The Waterway Girls

by Milly Adams

‘What do you mean, wait for another?’ Verity’s voice was sharp.

  ‘I was your trainer and would have had to pass you on once you were trained at the end of your current trip anyway. Then you would have teamed up with a third waterway woman and your own motor and butty, but the question is, will I be up to finishing your training after this beastly illness? So I have told the office that I think you are quite capable of going it alone, you two and Sylvia, as a team. If you make this run work, you will receive your Inland Waterways badge on your return to the depot. You will, you see, have been perceived as passing the course. There’s a war on, remember. We must continue, come what may. Now, I’m sure you didn’t come just to share your troubles?’

  The girls shook their heads. ‘We needed to know you were all right. We miss you – you not the training.’

  ‘I needed to be here, in Buckby which is a boater village, with Fran. What could be better than to be with my best friend, the one who introduced me to the boating life, and who loves the cut as I do, eh? Fran Williams taught with me, but is now a naturalist, and a writer. She reads her work to me at the end of the day, and doesn’t listen to any criticism.’ Bet pulled a face. ‘Now off you go. You have work to do.’

  The girls almost tiptoed to the door. It opened and there was Fran, reaching for the handle. ‘Off, are you? Jolly good, can’t have the old bag worn out.’ She ushered them into the hall, and to the front door. As they tied their laces, Fran lowered her voice. ‘She’s so proud of you. You are such a team, such a joy, and to save a child’s life – which of course we heard about, and for you, Verity, to pay for Bet’s care … She has had a beastly time, one way and another, and the cut kept her going, and you two girls warmed her heart, so thank you.’

  She started to shut the front door and Polly pushed against it. Dog barked. Fran peered out.

  Polly said, ‘Give her our love, because we mean it. Please look after her, she’s really important to us.’

  Fran stared at her, then roared with laughter. ‘And to me, so worry not. Off you go, and may the wind be at your backs, you dreadful duo. That’s what she called you, you know. Her darling dreadful duo, but now there’s a third, isn’t there. The dog, I mean. Try and make it a fourth, the girl. She sounds impossible, but who knows, she can grow. And yes, I do listen at doors; a teacher learns to eavesdrop.’

  ‘One last thing.’ Polly had her foot in the door. ‘Now you mention your role, I need to teach a child how to read, but how?’

  The door opened wider again. ‘Ah, the Hopkins boy. Yes, don’t look so surprised, I get to hear about most things. I find the best way for older children is the tried and tested: CAT SAT on the MAT. Start with words that can be illustrated. Bet said the boy was visually adept, like his uncle, so he’ll be interested in shapes.’ The door was closing, then stopped. Fran peered out again. ‘If his uncle is as good at drawing as Bet says, get him to do the illustrations.’ The door shut.

  Verity was standing in the lane, hunched against the wind. ‘Do come on, Polly. Time’s a wasting, and I’m freezing.’ They rushed back along the lanes as Polly explained the conversation with Fran. Verity nodded. ‘Good idea, and Saul can learn to read at the same time – if he wants to, that is. That way his pride is in place, because everyone will think it is the boy who’s learning. He’ll have a lot of pride, our Saul, if he’s like the other boaters, and let’s face it, he is.’

  Chapter 27

  20 November – Saul and Granfer

  Saul ran from the copse and caught up with the Seagull and butty as they headed towards Braunston Tunnel. ‘Joe,’ he yelled. Joe waved, the tiller of the butty under his control. Saul gestured that he’d leap on board the butty in the tunnel, and trotted alongside as the motor towed it in. Once aboard, he bundled the rabbits and pheasants into the crate behind the cabin. ‘That’ll keep ’em fresh,’ he said, dusting off his hands before leaping on to the roof and off on to the counter, taking the tiller from Joe.

