Toad in the Hole (9 page)

They say, go big or go home. I’d prefer to go home after going big.

Stuck in tight, highly romantic quarters on a boat—odds are in my favor.

W
agers

J
une weather in London was a lot like my life—unpredictable. The morning hung in a perpetual state of gloom. Eerie clouds dashed through the sky, merging and breaking into larger clusters in an attempt to build the strength to soak everything below.

“It’s going to rain,” I told Travis.

After he cut the engine,
Her Grace
drifted toward the pier at Ye Olde Pub.

“Your shoulder jibbing you?”

Gathering nautical maps and a notebook from a cubby near the tiller, I nodded. “Let’s eat breakfast inside.”

I found plastic ponchos and umbrellas, and even discovered fishing gear in a trunk under some cushions, which was a score.

Hopping off the deck, I held the line. I’d watched my college roommate tie half a dozen hitch knots to secure her father’s ski boat when I visited her home in New Bern, North Carolina, and repeated what I’d seen at the bow and the stern.

Travis leapt onto the dock. “Where’d you learn that?”

“Katie Lee.”

“Who knew she’d actually provide useful knowledge that didn’t land us in trouble.”

“That’s not a fair statement to make when she’s not here to defend herself.”

“Thank God. I can’t even imagine what predicament we’d be in if she was here.”

I didn’t comment. I had enough to sort out without getting into it about the effect my roommate might have on our well-being.

Inside the pub, Travis and I settled into a corner booth and sat on navy cushions with screen-printed red anchors. I spread a laminated map of the River Thames on the table and handed him a notebook.

“Have you decided?” I asked.

“English breakfast.”

I raised a finger. “Two.”

He looked up. “Where’s the server?”

“Self-service,” I said and stood up. “I’ll order for us. Tea?”

Opening the notebook, he nodded.

Tea in England was better than coffee in England which tended to be on the weak side. We both needed large doses of caffeine to figure out a plan. When I returned to the table I began to study the nautical map. “This charts the water elevations and canals. Distance is in meters. Crap, we have to convert to miles. Do you remember the conversion?”

“1,609 meters to a mile,” he mouthed as he turned a page.

“So based on an average speed. Shit!”

“What,” he asked looking around the deserted pub.

“The boat’s odometer thingie probably measures in knots.”

“One mile is equal to 1.05 knots.”

“Well, aren’t you a wealth of conversion information.”

A server placed two hot teapots on the table and put quilted oven mitts on top of them along with cups, milk, and sugar.

“Do those catch the drips?” I asked pointing to the pot covers.

She gave me a stare that I translated as
what planet are you from
? “It’s a tea cozy? Keeps the pot warm.”

Travis closed the notebook and set it aside.

“Breakfast will be up shortly,” she said and disappeared.

Pouring a cup, and adding a drop of milk, Travis stretched an arm across the back of the booth. He downed a scalding mouthful without flinching, then watched as I added two sugars and a generous dollop of milk to my cup.

“What?”

“You’re turning your tea into a dessert.”

“I like sweet things.”

The pub door opened and a blast of chilled wind coughed inside. Raindrops began splatting against the paned windows. “Great, now we’re going to have to factor in weather conditions when we devise our route.”

Travis took another sip of his tea and watched as our plates arrived—fried eggs, sunny side up, toast, bacon and sausage, broiled tomato, and something circular that looked like a burnt shriveled hockey puck.

My eye traveled from Travis’s smug face to the steam that rose off my plate. Food swung his happy meter. Pointing to the kitchen-catastrophe-blackened-unidentifiable blob that shouldn’t have made it onto a plate, I asked the server, “Mystery eggs?”

“It’s black pudding. Made from pig’s blood,” she said and left.

Travis leaned in. “Want mine?”

He knew I didn’t
.

Rubbing his hands together, he said, “We don’t have to plot anything.”

“I don’t think this is the kind of trip where we should wing it. Neither of us has experience navigating a boat on a river.”

He patted the notebook. “The entire trip’s itinerary has been mapped out for us.”

“Ha ha,” I chirped.

Sliding the bound pages toward me, he drummed his fingers on the blue cover.

