Hope on the Waterways

by Milly Adams

  Sylvia walked at their side, listening to them chattering on like the sparrows that had returned to their hedges. She wished they’d said nothing because it had been growing easier to concentrate all her thoughts and dreams on Steve, on Ma Porter feeling it in her water, on a life with children.

  She rubbed her face, feeling her filthy woollen gloves rasping against her skin. The other two girls fell silent and she could see them snatching a look at her, and then at one another, worried.

  ‘How much further?’ Sylvia asked, to pretend she was quite all right.

  ‘Five minutes or so.’ Instead of discussing Sylvia’s life, the other two girls switched to Joe, wondering how Maudie really was, because Granfer’s painfully written letters were few and far between. He had not long ago learned to read and write, which wasn’t surprising when most boaters couldn’t. They wondered how Joe would feel to be returned to his mother, in Buckby, when the time came, and how Howard House would cope with losing their adored boy. And then there was Leon, who cast such a long dangerous shadow. Leon who must never know where his family were because they all feared he would destroy them, much as he would pull the wings off a butterfly. But at least it was clear from what he had said when he attacked Polly’s father that he thought Maudie was dead, so perhaps she was safe, but what if Joe came to Buckby, and what if subsequently, Leon heard that Maudie lived?

  Polly said, ‘I remember when he attacked Saul outside that pub, after he and Granfer had rescued Joe from the cabin where Leon had beaten him and locked him in. You know, after Leon thought he’d killed Maudie. And then again, what about when he found Joe at Mum and Dad’s …’

  ‘Don’t, Polly,’ murmured Verity.

  ‘But he would have killed Dad if Mum hadn’t beaten him off. His sort survive to hurt us all again, because he won’t let Joe go. I know it. I feel it. And what about him arranging to fire Horizon, and trying to kill Dog … Just being here makes me realise how vulnerable Buckby is and I’m frightened for them, for us all.’

  Sylvia thought the same, and saw that Verity was nodding. Sylvia said, ‘At least Howard House gives Joe some protection, but is it enough? What if Leon does see that story Joe wrote?’

  Polly shrugged. ‘Your dad did his best to kill it.’

  Verity groaned. ‘Oh don’t say kill. And yes, he did, and who reads local newspapers unless you live in the area? Surely we’d know if he was in Dorset. He’s more likely to come back to Buckby, and let’s face it, the boaters can’t keep an eye on them all the time.’

  Sylvia whispered, ‘But why would he come to Buckby? He thinks Maudie is dead, and Buckby is too obvious to settle Joe here. But if Maudie wants him … Oh, it’s all so difficult.’

  They fell silent again and Sylvia barely noticed the chattering of the birds any more as they walked the final hundred yards to Spring Cottage. Beside them Pup had settled into a walk.

  At last they were at the rear of Fran and Bet’s cottage, walking alongside the white picket fence, opening the gate, and making their way down the crazy paving path. They knocked on the back door.

  Verity whispered, ‘She’ll be teaching at the school, surely.’ There was indeed no one in, so they dropped a note into the letter box in which they explained that they had actually managed to get there, as they had asked Fran if they might, to see Dog. They had also reiterated the concerns about Leon. They stressed that should he become aware that Maudie was still alive, and they heard of it, they’d be sure to let her know, so she could warn Granfer. But in the meantime, she should warn the villagers, and Granfer of course, to be on the lookout – just in case.

  But now it was time for Dog, and they banished Leon from this place, breathed deeply and together they walked round the cottage to the orchard, wondering how they would know where their friend was buried. But at the third apple tree Dog’s collar hung from a branch, swinging in the breeze. One after the other they reached out and touched it.

  Polly swallowed hard, and lifted Pup to sniff the collar, then set her down near the mound beneath the tree. Weathered branches had been tied into a cross, with the name Dog burned into it with a poker. ‘She would have been your friend, Pup.’

  The girls waited while Sylvia said a prayer, almost in a whisper, as their memories came and went, much as the light flickered through the apple tree leaves in the fullness of summer. Eventually Pup yelped, and pulled at her lead. The girls smiled, and followed her, walking around the cottage and back on to the crazy paving path where, in the summer, the camomile plants recovered from the winter frosts would come again, and lift their scent to the skies.

