by Milly Adams
Bet called, ‘You can’t keep fighting everyone’s battles.’ But in Polly’s mind was Will’s voice: We are invincible.
She heard Bet yelling, just before the butty entered the bridge hole, ‘Oh well, no concussion, obviously. It’ll give him a scare anyway.’
Polly was scrambling up the horse track which led up to the road. Verity whistled, and yelled, ‘Atta girl, Polly.’
She reached the road, looked, but saw no one. She tore over the cut, then searched from left to right, her chest heaving; she could taste the blood trickling into her mouth but could still see no one. For a moment, she stood, then yelled, ‘You could have killed someone. Don’t you dare hurt a boater again, do you hear?’
Of course there was no answer. She ran back and down the horse track on the other side of the road to the towpath. The butty was halfway through. She ran to catch up with the Marigold, which Bet was steering as close to the bank as she dared, and leapt back on board. Bet said, ‘He’d gone, no doubt, but equally no doubt you feel better charging about like someone who is determined to set the world to rights.’
It was then that Polly’s legs gave way and she sat on the counter, all the fight gone out of her, feeling very sick and utterly ridiculous. ‘I wanted to stop just one of them, and it hurts and I feel sick. He could have killed someone. Little devil.’
‘Get down into that cabin and stop making the place untidy,’ Bet urged her. ‘Sit on the side-bed. Don’t fiddle about or you’ll drip on the floor and we’ll have to mop.’
Polly laughed. ‘You’re so sympathetic, I’m underwhelmed.’
Bet grinned. ‘I’m tying up the tiller on a straight line once we get round this bend, and I’ll check you. I seem to have to do this with you too often, my girl.’
Polly let the tiller swing over her as Bet steered them around the bend. Ahead, quite a way, was Saul’s boat and butty. Had they been hit too? That’d be a bit much, after being whacked by Leon. She laughed when she recalled telling her parents it was as safe as they had insisted, then slipped into the cabin and sat down with a thump on the side-bed. She closed her eyes, knowing she’d been lucky. Thank the Lord for the bobble, but she wouldn’t tell her mum. Anyway, it was only some blasted toe-rag, and was what the boaters had to put up with every trip, year in and year out. What the hell was the matter with people?
Behind Seagull, the butty, Swansong, was swaying slightly in the wind that tore across this part of the cut.
‘Granfer.’
On Swansong, Granfer Hopkins spun round, trying to trace Joe’s call. He looked back on the towpath, and there was Joe, gaining on the butty. Another bridge hole was coming up. Had the boy been trying his hand at poaching? There were too many houses around, and dogs, so he needed to learn the ropes a bit more. The Seagull was entering the bridge hole, towing the butty, and now Joe had caught up and leapt from the towpath on to the counter of the butty. ‘Where yer been, young ’un? I says yer to stay close,’ Granfer said.
Joe climbed up on to the cabin roof. He was panting. Granfer said, ‘We’re supposed to be lookin’ after yer so I can’t ’ave yer losing sight of us, you ’ear me.’
Joe drew some leaves out of his pocket. ‘I got these. Nice colours, Granfer, just on the turn, they is. I’m goin’ try and make the colours with me pencils.’
Granfer looked, then saw Joe’s hands. ‘What’s that? You been muckin’ with our boiler bricks? We need ’em left alone, to boil our clothes. I told yer before, them’s not for throwing in the cut to see the splash. Yer too old for sech things.’
Joe nodded. He’d only used half a brick, but he wanted to get the woman, the one who’d made his dad so angry; he wanted her to be scared, like ’e was, but Uncle Saul was right about her, she weren’t scared, but narked.
He sat on the roof, next to the dipper. Yes, Uncle Saul was right. Something inside him settled cos she chased him and he weren’t so angry, nor so scared just for this minute. He heard her voice, saw her run so fast. He’d not seen women in trousers, really, not seen ’em run at someone, only away. She were strong, so if she were strong, he could be, and all. He was sorry he’d hurt her now. She were bleeding. Sorry, he was.
‘You got chores, lad. Go and get the range fire laid. Go on now.’
