The Boat Girls

by Margaret Mayhew

  He wanted to go in for the boxing contest. ‘I could beat ’em all easy.’

  ‘I know. I’ve seen you in action. But can we go on the merry-go-round now?’

  ‘Anythin’ yer likes.’

  They’d passed by it several times but it had always been on the move. Now the painted horses had come to a stop. They paid their sixpences and she chose a dappled grey on the outside – a prancing steed with a flowing mane and tail and flaring nostrils. Jack put his hands on her waist, lifted her sidesaddle on to its back and swung himself up behind her. As they started to move he kept one hand on her waist, the other on the barley-sugar pole, steadying her in the crook of his arm. They went slowly at first, the dappled grey rising and falling gracefully beneath them; then faster, and faster still until they were at a full gallop. The steam organ in the middle was belting out ‘Roses of Picardy’, the people watching had dissolved into a dizzy blur. Her hair blew about her face, her skirt ballooned above her knees; she turned to him, laughing, and he bent his head and kissed her. He went on kissing her as they whirled round and round and round.

  It was still light when they left the fair and walked back towards the cut – the last hour of the late summer day, with the August sun turning everything golden. They stopped by an orchard gate and she rested her arms on the top bar; crooked old apple trees, laden with fruit, cast long purple shadows on the grass. He stood beside her, one foot propped on the lowest rung.

  ‘I don’t want to go back yet, Jack.’

  ‘No need ter.’

  He rolled a cigarette and lit it with a match, blowing smoke into the air.

  ‘Can I try one of those?’

  ‘They ain’t fit fer a lady.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that. I’m not a lady. I’m just an ordinary girl.’

  ‘Ain’t nothin’ ord’nary ’bout yer, Frances.’

  ‘There’s nothing ordinary about you either, Jack. And it was kind of you to take me to the fair.’

  ‘Weren’t kind,’ he said. ‘I wanted ter.’

  ‘Well, I had a wonderful time. Thanks.’ She held up the china plate. ‘And for this. I’ll hang it on the cabin wall. Are you sure your grandmother wouldn’t like it?’

  ‘Like I said, it’s fer you. Ter keep.’

  She was silent for a moment.

  ‘Those Siamese Twins weren’t real, were they? It was all faked.’

  ‘Reckon so. The Fat Lady were real, though. Fattest I ever saw.’

  ‘How about the Tattooed Lady?’

  ‘She were real, too. Tattooed all over, far as I could see.’

  She stole a sideways glance at him – the handsome profile, the glossy black hair curling on the nape of his neck, the gold earring, the red knotted scarf, the embroidered waistcoat. And she looked at his mouth and remembered how it had felt when he’d kissed her, and thought how much she wanted him to kiss her again.

  ‘How old are you, Jack?’

  ‘Twenty.’

  Younger than she’d guessed, but then most boat people looked much older than their years.

  ‘Will you stay on the cut for ever?’

  ‘Thought o’ leavin’ once. Me Uncle Bill went off ter be a sailor in the war – workin’ the barges for the navy. Might’ve done the same meself, but I can’t leave the boats – not with Grandma an’ Freddy.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘It’s a hard life,’ he went on. ‘But it’s a good one. We’re free, see. Nobody’s servants. Nobody bosses us.’

  She understood. Boat people weren’t trapped in factories and offices or ordered about. They were free spirits. But it was a hard life on the cut. Work, work, work, and almost no play.

  The shadows were getting longer, the golden light fading. She said, ‘Do you think they’d notice if I took some of those lovely apples?’

  He grinned. ‘Fancy a lady thinkin’ o’ such a thing.’

  ‘I told you, I’m no lady. I could take just a few.’

  ‘I’ll get yer some.’

  He squashed his cigarette under his boot and was over the gate in a flash. She followed more slowly, being careful with the fairground plate, and he came to her with his arms full of fruit. She made a pocket with the hem of her skirt and he tipped the apples in.

  ‘We’d better go, Jack. Before someone catches us.’

  ‘Still frit o’ me?’

  ‘I’m frit of whoever owns this orchard.’

  ‘Nobody’ll come. An’ it’s a nice place, this. We could stay awhile.’

