Chase and I take turns steering the Solange, and even Isobel gives it a go – once she’s calmed down, admitting that Amy and I had no choice, really, but to set sail to escape Roland. So as the afternoon sun turns everything golden, it seems the world has slowed to the natural rhythms of the French countryside where cows and sheep graze and clouds pass steadily overhead.
‘Where, exactly, George,’ says Isobel, ‘are we heading? Because this river meets the English Channel and the Solange isn’t designed for open seas. In the old days, she used to carry stuff like wheat and apples and timber, but only along rivers and canals.’
Isobel is right. The closer we get to Le Havre, which as everyone knows, is one of the busiest sea ports in Europe, the more dangerous it will be.
‘Hey skipper,’ says Chase, looking out. ‘There’s a nice quiet-looking canal to the left. Why don’t we go up there?’
We check out the tree-lined canal that is a lot smaller than the Seine. Its water is black and only flows gently. A couple of horses stand at the edge, one drinking, one watching us.
‘Why not?’ I say, and slow-turn the Solange into this lovely but lonely-looking waterway. ‘It’ll confuse Roland, which is a grand idea.’
Isobel studies the small stone farmhouses that stand in green fields lined with tall, straight poplar trees.
‘It’s like a poem coming to life,’ she says dreamily. ‘I’m going up on deck. I want to smell the grass and look at those lovely cows!’
She leaves the wheelhouse and Amy goes with her. Chase and I take turns at the wheel, both of us keeping a lookout for anything, including Roland, that might endanger us or the barge.
‘At some point, we have to moor,’ I say. ‘Because it’ll be dark soon.’
Chase nods. ‘We could always ask that old guy. See him on the bike path there?’
An old fellow on an old black bike is pedalling merrily along beside the canal. He waves and calls out.
‘Bonjour, la Solange! Bonjour, la Solange!’
‘He seems pretty friendly,’ I say, and seeing an ancient wooden dock ahead, I make a decision. ‘Let’s take her in there, Chase. You steer, slow her down, and I’ll go out and tie her up. All going well.’
I head onto the deck and stand by the bow rope in the cold dusk.
‘I’ll do the rope at the back,’ Isobel calls out. ‘That old gentleman says he’ll tie it up if I can hand it across.’
Like a champion crew, we bring the Solange slowly into the dock, and in a minute, we have her tied at the bow, mid-ships, and stern, the engine silent, the quiet of the evening settling around us. It is, as Isobel says, like entering a dream of days-gone-by, when barges used the canals and rivers like trains use tracks. The smell of woodsmoke drifts from a distant chimney, and it’s as if we have arrived in the peaceful past.
The skinny old gentleman in baggy brown trousers, standing with one hand resting on the Solange’s side, beams at us.
‘I know Solange,’ he says happily, his face full of cheerful wrinkles. ‘Eet was my father’s boat. I work on ’er very ’ard. She iz beautiful. I ’ave not seen ’er for sixty years.’ Then the old fellow does a little jig on the dock, which excites Amy no end. ‘God bless la Solange!’
As I have said before, things do just keep on getting stranger every day.
‘Do you want to come on board?’ Isobel asks, obviously not worried about the more senior categories of stranger-danger that we were told about in my Kids-Caring-For-But-Not-Touching-Goldfish class. ‘To see her? I’m sure she’s changed.’
‘That would be vairy nice, merci,’ the old boy says, and steps nimbly aboard to look around at the painted steelwork and polished timber deck. ‘She iz zo beautiful now. I cannot believe she ’az come back. It iz a miracle.’
I’ll say it’s a miracle, especially with me, Chase, and Amy at the wheel!
‘We sail ’er all over France,’ the old fellow says. ‘She worked and worked and worked.’
‘Come inside,’ Isobel says. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Or coffee, of course,’ I put in. ‘It would only take me a minute to get the machine up and go—’
‘I don’t think so, George.’ Isobel sends me a look that appears designed to knock that idea firmly on the head. ‘Tea will be fine.’
So we go into the saloon, sit down, and give Jean-Pierre Marc Alain Jean-Pierre a cup of tea.
‘Ooh la la,’ he says, checking out the saloon. ‘You ’ave couches and pain-tings by artistes.’ He points to the upside-down-possibly-sideways-maybe-even-inside-out Picasso lady. ‘That one iz a liddle strange but vairy nice.’ Then he cautiously pokes a cushion as if it is a wasp nest. ‘Life was ’ard in ze old days. I sleep on potatoes. But good.’ He takes in a long snort of air. ‘Freedom, wiz room to breathe!’
Isobel listens intently. After a year in a city hospital, life on the canals and rivers, travelling slowly through the French countryside, must sound like heaven.
‘I know all ze water round ’ere,’ Jean-Pierre says, and slurps his tea. ‘Even places where nobody evair goes anymore.’
Chase looks at me. ‘That could be handy.’ Then he briefly outlines our . . . predicament to Jean-Pierre. ‘So we have to stay a step ahead of this Roland until my father sorts things out.’
Jean-Pierre nods. ‘I underztand. My father, ’e alzo got ’imzelf into a money pickle once or twize. Well, a lot of money pickles, actually. So. I will keep my eyes open for zis bad-boy Roland.’
‘We would appreciate that,’ Isobel says. ‘You’re very kind.’
Jean-Pierre leans forward. ‘You can rely on me. Zere are places only I know because I am vairy old and I love zis canal and all of ze French countryside.’
Outside, I see dusk is turning into darkness, darkness that will hide us from Roland – or hide Roland from us.
‘Thank you for ze tea.’ Jean-Pierre slowly gets up. ‘Stay ’ere tonight. I come and zee you off in ze morning.’ We follow the old fellow out onto the deck. ‘Zis canal, it is called Canal Dix. She can take you all ze way to Italy.’
We look at each other. Italy! Boy, another country we could enter illegally!
‘We’ll work things out tomorrow,’ Chase says. ‘It’s been very nice to meet you, Jean-Pierre.’
Jean-Pierre steps onto the dock and picks up his black bike. I am concerned that he doesn’t have a helmet, because I can assure anybody interested in bicycle safety (and that should be all of us) that a beret will not protect you from much more than a low-speed collision with a low-hanging apple.
‘I will ’elp.’ Jean-Pierre rings his rusty bicycle bell. ‘We talk in ze morning! Bonne nuit, my young friends. Slip well!’
We say goodbye and Jean-Pierre wobbles away up the path, into the night that is now lit by a moon that shines through the branches of an old oak tree. I look down the inky waterway and hope that Roland can’t see in the dark. Of course, these days you can quite easily buy something called a torch. And if he purchased one with a xenon bulb, well!
Trouble.
‘Come on,Amy,’ I say. ‘I’ll take you onto the dock so you can visit the toilet before bed.’
We step off the Solange and walk along the old wooden platform. The sky is sprinkled with northern hemisphere stars that I don’t recognise, which reminds me that there’s a lot I don’t know about the world. It also reminds me how far away I am from home. Then I think of my parents working hard at making the world a better place for humans and the environment, and I hope, one day, to do the same.
‘Come on, Amy,’ I say. ‘Better get back on board.’ We go back to our cabin on this magnificent ninety-year-old barge that is still going strong. And there, gratefully, we hit the hay.
Tomorrow, I think to myself just before I fall asleep, will be another adventure. Because if we’re ever to get home, something incredible will have to happen.