  Once in the lane they walked into Buckby, hurrying now because they hadn’t too much time to spare, what with the load to deliver at the paper factory, which was one of their favourite stopovers, and the collection of their orders at the depot. As they hurried round the last bend, down on the right they could see Granfer standing in Lettie’s front garden by the fence, looking towards them. He waved and they broke into a run. It seemed so long since they’d seen him, though it wasn’t.

  He clicked the gate shut behind him and limped towards them. He had never limped. They ran faster, reaching him, hugging him. ‘Why are you limping, Granfer?’ asked Polly, fear at once gripping the girls: Leon?

  As though he guessed their concerns, he shook his head, and hurried them back to the house, pointing up to the eaves. Pup was barking in Verity’s arms as he told them, ‘’Twas a darned cat that seemed stuck by the chimney. So I took meself up on t’ladder. Darned cat took one look at me ugly mug and leapt down yon roof, into t’ivy, and on to t’garden. I slipped on darned ladder ’alfway down, and fell. Didn’t ’alf twist me knee. Our Lettie said to stop mithering, cos at least the cat was right as rain.’ He dropped his voice. ‘So it weren’t that bugger, Leon, so stop with the long faces.’

  He opened the front door and led the way in; they followed, relief making them laugh. Lettie came from the kitchen, flapping Granfer aside with her tea towel and hugging the girls, as well as stroking Pup. She smelt of scones, just like Mrs B always did. ‘Come through, do ’e be tellin’ yer of the cat? You’d think ’e’d charged the army single ’anded and earned himself a wound and a medal, silly old bugger.’

  Granfer was already sitting down, settling himself nearest the scones. Verity snuggled up next to him, because Granfer had a reach like no one else’s and this way she’d be offered the scones first. She looked up at Sylvia and winked. ‘Might not clean my bath like you do, Sylv, but I know what side my bread’s buttered.’

  Granfer looked from one to the other, then nodded to the remaining chairs. ‘Sit yerselves down, lasses. Verity, put the pup down. She’ll have a sniff and settle.’

  They did, and Pup did as Granfer had thought, until the back door opened and Maudie stood framed in the doorway. Pup yelped then, and Verity snatched her on to her knee, fearful that she would alarm Maudie’s fragile psyche. Maudie’s dark eyes, so like Saul’s and Granfer’s, were bright, though, her long black hair glossy, falling free in great swoops of curls. She kicked off her boater’s boots, lining them up at the side of the doorstep, and entered, shutting the door carefully. The girls waited for her to turn around, keeping their voices low and steady, to avoid frightening her.

  ‘Hello, Maudie. Do you remember us, you came on our boats to help us when you were a bit poorly?’ It was Polly.

  Sylvia and Verity merely smiled because too much talk or activity had frightened Maudie when she was released from the hospital. Released specifically to help on Marigold and Horizon as part of her recovery by re-enacting happier times, or so the doctors had thought. It had worked.

  ‘I does,’ Maudie said, slipping on to the chair Lettie pointed to. ‘I does remember yer. I ’ave marks like yer does.’ She pointed to her shoulder and hands, where the girls had the callouses from hauling the butty.

  But what struck all three girls was that she said ‘remember’, when before she had said she ‘knowed’ but didn’t know why she ‘knowed’.r />
  Almost without daring to interrupt her, Sylvia took a scone proffered by Granfer, who winked, and mouthed remember. So, he had noticed the progress too. Well, of course he had, he was her grandfather. Polly must write to Saul and tell him. But had Maudie remembered she had a son? Up until now she had said, when she realised that she knew Granfer and wanted to stay here in Buckby with him and Lettie, ‘I knowed there is someone, not he who hurt me, but someone else.’

  Should they ask?

  It was as though Lettie had read her mind, because as she reached over to place a cup of tea at the side of Sylvia’s plate she laid a warning hand on Sylvia’s shoulder, a hand that Verity and Polly also noted. Well, the three of them had a shared thought process, after all. It wasn’t everyone who toiled all day and then had stand-up washes and shared the pain of an ablution bucket. It was bound to bring about some sort of invisible semaphore.

  Granfer was pushing the butter from one to another.