  He set his hands on her shoulders and she could feel their strength.

  ‘Mind the plate, Jack.’

  ‘I’ll win yer another if it gets broke. Do yer like me, Frances?’

  ‘Very much.’ Her voice sounded croaky.

  ‘Thought yer did. I could tell from the start. An’ I’ve allus liked you, since I first saw yer.’

  ‘You’ve had a funny way of showing it.’

  ‘We don’ show our feelin’s, see. Only sometimes.’

  When he kissed her again it wasn’t in fun, like it had been on the roundabout in front of the crowds. It wasn’t in fun at all. With her skirtful of apples bunched up in one hand and the fairground plate clutched in the other, she couldn’t have stopped him – even if she’d wanted to.

  After a bit, the apples started rolling to the ground, one by one.

  He said, his cheek rough against hers, ‘Not frit no more, are yer?’

  ‘No . . .’

  The rest of the apples tumbled out of her skirt and down into the long grass.

  He pulled her down beside them.

  Sixteen

  THE LAST OF the summer faded away. Autumn came in like a lion with fierce winds that tore down the dying leaves, with heavy rainstorms and sharp morning frosts. They took Orpheus and Eurydice up and down the cut, delivering the loads of steel, iron, cement, timber and rubber and returning with coal for paper mills, bakeries, factories. The landmarks along the way were now familiar to them. They had learned more of the boaters’ names for the locks, all along the cut – Salters, Sewerage, Sweeps, Casey, Berker, Stoke, Wigrams, Catty Barnes . . . the names of bends and bridges, and of every bridge-hole with a nearby village store so that the lock-wheeler could step off with the bike under her arm and go shopping. They had learned every good tie-up where they could get fish and chips, a decent café meal, or a hot bath, and which were the best pubs to frequent. They had learned every twist and turn of the cut, and where the deepest channel ran, and where the hidden obstacles lay in wait. They knew where the mud was always thickest – at the sides or on the inside of a bend – and the peculiarities and perils of all the locks from London to Birmingham to Coventry and all the way back again. With the darker, colder evenings, the cabins went back to being cosy retreats instead of stifling ovens.

  Molly came over to see Frances at one of the tie-ups, carrying Abel.

  ‘’E’s took sick an’ I’m fair worrit.’

  She sat on the coal box with the baby’s head lolling against her shoulder. Abel had his eyes closed and his skin was frighteningly pale. He seemed to be struggling for breath.

  ‘Have you taken him to see a doctor?’

  ‘Seen one a day or two back an’ ’e give ’im some medsun but it done no good. Dunno what ter do now. Saul don’ know neither.’

  ‘We must find another doctor this evening. I’ll come with you, Molly.’

  ‘Would yer? That’s ever so good of yer. Saul’ll mind the boats.’

  They walked into the town and up and down streets until they came across a doctor’s brass plate outside a door. The surgery had closed and the doctor’s wife who answered the door was unhelpful.

  ‘He’s having his supper.’

  She began to shut the door again but Frances put her boot in the way.

  ‘This child is very ill and needs urgent attention. Please ask the doctor to come.’

  ‘He’s in the middle of his supper, I told you.’

  ‘Then we’ll wait un
til he’s finished.’

  They sat in the waiting room – a cold and comfortless place – and eventually the doctor appeared, grumpy at being bothered. He examined Abel.

  ‘You’d better get him to hospital. The child’s got a severe bronchial infection.’

  ‘’ospital!’ Molly started weeping. ‘I’m not takin’ me babby to no ’ospital.’

  ‘Do you want him to die?’

  Frances said angrily, ‘Of course she doesn’t.’

  ‘Then I suggest you talk some sense into the woman. I’ll give you a note.’

  At the hospital they waited again until a nurse came to take Molly and Abel away.

  Later, the nurse returned to tell Frances that they were keeping both of them for the night. She went back to the boats to tell Saul who looked worn out with worry. He was wringing his hands.

  ‘I seen the mark o’ death on ’im – like I seen it on others. Yer can allus tell.’

  She tried to cheer him up. ‘He’s in good hands, Saul. They’ll make him better.’

  ‘Is’t the bronchitus?’

  ‘I don’t know. They didn’t say.’

