisfied little smile to fleetingly cross my face. This is what families do. They pull together and help each other out. Although it’s by default, I rationalise that Tollie and I are lucky that we can choose our family; no awkward relatives to placate, just a bunch of interesting characters with whom we love to spend time.
‘Yoo hoo! Can I hop aboard?’
‘Come on in, Ethel. Join the party!’ I exclaim, and as I look up it’s as if a rainbow has floated in through the door. Ethel is a colourful lady, both in her actions and the way she dresses.
Today it’s a leaf-green hand-knitted scarf that is wrapped around her neck at least three times and trails down almost to the hem of her cherry-red coat. ‘I’m just an old hippy,’ she’s always saying, but she brightens the room whenever she enters.
‘Oh, Lordy. Good luck with that, Abe. Ah, Imogen, I thought you might be able to use these.’ Ethel places a wicker basket on the bench seat alongside me and I peer inside.
‘Ooh. What a gorgeous scent these pine cones have. Thank you so much, Ethel, they’re perfect. It’s one of my favourite Christmas smells. That and cinnamon.’
She gives me a wonderfully warm smile and if ever I had a picture in my head of what my mother might look like, Ethel embodies it. Energetic, wiry, bubbling with enthusiasm and kind-hearted. Except Ethel cares about people, and clearly my mother didn’t.
Ethel is the Mother Earth to Abe’s Green Man. I start laughing.
‘What’s going on inside that wicked little mind of yours, Immi?’ she enquires.
‘Dangerous question,’ Gray butts in and she beams at him.
‘I’ve brought some paper clips,’ she adds, lifting a little envelope out of the basket. ‘If you open them up you can hook one end around the scales and use the other end to hang the cones from the branches.’