The Waterway Girls

by Milly Adams

  ‘Just about on top of the washin’, Mrs Wakely.’ Joe hopped on to her counter while Saul stayed on the kerb. ‘Tom at the pub be ’e?’ he asked Mrs Wakely.

  ‘Oh aye. ’E was ’oping those lasses’d be there, to win back a bob or two at darts. Done ’im good to lose to ’em. I weren’t sure about lassies on the cut but they’s all right, pull their weight and don’t hold up the boats too much at the locks. Mark yer, they’ve got Bet with ’em just now, but after a trip or two she’ll be training others. Then we’ll see what’s what with them two on their own boats. Maybe they won’t stay though, lots don’t cos young lassies on the cut get lonely, and tired and too wet and cold, and give up.’

  Saul nodded. ‘Goodnight, Mrs Wakely.’

  They walked back to the Seagull. Mrs Wakely called after Saul, ‘Don’t yer be lonely being an uncle and grandson, our Saul. Yer got to have a life, an’ all.’

  He waved his hand and said ‘Goodnight’ again.

  The two of them stepped on to the Seagull where Granfer was on the counter, leaning against the cabin and drinking a mug of tea in the darkness. He ruffled Joe’s hair. ‘Yer get yer ’ead down, for the ’undreth time of saying. We’ll be towing them boats through the bugger of a Bottom Road tomorrow, so we’ll need yer muscle.’

  Joe turned and pressed himself against Saul, who put an arm around him and held him close. Joe said, ‘Sometimes we do things wrong, don’t we, Uncle Saul, cos we gets so angry and it takes a mite of putting ’em right again.’

  Saul squeezed him. ‘You have to stop worrying about your da. It’s up to ’im to put things right, and maybe he will. Now get to bed. We’ll be busy tomorrow.’

  Granfer had doused the hurricane lamp and Saul watched while Joe made his way by the starlight from the slide. Granfer called, ‘I pulled out yer bedding. Yer sleep well.’

  They shut the slide and the doors behind the lad, and Saul flicked his cigarette stub into the cut, watching it arc and die. He was lonely, but when did he see girls, except when they passed on the cut, or tied up at the lay-overs?

  ‘Yer all right, lad? It’s a lot, taking on t’lad, and t’boats.’

  ‘I’s always all right, Granfer, but I don’t know what’s right to do, if’n yer know what I means, with the lad, an’ all. I just want to know where Maudie is, an’ when she’s comin’ home. I want Leon t’stay away, cos what rights ’ave we to the boy? He’s Leon’s, not ours.’

  Granfer slurped his tea. ‘That’s yer all over, boy. Stop your mind, make it be still. He’s ’ere with oos, that’s enough for now. We’ll keep him safe, or die trying, cos we do ’ave a right. He’s our Maudie’s flesh and blood, and we couldn’t ’elp her when she was ’ere, so we will help ’er now.’

  But how? Saul wanted to ask.

  Joe lay on the cross-bed. He should use the side-bed, because this ’ad been Uncle Saul’s, but here he felt safer, because he could pull the crochet curtain across. That way his dad wouldn’t know he was here, and would have to get past Uncle anyway. His mum had always said his dad didn’t mean it, that it was the drink, but he did mean it. He had heard him shouting at her the night she ran away. Dad had pulled her off the boat and said he’d see her off, see if he didn’t, and he ’ad. He saw his mum’s face as she had said, when Joe asked her one Christmas, that she’d never leave him or her lad, but she had lied.

  She’d said he could always trust her, always.

  He couldn’t.

  Well, no one could trust him either, not really. He touched the book he had put under his blanket. He loved the pictures, and the shapes in the words, and he shouldn’t have it, not really, but he had thought she was bad. She really wasn’t so he should put it back on her shelf in Marigold.

  He turned on to his side again. But she hadn’t said nothing about missing it to no one, so she hadn’t noticed, not yet. He’d have heard if she had, but grown-ups didn’t read children’s books. And on the bridge hole he hadn’t really meant to hurt her with the brick; besides he were angry at her, then, and scared.

