The Boat Girls

by Margaret Mayhew

He said, ‘All right. I believe you. But you’re still going to have to get out. There’s a matinee. I need to get ready.’

  He must be the plumber, after all. Having her on.

  ‘It’s Private Lives this week. You can’t be in that.’

  ‘It is. And I am. I’m the second husband that gets dumped for the first. I’ll get you a complimentary seat, if you like. To show there’s no ill feeling.’

  She sat in the front row of the dress circle; usually she was at the back of the gods. The tatty auditorium – all flaking gilt and bomb-damaged cherubs – was full of old ladies in moulting furs that reeked of mothballs. As she waited for the curtain to rise, her mouth was dry, her hands clenched, her heart racing – as though she were on the other side of it.

  At first, she didn’t recognize him. His hair was slicked down, the north country accent had vanished, the clipped speech, the mannerisms and movements were faultlessly upper class. He’s good, she thought, and so is the girl playing the other bride. But her mother had been right about the leads. The matinee idol and the over-the-hill actress were painfully bad. Naturally this was lost on the mothballed audience, who had known them in their heyday. At the curtain call, the idol and his partner were loudly applauded, the other two rated a sprinkling of polite hand-claps.

  She went round to the dressing room again. He was cleaning off the greasepaint and looked at her in the mirror.

  ‘Rubbish, wasn’t it? Should’ve warned you.’

  ‘You were good,’ she said. ‘And that other girl. And the seat was very nice. Thanks.’

  He wiped off the rest, roughed up the slicked-down hair with his fingers. ‘I’m starving. Want to come and get some grub?’

  There was a self-service café round the corner where everything was on toast – beans, pilchards, soft roes, dolloped out from hot serving dishes.

  ‘I’ll pay for mine,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll have to, love. I’m skint.’ When they sat down he fell on the pilchards as though he hadn’t eaten for a week.

  She said, ‘I didn’t recognize you on stage at first.’

  ‘I’m a good actor, that’s why.’

  ‘Where did you learn to talk proper?’

  ‘RADA. On a scholarship. They taught us how to speak with plums in our mouths. How now brown cow . . . the rain in Spain, and all the rest of it.’ He waved his knife around. ‘I’ll let you into a little secret, though. I hate this bloody play. All those witty lines make me puke. Can’t stand anything by Noel Coward. Or Rattigan. Or any of that lot. Matter of fact, I don’t like acting that much. It’s a nancy job.’

  ‘Why do it, then?’

  ‘I’m going to hop over the footlights one of these days. Direct plays. And they won’t have balconies, or drawing rooms, or French windows, or any of that sort of stuff. They’ll be plays about real people and real life.’

  She could see he was serious, not just shooting a line. ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘Why haven’t you been called up?’

  ‘Asthma. They wouldn’t take me. All that coal dust up north.’

  ‘Don’t tell me your father was a miner.’

  ‘I am telling you. He was.’

  ‘Back-to-backs, tin baths, clogs, jam butties, scrubbed doorsteps?’

  ‘Not forgetting the pneumoconiosis. Dad died of that.’

  He produced a crumpled packet of Woodbines and a matchbox. There were only two cigarettes left, but he gave her one and lit them with the last match. She wasn’t sure about his hands. Too square, the fingers too blunt, nails too much like spatulas. Hands were important. They told you a lot about a man.

  ‘What do you do next?’

  ‘We move on tomorrow. Touring.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Well, we won’t make it to the West End – not with this lot. I’ll see what I’m offered.’ The West End! Three magic words. Even better, one: Broadway!

  As they left the café, he said, ‘Let me know when you’re done with the boats and I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘How am I supposed to find you?’

  ‘You’ll hear about me, don’t worry.’

  The KEEP OUT notice had been pinned to the orangery door, but, for once, Frances took no notice. The reason for it was a newcomer and her name was Clara Cooper. She had small ruby and white flowers growing on long stalks and was, apparently, extremely fussy about living conditions. Papa did the introduction while Frances stood several feet away, in case she contaminated her.

  ‘Quite special, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, very beautiful.’