  He stood shaking his head in distress, not knowing what to do next. She made him sit down and boiled the kettle on Molly’s shining stove for a strong cup of tea. Boat people might know all there was to know about the cut, but they were ignorant about the ways of the land and how to help themselves. Whatever Molly had said, not being able to read or write was a big disadvantage.

  Abel didn’t die. He recovered, and after a few days Molly brought him back to the boats.

  ‘Saved ’is life, yer did,’ she told Frances when they next met up on the cut.

  ‘No, I didn’t. The hospital did that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t never ’ave got there, but fer yer.’

  Since the fair, Frances had seen Jack Carter only twice – passing on the cut, with no more than the chance to wave and shout. Then one evening they happened to stop at the same tie-up. It was already dark when Freddy turned up and banged on the motor-cabin door with another brass bed knob he’d found – or stolen – for her.

  He spotted the fairground plate that she’d hung on the opposite wall.

  ‘Where’d’yer get that?’

  ‘Your brother gave it to me. He won it shooting at the fair.’

  Freddy grinned proudly. ‘He allus wins things. ’E’s clever, Jack.’

  She gave him a thick slice of bread and treacle, and the home-made alphabet book that she’d done for him on leave. She’d drawn pictures to go with the letters – all things he’d know and recognize on the boats: A for apple, B for butty, C for chimney, D for dipper, E for elum, F for fender, G for gunwale . . . They went through them together, the boy repeating each one after her.

  ‘That’s very good, Freddy.’

  He beamed. ‘I ain’t forgot, see. Can yer larn me to write me name?’

  She wrote it out in capitals and he stared at it for a moment.

  ‘That’s me?’

  ‘It certainly is. Freddy Carter. Of course, your full name is Alfred, isn’t it? Like your grandfather.’ She wrote Alfred Carter.

  ‘I seen that on our boats. Looks just the same.’

  ‘That’s what reading’s about. Recognizing a word from its letters. If you learn your letters, then you’ll soon be able to tell the names of all the boats on the cut.’

  ‘I knows them already. We all does.’

  ‘Ah, but you’ll be able to read their names properly. And other things, too. Names of places.’

  ‘I knows all the places, too.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be able to read notices and signposts . . . useful things like that. Let’s go through the alphabet again.’

  He was no fool, she could tell. Sharp-witted and eager to learn. A good schoolteacher could have had him reading in no time – if only there was the chance. She gave him the book to take away.

  ‘Don’t say nuffink to me bruvver nor me gran.’

  ‘I promise I won’t.’

  Jack came over later – not down into the cabin because that wouldn’t have been proper by boaters’ standards, but staying on the counter outside.

  ‘Like to go to the pictures?’

  They went to see a Hollywood Technicolor film with Esther Williams swimming around in clear blue very un-cut-like water, and diving from a great height to surface with a smile, perfect make-up and not a hair out of place. She wondered what on earth Jack made of it all. The odd thing was that boaters loved going to the cinema, even though the films were so far removed from their own world. They couldn’t read the title or the names of the film stars, but she’d seen them examining the stills outside to see if they liked the look of the film or whether it was one they’d watched before.

  When they came out, it was raining hard. He knew of a fish and chip shop nearby, and then a pub afterwards where they washed down the greasy food with beer. He rolled up one of his cigarettes, licking the paper and pressing the edges neatly together.

  ‘Yer done a good turn fer Molly an’ Saul Jessop, so I ’ears.’

  ‘It was nothing.’

  He stroked the cigarette-paper edges from end to end. ‘Not as I bin told. Can’t do nothin’ on the cut without everyone knows ’bout it. An’ we knows everythin’ ’bout you trainees.’ He stuck the cigarette in his mouth, struck a match. ‘Yer’ll be leavin’ afore long, I dare say. Goin’ back to yer ’omes.’

  ‘Not till the war’s over.’

  He blew the match flame out slowly, making it flicker and dance before it finally died. ‘If I asked yer, would yer stay? Come an’ live with me on the boats?’

  She’d dreamed about it many times.

  ‘Doyou mean . . . marry you?’