  He turned to face the wall of the engine room. He was like his dad sometimes, but he couldn’t think that. No, he was like his mum, and Uncle Saul, and Granfer cos he hadn’t meant it. But that was what his mum said about his dad. He wished he could forget it all, and have an empty head, but it never happened. Tomorrow, though, they’d be real busy and he’d have to help to tow the boats through the Bottom Road locks, and that’d make him tired, stop his mind, and one day he’d know what he should do. He’d pay back the money from their jar too, when he could – somehow.

  Again he turned on to his back, and fingered the crochet curtain. His grandma and grandpa were nice, like lovely old Granfer, the head of their family. Saul and Mam were nice too, like them. Well, he would be from now on, if he could, but he feared it were in him not to be, like his da.

  Chapter 19

  6 November – Tyseley Wharf, Birmingham

  The next morning the three women cleaned the holds of debris and rust fragments from their unloading, coughing as they swept and the dust billowed, undoing all the good the baths had done. Verity, though, leaned on her broom, shaking her head at the other two as they all stood on the hold’s wooden boards. ‘Right, now you’ll stink as badly as I do after my “cut” bath, so stop your moaning.’

  Bet and Polly snatched a look at her but saw the smile. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Bet replied. ‘Anything you say, ma’am.’

  It was Polly who saluted but all three of them who laughed.

  Bet poked at one of the boards. ‘Damn and blast, three broken, and since the order is to pick up coal from Coventry we’re going to have serious bilge-cleaning once we’re unloaded. We won’t pump out the water, because it’ll help stabilise it as we ride high. Come on, chop-chop.’

  They chop-chopped for the next half hour and then set off for the Bottom Road, with Verity and Polly on the butty, being towed on a snubber, past the shunting yards and Birmingham backstreets.

  ‘Why don’t we go back the same way?’ asked Polly, who sat on the butty cabin roof threading wool through the centre of the card circle she had cut to make the pom-pom she would sew on to the finished hat. ‘Why not just wheel the boats round if it’s such a pig of a cut and go back the way we all came? There’s plenty of room.’

  The morning breeze cut through her sweaters and thrashed her own pom-pom from side to side. She continued to thread wool through the hole, and work her way around the circle. She’d done about three layers, so a few more should do it. Soon the job would be done, and then she just needed to remember who it was she had promised it to. It would help if she could remember the name of the motor and butty but she couldn’t, so no point in ruminating any more. She’d leave it with Bob at the pub.

  ‘If only going back was an option,’ Verity ground out, as she steered. ‘But the powers that be have decided this cut must be used. They might change their minds in due course, I suppose, because we’re all bleating so much about the filthy route.’

  A dog walker on the towpath waved, and the dog barked. Way ahead of Bet’s motor was a boat and butty but they’d left the Seagull and Swansong behind with the last bit of unloading still to be done. Polly missed them, but she doubted Saul would want to be too close to them any more. Why would he when he’d just been mocked?

  ‘Why not change over, Polly? It’ll be good practice to steer us out of the wharf.’

  It was not an order but a suggestion from Verity, so Polly smiled, and shoved the wool and card into her pocket, and they changed places. Verity leaned against the cabin, her arms crossed, looking out at the smut-stained warehouses, houses and offices that overlooked them, casting the canal into shade. Polly held the tiller with a loose grip. It was quieter here, without the pat-patter of the engine, and protected from the cross-winds. In the distance was the banging and crashing of a busy industrial zone.

  They glided on, and in spite of herself every so often she looked round, checking, consumed by a momentary fear. But no Leon. He was well ah
ead. Had Will felt fear?

  As Polly steered the unloaded butty behind Marigold, she could feel deep within her the beginnings of something … Then, as they passed a wharf, she realised it was pain. Verity was looking at her. ‘You all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Cold, that’s all. So what’s so bad about the Bottom Road except the view?’ She nodded towards the washing that was hanging out of windows of the apartments they were passing. Some were bomb damaged, and showed the charred remains of rooms.

  Further along Verity waved to someone at a window. ‘Wotcha,’ the small girl called.

  ‘Wotcha,’ Polly and Verity called back.

  ‘Canal scum,’ the girl called again before disappearing back into the room.

  ‘Another one who needs a good spanking,’ sniffed Verity. ‘Can’t she tell the difference between them and us?’