  ‘Don’t come any closer.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Other orchids had come into bloom and her father hovered from one to another like an attentive bee. He had been nonplussed to see her.

  ‘I didn’t know you were coming home, Frances.’

  ‘I’m on leave.’

  ‘Oh, I see. How are the Wrens?’

  ‘I’m not in the Wrens, Papa.’

  ‘But I thought you said something about boats.’

  ‘Not those sort of boats. Narrowboats. A bit like barges. On the canals.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I remember now. How interesting.’

  He wasn’t in the least interested, she knew. She followed him round the orangery for a bit, making admiring remarks about the orchids, and then gave up.

  Aunt Gertrude was gardening. Frances found her wielding secateurs and uprooting weeds in a border of the Italian pool garden below the orangery. They sat on a stone seat beside the middle of the three stone pools. The water was stagnant, the lead fountains hadn’t worked for years and the box topiary was quite beyond poor old Didcot and his lad.

  ‘Vere’s going to have to marry an heiress,’ Aunt Gertrude said. ‘Restore the family fortunes. Don’t you know any?’

  ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘I thought he was rather taken with that beautiful red-haired girl you brought here last time – the actress. Pity she’s not an heiress.’

  ‘Ros? No, he wasn’t. He disapproved of her like anything. He told me she wasn’t the right sort of friend for me to have.’

  ‘Just the same, I noticed the way he kept looking at her.’

  ‘Finding fault, I bet. He wanted me to give up the boats, you know.’

  ‘He feels responsible for you, darling.’

  ‘Well, he’s not. And I’m certainly not giving them up. Or any of my friends.’

  ‘I think the war might be over soon, in any case. If the rumours are true.’

  ‘What rumours?’

  ‘About the Allies planning a landing in France. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard?’

  ‘We don’t hear a thing on the cut.’

  ‘Good heavens, everyone’s been talking about it for weeks. There are army camps all along the south coast and thousands of American soldiers. They requisitioned a whole chunk of land – just turfed the villagers out – and their marines have been practising climbing the cliffs. Apparently every port’s full of naval ships and landing craft. There’s not much doubt about it – it’s just a question of when, and I don’t think it’ll be very long now. I hate to think of all those young men who are going to die.’

  Frances took the bus into Bridport to do some shopping and South Street was jammed with a long convoy of tanks rumbling through the town. People were running out of houses and shops with mugs of tea and buns and cigarettes, handing them up to the crews. She stood on the pavement, watching the unending procession. An American tank rolled past and the soldier in the turret smiled and winked at her. She lobbed the Crunchie bar she’d bought at the sweetshop in his direction. He caught it with one hand and, with the other, gave a thumbs-up.

  ‘Hallo. Is that the Three Horseshoes pub? Could I please speak to the landlord?’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Will he be back soon?’

  ‘Couldn’t say. Anyway, the pub’s shut. We don’t open till six.’

  The woman who had answered slammed the receiver down. Prudence
wasn’t sure if she’d have the nerve to try yet again. When they’d stopped at Leighton Buzzard coming back on the trip with the iron filings, the telephone in the public kiosk had been out of order. On the next trip, taking the steel billets, there had been a long queue of American soldiers who’d kept bothering her and she’d had to leave. On the way back from Coventry she’d rung again, but nobody had answered.

  Mother came out of the sitting room.

  ‘Who were you telephoning, Prudence?’

  ‘Just a friend from school. She was out.’

  He would have given her up by now. And she didn’t even know where Cranborough was, so she couldn’t go and find him. The world atlas, kept behind the glass doors of the bookcase next to the set of encyclopedias, only showed cities and towns, not English villages in the middle of nowhere. Twenty-seven more bombing raids to go, he’d said. For all she knew, he might be dead.

  The six days’ leave had healed the cuts and bruises, rested the sore muscles and unstiffened the backs. Orpheus and Eurydice, lying picturesquely side by side at the lay-by, were greeted as old friends, their vices forgotten or forgiven. It was fun to be back on board, fun, even, to clean and scour and polish, fun to stock up with supplies, to arrange things in cupboards and along shelves, and fun to go to sleep, once again, in a narrow bunk on a narrowboat.

