by Milly Adams
Tom eased himself up onto his elbow. ‘Oh, Verity, you’re right, but I’m a fool and I think I wanted to hurt you. I don’t want to do that any more. I’ve got things clear in my head, at last.’
‘Well, good for you. That just leaves me then, doesn’t it, and nothing’s clear for me.’ Part of her wanted to hold him, kiss him, but Tom had wanted to hurt her last night, so why had that changed today?
He looked up at her. ‘I’m sorry, dearest Verity, really I am. I missed you so, and when I thought you didn’t love me, it broke my heart and I was just so angry, upset and stupid. Yes, utterly stupid. But you didn’t wait, either, though I—’
‘Tom Brown, I can’t wait – not doing this job,’ she interrupted him, sinking onto her knees next to him, pain and anger tearing at her love; because yes, love was there as well. ‘I have work to do, but you could have limped along to the next phone. But you say you wanted to hurt me, and those feelings don’t change overni—’
It was his turn to interrupt. ‘I know, and I am so sorry. Apart from anything else, I couldn’t think straight when I arrived because I had the headache from hell, and felt – as one of the boaters said – all snarly, until Ma Porter fed me. It was then that I started—’
She stared at his beautiful face: a headache? Was that all: a headache, for heaven’s sake? ‘Well, I’ve got a headache too,’ she interrupted.
He grinned. ‘Mine was because I hadn’t eaten for so long, but yours was because you drank too many beers. It was because of me, and I was trying to say, as well, that I realised—’
Verity drew back her arm to slap him. ‘The arrogance, the bloody cheek, how dare—’
Polly grabbed her. ‘Hey, hey, what’s happening? Is this who I guessed the package would be? Why’s Tom down there on the ground? Why on earth were you trying to slap him?’
Tom lay there, shivering and as white as a sheet. He tried to rise up from his elbow, but instead fell back on the ground, his head resting on the snow and ice. Sylvia loomed over them now.
‘What’s Tom said? Why are you hitting him?’
Verity shouted, snatching her arm from Polly, ‘No one’s hitting anyone.’
Tom groaned and half laughed. ‘Oh Lord, I was just being bloody stupid, trying to say Verity mustn’t drink because of me, and I tried to say that I have heard what your life is like, so I knew why you couldn’t wait, and how I … It just came out all wrong.’ He closed his eyes, shook his head and moaned. ‘Oh God, what a fool.’
Sylvia said, ‘He must be drunk to be lying there – no wonder he and Verity get on well. Let’s get him upright and get him to the lock-keeper, who can deal with him. Look, there’s a pair coming through from the north, now the Porters have gone on. We can grab the lock when they’re through.’
It was bedlam and Verity shook her head, yelling, ‘Will you all shut up. Yes, this is Tom – the package – and he’s on the ground because we bumped into one another and slipped, then crashed. If I’d known it was him, I’d have barged him into the cut.’
‘Why’s he laughing then?’ Sylvia shouted back. Sure enough, Tom was.
‘Because he’s Tom, that’s why. And it isn’t funny at all.’ Verity’s head was pounding, but she wasn’t going to say that or she’d get another lecture about drinking from Sylvia, and probably from Tom as well.
‘I don’t know why I’m laughing, when it’s all gone so wrong and I just keep spouting nonsense. And I can’t even stand up without help, so if you just left me here I wouldn’t blame you.’
Polly was on her knees now, on the other side of Tom, feeling his forehead. ‘He’s clammy. He might be laughing because he’s in shock from the fall, and he might be talking rubbish for the same reason. Does your leg hurt, Tom?’ She was bending over him, speaking slowly.
He raised himself slightly, made a grab for Verity’s hand and looked at her fiercely. ‘I should bloody say so, but no more than it hurt before; and no more than my heart, if she won’t hear me out. I’ve been an utter bloody fool for months, and again just now, but I can’t grab my thoughts because I feel really odd.’ He struggled to sit and, when he did, he turned to Polly and Sylvia. ‘I reckon she took me down to keep me with her – or so I hope.’ He was shivering, sweating and his breathing was shallow and fast.
Sylvia frowned and looked at Polly. ‘Shouldn’t we get the lock-keeper to call an ambulance? If he’s not drunk, he’s delirious.’