Joe nodded, dusted up his hands, put his shoulders back. She couldn’t half run, but somewhere, inside, he were scared and angry again, and it were partly her fault. Cos of her he’d have to keep looking over his shoulder.
Chapter 15
3 November – nearing Birmingham
The Hatton locks were the ones Polly thought she’d remember most as they slogged on towards the environs of Birmingham three days later, and that was not because of the flight of twenty-one locks but the rushes, rank upon rank of them. Rushes that bent low into the water at their approach, the water of their boats’ wash swirling and eddying around the bowed heads.
Polly said, as she stood on the Marigold cabin gunwale, ‘It seems to be some sort of homage to our survival.’
Verity was on the tiller of the motor, reading The Count of Monte Cristo, the pages weighed down by her windlass, and she snorted. ‘You’ve gone mad.’
‘No, I mean it, our survival as we lock-wheeled, beamed, and––’
‘Oh come off it, we’re hardly on the front line, ducky. Anyway, I’m trying to read.’ Verity checked ahead, lifted the windlass and turned the page. ‘Actually, how’s Reggie?’
Polly, knitting a red hat in rib stitch, stared at Verity, her wool in a pudding bowl on the roof. ‘I forgot all about the letter.’
She finished the row, stuck her needles in the wool, and scrambled from the gunwale as Verity tutted and moved aside to let her scurry down the cabin steps and search on the bookshelf, trying to remember where she’d put it. Then she remembered she’d used it as a bookmark in Winnie-the-Pooh. She found it, read the letter, and was putting it back when Verity called, ‘On your marks, some allotments coming up. Might be leeks for sale on the old table someone set up last time.’
She slipped on to the counter, and then the gunwale, bringing her knitting with her, but would she recognise the woman to whom she had promised the hat, if she saw her again? Well, if she didn’t, Bet would. Anyway, she could leave it with Bob and he could hang it somewhere. ‘Where are we?’
‘We’re heading towards Knowle but we won’t be there until tomorrow. You have to learn how to place yourself by things like these allotments.’ Verity waved to the bank. There was no table, and no leeks, but there were men, or were they women? Either way, they were working on their plots, hats pulled hard down, and wearing trousers and old coats. On the nearest plot the string of the runner bean poles seemed to have perished and some canes were falling. A man waved on his way to the bank with a bucket on a bit of rope. Surely, after all the rain, the vegetables didn’t need watering?
She watched as he rinsed out the bucket in the fading daylight. What looked like manure was dumped in the cut. Well, they did much the same, so who was she to sniff and tut.
‘So, what did Reggie say?’
‘Not a lot.’
Verity closed her book with a thwack. ‘Oh come on, he must have said something.’
Polly started knitting two together to create the top of the hat as she replied, ‘He’s well, hopes I am, and Mum and Dad too. That his mum and dad are, that sort of thing.’
‘Not the Oscar Wilde of Bomber Command, then?’
Polly looked at her. ‘I hope not, for the sake of a satisfactory sex life.’ She dropped a stitch. The light was fading, making the recapturing of it tricky.
Verity stared, then said, ‘Polly Holmes, I’m totally and utterly shocked.’
They laughed. Polly said, ‘You’ve taught me well.’
They laughed again.
A fly-boat, the sort which she had learned carried beer, was approaching, storming along the cut on its way to deliver manna to the thirsty Londoners. Marigold lurched in its wash. These young men would work throughout as many days
and nights as were necessary, with no stops anywhere, to get to where they were going. ‘Well paid, too,’ murmured Polly.
Verity was steering towards the bank as another narrowboat and butty approached. Ahead, on the left, was a red-brick pub. Behind them, Bet sounded the horn. Verity sighed. ‘What does the boss want?’
‘Time to moor up, I expect. She said we needed to change the batteries around, so we’ll probably do it here, won’t we? The light’s going, after all.’
Ahead were several boats already moored, and they joined them. The canal was wide enough for them to moor abreast, so Polly took the strap from Bet and secured the butty to the Marigold. For some reason they had passed Saul and Granfer tied up outside a lock the day after the Leon debacle three days ago. Bet had called as they passed, ‘How do you do, Granfer. Need a shaft, or a tow?’
Granfer had shaken his head. ‘’Ow do, just got an engine playing around.’