  Polly murmured, ‘I suspect you sound very like your mother at this moment.’

  There was total silence as Verity stared at the window, then tugged her woollen hat down over her ears. It was one she had brought out from her kitbag before they set off. She turned to look ahead at the motor. Polly’s hand on the tiller was freezing, and she dug her other into her trouser pocket. Her windlass was tucked in the back of her belt, as Saul’s was. It really did make more sense, she’d decided.

  The butty glided through the thick dark water and knocked aside a car tyre floating amongst the debris. ‘It’ll be a Dunlop,’ Verity said, quietly. ‘They’re made in Birmingham.’

  The tyre rocked; there were clusters of straw stalks trapped within it, and a headless doll. Ahead, a pair of fly-boats were moored at a wharf. ‘It’s the Guinness wharf,’ Verity muttered. ‘Soon we’ll be into the crème de la crème of the canal world, and, yes, I am joking. Bet has been a wise old bird and taken the motor today, and probably will tomorrow, but why shouldn’t experience count for something.’

  She slid down on to the counter. ‘I’m going to put the kettle on the range, and check the rabbit stew. We’re all fed up with it, but without it we’ll be eating our fists later.’

  ‘Why?’ Polly said, stepping aside, leaving room for Verity to squeeze through to the cabin.

  ‘Because we’ll be hungry in a way you will not believe, and tired, so tired you will hardly be able to breathe, let alone start cooking. And you’re right, Polly,’ Verity said as she ducked into the cabin. ‘I did sound like my mother. You have my permission to pitch me into the cut if I ever do it again, or I’ll pitch myself, like I did before.’

  She popped her head back up. ‘Only if I sound like her, though. I don’t want it taken as open season on Verity Clement, is that totally clear, or I will rip out your throat with my teeth.’ She laughed, but her blue eyes were full of tears.

  Polly reached forward and pulled Verity’s woollen hat down over her face. ‘Perfectly clear, so I will just deluge you in water instead, from the cut.’

  Verity laughed, and disappeared. Then called up, ‘Just to break it to you, as you are probably feeling enormously smug at the thought of dousing me, the butty has to be hauled by hand along the short pounds between locks, and then hauled by hand into and through the locks. You might also think you’ve seen the last of debris in the cut? Wrong – the tyre was just the beginning. The Bottom Road, or Brum Bum as I call it, hasn’t been dredged for years, so we’re likely to get the propeller tangled in some disgusting muck or rope – or even dead dog, on one memorable and awful occasion. We will have to spend hours trying to untangle the damned thing. Or, perish the thought, go in and really get to grips with the obstructions. If you should fall in, keep your mouth shut even more than ever.’

  Polly kept her eye on Bet who was steering along the middle passage, while Verity continued, ‘Or, darling, we might ground on the mud because the bottom is too near the top. In other words, it’s shallow because it’s just so silted up as to be a menace. This experience, my dear girl, will be a vital part of your education. As I say, you will need rabbit stew.’

  She dipped back into the cabin, and reappeared, grinning. But then added, ‘If that’s given you a headache, just let me say I’ll try and be good, and kind, and nice from now on.’

  Polly laughed. ‘Crikey, it’ll wear you out, and then who will pull the boat?’ She paused, then said, ‘We don’t really pull it, surely?’

  ‘Oh indeed we do. It’s something to do with the fragile nature of the cut here. No two boats are to be in a short pound at the same time so the motor goes on ahead.’

  As conditions grew worse she and Verity gulped down their tea, standing on the counter, following Marigold and trying not to smell the cut, hoping nothing tangled in its gear to hold them up, not here. Bet finally gestured that soon they’d be in the first of the short pounds and she’d let go the snubber.

  The canal wasn’t the only thing that was filthy. The towpath was black with coal dust, not to mention dung from the horse-drawn boats, and that was just the identifiable filth. It was like a nightmare as they glided, still pulled by the Marigold through bridge holes which stank, and above which buses or trains passed, while a medley of factories belted out smoke with windows so thick with grime that no one would have been able to see out. The air was stifling and turgid.

