The Narrowboat Girl

by Annie Murray

  She held on to the cabin of the Esther Jane, a smile on her lips as she watched Joel stepping along the bank. She took in a great lungful of air. Stinking and smoky as it was, just then it felt like the breath of freedom.

  The days that followed she would always remember as the closest heaven ever came to earth. It was the newness of it all, how right it felt – her being on the boat and life opening out in front of her like a picture in a storybook. For the first time in such a long while, she felt safe.

  That morning, as they moved south, Maryann watched carefully, drinking in every detail as Joel and Darius manoeuvred the boat through Camp Hill Locks. Gradually the dark city began to fall away, the sun burned through the clouds. They left Birmingham with a cap of cloud over it, but outside the haze cleared and at last the sky was a rich summer blue.

  ‘Is this the Oxford Canal then?’ Maryann asked, excited.

  ‘Oh no – we don’t get on the h’Oxford till after Wigram’s Turn – down at Napton. This is the Warwick and Birnigum. We’re headed for a cleaner part of the cut now, you’ll see,’ Joel told her. They referred to ‘Birnigum – that stinking ’ole’ and as they progressed out into the Warwickshire countryside, Maryann could see why. She kept gazing round her, enchanted by the space, the wide, rolling country with its green pastures, black and white cows, its cornfields and snug-looking cottages, amazed at being able to see so far, further than she’d ever been able to see in her life before.

  She could have sat and stared around quite happily all day, but she was anxious that Darius shouldn’t regard her as a ‘good-for-nothing’ while she was aboard. Also the place felt rather lonely without Ada and Jep and she wanted to keep busy. She asked Joel what she should do.

  ‘Well, you could give the brightwork a polish,’ he said, pointing to the brass fittings on the chimney, kettle, horse brasses and handles inside the cabin. Since Ada left they hadn’t had the time for ‘prettifying’ the place and the brasses were tarnished. Gladly Maryann set to work until they were smooth and gleaming and she could see a distorted version of her face looking back at her in them. Then she cleaned the cabin, wiping out all the smuts and dust and sweeping the floor. She was small and agile, kneeling to poke right into the corners in a way she could see was hard for big, muscular men. The cabin was so small, yet so prettily decorated inside with its scumbled paintwork, its roses and castles and scrolls, and its shelves of china, that Maryann felt as if she was playing houses. She had to remind herself that this really was their house and that Joel, and certainly Darius, had never known any other home.

  In the middle of the afternoon, with Joel’s help, she pulled a bucket of water out of the cut, and with a chunk of soap set to and washed the cabin’s crochet work until she had it looking, not gleaming white, for it was already yellowed with age, but at least a good deal better.

  ‘Can I hang them out to dry?’ she asked Joel. She always went to him instead of his father, although the two of them were both there in the stern. Bessie knew the routine and plodded along for a lot of the journey without being led.

  ‘Oh – can’t rig up a line any too easy with a load on,’ Joel said, dismissively. ‘We do that when the boat’s empty, see.’ But he caught the crestfallen look on Maryann’s face. She had so wanted to do something to help!

  ‘Awright then – I’ll see what I can do. Those little bits don’t need to hang down far, do they?’

  Maryann felt Darius’s eyes on her and wondered what he was thinking. She watched nervously as Joel climbed forward over the cabin and made his way along the planks which were laid over the cargo. He was holding a line attached to the cabin and unravelling it. He stretched it across to the low mast at the front and tied it, creating a washing line.

  ‘There y’are!’ he called to her, scrambling back across the planks.

  It was obviously her turn to climb over. Joel handed her some pegs which she put in the bucket. She was glad it was a calm day without wind, and that the boat didn’t have its tarpaulin sheeting on – the planks would be positioned higher, over the top of it, if they had to cover the load. The only time she felt really wobbly was when she straightened up after bending over to pick one of the cloths out of the bucket, almost losing her balance and falling off the planks. It wasn’t far to fall but she was determined not to lose her dignity. Soon, not far above the cargo, the line of crochet work was fluttering like bunting. How pretty it was! Fancy being able to make things like that, Maryann thought. She saw Darius exchange a quiet smile with Joel as she came back to them. Suddenly Darius said, ‘Why don’t you ’ave a sit up there and look round. You’ve bin working enough I reckon.’

