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“This is all very creditable,” he said, “but perhaps we can wait till morning?”
A flash of lightning illuminated Granny's face.
“Perhaps not,” Cutangle conceded. He lumbered along the jetty and pulled the little rowing boat towards him. Getting in was a matter of luck but he managed it eventually, fumbling with the painter in the darkness.
The boat swung out into the flood and was carried away, spinning slowly.
Granny clung to the seat as it rocked in the turbulent waters, and looked expectantly at Cutangle through the murk.
“Well?” she said.
“Well what?” said Cutangle.
“You said you knew all about boats.”
“No. I said you didn't.”
“Oh.”
They hung on as the boat wallowed heavily, miraculously righted itself, and was carried backwards downstream.
“When you said you hadn't been in a boat since you were a boy. . .” Granny began.
“I was two years old, I think.”
The boat caught on a whirlpool, spun around, and shot off across the flow.
“I had you down as the sort of boy who was in and out of boats all day long.”
“I was born up in the mountains. I get seasick on damp grass, if you must know,” said Cutangle.
The boat banged heavily against a submerged tree trunk, and a wavelet lapped the prow.
“I know a spell against drowning,” he added miserably.
“I'm glad about that.”
“Only you have to say it while you're standing on dry land.”
“Fake your boots off.” Granny commanded.
“What?”
“Take your boots off, man!”
Cutangle shifted uneasily on his bench.
“What have you in mind?” he said.
“The water is supposed to be outside the boat, I know that much!” Granny pointed to the dark tide sloshing around the bilges: “Fill your boots with water and tip it over the side!”
Cutangle nodded. He felt that the last couple of hours had somehow carried him along without him actually touching the sides, and for a moment he nursed the strangely consoling feeling that his life was totally beyond his control and whatever happened no one could blame him. Filling his boots with water while adrift on a flooded river at midnight with what he could only describe as a woman seemed about as logical as anything could be in the circumstances.
A fine figure of a woman, said a neglected voice at the back of his mind. There was something about the way she used the tattered broomstick to scull the boat across the choppy water that troubled long-forgotten bits of Cutangle's subconscious.
Not that he could be certain about the fine figure, of course, what with the rain and the wind and Granny's habit of wearing her entire wardrobe in one go. Cutangle cleared his throat uncertainly. Metaphorically a fine figure, he decided.
“Um, look,” he said. “This is all very creditable, but consider the facts, I mean, the rate of drift and so forth, you see? It could be miles out on the ocean by now. It might never come to shore again. It might even go over the Rimfall.”