Verity felt his forehead, wanting to hold Tom to her, but she didn’t know what he was really thinking, so she wouldn’t; it was too late. Tom tightened his grip on her hand. ‘Verity, and you girls, I’m not delirious, or drunk. I’ve never been more clear-headed in my life, when I think of how much I love this woman. I’ll be all right, if I can just stop lying about on this bloody freezing towpath, saying such bloody silly things, and get into a cabin where it’s warm. In addition, ladies, if the facilities are a bucket, please help me to my feet and I will find a bush, because I need to pee. Sorry, so sorry, but I really do. Then I’m not leaving her, not my Verity, until I’ve had my say; and then you can throw me out with the scraps, if that’s what she decides.’ He lay back suddenly, paler still, if that was possible, trying to catch his breath.
Polly raised an eyebrow at Verity, who was running Tom’s words through her mind, feeling the strength of his hand and hoping – oh, how she hoped – that he meant every word he said. But how could she know? Finally Polly said, ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, we can’t leave him here, it makes the place look untidy. Tom’s coming with us. And shut up, Verity, before you even start. We’ve got to get under way.’
Verity made herself nod and say, ‘All right, let’s get him to a bush, then on board. You can come through the lock with us, Tom, and we can leave you near a station. Can’t have you going AWOL.’ She felt angry, confused and unwilling to let love draw her back into misery. ‘Sorry to be frank, but that’s the situation. There’s a war on and I, well, I don’t know … I just don’t know.’
Tom tried to lever himself up. ‘The whole of the cut has been telling me I’ve been a fool. And now I’ve made it worse, but I mean it when I say I love you, Verity, from the bottom of my heart.’ He sank back down.
Sylvia came round to the back of him and grasped Tom under the armpits. ‘Come on, let’s get him up, for goodness’ sake.’
Polly and Verity hauled him to his feet. For a moment Verity thought he was going to pass out, and she wanted to hold him close and cover his face with kisses.
He hung his head, panting. ‘My sticks, if you wouldn’t mind.’
Sylvia gathered them up and placed them in his hands. ‘You need gloves,’ she said. ‘Polly’s mum knits them, and we have lots. Incidentally, since no one else has done it, let me tell you that the dark-haired one is Polly; I’m Sylvia, the newest on the boat; and you know Verity. Well, of course you do.’
Tom straightened, blowing out his breath. Starlings flew overhead. The girls walked him through the frost-spiked grass as far as some bushes a yard or so from the towpath. They walked away and, when he was done, led the way to the boat, walking on the safer verge; and somehow they levered him on board and into the motor cabin. Dog set up a great deal of barking, the hair rising along her back, but within seconds she seemed to come to a decision and her tail was wagging as Tom sat on the side-bed. The girls crowded the eighteen-inch aisle, until Verity reluctantly sat next to Tom, to make more room.
‘Is there water in that bowl?’ he whispered, nodding towards the painted bowl on the range rest. ‘And may I have just a sip of water?’
Sylvia looked relieved. ‘Oh yes, to both. Always as well to wash hands after … well, after the …’
Verity and Polly sighed and looked at one another. Sylvia ground to a halt. Polly filled a mug from the jug and handed it to Tom, as Sylvia turned, reached forward, slipped soap into the water and placed the bowl, like a benediction, on Tom’s lap. He drank, washed and dried his hands as Sylvia stood over him and then she whipped the bowl up onto
the counter, slamming the cabin doors behind her.
As one, they listened to the splash and then the scrape of the kettle on the roof of the cabin. Within minutes Sylvia reappeared, bringing the cold in with her, and replaced the refilled bowl on the range rest.
‘Thanks, Sylvia,’ Tom said.
Verity watched his strong hands, which had held the mug. Hands that she had loved. Did she still?
Polly said, ‘Are you going to explain about the ins and outs of the bucket, Sylvia, or shall we leave that to Verity?’ Sylvia looked appalled. Polly said, ‘We’ll designate that to Verity then, but should we get on, girls? The lock awaits. Tom, you must wear gloves if you come up top. Verity can see to that, though perhaps take ’em off before the sergeant sees them, especially if she can only find the pink ones; and, looking at her thunderous face, she might just hunt for those especially.’