  She realized he meant she should sit up on the cabin. He said he could see past her.

  ‘Ooh,’ she said, climbing up. ‘It’s hot up ’ere again!’ The roof of the cabin was baking to the touch in the sunshine. Joel handed her the soaking mop. Periodically, in the heat, they swabbed down the roof of the cabin to stop the heat shrinking the timbers and cracking the paint. Maryann laid her coat on the damp roof and sat feeling the sun blazing down on her skin, screwing her eyes up against the bright sunlight on the water. Life on the cut was so quiet and peaceful compared with home, where there were always factory sounds, the whirring, whining, clanging of machinery, trams and buses and people shouting over all the other racket. Out here there were just the gentle noises of Bessie’s hooves, mostly muffled by mud now they were out in the fields; the boat passing through the rippling water; the creak of the tiller and the men’s occasional speech. Maryann began to attune herself to new sounds: birdsong from across the fields and in the trees, the occasional lowing of a cow, waterbirds quacking away from the boat and the breeze in the grass. There was nothing to look at that was grimy or ugly, just fields, trees and sky, farm cottages and church spires, and the bright paintwork of the boat winding along the ribbon of water. As they glided along, she thought the cut was the most beautiful place on earth.

  Every so often another boat would appear, coming from the opposite direction, and the boats would pass one another a few inches apart in the middle of the channel, the boatmen exchanging a ‘How do!’ or more if they were better acquainted, as they often seemed to be. A couple greeted Darius and Joel with, ‘We ent seen you for a bit!’

  She was still sitting dreamily on the cabin roof that afternoon when there came another, incongruous sound advancing towards them, a ceaseless ‘phut-phut’ getting louder and louder, until round a bend in the cut they saw a vessel coming along with smoke streaming out from it.

  ‘See that?’ Joel shouted up to her. ‘That’s one of they moty boats!’

  As it drew closer Maryann saw it was towing a butty, both of them clothed up with tarpaulins over the cargo so she couldn’t see what it was. The noise it made seemed extraordinarily loud after all the quiet. The family aboard all waved and shouted greetings, trying to make themselves heard over the engine. Maryann turned to watch it disappear behind them and saw that Joel and Darius were doing the same. Darius was shaking his head as if in disapproval at this noisy ‘moty boat’.

  Joel leaned over to her. ‘You don’t get many of them down the h’Oxford,’ he said. ‘The locks’re wider down ’ere to London.’ On there, he explained, the boat could tow a butty through all in one go, whereas on here they had to pull them through the narrower locks one by one and it all took time. Maryann was learning that the one overwhelming command on the cut was ‘keep moving!’

  That night they tied up near a pub called the Cape outside Warwick, a little distance after the long flight of locks at Hatton which Joel told her were called the ‘Steps to Heaven’. There were three other boats tied up there too. Once Bessie was fed and stabled, Joel, Darius and the other men caught up with the gossip in the pub. Maryann sat out on the bank and played with two little children from the other boat and their mother seemed grateful to have them occupied while she got on. Joel and Darius came back with groceries they’d bought from the pub.

  Maryann bedded dow
n on the side bench again that night, as she had before when she slept on the Esther Jane, and watched Joel ready himself for bed. She was lulled by the reassurance of his presence, his huge shadow moving round the cabin. Neither of the men undressed much for bed. They left their boots by the door and took off their jackets, undid their belts which they fastened at the back to keep the buckles from digging in when they bent over, and unfastened a few buttons. Both of them lay to sleep in shirts and their thick, corduroy trousers.

  Before he lay down, Joel stepped over to her. ‘You tired after your first day, Maryann?’

  ‘Ummm.’ She smiled sleepily up at him. His face was in shadow. ‘It’s been bostin – the best day ever.’