  Joe said, ‘Granfer’s ’ad no more trouble from the engine since yer dragged us off the main cut oop the turn past Blisworth Tunnel for yer pal Mikey to work on it at ’is mooring. He’s got a good workshop, ain’t ’e? Granfer and I winded the boats nice, we did when it were finished, after you set off for yer traps. It’s been a mite slow this trip, eh, Uncle Saul, and I reckon I saw ’em women’s boats tied up the turn-off for Leicester, Granfer said it was probably Buckby. What they doin’ there, I wonders? We’ve lost a day or so, Uncle Saul.’

  ‘A day or so’s not so bad, lad.’ It was dusk, the lad looked chilled.

  ‘When you was trapping the birds, did ’em follow the trail of corn, Uncle Saul?’ Joe asked. ‘Them must be stupid to keep being tricked the same every time.’

  ‘How do they know, it weren’t them who were caught before? Them others didn’t leave no notes to warn ’em. That’s how we learn, in’t it, being taught by others. Like yer being taught it’s bad to thieve.’

  Joe shrugged and headed into the cabin. ‘I needs to polish up Grandma’s pierced plates, or so Granfer says. Idle ’ands, ’e says.’

  ‘Idle mind, an’ all,’ Saul called after him. ‘Right glad yer hopped back ’ere at Tring, when Jimmy’s cousin’s come to ’elp him, but you must be fed up with tracing them letters and not knowing their meanin’.’

  The boy yelled, ‘If yer could read, yer could ’elp me. Mam was trying to. Dad didn’t like it, ’it her, he did. But ’e ’it her whether she were tryin’ or not. I’s going to do the plate.’ He slammed down the table.

  Ahead Granfer was whipping the knots on the roof to warn others he was coming through. Saul looked up to the top of the bridge. They’d been gobbed on twice today, but they went into the tunnel with no mishap.

  Saul shook his head, keeping the tiller straight in the darkness, thinking of Joe, knowing the lad spoke true, knowing that he, his high and mighty Uncle Saul, stood here, at the tiller, hour after hour, day after day, loving it, hating it, cos he didn’t have the words to do something else. On and on they pattered, in the darkness, until the light at the end of the tunnel grew.

  They came out, into the dusk. Frost was heavy on the trees, his breath beat out in clouds. He pulled his kerchief around his neck. How could that lass, Polly, feel as him did? He were a boater, without letters, but their eyes had looked deep, words been said, and he’d keep her safe if it killed him. Did she know that? Did she know that something grabbed his heart when he thought of her, or saw her, or heard her? Would he have the words to tell her if’n he had the chance?

  Taking the motor and butty to Mikey up the cut to have the engine looked at had held him back, keeping him closer to her, nearer to her, and some of that was to keep her safe. But only some. He’d just like to be breathing the air closer to her.

  As he held the tiller with his elbow he saw her, clear as day, them eyes, that hair, that smile. He stared at the ripples that ran along the hull, and suddenly heard Joe’s words again. Did the lad think he didn’t know that Leon hit Maudie whether she were good or not, whether she were trying or not? He looked again at the ripples, and allowed in the thought that haunted his dreams. Were she down there? Were his Maudie in that cold dark water, weed covered, white, lost? He shook himself. He couldn’t believe it, mustn’t. She was alive, she’d just run off, that’s what she’d done. To believe anything else could make it true, could make her a lost soul like Steerer Porter’s little ’uns who done drowned, and he couldn’t have that, not his Maudie.

  He looked ahead to the motor and called, ‘Didn’t the school teach you no letters? That letters can open the world to yer?’

  Joe’s reply was quiet. ‘They put me at back o’ class with the other boaters, and took no notice. I tries but it’s too quick. We all tries but …’

  Saul knew what the ‘but’ meant. Scum, that’s what the boaters was. He checked that he’d wiped off all the spittle on the roof from the bridges.

  They tied up on the bank past the Oxford turn-off, brewed tea, ate rabbit that had
been simmering all day, and then he drew the metal plate from beneath the cross-bed. ‘See ’ere, our Joe. Let’s be getting yer to paint the flowers. I got the black background done.’

  Joe grinned as he took the brush, and settled at the cupboard flap which was their table. Granfer threw over the bit of tarpaulin they had cut to size before he began. ‘No mess, mind.’