The Seagull had followed on behind them ever since, like a shadow. Polly grimaced. Was Saul hurt so badly that he was taking it easy? But no, they had seen him leaping from the motor to the towpath when they passed them. Well, whatever it was, he hadn’t thanked her, but he wouldn’t. The boaters didn’t, and she didn’t know why she cared. It was too damned silly – and why did she dream of him, and that kind voice to Joe when Leon rocked the boats.
Bet called them over to the butty for a stew that had been simmering in her range all day; mostly vegetable, but with some bacon. Replete, they headed for the pub, leaving the door unlocked as Leon was well ahead, or so the lock-keeper at the Radford lock had told them a while ago.
As they walked along the towpath some of the boater women were on their counters, the tillers of which were removed. Some were brewing washing on the brick boilers. Instead of ignoring the Marigold trainees or pulling a face at their wantonness in wearing trousers or going into pubs, they nodded; some even smiled. Several called, ‘’Ow do?’ This included the old ones, who sat on old stools on the counter, smoking clay pipes.
‘It’s acceptance,’ Bet said. ‘We’ve done well, and kept up with the flow, and not got in their way, more to the point. Perhaps word has got around about lovely Leon and your, and our, part in the tumble, Polly? Who knows.’
In the pub there was the smell of beer, the usual fug of smoke, and the thud, thud of darts on a board.
Almost immediately, while Bet made her way to the bar, Polly led Verity to the darts area and the two teams playing. ‘Two bob says we’ll win, if we play the winner of this match?’
There was a cackle of laughter. ‘Yer’ll clean oos out, so yer will. Reckon yer cleaned out the lads last night, or was it the night before, past Buckby.’
Another man, Thomo, or so Polly thought she heard him being called, shouldered his way through. ‘I’ll give yer a run for yer money.’ He spat on his palm and held it out. Verity nudged Polly. ‘The pleasure is yours, ducky.’
Polly sort of spat, and shook his hand, Bet whispering from behind her, ‘The brothers Thomo, Timmo and Peter who run the Venus and Shortwood, and there’s no need to let them win. They’re the cut champions so we’ll need to throw well.’ Polly looked at Verity, who edged over, talking into her beer, ‘They’ve no wives or children so we can go in hard as we’re not taking food out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.’
Bet was between them now, reaching for the darts on the shelf, feeling their balance before passing them to Verity and Polly. ‘Only if you’re ready to lose all previous winnings, girls,’ she muttered. ‘Even if they win they always want to play again.’
The men were beaten but lost with aplomb, finished their beer, and surprisingly Thomo didn’t want another match but headed towards the door, passing Granfer who was making for the bar. Bet asked, ‘Joe in the kitchen of this pub too?’
‘’E is. Just got ’ere, we ’ave. ’E wanted a bit of a scamper with the other childers but all them do, if they’re on the boat all day. So we watch over ’im and then likes ’im to come in ’ere. The missus helps ’im with his letters.’
‘That’s good.’
Polly asked, ‘Saul’s well, is he?’
Verity nudged her. Granfer nodded. ‘Getting on, gal. Gettin’ on. What’s with yer ’ead?’
‘Bit of a do with a bridge hooligan, but Bet’s pulled the cut tight with a plaster. She was going to stitch it herself, but we’ll try this first. It’s already getting better.’ Actually it throbbed from time to time, and she had felt sick for twenty-four hours. Today it had been better, though. Bet held the door open. ‘Come on, we have to change the batteries.’
The girls followed. Verity muttered, ‘I still think they’re bloody rude. No thank-you – nothing. We could have been killed. Saul could have been killed.’
Bet spun round. ‘I don’t think you were in any danger, Verity Clement, whereas Polly––’
‘It’s still bloody rude.’
Bet looked from Polly to Verity and asked, ‘Why do you think Saul and Granfer lost ground and are now following us?’
They were nearing the towpath, and Polly could see her breath billowing in the light from the dying boiler fires. What would the ARP wardens say about that? Probably yell ‘Put those bloody lights out’, but Bet had said that during the Blitz the boaters only washed in the daylight. The washing was already flapping on the lines strung at the rear of the butty cabins.