  He patted her shoulder and she could hear the smile in his voice.

  ‘Night – young nipper.’

  The bed creaked as he lay down beside his father.

  Maryann wanted to lie awake, to hear the sounds of the countryside at night, but she could scarcely manage it, she was so exhausted after all the new sights and a day in the fresh air. Everything smelled different. There was always the smell of the canal all round them. The sounds of family life from the boat moored behind them were dying out. Her mind passed over the day they’d had, what she’d seen, how she’d learned the way a boat manoeuvred through a lock. Something screeched outside. She imagined the Esther Jane from the outside, under the stars, resting on the black water. And then she was asleep.

  Seventeen

  Soon after the Esther Jane set off again the next morning, they passed through Warwick and later that morning, the stately, calm town of Leamington Spa. As they approached each town, buildings and roads grew up along the cut, shutting out the view, and with more people about there was a sudden sense of bustle.

  When they reached the lock at Radford Semele, Joel said, ‘’Ere – you give me a hand this time.’

  The day before he had told her to stay on the boat at most of the locks, but today he took her with him and showed her how to attach the windlass and turn it to open and close the gates. Maryann watched with intense attention, all her senses alert to learning to do everything as quickly and as well as possible.

  He brought her round in front of him and she took the handle of the windlass which was warm from his grip on it. Each of the men had a favourite one or two of these implements for turning the locks, and the handle of Joel’s was smoothed with use. His rough hand tightened over hers, concealing it completely and together they turned on the windlass, opening the gate to let the Esther Jane through now that the water was level. Maryann felt the immense strength of Joel’s arm.

  Just before they reached Wigram’s Turn where Joel had told her they would join the Oxford Canal, Maryann was in the cabin and heard Joel and Darius suddenly start shouting and calling outside. She was astonished to hear them so voluble and excited and she poked her head out to see them both waving like mad at a boat approaching from the other direction.

  The man at the other tiller was waving back.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s our Darius,’ Joel said.

  As they drew nearer, Maryann saw a large, muscular man with black hair curling out from under his cap, dark eyes and strong, chiselled features. He wore a rather solemn, austere expression. He reminded her of Ada except he didn’t have her cheeky grin. She wondered if old Mr Bartholomew had looked like that as a young man. The younger Darius was one of the crew on a Fellows, Morton and Clayton boat which was lying low in the water, its hold heaped high with packing cases.

  There was a lot of ‘how do’ing and exchanges of greeting as the boats passed.

  ‘You’re low in the water,’ Joel called out. ‘You’ll ’ave sparrows drinking from yer gunwhales!’

  The young Darius grinned back and what had looked rather a forbidding face lit up suddenly and Maryann decided he looked nice after all. Joel called out that he should keep an eye out for Ada with Josiah Morley and there were shouts of ‘see yer at Christmas time if not before!’ and then they were past. That was the nearest they were going to get to a family reunion. The boats had to keep moving. Maryann wanted to ask Joel more about his family but she was shy in front of the elder Darius.

  She helped Joel as they went up the flight of locks south of Napton, carefully doing everything she was told. The day became blisteringly hot as they set off down the Oxford Canal, so much so that Maryann found that at times she could barely touch anything on the outside of the cabin without scorching herself. She busied herself with the mop. The sun glared off the water, blinding to the eyes, and she felt her nose and cheeks turning red and sore. There were trees in a few places close to the canal, but mostly it ran through remote, open fields, and the need to keep the towpaths clear meant discouraging anything inclined to hang down over the cut. So there was little shade either for the boat or for Bessie.

  For a time, Maryann walked beside Bessie along the path, enjoying the feel of stretching her legs, the smells of the fields and the hot horse beside her. Bessie wore little crocheted sleeves on her ears to keep the flies off and she seemed to plod more slowly in the intense heat. The route wound and twisted along, nestling against the contours of hills. Sometimes there were villages and little wharves tucked right beside the canal but much of the time there were just the fields stretching into the distance, trees outlined against the skyline, and it felt as if they might not see anyone else ever again. The only sounds were the rustling reeds and the twittering of invisible birds. Once she saw a huge bird lift from the bank ahead of her, its legs trailing, flying off with a heavy, cumbersome flapping of its wings.

