Hope on the Waterways

by Milly Adams

  Dougie reached over Dobbo and picked up Joe. Joe said, ‘I be awful thirsty, Mr Dougie, and I peed and I smell.’

  Dougie said, ‘Well, that’s Jacob’s problem. Up you get, Dobbo. We’re finished ’ere. We best get out and away, quick like.’ But Dobbo didn’t move. ‘You go, I’ll take what’s coming. Get the boy away.’

  Joe said, as Mr Dougie carried him to the door, ‘Mr Dobbo helped me, ’e did. ’E wouldn’t let me da ’urt me good and proper, and he paid fer it. Don’t ’urt ’im no more. I wants him to come ’ome with me.’

  As Dougie carried him past men whose eyes were dark and deep sunk and hard, a small man wearing a homburg said, ‘It is a good thing we do today. It is a good thing your Dobbo did, too, because I have been listening. Let him go with the boy.’ The man flicked his fingers at someone behind Joe.

  Joe peered over Dougie’s shoulder and watched as Mr Dobbo were pulled from the old store. He looked like an old man. Joe wondered if he himself did too, because that’s how he felt. The man with the homburg was saying, as he blocked the corridor, a strange smile on his face, ‘And you, Dougie, give me that gun, and don’t you ever come back. Just find another patch. You, Joseph, you live your life away from the cesspit of this world, and take your guardian with you too. I will give you nothing of your father’s, but you should want nothing of his. You have friends who have worked hard for you for nothing more than love, which makes you blessed.’

  He stood aside, his face so sad. Joe, carried by Dougie, with Mr Dobbo walking along behind, called, ‘Thank you, sir.’

  They passed along the corridor and through the club and Joe saw many men, some with guns, spreading out into it, and through it. But he never saw his da, and he hoped he were gone for good.

  Mr Dougie carried him up the stairs and out through the doors, into a London where red buses and cars were buzzing about, and pigeons were landing on roofs. Somewhere a car horn hooted, and on a corner, a man in a red scarf was selling papers and calling out the headlines. It was like it always was, when he thought it would be black and grey, and changed. Opposite was a man who crossed the road, removing his hat. ‘Joe, I believe,’ the man said. ‘I’m Jacob Fisher, Solly’s son. Your mother is safe in Buckby. I can take you to her, or to Howard House, it’s your choice. But should we take you to our home, to bathe and dress you first? Would you like that? Then I can telephone everyone and tell them that you have returned.’

  Dougie put him down, but Joe’s legs couldn’t feel and he crumpled. It was Mr Dobbo who picked him up. ‘I reckon ’e’d like that. I will help you with him as far as that.’

  But Joe clung to him, saying, ‘Mr Dobbo ’as saved me. He made a mistake, but ’e has saved me, and I would wish ’im to come home with me. And please, Mr Jacob, we’d very much like a drink o’ water.’

  So, with Joe safe in the arms of Mr Dobbo, whose dried blood was caked on his face and head, Jacob hailed a taxi to Golders Green while Dougie hurried off and was lost in the crowd. When they had almost reached the Fisher house, Jacob asked, ‘So, where is home, Joe?’

  Joe was almost asleep in Mr Dobbo’s arms, and he said, surprised that such a question should be asked, ‘Howard House, with me aunties and uncles, and the girls, o’ course. Cos I need to show Sylvia how to draw a kingfisher, proper. Ma can come and see us there when she wants, cos that’s what we said.’

  Chapter 28

  Tuesday, May 8th 1945 – VE Day on the cut

  The girls moored up at Alperton well before the sun had even thought of going down. They could have pat-pattered on, but what was the point – now? Polly dusted off her hands and let Pup romp along the bank. The women were out washing as always, and Polly sauntered along, keeping an eye on her dog, which Maudie called an old cut dog, now. ‘Cos,’ she said, ‘yer ’ad to grow up fast, or drown.’

  Maudie wasn’t one for too much of a laugh yet, though she’d smile. It was good of her to join them and run the butty. Polly dug her hands deep in her pockets, and stopped by Ma Porter, who was wringing out Jimmy’s trousers. Polly took the end tossed by Ma. Together they twisted away from one another, and the water gushed on to the grass. Polly found herself watching as some of it sank, and some of it dribbled along and into the water.

