A Punt on the Thames

A Punt on the Thames

  Gerrard Wilson

  Copyright 2015 by Gerrard Wilson

  A Punt on the Thames

  A Punt on the Thames

  One of the best things I can recall from my childhood days is first time each summer we saw the punt resting low at its moorings, ready for another busy season transporting day-trippers across the river Thames.

  “Look, mum!” I cried out, the instant I spotted it. “The punt’s back!”

  Mum, however, gazed at it with as much love as distain.

  “Can we go on it?” My brother Tony implored. “Can we go across the river, huh?”

  “No, not today,” she told him.

  “Why not?” he asked

  Shepherding us past the punt, mum said, “It’s too cold.”

  “I’m not cold!” my sister Maria insisted.

  “I’m hot!” Tony persisted.

  “I’m very hot!” I said, resisting mum’s efforts to steer us away from the punt.

  “You will have hot bottoms – all of you,” she threatened, “if you don’t stop moidering me about that boat!”

  We stopped moidering her about it, because hot bottoms and children do not sit well together.

  The following Sunday was a beautiful day. The sun was hot enough to split rocks. “Can we go to the river, today?” I asked mum, when she had finished drying the dishes, after dinner.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. Peering through the window, she said, “It might rain...”

  “Rain!” I exclaimed, exasperated that she had said such a thing. “It’s not going to rain!”

  Her eyes set firmly on the sky, mum said, “There’s a dark cloud out there…”

  I ran into the garden, to see what the fuss was about. “That’s not a cloud,” I laughed. It’s Mr Slark burning his rubbish.”

  Don’t contradict your mother,” dad warned, from where he was seated in front of the television set. “If she says it is a cloud, then a cloud it is.”

  Following me into the garden, mum laughed heartily when she saw it, ‘the cloud’. “You are right, Gerrard,” she chuckled, “Mr Slark is burning his rubbish. C’mon it’s the perfect day for a trip to the river. Tell your brother and sister that we are going to there for a picnic.”

  “Where are you going?” dad asked, as mum opened the front door half an hour later. “We’re going to the river, for a picnic” she told him. “I have the bag, see?” She lifted it, to show him. “Would you like to come with us?”

  “Nah,” he answered. “Sure, it’s going to rain.”

  “That was only the bonfire,” she told him. Mum’s words, however, had fallen on deaf ears, because dad’s attention had already returned to his beloved TV, and an old western film being shown on it.

  As Tony, Maria and I walked along the street, on our way to the river, we had no idea how lonely mum felt, having to bring us almost everywhere on her own. Now dad wasn’t a bad man, it’s just that because he worked so hard during the week, he wanted to do nothing more strenuous at weekends other than a bit of light gardening on Saturdays, followed by loads of television viewing on Sundays. Despite understanding and accepting dad’s stance, mum still felt abandoned by him.

  “Mum!” I said excitedly. “I can see the river!”

  “Where do you see it?” Maria asked me.

  “Behind that bus,” I told her.

  Tony, however, said nothing, he was far too interested in the Ice Cream sign outside the shop we were approaching. Tugging at mum’s arm, Tony said,” Can I have an ice cream?”

  Can I also have one, please?” Maria implored.

  “And me too?” I begged her.

  Exiting the shop a few minutes later, I licked my ice cream cone, with gusto. Proudly holding a choc-ice, Tony smiled from ear and to ear. Maria had an orange split; an iced lolly of perfection. Mum had also chosen an ice cream cone. Because it was so hot a day, we struggled to finish our icy delights before they melted into sweet pools of deliciousness at our feet.

  Tony had the most difficulty, doing this. Although he tried to eat his choc-ice with speed and decorum, much of it ended on his hands and face. “Mum!” he grizzled. “Mum!”

  Producing a handkerchief, as if out of nowhere, mum wiped his face and hands clean. I often wondered where she had them secreted, and how many of them she had about her person at any one time. I never found out, though.