  They left Bulls Bridge at seven o’clock on a May morning and wound their way along the cut to Brentford Dock. It was closer than Limehouse, but the slow-moving horse-drawn barges coming up delayed them. When they reached Brentford, Orpheus and Eurydice had to be winded before they tied up and many eyes were watching – bargemen, boaters and dockers alike. When their turn for loading finally came, the bundles of iron bars made the boats tip and rock as they were dropped from the crane into the holds.

  ‘Watch out they don’t shift,’ one of the men told them helpfully. ‘They’re boogers for that.’

  By the time they’d sheeted up, washed down the boats and got everything in order, it was too late to let go until morning and they went to the cinema. As they walked past the long row of boats, Molly called out to them from the butty hatches. She had the baby, Abel, in her arms, and she held him up for them to admire.

  After the cinema, they called in at a pub before going back to the boats. One of the bargemen stood them drinks and told them they were bleedin’ good, for a bunch o’ wimmin. He wore a sack round his shoulders and a cigarette stuck to his lower lip, and when he laughed it was like bellows wheezing. Bargemen, they had already realized, were a very different breed from the boaters. There wasn’t much love lost between the two. Bargemen lived on land, not on the cut, and went home to houses at the end of the day’s work.

  ‘Boaters, they’re gypsies, ain’t they?’ the bargeman commented genially, quaffing his pint. ‘Or near as makes no diff’rence.’

  They let go early the next morning. By nightfall they were at Cowley lock, beyond Bulls Bridge, and Frances took the trip card into the office to have the date marked and the boats gauged while Rosalind and Prudence filled up the water cans. The next day began with a long pound before they started working their way through the forty-four locks that climbed gradually up to Tring Summit. The cut had changed with the season. Grass had grown up on the towpath, wild flowers were out, white hawthorn blossom laced the hedgerows like bridal veils, tall reeds edged the banks, willow trees trailed their fresh new leaves in the water. Moorhens and their chicks were scooting about, and ducks with ducklings, line astern, paddled after them in search of scraps; an iridescent blue kingfisher skimmed low across the water and a heron rose before them, wings flapping ponderously. A pair of boats went by, the steerer in rolled-up shirtsleeves, the wife in the butty hatches wearing a flowered frock, their baby sitting in the sun on the cabin roof, tied by its leg to the chimney and banging away happily with a wooden spoon.

  Prudence lock-wheeled for the first stretch, biking along in the sunshine. A pair of boats ahead were giving them a bad road with every lock against them, but her muscles had hardened and the work wasn’t so tiring. Gates swung more easily, winding gear turned more smoothly. A lock-keeper came out of his little house to chat and give her an expert and unhurried hand.

  ‘Easy does it, little lady. Just give a quarter-turn at first. You don’t want to swamp the boats.’

  He cut a cabbage from his vegetable patch and a bunch of flowers from his garden for them, and they gave him a tin of sardines in return. Ros cooked the cabbage for supper that night with some sausages, while Prue arranged the flowers in an empty soup tin to decorate the table. They had tied up at the Fishery lock, beyond Hemel Hempstead, where the pub offered something even better than beer – a bath. Instead of the dipper of kettle water in the cabin, they could soak themselves clean. The black tidemark left round the bath took some scouring away with Vim, but it was worth it.

  They crossed Tring Summit the next day and tied up for the night at Leighton Buzzard. Prudence summoned up the nerve to go to the public telephone box and try once more. This time there was no queue of Americans, only an old woman inside with rows of curlers under her scarf, her mouth working away soundlessly beyond the glass.

  At last she came out and Prue went in with coins clutched at the ready. The operator answered in very refined tones and she pushed the coins into the slot, one after the other.

  ‘The numbah is ringing for you, callah.’

  She waited, heart racing. A man’s voice answered and she pressed button A. The connection was made.

  ‘Is that Ron?’

  ‘Yep, it’s me, all right. What can I do for you, miss?’

  ‘Could you give a message to Sergeant McGhie? Next time you see him.’

