Perdu steered the barge, which the current had pushed sideways, valiantly away from the bank. Unfortunately, Lulu’s stern swung out as he did this, leaving the long barge jammed across the river like a cork in a bottle, and in the crossfire of honking ships whose channel it was blocking. A British narrow boat, one of the two-metre-wide but very long houseboats, narrowly avoided crashing into Lulu’s midriff.
‘Landlubbers! Guttersnipes! Slime eels!’ the British shouted over from their dark-green houseboat.
‘Monarchists! Atheists! Crust cutters!’ Max called back in a voice that was shrill from crying and blew his nose a few times to give his words extra force.
When Perdu had turned the Literary Apothecary around far enough so that they were no longer stuck across the river but facing in the right direction, they heard applause. It came from three women in striped tops on a rented houseboat.
‘Ahoy, you book paramedics. Doing some crazy cruising there!’
Perdu pulled on the lever that controlled the horn and greeted the ladies’ boat with three blasts. The women waved as they nonchalantly overtook the book barge.
‘Follow those ladies, mon capitaine. Then we have to turn right at Saint-Mammès. Or starboard, as they say,’ Max commented. He hid his eyes, red from crying, behind Madame Bomme’s glittery sunglasses. ‘When we get there, we’ll find a branch of my bank and do some shopping. The mice are so hungry they’re hanging themselves in your alphabetical cupboard.’
‘Today’s Sunday.’
‘Oh. Well, expect more mouse suicides in that case.’
They tacitly agreed to act as though that moment of desperation had never taken place.
The more the day tended towards night, the greater the number of chattering birds that winged their way across the sky – grey geese, ducks and oystercatchers heading for their roosts on the sandbanks and the riverside. Perdu was fascinated by the thousand varieties of green he saw. All of this had been hiding all this time, and so close to Paris?
The men were approaching Saint-Mammès.
‘Good grief,’ murmured Perdu. ‘There’s a lot going on here.’
Boats of all sizes sporting pennants in dozens of national colours were packed side by side into the marina. Innumerable people were having meals on their boats – and without exception they were all staring at the big book barge.
Perdu was tempted to open up the throttle.
Max Jordan studied the map. ‘You can travel in all directions from here: north to Scandinavia, south to the Mediterranean, east and up to Germany.’ He looked over at the marina.
‘It’s like reversing into a parking space outside the only café in town at the height of summer with everyone watching – even the queen of the ball, her rich fiancé and his gang.’
‘Thanks, that makes me feel a lot more relaxed.’
Perdu steered Lulu gradually towards the harbour at the lowest possible speed.
All he needed was a space, a very big space.
And he found it. Right at the end of the harbour, where only one boat was moored. A dark-green British narrow boat.
He succeeded at the second attempt, and they only briefly bumped against the English boat, relatively gently.
An angry man stormed out of the cabin brandishing a half-empty wine glass. The other half of the wine had landed on his dressing gown. Along with the potatoes. And the sauce.
‘What the devil have we done to make you keep attacking us like this?’ he shouted.
‘Sorry,’ called Perdu. ‘We … um … you don’t like reading by any chance?’
Max took the book of knots out onto the landing stage. There he tried to tie up the boat with stern lines and a forward spring around the mooring posts, as explained by the book’s illustrations. He took a long time over it and refused any assistance.
In the meantime, Perdu picked out a handful of novels in English and offered them to the Briton. He flicked through them and gave Perdu a brisk handshake.
‘What did you give him?’ whispered Max.
‘Some literary relaxation from the library of moderately intense emotions,’ Perdu murmured back. ‘Nothing cools anger like a nice splatter book, where the blood almost spurts off the page.’
As Perdu and Jordan walked along the pontoon towards the harbour office, they felt like boys who had kissed a girl for the first time and had come through it with their lives intact and an unbelievable thrill.
The harbourmaster, a man with leathery skin like an iguana’s, showed them where the charging points, the fresh water supply and the waste tank were. He also demanded fifteen euros as an advance on the mooring fee. There was no option: Perdu had to smash the little porcelain kitten he kept on his register for tips; the odd coin had found its way through the slit between its ears.
‘Your son can go ahead and empty your toilet tank – it’s free of charge.’