  Later, back on board, Joel told her it was a heron. She went into the cabin. It was stifling hot in there and a heavy bluebottle was batting against the windows. Maryann felt like lying down and going to sleep, but she knew she mustn’t. The last thing she wanted was to be seen being lazy.

  Joel’s head appeared at the door. ‘’Ent you got a bonnet with you?’

  She shook her head. ‘I ran off in such a hurry – I forgot it.’

  He hesitated for a moment, then seemed to decide something. He came into the cabin, squatted down and rummaged right at the back of the cupboard he called the ‘monkey ’ole’. He brought out a large, squashed paper bag and from it he drew an old-fashioned boat-woman’s bonnet with a peak at the front and layers of black frills which went right over the top of the head and ended up hanging down at the back.

  Maryann stared at it. It looked old and dusty, like a dead raven.

  ‘It were my mother’s,’ Joel told her gruffly. ‘She ’ad it made special in black when the old Queen died. These ’ere bits’ – he pulled at the long material at the back – ‘them’s your curtains – ’ll keep the sun off yer neck.’

  Was he expecting her to wear it? The hat looked so worn and old-fashioned. It was a heavy, ugly thing and she wished she had her little straw bonnet with her.

  ‘I can’t put that on. Not if it was your mom’s.’ This was a rather awesome thought.

  ‘I’d like to see yer in it.’ Joel held it out to her. ‘It’s ten year since it were worn. She passed on before I came home.’

  ‘Why daint Ada wear it?’

  ‘Oh – she had her own bonnet.’

  Seeing she didn’t take it, he put it on her head himself. Maryann felt strange, seeing the fond look in his eyes. The bonnet felt much too loose.

  ‘Bit big on you, ent it? But it’ll do just for a bit while it’s so hot. We don’t want you getting caught by the sun.’

  Joel was the last person Maryann would ever want to offend so she smiled uncertainly at him. She felt like a granny in the bonnet. She had seen a few older women wearing them along the cut.

  She followed him up out of the cabin. As she straightened up she saw Darius’s eyes fasten on her. He actually started at the sight of her and a look of utter outrage came over his face.

  ‘What’s ’er doing in that?’ he demanded.

  ‘I thought she could wear it for a bit,�
� Joel said. ‘She ent brought a bonnet with ’er. And it’s nice to see it wore again.’

  Joel had made a terrible mistake. Maryann could see just how terrible by the look in Darius Bartholomew’s eyes.

  ‘That’s my Esther’s bonnet – moy best mate. Not one else ever wears that bonnet. Get it off yer, lass!’

  Maryann was already tearing the hat from her head, her hands trembling at the emotion in the old man’s voice. Joel took it from her.

  ‘Sorry, Dad – only I thought yer’d like to see it on again, the way I did.’

  Darius was breathing heavily. ‘Put it away.’

  Joel ducked back into the cabin with the bonnet. Maryann couldn’t look up. Her cheeks were burning and she had a horrible feeling inside as if she’d committed a crime. She had offended Mr Bartholomew so badly when what she wanted more than anything was for him to accept her. It was unbearable that he would think her uppity enough to take his dead wife’s bonnet and wear it.

  ‘I’m ever so sorry, Mr Bartholomew,’ she managed to say, her voice quavering.

  ‘It weren’t your idea I don’t s’pose,’ Darius said abruptly.

  Though she knew this was true, his rough words scarcely made her feel any better. Joel came back out and laid a hand on her shoulder for a moment.

  ‘My mistake, not yours,’ he said.

  But it was not until much later that day that the feeling of discomfort this incident had brought Maryann began to ease off and she could feel a little more comfortable with Darius Bartholomew again. After that she doubled her efforts to show him she could work hard and try to please him.