  Approaching a T-junction, where the traffic separated into two lanes, we waited for a break in the traffic.

  “Come on,” mum said to us, “across the road, with you.”

  Obeying her, we filed across the road like toy soldiers. The instant we reached the far side, however, we burst into cheers and then galloped away from her, into the park bordering the river.

  “You have your hands filled, there,” an old man, who was sitting on a bench while smoking his pipe, said to mum.

  “I most certainly do,” she answered. “But it’s worth it, to see them so happy.”

  Patting the bench, he invited her to join him upon it. Mum’s face creased, worrying about us. “They will be fine. No harm can come to them, here,” he reassured her. “I’ll keep an eye on them for you. I have excellent eyesight, you know.” Mum sat down on the bench.

  Puffing away happily on his pipe, the old man watched us as we ran about the park, playing contentedly with each other. “Not many men, here, are there?” he said to mum.

  “No,” she answered, suddenly remembering dad.

  “I blame it on that darn box,” the gnarled individual grumbled.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s what I call them boxes, television sets.”

  “Oh…”

  “I don’t have one,” he told her. “I have enough to keep me going, interested in, without a box in the corner of the room telling me what I should think.” Mum laughed. “By the way, the name is Joe,” he said, stretching his hand toward mum, “Joe Bond.”

  “As in James Bond?” mum enquired.

  “Everyone says something akin to that,” Joe chuckled. “Never seen the movie, though… Is it any good?”

  “I heard that it is,” mum said to him, Seeing Tony and I run into each other, as we were playing Cops and Robbers, mum gazed at us worriedly from the bench.

  “Tough as nails, at that age,” Joe told her.

  “Do you have any of your own,” mum asked him, for she was intrigued by his childcare knowledge.

  “Had seven of the ankle biters,” he answered, “and I love every one of them…”

  “Where are they now?”

  “With their children, I’d hazard a guess. I have twenty-three grandchildren,” Joe proudly proclaimed.

  Warning to him, mum said, “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” he answered. “Darn it,” he grumbled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My pipe has almost gone out. Don’t worry, though, I will soon have it sorted.”

  Having tired of Cops and Robbers, Tony, Maria and I sat on the grassy verge bordering the river. It was most surely a wonderful day. There were so many boats gliding along the glassy waters of the river we could have stayed there, watching them forever. Then we saw it, we saw the blue painted hull of the punt, further along the river. Running as fast as leopards, we returned to mum.

  “Can we go on it, the punt, huh?” I asked her.

  “Can we go across the river?” Tony begged mum.

  “Yes, can we go?” Maria implored her.

  “Of course, she answered.

  “Hurray for mum!” we cheered loudly. “Hurray for the punt!” we cheered even louder.

  “It was nice meeting you,” Joe said, waving mum goodbye.

  “Thanks, it was nice meet
ing you too,” she told him.

  “Where is it?” Mum asked, as we arrived at the punt’s mooring jetty.

  A man, standing at the entrance with a black leather conductor’s bag, said to her, “It’s set off across the river. Don’t worry, though, it will return in no time at all.”

  “That’s a relief,” mum answered.

  “Do you want to purchase some tickets?” he asked.

  “Yes, please,” she said to him. “One and three halves return.”

  A few minutes later, Tony spotted the punt beginning its return journey. Jumping excitedly up and down, he said, “It’s returning, the punt is returning!”

  It was. The blue painted craft, with its attendant, pushing his pole into the river’s muddy bottom, propelling it forward, was indeed getting closer. Finally, the punt, lying low in the water, bumped to a stop against the small jetty.

  “Thank you,” the man with the pole said to the alighting passengers, “please come again.”

  “Tickets, please,” the man with the conductor’s bag said as we approached the punt.

  “Here they are,” said mum.

  Tony, Maria and I stepped into the punt. We watched mum as she stepped nervously into the vessel, and then we laughed at her. We laughed again as mum considered what might be the safest place to sit in the punt. “It’s not the Titanic,” Tony said her.