  ‘Steve? That’s easy. He’s here now. Want me to fetch him?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She waited, listening to the background noise – male voices, bursts of laughter, the clink-clink of glasses, a piano being played. Minutes went by and then more minutes, and then, at last, somebody picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hallo. Steve McGhie here.’

  He sounded as though he might be a bit drunk. Or more than a bit.

  ‘It’s Prudence Dobbs speaking. From the narrowboats. We gave you a lift, if you remember.’

  ‘Sure, I remember. Been hoping you’d call . . . almost given up hope.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I did try.’

  ‘Great to hear from you, anyway. Where the hell are you?’

  She was about to answer him when the operator interrupted.

  ‘Another six pence, calla.’

  She fumbled frantically in her pocket and dropped coins onto the floor.

  ‘Ah’m afraid I shall have to disconnect you, callah.’

  ‘Wait. Oh, please wait—’

  The line went dead.

  Frances had brought back a few home comforts – books, a brass candlestick and candle to go by her bed so she could read at night, some pretty china mugs that she’d found in Bridport, and a picture of Lulworth Cove to go on the wall. She had also brought a Primus – another relic of Vere’s scouting days – for brewing up tea and cocoa without having to rely on the coal stove. Much as she liked Ros and Prue, she enjoyed having a cabin to herself. She could arrange things as she liked, read as late as she liked, snuggled down in her cross-bed, the candlestick beside the pillow. And there was room to wash herself and her clothes and space to hang them on the brass rail above the range, where they usually dried before morning.

  The trip wasn’t going too badly – so far. There had only been one minor setback when Prue had misjudged a sharp bend and Eurydice had ended up with her nose in the bank. They had settled into a routine of two hours for each stint – steering the motor, steering the butty or lock-wheeling – before they changed around. And they ate on the hoof. Slices of bread and margarine for elevenses; something out of a tin for dinner and often eaten straight out of it; mugs of cocoa or tea. In the evenings, Ros performed miracles with whatever other food they had managed to scrounge along the way.


  At Norton Junction, above Buckby locks, Frances biked down to the toll office to get their trip card marked. As she handed it over the counter the manager said, ‘There’s someone been waiting for you. An RAF officer. Your brother, he says he is. I told him you’d most likely be along soon.’

  Vere was standing on the quayside, back turned, watching the boats and looking absurdly out of place in his gold-braided uniform. She thought, it’s my turn to say what on earth are you doing here? He turned round when she called his name.

  ‘Hallo, Frances.’

  She said, ‘How did you know we’d be here?’

  ‘I rang the company office. Apparently they always know where their boats are. You all have numbers and they keep tabs on you. They told me you’d be coming through here, and more or less when. It wasn’t very difficult.’

  It wouldn’t be – for him. Wing commanders got answers.

  ‘What are you here for?’

  ‘Not to make trouble – if that’s what you’re worried about. I simply wanted to see things for myself. I’ve got a couple of days’ leave and I thought I might come along with you – if you’ve no objection.’

  ‘There’s not enough room. And nowhere for you to sleep.’

  ‘You stop for the night, don’t you? I’ll find a room in a pub, or something.’

  ‘We haven’t got the food.’

  ‘I’ll buy my own.’

  ‘Your uniform would get ruined.’

  ‘I can get it cleaned. And I’ve brought some other clothes. I think that about covers the main objections, don’t you? Why don’t you show me the boats?’

  Prue and Ros were waiting. Ros was sitting in the sun, smoking a cigarette, Prue industriously polishing the brass rings round the motor chimney. ‘You remember my brother, Vere?’ she said. ‘He’s come to spy on us.’

  It was Rosalind’s turn to steer the butty and Prue went on the motor with Frances to be ready to lock-wheel after the next pound, so the brother came on the butty and stood in the hatches beside her. He’d taken off his RAF jacket and was wearing a sort of seaman’s white roll-neck sweater. The wind soon messed up his hair and made him look more human. He’d been taken aback by the tiny cabins and, naturally, he’d hit his head – twice, actually, and one of those quite hard. Nobody had yet dared tell him about the bucket in the engine room.