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After about thirty seconds of floating, Leo tugged at my arm, and we splashed, half swimming, half wading, pulling each other along towards one of the sets of steps cut into the bank. We crawled up them, me first, then Leo, neither of us remotely concerned with our dignity, and then we lay together upon the frost-crisp grass, still breathless, dizzy with exhaustion and—in my case at least—somewhat warmed by fury.
“What the fuck?” I rasped. “You’re not supposed to go in after someone. That’s like…everyone knows that.”
Leo rolled onto his side and coughed up some water. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“You could”—I paused to wheeze—“you could have drowned.”
“I thought you were going to.”
“You’re an idiot,” I snapped.
“You’re the one fell off a stationary narrowboat.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I told myself it was lack of breath.
“Come on,” said Leo finally. “We need to get out of these clothes. Get inside. Get warm.”
This proved, in practice, more complicated than it had any right to be. Between my ankle and an abrupt onrush of exhaustion, I could barely stand, basically dead weight against Leo as we staggered back to the boat. Then Leo refused to let us go inside while we were still wearing our wet and filthy clothes, so we had to strip in the stern while sharing a single towel. Because apparently Leo had prepared for one person taking an accidental plunge but had not considered the possibility of two. Thankfully, it was early enough that we didn’t have to worry about passersby.
“Morning.” There was a man waving at us from the towpath. “I was just on the roof, having a cuppa and bunning a zoot when I saw you both plop in.”
Leo made a convulsive clutch for the towel, though he was too fucking decent to actually pull it away from me. I let go regardless, having always preferred to deal with involuntary nakedness by brazening it out. There were, after all, few things more ridiculous than someone cringing, fleeing, or attempting to cover themselves.
The stranger—a lanky sixty-something with waist-length silver hair, wearing a knitted rainbow cardigan, patchwork hippie trousers, and Jesus sandals in winter—skated his eyes briefly over me. “Nice,” he offered.
“Thanks,” I said. “And I’m fucking freezing too.”
“I thought you boys could maybe do with another towel.”
I could hear Leo’s teeth chattering. “Th-that’s really kind, Leaf.”
The towel in question was tossed to me; it had seen better days, but it was clean, warm, only smelled mildly of marijuana, and I wrapped myself in it gladly.
“And”—up came another, equally clean but threadbare—“this one’s for the floor. Stop you tracking mud through the whole boat.”
Leo nodded, mumbling gratefully as he laid the extra towel down.
“First time in?” asked Leaf.
Leo nodded again.
“Bound to happen sooner or later. Almost a rite of passage.” Something that might have been nostalgia wrinkled Leaf’s otherwise untroubled brow. “Still remember my first time. I thought I’d put the gangplank down. But I hadn’t. Went straight down the gap between the canal and the piling. Gave everyone a good laugh.” He paused thoughtfully. “Of course, it was the middle of summer.” The thought percolated awhile longer. “I’d better let you two get inside.”
Knowing how dutifully polite Leo could be, I caught him by the wrist and dragged him into the boat, nudging the door closed behind us. I’d been struck on Christmas Eve by the power of a multi-fuel stove in a confined space. It was nothing, however, compared to this: a sensation of heat so concentrated—so welcome—that I feltenfoldedby it. My head spun blissfully, my brain cotton wool, and my body nothing but the blood that raced through it.
“Don’t faint,” said Leo.
“I’m not fainting,” I slurred.
I stretched, letting the towel slip away, leaning into the air like a lover, wanting to rub myself against the warmth it bore.
“Oh God.” Leo almost dropped the piece of kindling he’d been about to feed to the fire.
“Are you all right?”
“No. Maybe we got warmed up too quickly and I’m going into shock.”
That took the edge off my pleasure slightly. “Well, that’s a problem because you’re the one who knows how to deal with things like that.”