  Ma Porter said, relieving her of the trousers, folding them up and placing them in the wicker basket by her side, ‘Yer Saul is safe now, that’s a blessing. And young Verity’s Tom. All safe, Maudie and her Joe too. Happy an’ all, though only a fool asks for ’appiness. What we need is a roof over our ’eads, a good family and something to get up for every morning, and as we go on, to leave a footprint.’

  Ma Porter was dipping into the rinsing water with her tongs and hauling out Steerer Porter’s trousers. She raised an eyebrow. Polly nodded. ‘So, that’s what we need, is it, Ma Porter? It makes sense.’

  She gripped the trousers and these they wrung out too. Ma said, ‘Saw a kingfisher I did on t’way ’ere. Jimmy saw it first. ’E said yer Sylvia woulda liked it, mayhap even drawn it.’

  Polly kept twisting, and it was like her heart. Why? Why had Sylvia gone into the convent without a word to them?

  ‘Steady, lass. You’ll twist t’legs right off, yer will,’ Ma Porter said.

  Polly saw that her knuckles were white from the gripping. She grinned and tossed the legs back to Ma Porter. ‘I hear from Joe that Jimmy’s writing to him at Howard House?’

  Ma stood with her arms akimbo. ‘Wouldn’t be able to do that, would he – write, I mean – but for yer teachin’. Reckon we’ll put ’im in the boarding school, so he ’as something he can do when the cut runs down, which it surely be doing, now t’war is over. Not today it won’t, nor tomorrow but some time not far off. Your Maudie’s going down to Dorset, I hear, to visit Joe, who ’as chosen his ’ome.’

  Polly wiped her hands down her trousers and took the roll-up cigarette the woman offered. They stood and smoked together for a while as Pup sniffed round and about. Polly said, ‘It’s complicated. Joe feels safe there, he has friends at school, and he doesn’t want to come back to the cut. I think perhaps Maudie will work with Timmo on his pair soon, now Trev is thinking of leaving, and visit her boy regularly.’

  Ma Porter led the way on to her counter and sat on the stool while Polly perched on the cabin roof. ‘It be like our putting Jimmy in boarding school. Maudie knows we ’ave to do what’s best for them we love. And after all, she loves Timmo too. Who knows, they might do summat near Howard House when the work on the cut runs out. P’raps he could drive a lorry, like yer Saul in t’war, an’ do transport on roads, instead o’ the cut?’

  Again they fell silent. Polly looked along the bank and could see Maudie polishing Horizon’s chimney brass, and Verity just sitting on Marigold’s roof staring at the tiller, her cigarette smoke and the range smoke rising in the late afternoon air.

  What would Sylvia, the postulant, be doing right now? Polly felt her throat thicken and she swallowed. She smoked her cigarette down to its stub, then tossed it into the water. ‘She never said goodbye, she just left a note. Didn’t she like us at all? Was it just a lie?’

  She knew she might have said it before, but didn’t care, because she still couldn’t bear it. ‘We miss her, she’s part of us. Why didn’t she say goodbye? We went to the convent, but she wouldn’t see us. She never said she was even thinking of it and we thought she had Steve and was happy.’

  Happy? Only fools wanted happiness, Ma Porter had just said.

  Ma Porter produced her crochet from beneath the stool, and her fingers were busy. Her wrung clothes were folded neatly in the basket on the bank, her second boiler was simmering next to it, the smell of soda filled the air. The steam rose straight up. Ma Porter said, ‘P’raps you’s thinkin’ too much of yerselves not of ’er. ’T’ain’t why didn’t she say goodbye, is it? More why did she go at all, so sudden like? That’s what yer should ask yerselves.’

  That night in the pub the air was as smoky as ever from the cigarettes and the fire, the chatte
r was loud, and over everything was an air of heady relief that VE Day had arrived. Those with men at war could breathe again, as long as they weren’t in the Far East, of course. Relief also that the Limehouse run was quiet, and there’d be no more rockets or bombs, but how the hell were they going to rebuild the country? Bet, who was with her two girls and Maudie, by the fireplace, bought the first round. Bet, Polly and Verity played Timmo, Trev and Pete at darts and the girls lost. Timmo gloated, and they laughed, along with everyone in the pub. They sang the national anthem and then fell silent as they thought of those who wouldn’t come home, and felt joy for those who would.