Verity forced a smile and muttered, ‘I’ll go further, and find the striped ones.’
Tom laughed tentatively, searching Verity’s face. After a moment she smiled, longing to reach out and run her finger down his cheek, but she couldn’t. How much did he really care? Dog had rested her head on his lap and Tom was stroking her, as some colour returned to his face. Verity had forgotten how gentle he was. Polly and Sylvia both hesitated.
Tom, looking exhausted, murmured, ‘I will wait until Verity feels like talking, but until then I’m staying on board. Sorry, all of you.’ He leaned forward on his walking sticks, looking pale, sweaty and drawn, the muscles working in his jaw. ‘And thank you.’ He looked at each of them in turn, and they nodded. His gaze returned to Verity. ‘I’ve missed you so much and thought so many things, and when I saw you from the bridge I thought it was a mirage. I carry your letters.’ He patted his greatcoat. ‘Always. I just didn’t know how I really felt, and what I believed, until now. I had a talk with an ARP war—’
Sylvia interrupted. ‘We need to catch the lock.’
Polly echoed, ‘We really do. So, Verity, I’ll start up the engine and then go on to manage the lock; you steer, and you can talk to Tom from the counter. He really should stay in the warmth of the cabin.’
Verity headed for the counter, but Tom reached out and held her back, just for a moment. ‘I’m not going out with the scraps until we’re done.’ He paused and went on, ‘We were like a couple of children, that we so easily believed the worst of one another. I know, from all the things I’ve heard over the last few hours, that I’ll be lucky if you feel we could go forward. You are so special and I love you so much. I should have come through wind, snow and fire yesterday evening, and from now on, I will.’
He dug his hands in his greatcoat pockets and a look of surprise crossed his face. He said, ‘I forgot – I have your scarf. It smells of dirt, and “Joy”. It should be bottled, because it’s intoxicating.’ He held it up.
Verity said, ‘Ah, so that’s real reason you came, just to keep Sid’s bar tidy?’ She found herself smiling, but it was superficial.
He laughed. ‘Yes, all this way, just to return your scarf.’ This is how they had always been, she thought; joking, laughing, but that had been out of love. Had she been too fragile on the bank, too heartbroken, too scared, too angry, to recognise his love? He handed the scarf to her, their hands touched and she could have wept, but was it out of love, or the loss of love?
She climbed out of the cabin onto the counter. The engine was ticking over. She put it into gear, and Marigold jerked as it took up the butty weight and they glided slowly towards the open lock. It was then that Verity realised Tom was standing on the bottom step, climbing up crabwise, dragging his plastered leg behind him.
‘May I?’ he said.
She nodded. ‘You may, but you’d be better in the warm.’
‘No, because then I am further from you.’
She ignored that. ‘Just perch on the roof, if you can lever yourself up.’ He tried unsuccessfully, so she got her shoulder behind and beneath, shoving him up.
Tom said, ‘What happens now?’
She deliberately misunderstood him. ‘I’m going to edge Marigold through the open lower gates of the lock, right up to the sill, having slipped the tow-rope off this stud, just before we enter.’ She pointed to the stud behind her. ‘Sylvia will then glide the butty alongside us, into the lock, using the momentum that has been built up.’ She pointed ahead. Tom eased himself off the roof, and she snapped, ‘Just stay in one place, Tom, you need to rest.’
He ignored her and, leaning on one of his sticks, stood over the stud. ‘I want to help you, so please let me, Verity. Tell me when to throw off the tow.’
He was standing close. Their eyes locked and she saw the pain, and the longing. She dragged herself back to the job in hand. ‘Now, if you would.’
They entered the lock and the butty came alongside. Verity cut the engine and they glided ahead until they nudged the sill. The frost-slimed walls loomed on either side, though somehow the mist hadn’t found its way down here. Polly and Jack, the lock-keeper, closed the gates behind them; gates that had a bank of broken ice holding them away from the walls.
Polly then dashed to the top gates. Tom stood beside Verity, with the tiller between them. Verity said, ‘Polly is using her windlass to wind open the paddles, or sluices, you might call them. See the water gushing in? It is lifting us to the higher level of the cut. Bit like a staircase, I suppose, each step taking us all the way up the rising ground – or down.’