  Saul sat on the side-bed and lit his pipe, wafting the smoke up through the open slide hatch. He watched the boy; his steady hands working the paint, slick as a whistle, spinning them flowers. Oh yes, flowers. He liked the spring, and then the summer. Them could work for longer, earn more money, and the countryside was like the flowers he drew, and now his boy was drawing. He stopped himself. No, weren’t his boy, but were his in his heart. Maudie would come home, and he’d keep them safe, always. And that Leon could take himself to another cut, head to Oxford, he could, and leave them be.

  Joe looked up at him. ‘Does we ever paint apples, Uncle Saul?’

  ‘Not ‘specially, but you can. D’yer remember apples from t’summer?’

  ‘Course I do.’

  Saul watched him paint an apple tucked in beside a red flower, just dead on how they were; so big and round, but the lad hadn’t put the stalk at bottom, but to the side. ‘Why’d yer put a stalk there?’ he asked.

  ‘Cos I like that shape, it’s like them letters in t’book. Round with a tail.’

  Granfer nudged Saul. ‘There, bright as a button, like yer ’e is. Paints a good picture like yer, too, Saul.’

  There were other boats mooring up, now. Saul could hear the women chatting as they washed clothes on the bank. He sighed, and took himself to the back-end where the bricks and metal grill were stacked.

  He set up the wash-fire while the steerers sloped off to the pub and the wives washed, cooked, cleaned and chased after the children, who ran wild on the land. Why wouldn’t they, cooped up all day, like some of them pheasants, while the keepers stuffed them with grain for the shooters?

  Mrs Ambrose who was tied up in front called, ‘Need ’elp, our Saul?’

  ‘Can manage, it’s our lad’s clothes. He roars on to wheel the locks and gets up on t’all sorts on the way and gets right dirty. Curious, ’e be.’

  ‘That’s the way of it, Saul. I’s remember you were the same, when yer ma would send you up the cut. I miss ’er, lad. Bloody ’itler, and his bloody bombs.’

  Saul nodded. ‘I do too. And I miss Maudie. I just don’t knows what to do, ’alf the time. Still, good Jimmy is doing well and he’ll be back with ’em when they hit the depot, so the news is.’

  ‘It is, so they say. But that Leon? You seen ’ide or ’air of him?’

  Mrs Ambrose was wringing out a towel as though it were a chicken’s neck, or p’haps she were thinking it were Leon’s?

  He stirred his own washing with a branch. ‘Time he went on the Oxford cut, or so’s we think.’

  Joe called from the Seagull counter, ‘Granfer says ’e’s for bed, and so ’tis I, or so he says.’

  Saul nodded. ‘Then off you go.’

  Mrs Ambrose was carting her clothes on to her butty and stringing them on the line they had rigged behind the cabin.

  He did the same, then doused her fire, and his. All along the bank they were doing the same. A warden or some such had come along once to tell ’em to put out the fires, but it were a mere glimmer, and no bombs ’ad dropped for a good time. Mrs Ambrose ’ad sent Warden on ’is way, saying they’d put ’em out sharp as a penny, when the bombs started coming again.

  Saul grinned at the memory. They’d all checked that the boilers hid the fires so there must ’ave been only a small light. He left the bricks to cool, and the grill, and smoked a cigarette, staring down into the cut. He did love it so, but it weren’t enough, not for him, but there was naught else he could do, without the learning.

  He saw Polly in his mind, down in the water with that Verity who’d come good, she had. Diving and diving so he’d been told, and them’d found that Jimmy Porter, they had. It’d made his heart so full, everything about her made it full, and fuller. Yes, he’d keep her safe, though it’d only be to send her off back to her own life, but at least he’d do that for her. He’d heard she were just a bit behind now and he’d fixed his engine to fail past Blisworth Tunnel, not that anyone would know that. Now he’d be close if Leon got near her on his way back to Limehouse, and near Joe.