  Long before closing, Verity and Polly walked back to Marigold and Horizon arm in arm, past the drinkers, some of whom had moved out into the garden which faced the cut. They were followed by Maudie and Timmo, who were talking quietly. They heard Maudie laugh. Verity said, ‘She needs to be with Timmo, not with us two miseries.’

  ‘Granfer says she feels she owes us a debt for Joe’s safety.’

  They walked along the towpath past Ma Porter’s resting boiler, and Polly said, ‘Talking of miseries, Ma said today that we’re looking at Sylv’s decision from our own point of view, instead of asking why she went.’

  Verity stopped dead. ‘What have I just said?’ She slapped her forehead. ‘Just listen to me nattering about Granfer saying Maudie feels she owes us a debt, so what about Sylv? Perhaps it’s not belief, but obligation. Do you remember that she used to feel she owed it to the orphanage, and something about a Harriet, to become a nun and serve the order, and God? It made her the grumpy-guts she was when she first joined the waterway girls, but once on the cut she found another way of thinking, helped by Sister Augustine’s advice.’

  Polly heard Pup barking from Marigold. ‘She’s heard us, come on – and of course, yes, yes, she did say something like that, and we knew how she felt. What the hell is the matter with us? But no, hang on, she had Steve, she was in love, that was all in the past. Anyway, why act on it now? Joe’s back, the war is over, and everything is safe, including Steve, who only has ordinary fires to deal with.’

  They looked at one another. ‘Perhaps that’s why,’ said Verity slowly. ‘She feels she can leave now, because her war work is done. We’ve got to stop thinking that she left just us, Pol. I mean, she knew she’d get questioned if she told us her plans, which is bloody cheeky of us, really. She knows her own mind, and who are we to think we’re more important than a calling?’

  Polly vaguely saw the sense, and was too tired and upset to think about it any more. Pup barked again, and she called, ‘We’re coming.’

  They went to bed early and couldn’t sleep, but since Sylvia had gone that was normal, so they made cocoa and talked, running through all the possible scenarios, but this time, rather than concentrating on how they felt, they looked at it from Sylvia’s side, moving from obligation to the decision that she had a real calling, and back to … what? They talked of her past guilt over dobbing in Joe over the butty fire, and the bond she and Joe had subsequently built up. Polly muttered, ‘Look at all the letters, the drawings, the relationship between the two. Has she moved her sense of obligation from the orphanage to Joe?’

  They smoked, shoving the double door open to air the room. Instead of another cocoa they drank tea, wishing it were gin. ‘If it was a sense of obligation to Joe, how far would that go?’ mused Verity.

  Polly dropped the stub of her cigarette into the dregs of her mug of tea. It hissed. Verity scowled. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Polly carried her mug up on to the counter and shook it over the cut. The stub dropped, floated, sank. She leaned against the cabin, staring up at the stars. Verity called from the cabin, ‘Do you remember her thinking it was rude that no thanks were given on the cut, and then much later understanding the boaters’ unwritten obligation to repay? She said it was a sort of deal, and one that drew a line under the matter.’

  Polly eased herself on to the roof. The cool breeze made her shiver, but there was a slight heat from the chimney. Pup bounded from the cabin and leapt up to sit with her. A deal? she thought. A deal? When does an obligation become a deal? She said, raising her voice a little, ‘Do you remember when Sister Augustine told Sylvia that there was no obligation to repay the orphanage by becoming a nun when Sylvia was so confused? So, thinking about that, does Sylvia still feel an obligation, but not to the convent; instead to Harriet for that promise she says she made and didn’t fulfil, but why now? And why rush off? So perhaps instead it was a deal to help Joe stay safe. But a deal with who?’ She rubbed her forehead. Why couldn’t she and Verity just accept that it was Sylvia’s calling? Because they loved the damned girl, and the girl loved Steve, and had come alive, and had talked of a future at Howard House if Steve got his transfer, because … Well, just because it didn’t damn well make sense, and yes, they didn’t feel it in their ruddy water.

  Verity was scrabbling from the cabin on to the counter now, standing there, wagging her finger, almost shouting. ‘Yes, yes, but go back to a sense of obligation, or rather, don’t go back but take it further. Do you remember how we came across Sylvia praying when Joe was taken? She was so fierce. What if—’

  Polly interrupted. ‘So what are you saying?’