I flipped it open. There was a journal entry. The handwriting I’d seen before. It had fancy loops that trailed off. My grandmother’s script was artistry, something a devoted monk could spend a lifetime striving to master. It listed the kilometers to London, the docks to moor at, pubs and restaurants, even hotel reservations, and a day trip that included options: Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, and an address for Asprey on New Bond Street. In the side margin, there was a notation. Garrard’s, Regent Street, Sonny.

“GG wasn’t kidding. She’d really had this river trip planned.”

Working on a slice of bacon, Travis half-nodded and I got the recurring impression my grandmother wasn’t on the list of his favorite people.

Turning the pages, I scoured the notes. After following the River Thames for two days, we’d backtrack to the Oxford Canal, and be in Stratford-upon-Avon in another three days time.

Breaking the yolk of my egg, I let it soak the corner of my toast. “So we’ll follow her itinerary?”

“Yeah, I guess. We’ll head into London, moor the boat at some place called Blackfriars Underpass, and spend the night.”

Pushing my plate aside, I looked at a second map that pinpointed touristy attractions in London. “Regent Street isn’t far from the river—maybe even walkable.”

“Rachael, do you really want to spend the afternoon in a jewelry shop asking about amethyst oyster brooches, and if any were stolen from a time when no one remembers?”

My cheeks warmed. “Yes I do.”

“It’s a golden goose egg chase. Nothing is going to come of it.”

“Wanna bet?”

“That’s childish. You’ve only said that to get me to go.”

I reached in my pocket and pulled out two ten pound notes from the stash GG had given me to pay for breakfast. “Fine, you can stay on the barge all afternoon. Take a nap. Rest your boring ass.”

Travis’s shoulders deflated. “What are the stakes and what are we betting?”

“Loser has to consume an English meal of the winner’s choosing.”

He eyed the untouched black pudding on his plate then mine. “O’Brien, you are wicked.”

NOTE TO SELF

With a wad of English money and an itinerary, this river trip could actually turn out to be fun. I choose my bets wisely.

No matter what happens at Garrard’s, I’ll be the winner.

C
heeky

T
hree gray swans with charcoal beaks and glassy black eyes bobbed on the current near the bank. The birds took turns tipping upside down to forage beneath the surface for a late morning snack of pondweed and tadpoles.

Travis wouldn’t part from his new best friend, an oversized, bee-yellow waterproof poncho, and wore it about as stylishly as a Boston fisherman. Beneath hooded rain gear, he steered us closer to shore and cut the engine to a crawl to minimize the wake
Her Grace
cut up. From inside the boat, I watched eight
rowers tuck their heads down as sheets of rain speared them and the shell they oared as they dug in, fighting against the current.

Being in the same outfit for two days I’d begun to smell like Girl Scout camp at the end of summer. It wasn’t the nostalgic smoky s’mores smell, but more the whiff of outhouse when you first open the door. I’d found a change of clothes inside a vertical cubby the size of a broom closet. A snappy pair of pink capris matched with a gingham cotton shirt and sweater set. There were several pairs of clean underwear with the clothes, and as hard as I tried to forget, I knew I was wearing granny panties. Flashy and bright in a color I’d never buy, I felt like a relative of Hello Kitty. Tucking my ankles under my bottom, I draped the bed quilt over my shoulders. If I’d stumbled upon mittens and earmuffs, I’d have worn them too. Anything that helped shield me from the rain that made me feel damp to the core.

Tinkering with the radio, Travis found a BBC station with Downtown Julie Brown hosting. We both recognized her raspy accent that introduced our favorite MTV videos. “Nice!”

Tucking my head into the map, I concentrated on gauging our location.

Exploring the throttle’s range, Travis maneuvered to the left bank. “Get a load of this.”

I moved toward a set of windows and rubbed the dew from the fog with my elbow. On top of a hill, a stone fortress commanded the landscape. That must be “Windsor Castle!” Mid-gawk, I decided it was worth scrambling on deck and braving the wet.

“If walls could talk,” he mused

“I’m not sure anyone would be prepared for what they’d say.”

Rain beaded down the plastic coat he wore and began to soak the quilt that covered most of me.

“Doesn’t the queen live there?”