‘Remarkable,’ Tom muttered as the boats rose.
‘Yes,’ Verity agreed. ‘She will then cycle on to the next lock.’
Once they reached the top level, Jack the lock-keeper notated the docket Polly held out, then pushed it back into her pocket. Verity heard him call to Polly, ‘Got an ’itch-’iker, I see.’
Polly laughed. ‘We have indeed, but we’ll drop him overboard if he doesn’t behave.’
Jack said, ‘I ’eard he didn’t walk to the next phone box? But reckon ’im and ’is leg slipping about in the snow would make it difficult. Difficult, but not impossible.’
Tom grimaced at Verity, who shook her head, surprised that she found herself wanting to defend him. She said quietly, ‘The cut is like a tannoy; everyone hears about everything, but they don’t discuss it until they know and trust you.’ At that moment Dog leapt up the cabin steps and onto the roof. ‘Go on, Tom, she said, ‘join your new friend. You need that rest.’
Tom managed on his own as Polly and Jack opened the lock gates and Verity started up the Marigold, easing out onto the cut, attaching the butty’s tow-rope over the stud, and feeling the jerk as Horizon fell in behind them.
‘You girls are like a well-oiled machine, but I knew that, because I learned a lot on Ma Porter’s butty. That’s what helped to change my thinking. And yes, it was as quick as that,’ Tom murmured, and Verity saw him looking at her, not just with love, but also respect.
Chapter 5
Tuesday 28 March – early afternoon, leaving Cowley lock
Verity steered the Marigold while Polly cycled along the towpath, lock-wheeling as they steadily climbed towards Watford. Verity had tried to make Tom return to the warmth of the cabin, but he had refused. ‘I need to be here – freezing with you – because at some stage we, or rather you, will find the words, and I don’t want to miss the moment.’
She realised, as the miles passed, that Tom was more his own man now, someone who would never work for people like the Clements again. Even as she thought this and they passed other pairs heading south, dog-walkers on the towpath, a few fishermen freezing in this weather and the backs of terraced houses, warehouses and factories, she said nothing. She simply steered, or watched the geese flying over, or studied the bridges for children, although it was still too cold for them to come out to gob them. The mist was still thickening.
Why had her father not stopped her mother’s interference? Verity wondered. Why had he said, last time she went home with Polly, to force the truth from her mother, ‘Don’t give up on us,
darling’? But then he had done nothing to make her want to be with them.
As they drew alongside Watford, Verity slipped into the cabin to plate up the rabbit and bacon stew, which should keep them all going. There was enough for Tom, especially as she had baked potatoes on the top shelf; potatoes bought off one of the allotment sales tables set up along the cut. In the next lock she handed a plate to Sylvia, who waited on the butty alongside, and Polly jumped down from the lock edge, shoved Tom up and ate her stew on the roof with him, while Verity forked hers, standing by the tiller.
No one spoke, just as she and Tom had not really yet spoken. Verity made herself concentrate on the bits of bacon, not the rabbit, because she was as sick of rabbit as Polly. Would Saul or Thomo have managed to trap pheasants on this trip, as well as the rabbits? Oh, she did hope so, although she knew that she shouldn’t complain about her long-eared friends, as it kept the girls’ meagre rations ticking over. Aloud, she wondered if the mist would ever lift, or would it still be here in the summer?
Sylvia called across from the butty, ‘Don’t be absurd – it’s only the last of the winter.’
Tom scraped clean his enamel plate. ‘Ah, but like an Indian summer, a late winter can be harder than at any time in the preceding months, and sometimes snow even falls in April.’
By the time Verity finished her stew, the lock was up to the level of the top cut. Time to open the gates. ‘I’ll do it,’ she declared.
Tom shook his head. ‘Please don’t. Polly, would you do a few more locks? It’s time Verity tried to talk, and me, too – it really is.’
Polly nodded and handed her empty plate to Verity, but said to Tom, ‘I won’t have Verity hurt again. No one on this cut will. What happened isn’t your fault – far from it, apart from letting her down at the all-important meeting at Sid’s – but it isn’t her fault, either, and you should know that. You have both been manoeuvred by the Clements, but you are adults, so sort it out. I will be watching, and into the cut you will go, Tom Brown, if you so much as say one word out of turn.’