  ‘Heavens, Granfer, it looks as though this is rather more than your coupon allowance.’ Polly took a little off the corner of the block, which still had beads of moisture on the top from the patting of the wooden paddles.

  Lettie sniffed and sat down, straightening her flowered pinafore. ‘Who does yer think taught our Saul his poachin’ skills? Even the farmer likes a bit of pheasant or rabbit.’

  Maudie smiled shyly, ‘And it be t’farmer’s mouser an’ all, our Granfer saved.’

  Granfer smiled back at her, then turned and said to Polly, ‘Yer can tell our Saul that, when yer writes to ’im. I ’ad an letter today, so I did and I will write a bit of a note back and I will tell ’im that. How they gets the mail, Lord knows. Bloody marvellous, I call it, but our Saul said if there’s someone coming hurt off the front line sick they takes the letters with them if there be time in the mayhem, as well as it getting through in other official ways.’

  Maudie said, ‘I remember Saul, he be my brother.’ She was spreading the butter carefully on her scone and no one said a word; they just waited, but Maudie said nothing more.

  Lettie pushed a jar of plum jam across to Sylvia. ‘You be trying this. Not a lot of sweetness, but some. The WI do make some with sugar t’authorities gives us, to sell on t’others to help the war.’

  Sylvia said, as she spread a thin layer of plum, ‘I’ve just remembered, before the war, at the orphanage we had cream one Founder’s Day. It was a treat. We put the cream on top of the jam, but some put it beneath. I suppose it depends what you like. I’ve never forgotten the taste, and when the war is over, I’m going to buy cream, and make jam with loads of sugar, and bake scones, and sit with a cup of tea and eat a whole plateful, you see if I don’t.’

  She was talking to herself, really, and could suddenly taste that scone, and saw that everyone was looking at her, longingly.

  Verity said, ‘I can taste such scones too, I really can. You are a pest, Sylv, because now we’ll have to wait Lord knows how long just tasting the memory, until we can have cream again.’

  They were all smiling. Lettie rose, and from the fridge drew out a small jug. She placed it by Sylvia and said, ‘There you be, lass. No need to taste the memory, have some o’ this. ’Tis special from t’farmer, because of the cat, but there be enough for us all.’

  There was a reverential silence as Sylvia poured a little of the thick cream on to her jam, and then it was passed around. Polly said, ‘On three. One, two, three.’ As one, they lifted the scones and took a bite, and Sylvia shut her eyes, remembering the hush that had fallen on the orphanage dining tables as Mother Superior had indicated with a downward gesture that they might all begin.

  The taste then was, as this was now, so delicious that Sylvia had thought on that Founder’s Day that heaven must be something like it; quite different to everything she had known before.

  ‘Heavens,’ sighed Verity, ‘you might need to nip up a ladder again, Granfer, but how to entice the cat up first, eh?’

  Granfer held a finger to his nose. ‘Been thinkin’ on that, I ’ave.’

  They were laughing as Maudie said, wiping her mouth gently with one of the napkins Lettie was handing round, ‘I remember my boy Joe does like cream. He do like butter and jam, too. Leon hurt him, but Saul helped him, and took him from the pain.’

  Sylvia felt as though she must hold her breath and make no sound, and the other two girls were the same. Granfer and Lettie were the only two who seemed relaxed. Again Granfer winked at them all.

  Maudie put her hands in her lap. ‘Yer see, I does know, and remember my boy. But ’tis too soon to see ’im, fer I am not quite well. Some days I forget almost who I is still. Some days things is amazing clear. Today it is that day when things is bright with remembrance, and I thank yer fer ’aving my boy in the ’ome of one of yer, but I fear that when I is well, he will not know me enough to want to stay where I am.’

  Again there was a silence, except for the burbling of the range and the clock. For a minute Sylvia thought of Henry’s Rolls-Royce and its ticking clock. She heard her own voice then, measured and as calm as her thoughts: ‘I didn’t have a mother, Maudie, but if I found she was alive, I would be so joyous my heart would surely break. And my life would be complete. Your Joe will feel as I would. We know him well, you see, and I tell you that is the truth. He is a fine boy. He teaches me to draw, for his drawing is like your brother Saul’s. Saul taught him to paint kettles in the way that boaters like. Do you remember those – red background, with a bird, and flowers?’

