It didn’t take long before I decided enough was enough. ‘For all our sakes’ I announced, a tad dramatically, ‘we are breaking for the border.’ Forty eight hours later we walked through the door of our Other Life.
My mother had always said you should be able to march straight into the kitchen of that house, put the kettle on, and put your feet up. Do you think she somehow knew that we would all, in turn, come to use the place as a bolthole? I can’t express the joy of pressing a switch and having whatever was on the other end of it, actually come on. Lights worked, doors closed, the water was hot and the ice was cold and above all, beyond all that … there was silence. That wonderful ear buzzing, bone melting silence that makes your limbs soften and tension evaporate, visibly. (Well, when children, dogs, seabirds, wind, waves breaking, shingle shifting and all the rest, allowed.)
But, of course, it didn’t last long. Day two was all it took on this particular trip – and ‘trip’ it was, in more ways than one. Off we went in the RIB to climb to the heronry on the point opposite. I took particular care to strap Jib into his lifejacket that day: it was a bit choppy and he was still somewhat prone to hurling himself into/over/under/out of things, and frankly I couldn’t face the paperwork of registering a missing child, gone overboard. (Let alone the headlines, or the opprobrium at the school gates on our return to the south where people notice these things and feel extraordinarily free to comment.) So, deaf to his complaints, I straight-jacketed him into the thing, and told him not on any account to blow the funky orange whistle now attached to his front, and for the four zillionth time to sit still and STAY still, and off we set.
Can you guess?
No, we landed perfectly safely on the other side.
Relieved and not a little surprised, we decanted. Try as I might however, I found I now couldn’t unstrap Jib. In turn we all battled and swore (adults only, of course) and wrestled with the hitherto obvious system of straps and clips: eventually we gave up, persuaded him it was cool to stay trussed like a beef brisket, and set off up the track through the trees. von Trapp-like we revelled in the nature all around us. Perfect mother that I am I pointed out creatures and growths of interest, reminded them about moss mostly only ever growing on north facing trunks, swatted at the midges that rested on my little darlings’ fair skin. I tell you, Disney had nothing on us.
‘Where’s Jib?’ Bug asked.
‘On ahead!’ I replied, blithely.
‘Er, no ….’ said Whizz, reaching the corner.
Trying very hard not to look down to our left, where the climbing path dropped somewhat abruptly to the rocks and the water below we sped up the track, calling his name. Nothing. No answer. Just the wind, and the waves, and my unfit panting. The hitherto beautiful surroundings were now hostile: every gnarled root tried to catch us as we ran, and every twisted trunk could be hiding a small boy in a ludicrous vest.
And then we heard it. A piercing shriek from yet further up the slope. Bug was off like a hare: by the time we reached them, he was on the ground with Jib in his arms, rocking him. ‘Let me see!’ I insisted, peeling them apart.
Now I’m not very good with blood. It’s very inconvenient, actually. Until I had children, I was fine but the minute the first was born, it was game over – a pinprick remains just about manageable but anything else is still seriously bad news. A scraped knee elicits retching; a shaving cut requires a bucket and mop. The scene that now met us had me spilling Jib to the floor as I bent double in the undergrowth, honking for Britain. When it was over, I braved it and took another look.
‘Let me see!’ I repeated, gulping bile.
Remember the whistle? He had got out of sight, and put it in his mouth, and trotted on enjoying the squeaks it made as he breathed. Uphill he went, loving his day and his freedom – until he tripped and fell, shoving an incisor right back and forcing both it and the whistle into the roof of his mouth.
That was the first time we went to A&E by boat. Quite fun, actually.
Life On The Edge (of the Fens) 