  ‘Didn’t mean nuthin’ else.’ He put the matchbox away in his pocket. ‘Wouldn’t do, though, would it?’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Yer bein’ a lady an’ not born to the cut.’

  ‘Not that nonsense again.’ She put her hand on his arm. The sleeve of his old jacket was damp from the rain and badly frayed around the cuff. She would have liked so much to buy him a new one, but he’d never accept it. ‘I’d go anywhere with you, Jack. If you asked me.’

  ‘Would yer now?’ He looked at her for a moment, in his steady way. ‘Would yer really?’ Then he smiled suddenly. ‘But I ain’t arsked yer yet.’

  They got soaked walking back to the tie-up and when he kissed her goodnight by the boats his mouth was cold and wet against hers.

  She said, ‘It’d be drier in the cabin. And warmer, too.’

  ‘People see me go in there, they’ll know what to think.’

  ‘It’s dark and they won’t see. And, anyway, I don’t care if they do.’

  She sat on the edge of the cross-bed and watched as he crouched by the stove with kindling and coal, and got it going faster and better than she’d ever managed. In a trice, the fire was blazing, the cabin warming up.

  ‘Will you teach me to do that, Jack?’

  ‘Nothin’ to it.’

  ‘I want you to teach me everything about the boats.’

  ‘Mebbe,’ he said. ‘One day.’

  She had dreamed about it – how it would be, living on a narrowboat with him. Sleeping with him, eating with him, working with him. Loving him.

  She said, ‘I meant what I said . . . about going anywhere with you, Jack.’

  He turned his head towards her, still crouched by the stove. ‘Yer don’t know what yer sayin’.’

  ‘Yes I do. And I really mean it. I’d go to the ends of the earth. Don’t you believe me?’

  He got up and took off his wet jacket. Looked down at her with his dark gypsy eyes. Touched her mouth. ‘Best ter say nothin’ more, just now.’

  ‘Two brass bed knobs,’ Ros said, admiring them on the cabin wall. ‘And the fairground plate. It’s beginning to look like the real thing in here, Frankie.’ She perched on the edge of the coal box, puffing at a cigarette. ‘How’s it going with Jack, then?’
<
br />   ‘He wanted to know what I’d say if he asked me to marry him and live with him on the boats.’

  ‘And what did you say that you’d say?’

  ‘That I’d go anywhere with him. And I would – like a shot. Only he hasn’t actually asked me yet. He says it wouldn’t do. I’m a lady and not born to the cut. All that sort of thing.’

  ‘But he’s got a point, hasn’t he? I know you’re loopy about him, sweetie, but you wouldn’t last long as a boater’s wife.’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Simple. You have to be born to it, like he told you. The way things are now, you can go home any time you like, back to civilization. Hot baths, soft beds, good food, nice clean clothes. But if you married him and tried to be one of them, you couldn’t do that and I bet you’d get fed up with the life in no time. Do you want to end up like poor Molly and the rest of them – endless kids, non-stop grind, worn out by the time you’re thirty? And I doubt the boaters would ever really accept you, which would be a bit grim. You know what they can be like. It’s just a dream of yours, darling. A romantic dream. You’re going to have to wake up one day.’

  ‘Jack could always leave the cut.’

  ‘He wouldn’t transplant to shore very well, would he? And it wouldn’t be fair to ask it of him. It’s the only life he knows. And I dare say he likes it. They all seem to, God knows why.’

  ‘I thought you’d understand, Ros. You, of all people.’

  Ros scratched her head. ‘It’s just that I’ve been around a lot more than you. And I’ve never been madly in love with a man, like you are with Jack. It must be rather like when people go and commit suicide – the balance of the mind is disturbed.’

  ‘What about Prue and Steve? He wants her to go and live in Canada after the war. Somewhere ghastly, by the sound of it. Much worse than the canals.’

  ‘Winnipeg. It may be a bit chilly there in the winter, but it’ll be a lot more comfortable. And miles better than going back to work in that bank of hers. I just hope Steve survives the war. She’s started saying her prayers again at night and I can tell she’s worried sick about him going on those bombing raids.’

  ‘Poor Prue . . . I know what that’s like. Vere and I always seem to quarrel whenever we meet, but I dread anything happening to him.’