  Maudie looked at her, her expression thoughtful. Finally she said, ‘I does remember. The kettle paintings is like when the sun is out and the colours of the earth shine bright. I is glad you share drawing with my boy. I did too, when he were young.’

  As one, Verity and Polly reached forward and held Sylvia’s hands. ‘Oh Sylv,’ whispered Polly. Another reached forward across the table – Maudie. She placed her tanned, hardened hand on all of theirs. ‘I will be his ma again, but he is not to know it this moment, for I is not mended enough, and my boy needs me to be mended every passing day, don’t he, Granfer?’

  Granfer nodded. ‘If you say so, sweet Maudie.’

  He slurped his tea then, while Lettie stood and bustled around, dragging her handkerchief from her apron pocket as she went to the range to top up the teapot. Granfer said, ‘One more cup, my dear girls, then you must get on to the depot.’

  The hands were released and another scone was eaten; without cream, but that didn’t matter, the memory remained, as did the memory of Maudie recapturing the colours of a bright day, and Joe. As Sylvia listened and chatted, her mind was busy thinking of Joe. She hadn’t realised before just how important Joe was to so many people. Heavens, he was crucial. How on earth would all this be resolved? As she gazed around the table she and Polly shared a look, and Polly’s concern for her parents was obvious. How on earth would they feel when Joe returned to his mother? The loss would be profound.

  It was then that Sylvia pondered yet again the question of safety, and again came to the conclusion that if all these people – the boaters, Granfer and his family, Polly’s parents, Verity’s, the three girls, the men – were all in one place, how much safer it would be. She nodded to herself.

  ‘Oh look,’ Polly said, smiling. ‘Our Sylv’s got her thinking cap on.’

  Maudie stared hard at Sylvia’s head, so then it had to be explained, while they gulped down their cup of tea and, pulling Pup behind them, hurried to the door, making rushed farewells, with Polly quietly warning Granfer that some thought Leon might be in London, he might read the newspaper, that perhaps it would be better if they came down to Howard House. There, it was said.

  The old man merely nodded. ‘The boaters been telling us the same thing. They heard yer at darts.’

  ‘Of course they have,’ Polly said. ‘News travels on the wind, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Summat like that, and don’t yer worry, we is being so careful, with so much boater and Buckby kindness the bugger won’t get near us
,’ Granfer muttered, winking in a way they didn’t understand, but there was such certainty in his voice that they found themselves reassured.

  The girls had to run to make up a bit of time, with Pup darting in and out of the tractor ruts along the lane. Once on the boats, they cast off and finally headed south, climbing the locks until a clouded dusk fell along the cut as they headed for the Blisworth Canal. They moored for the night near open fields crisp with frost, and Sylvia thought again of Joe, and the many who loved him, and Saul away at war, and Granfer and Lettie, and all those at Howard House. And, of course, Maudie. How wonderful to be loved by so many; what must it feel like?

  On that thought she slept. At first her dreams were full of a life at Howard House, all of them together, until that was torn apart by fragmented, tormented pieces of Leon’s darkness, and then, finally, the reunion and those she would meet very soon.

  Chapter 17

  The St Cecilia Orphanage Reunion looms

  Somehow the tiredness always started to overtake them the closer they came to the depot because it meant they would soon be at the end of this journey but probably at the start of another, with barely a beat in between. And even worse now, they’d be pat-pattering back into London, towards the lions’ den of rockets, and perhaps Leon, who had come to dominate their thoughts since their trip to Buckby and Maudie’s improvement.

  But that wasn’t quite yet. The motor hold had to be unloaded at the Aylesbury Basin, which was at the conclusion of the Aylesbury Arm, a mere six miles of cut through unspoilt countryside, and then the butty would be unloaded at one of their favourite wharfs, belonging to the paper factory.

  Later, as they approached the paper factory, Verity blew two blasts on the hunting horn, which had become a tradition: it meant that hot mugs of tea would be summoned up for them by the foreman. When they moored up, Arthur the foreman was already there to supervise the unloading, whistling down the tea from the office. His black band in remembrance of his daughter was still on his arm. As they stood with him the girls wondered when he could remove it without seeming to dismiss her very existence.