Boogie Up the River by Mark Wallington

Author:Mark Wallington [Mark Wallington]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1990-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

8. See You on Tadpole Bridge. And That’s a Promise

TADPOLE BRIDGE WAS just twenty-five miles upstream from Oxford but it took me three days to reach there. The pace of the journey changed, so did my lifestyle. I emerged as a waterman with crusty hands and a dirty neck. I began to degenerate. Maegan began to look messy. Only the blossom that tumbled from the hawthorn and chestnut trees kept her fresh. She looked as though Boogie and I had just got married in her.

The breeze was with me for a change and I sat easily in the saddle of the boat. I lost the sensation of travelling. I was just following a rail and had no control over my destination. The rain came as everyone had predicted and so I travelled with the tent half unfurled to form a canopy. It acted as a sail and I was blown westwards. Then whenever a shower came I’d roll down the sides and be watertight in minutes. I’d sit there wrapped up out of the damp as the warm rain made the river steam, and I’d watch the dragonflies land on the water and disappear into the pink gob of a chub.

I liked to watch the rain. It felt reassuring to see the land drink it up. It was like a transfusion, and there was a reverence about the whole process. There was a silence just before the first drop and then the reflections would begin to disintegrate as the river surface grew agitated. The grey cloud merged with the grey water. The songbirds were quiet, and Boogie would sit on the end of the boat with his mouth open.

I’d never realized how noisy rain is in the country. The leaves cracked and the grass shivered, and the meadows and woods were dented as the rain and wind pelted them. The showers were never long but they were a display and everything stopped until they were over. And then there was a sense of celebration. The river sparkled anew. Cuckoos, pigeons and magpies poked their heads out from trees. There was an irresistible smell of wet grass. The ducks came out and started squabbling. The gnats gathered in clouds and did whatever gnats like to do. The pylons began to hiss. A train shuddered in the distance over wet rails. Somewhere upstream a lorry splashed through the puddles over a five-hundred-year-old bridge. The cracks in the mud were filled. The river was a millimetre higher, the grass a shade greener, the earth watered. And then there’d be a blue crack in the sky and shafts of sunlight that made my hat steam. The reflections returned as bright as before and I’d look around and make a note of how well I had got to know cow parsley on this trip.

After almost two weeks on the water I was easily pleased and my days were gloriously indulgent affairs. Boogie too seemed settled. He was aware of the change in our surroundings in so far as he was totally confused now whereas he’d been only moderately so before.

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