  Verity was shaking her head, pacing the tiny counter. ‘I’m not sure what I’m saying, but … What if her deal was with her God? Perhaps she made a promise to do what she thought she should have done in the first place, which was to fulfil her promise to Harriet, and her obligation to the orphanage and to Him, and would do so if Joe was all right?’

  Pup yelped. Polly hushed her. Verity stopped in front of her. ‘Pol, think of it; how much more obliged would Sylv feel if someone she absolutely loved was saved. What if she – oh, I don’t know, promised to sort of sacrifice herself for Joe’s safety?’

  Polly sighed. Verity shoved Polly along, and sat between her and the chimney, and they huddled together, feeling the breeze stiffen and hearing the accordion playing in Sid’s pub garden. Clearly there was to be dancing till dawn, but not here, on Marigold, not until they believed that Sylvia had left for the right reason; for her, not them.

  Verity shook her head. ‘We’re probably being totally selfish. What if she is “home”? What if she has willingly and wholeheartedly chosen that world over us, and all the future plans, not to mention poor Steve?’

  Saul and Tom had marched tired mile after mile as the battalion headed towards the Baltic to cut off the Russians heading for Denmark, and as May 8th passed and became May 9th German troops marched in the opposite direction, in step, shoulders back, rifles borne correctly as they escaped the Russians. Their women hurried too, and they ignored the British, just as Saul and Tom ignored them.

  Tom and Saul talked of the future, and the past. Geordie had been wounded and returned to Britain as a casualty, taking letters with them in reply to the girls, which they had received in a package from Sir David McDonald, who was the father of a canal girl Verity had saved from drowning last year, and brought by a Lieutenant Wilberforce who had joined the company. As they marched they talked of Howard House as an hotel, or a school, which the girls had mooted. They thought an hotel, but what did the girls really think?

  ‘We can ask them,’ Saul replied.

  ‘Best leave it till they’ve grown used to Sylvia running off to the convent.’

  ‘But soon, when we’re home.’

  Saul said, ‘Demob is slow.’

  ‘I bet Leon’s also finding life a bit slow in clink, but bloody lucky just to be dobbed into the police and not floating in the Thames. OK, he was found with a packet of evidence linking him to the murder of Manny. Strange, that,’ Tom muttered, as they kicked up the dust. ‘He’ll probably hang.’

  ‘Lord, I’ll be glad to be back, with the Channel between us and this lot. I’ve had enough of sorting out the filthy, vile bloodiness of their mess.’

  Steve had become used to the absence of bombs and rockets, which was something h
e thought would never happen. He held his hose on the house fire, started by a candle falling on to papers. He wished he’d never been a fireman, then he’d never have come to her rescue, her, his ex-fiancée, Sylvia Simpson, who could have been Sylvia Bates by now.

  He worked alongside Terry and missed Dodge so much. He missed Sylvia so much more, with her red hair, dancing eyes, calloused hands, and kindness. What bloody kindness was it, though, to send a note saying that she had a vocation to fulfil and that she was sorry, so very sorry, and had loved him so much? Had? That’s right, had.

  The water was fizzing from the nozzle and soaking his hands. But at least he was alive, whereas Sylvia had buried herself behind walls. Buried, that’s what she was. So why had he saved her in the first place? She should have sent him away then.

  ‘You all right, Stevo?’

  ‘Course, Terro,’ he joked.

  ‘You look a bit … Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘We’re alive, Terry, so what more do we want? Over three hundred of us firefighters aren’t, and Gawd, thousands of our blokes are injured. Why the hell should I be fed up, eh?’

  Terry aimed at the next burning window. ‘I don’t know, lad. You tell me. Something about your “to be missus” doing a bunk into a nunnery. It would fair break me up, so you sure you’re all right?’

  Steve couldn’t stand it any longer, and said, ‘No, don’t think I’ll ever be all right again. I loved her so much, and I don’t understand it. It was so sudden, and I hate the bloody nuns, and that Sister Augustine – they’ve got to her.’

  He looked up as the sub called out, ‘You’ve drowned that one good and proper, lad. Wake up.’ Steve shifted his aim to the next. Terry said nothing, just muttered, ‘You’ll have to light a few candles for that remark, lad.’