“Sometimes. If she’s home they fly her flag. I bet William the Conqueror would shit if he could see what the fortification he built was today.”

Travis continued to putter close to shore and adjusted the engine to a steady chug. We both braved the elements to grapple with the spans of history and the financial resources that built the monster castle we floated past.

He rubbed his hands together. “Can you imagine the heating bills?”

“No,” I scoffed.

“Rachael, what are we doing?”

Refusing to admit that I really had no idea, I manufactured a ‘could-happen’ truth. “This is a unique touristy diversion. Once we hook up with GG and Edmond, we’ll probably be longing for all the fun we had on the river. Someday, our grandkids will beg for this story.”

“First you tell the keeper we’re married and now you’re reminiscing about our grandchildren. Rachael, you’re frightening.”

“I didn’t mean our grandchildren as in you and me. The last thing on my brain is having children. I said it metaphorically. This is a trip of a lifetime, snaking down the River Thames. We’re seeing England from a different vantage point.”

He gazed into my eyes.

I blinked away raindrops.

A smile hung in the corner of his mouth. “What’s next?”

“London.”

ON A MISERABLE DAY like this there wasn’t much boat traffic around Windsor so we idled the boat in the wide open river. After boiling water for tea, holding warm mugs improved morale and we spread out maps while we studied GG’s notebook some more.

Shadowed pockets had settled under Travis’s eyes and a line distinguished the break between beard and cheeks. “I think your grandmother’s itinerary was ambitious. We’ll be lucky to make it to London in two days.”

“Chertsey Bridge will be coming up, then Lower Halliford. There’s a lock at Sunbury, and another at the East Molesey Cricket Club. If we make it to Hammersmith Bridge today, we’ll be close. GG noted the Ship & Whale Pub at Surrey docks. Let’s try to make it there and spend the night.”

We’d come without anything but the cash my grandmother handed me. I rested my tushie on a bolted down, vinyl spin-stool in the Barbie-size kitchen to figure out what we had to spend. I started counting then stopped. “Twenty pound notes are on top and there’s hundred pound notes on the bottom.”

“How much?”

I flipped through the wad. “Two thousand, nine hundred eighty pounds.”

“Whoa. Tuck that cash somewhere safe.”

Scouring the cubbies and closets, I made an inventory of the supplies on board.

The compact kitchen consisted of a counter, sink, burner, and mini fridge. There was a bag of apples and oranges, granola cereal, tins of Heinz beans, a loaf of sliced bread and lots of chips. The refrigerator had milk, yogurt, butter, and an assortment of sliced meats and cheeses. I tossed Travis an apple.

Even beneath a sheet of wet, the outside landscape’s green hues were vibrant against the gloom. Rotating the apple with dexterous fingers Travis went all silent.

“Spill it,” I said.

“What?”

“Something is clicking inside your head?”

“Your grandmother is eccentric.”

I bustled through cabinets and found life preservers, an air horn, and flashlights. “Yeah.”

“And wealthy.”

If he had a point he was painfully slow getting to it. “I’ve never seen her financial statement.”

The river ran straight. He hucked the apple into the air and caught it behind his back. “This expedition, maybe it was planned.”

“Duh. It was planned as a surprise.”

Downtown Julie Brown introduced the Clash, “London Calling.” “Fitting,” I mumbled.

“I mean us on this boat trip. Could it be your grandmother’s using us?”

Weird things and twisted notions passed between my ears, but I’d always pegged Travis’s wiring as grounded. I plunked onto a corner bench.

“I’m trying to make sense of what happened to us in London. Why Ahmed keeps showing up in your life saying cryptic things about the Crimean War and declaring that he’d like to buy the brooch.”

Travis’s anxiety caught my attention and I watched a vein in his neck twitch. I’d been wound so tight since this houseboat launched that I hadn’t noticed the state of his nerves.

“Everything leads back to the oyster brooch, which goes back to your grandmother. Why does she have it? Why did she give it to you? And what’s so special about the thing? I mean it’s old lady jewelry.”

“Hey, I take offense to that.”
I’d actually become fond of the bedazzled mollusk and liked wearing it. Gifted to Walzy, I believed the numbers engraved inside were a clue to something cherished
.