‘Because they had engine trouble, of course,’ Verity said. ‘Come on, let’s get the battery.’
It was Verity’s turn to heave out the newly charged battery and shove it out to Polly, who lifted it and groaned, saying, ‘I don’t need this after a pint of beer.’ Verity took the flat one from Bet and connected it.
‘How often do I have to say – bend your knees to lift things?’ she said.
They stowed it beneath the butty side-bed while Bet coughed. The cold weather seemed to irritate her chest, and she was coughing more and more. Polly was sometimes woken in the night by it.
Once it was all done they fell into bed, leaving the slide hatch open but closing the doors. Thunder woke Polly at two in the morning, but it was too late. It had been raining for hours, from the feel of her blankets. Her face and hair were drenched, her plaster was off, the cut open and bleeding. She swung out of bed on to a wet floor, dragging her soaking blankets and throwing them on to the counter, hearing the slap of the water against their bows, the roar of the rain driving on to the surface of the water, the flash of lightning which lit the sky.
She lit the hurricane lamp, slid shut the slide hatch, towelled her hair dry, dropped the towel on the floor and stood on it while she dressed in her socks, trousers and both her sweaters. She put on her boots, grabbed a clean towel from beneath the side-bed, held it to her forehead and lay on the part of the mattress which had escaped the worst of the wet and all the time Verity snored. There was normality in the noise, and it almost drowned the storm. She fell asleep, not even wanting to be home, because home seemed another world, and nothing to do with this one.
Chapter 16
4 November – arrival at Birmingham
They rose at 5.30, with Bet tutting, and slapping another plaster on Polly’s forehead, taking a moment to show her the needle and catgut which would have to be used if it didn’t improve. Polly grinned. ‘I can feel it healing already. I did start Reggie’s letter by telling him that. Not sure why, really. I’m sure he has bigger things to think about.’
‘You’re such a little teacher’s pet. You’d tell Bet it was healing even if it wasn’t. Sucking up isn’t nice, you know, it’s often a lie,’ Verity snapped. Polly and Bet ignored her. As they set off, Polly could tell by the set of Verity’s face that she had changed back to the girl Polly first knew. Polly sighed and braced herself for a day of it.
She took the tiller, while Verity cleaned up the cabin, on call for the next lock. Dawn had brought an end to the rain, Polly wrote to her parents, leaning on the roof, thinking Braunston Tunnel was worth a mention in her letter home. She explai
ned that they should reach the unloading dock today, or perhaps tomorrow if things went very wrong.
At eight they were still climbing the five Knowle locks, and Polly knew she’d hate them more and more as the months or years went by but she felt that was because they were almost at the end of the journey, and she was extraordinarily tired. For the sake of peace she lock-wheeled because the set of Verity’s face was too irritating. In comparison the tranquil pound once they were through was a taste of heaven. ‘We’ll be gliding along this for two and a half hours,’ Bet soothed her as they laid out the snubber to tow the butty. ‘I will join Polly on Marigold while you, Verity, can have some peace on the butty.’
While Polly made an early lunch of sizzling bacon bought off ration from last night’s pub, mashed carrots, swede and potatoes, she used the hinged table to write to Reggie, telling him they were not far from Birmingham, that a pound was a stretch of water without locks; a pound, she said, was something they worshipped and adored. He would smile but she realised she couldn’t really remember that smile. She tried to think back to the boys kicking the ball into the net when they were children, but she still couldn’t. The lads were just a blur, really, one the same as the other, except for Will.
She added the information about the pound in her parents’ letter. Her dad would smile, but what about her mum? Perhaps, but not if she was still talking like a maniac, as she had done since the news of Will’s death. It was a ploy which gave her no time to absorb anything other than her torrent of trivial words.
Polly looked up from the table, her pen to her lips. Should she tell her mum that she had known anger, the first for such a long time, and that she had laughed, and not just once, but several times? She reached forward and turned the bacon. What was Verity’s loss? A lover, a parent? Why had she resorted to a sharp tongue again? Was it something Polly had done this morning, or to do with the ‘loss’? It was then Polly realised that none of them really talked about their lives, they just lived from day to day. Would they ever?