  Polly kept thinking of the fields they had travelled through on their way to Birmingham, the distant hills, the kingfishers darting on the bank, the otters, the men fishing. One day she’d live in the country where she could see for miles, and count the narrowboats as they plied along the cut.

  Soon the locks began to appear and Bet uncoupled before the first of the short pounds, and waved as she headed off. She’d have to lock-wheel herself through, as there were no lock-keepers, but there was no sympathy, because at least she had an engine.

  Polly lost the toss and while Verity steered it was she who had to haul the weight of the seventy-foot butty along the pound, dragging it, the rope over her shoulder cutting into her flesh, her legs quivering with the effort. Once she got going it wasn’t so hard but, still, the sweat was pouring not just down her back, but her legs, face and arms as well. She kicked up soot, she squelched through horse manure and dog mess. She slip-slopped, and outside a warehouse skidded heavily on to her side, jogging the aching ribs from her first fall which seemed years ago but wasn’t. ‘Quick, for heaven’s sake,’ called Verity from the stern. ‘Don’t let her go aground, we’ll never shaft the madam off.’

  Polly struggled to her feet, took up the rope again. Horizon, like a good girl, had kept going at a snail’s pace, heading onwards to the flight of locks. Polly left her to glide, and ran up to the lock which Bet, God bless her, had left ready. Into the lock Horizon went; Polly yanked the windlass out of her belt. Everything she touched was black and greasy. As the water emptied through the raised paddles, taking them down to the next ‘step’ of the downhill staircase, the level lowered, the lock-sides were exposed as filthy. Then she shoved at the beams, opening the gates, taking up the slack and hauling Horizon on to the pound. At the next one she jumped down to take Verity’s place at the tiller as Verity leapt on to the towpath and, once the gates were open, hauled the butty along the short stretch to the next lock, repeating the process.

  So it went on, each taking turn and turn about until their boots and trousers were covered in grease and soot, their shoulders raw from the rubbing rope, the blood from their burst blisters mingling with the soot. Polly remembered her mother saying one could clean one’s teeth with soot. Not this soot, Mum, she thought.

  After four locks they met a horse-boat coming in the opposite direction; a child steered the butty, and both boats were loaded with glistening coal. The horse pulled at twice Polly’s speed, if not three times. She turned to watch as Verity steered towards the towpath to allow it passage, and realised for the first time what one, two or three horsepower meant. It was there, as the horse doggedly threw itself against the harness, the breath from his nostrils visible in the cold air, step after step, after step.

  ‘’Ow do,’
called the boater as he let his cotton-line go slack in the water, and allowed the Horizon to float across it.

  ‘’Ow do,’ she replied.

  The young girl steering looked little more than six or seven. Polly and Will had been in school at that age, coming home at three and sitting or playing until teatime instead of standing on a box on the counter, the tiller in safe tiny hands. Was there such a thing as childhood on the cut? She doubted it. Had Joe, Saul’s nephew, known a childhood with that awful father? Had Saul? And what about Granfer?

  She remembered the children who had spat from the bridge on her first day, and many times since. She felt her forehead, where the cut had scabbed up into her hair. She’d like them to have a day on the cut, and just experience the lives of those they were insulting. Would it make any difference? Well, a clip round the ear might.

  At the end of the flight, Bet waited. They linked up again. On the long pound, life improved because the butty could be tied close up to the motor and they no longer had to haul it. Instead they steered, and shared out bread and cheese.

  Then it was time for more short pounds. Polly’s legs felt as though they wouldn’t carry her a step further, but they must, and so they did, because there was just the cut, the wind, the wet and the filth, and these two women who were beginning to be part of her life and she wished Will could meet them.

  At the thought of Will, the second of the day, she felt, at last, a sob building, first in her chest, and then her throat. But as she lock-wheeled it faded, and again there was nothing deep down. A horse-drawn boat was waiting to come through. ‘’Ow do,’ she called, and smiled.

  Yes, there was a way of functioning but, as the boaters would say, for so long the bottom had been too close to the top: the functioning was shallow. Nearby the whining of trams could just be heard, advertising hoardings seen, torn and drained of colour. Through bridges they went and down the flight of locks until they came to a narrow neck of water where the Marigold waited. ‘At last,’ breathed Polly, while Bet waved.