  He tossed his cigarette into the cut, tested the grill. It were cold, so too the bricks. He thought once more of Polly, her neck like a swan, her shoulders so set, her walk so stubborn. She deserved a good life, and she’d have it. She’d get the book back an’ all.

  Chapter 28

  22 November – close to arrival at Tyseley Wharf, Birmingham

  The Hatton flight of locks, on from Leamington, hadn’t been as tiring as it might have been, but only because Polly and Verity had refused to go on unless Sylvia agreed to join in with the lock-wheeling. She had, but only after she had written out a chit recording the ‘revolt’. Verity had reached out for it, and her face said it would be filed in the cut, but Sylvia stuffed it in her pocket, dragged the bike from the roof on to the towpath and set off for the first lock.

  Not a word had been said between the three of them since, and now, having moored up abreast beyond the Shrewley Tunnel just a bit on from the Hatton locks, in silence three girls ate the remains of the pheasants in an omelette, with mashed potato and leeks, and immediately Sylvia finished she disappeared into the butty cabin. Verity murmured, ‘I think we have been sent to Coventry.’

  ‘Don’t mention Coventry. We’ll be facing the Bottom Road to it soon enough. Her silence is trivial in comparison,’ said Polly. They laughed quietly.

  ‘Good to see many more prisoners, German and Italian,’ Verity said, as they wrapped up and stepped up on to the counter to smoke a cigarette. They leaned against the cabin. It was so cold that frost was thick on the grass of the towpath and the fields, which glinted beneath the moon.

  ‘Probably picking vegetables, I suppose.’ Polly thought of Dog, who had barked and threatened to jump into the cut to get at the prisoners until Polly had cycled back along the towpath and yelled at her. They had also seen more army lorries grinding over the canal bridges in convoy. The troops often jumped out of the back of the lorries and crowded against the parapets, waving and whistling, as the girls waved back.

  She said, her teeth chattering, ‘I’m too cold and too tired, let’s go to bed.’ Other boats were moored up but there was no one they recognised. Well, there was no Seagull is what she meant. Back in the cabin Polly washed the dishes, handing them to Verity to dry. ‘Sylvia’ll have to speak to issue her next volley of orders or explain what her next chit is about,’ she said.

  The girls smiled at one another, too weary to care. They put away the dishes, washed themselves and fell into their beds, waking at 5.30, before the alarm, as had become the habit. With their eyes closed they reached for their trousers, dragging them on, and all three sweaters that were taken off as one, and replaced as one. Then the muffler, next two pairs of socks, and hats. Dog was let out on to the counter. She would make her own way to the towpath, happy to mill about on her own, and she always returned.

  Verity murmured, ‘The pom-pom is looking threadbare.’

  ‘I can make another.’

  ‘Please promise me you won’t.’

  ‘I’ll show you how to make one. It could just be the icing on your finishing-school education.’

  ‘Ha bloody ha.’ Verity threw her pillow. Polly laughed and threw it back.

  There was a knock on the cabin door. The girls froze. Sylvia said, ‘I’ve made porridge. It’s so dreadfully cold, I thought it might be just the thing. See you in a minute.’

  Verity stared at Polly. ‘Has she poisoned it?’

  ‘Come on, perhaps she’s thawing, or perhaps she can’t stand your lumpy muck any more. Let’s take it for the kind offer it could be. Think of Bet, though we did go off cours
e with the strike, but let’s hope we don’t have to again.’

  Before they left the cabin, they laid more kindling on the warmth of the ashes in the grate, and waited a moment for it to catch. ‘We’ll bring more into the cabin to dry out as we pick up branches and twigs along the way,’ Verity declared, adding coal to the kindling.

  They joined Sylvia in her cabin, knocking, of course. They had not been invited in before now, and it seemed strange to see Bet’s china, horse brasses and crocheted curtains just as before. What’s more, they gleamed as much as, if not more than, when she had been in residence.

  Sylvia handed them bowls of steaming porridge. Verity said, ‘Bet will be so pleased at how you are looking after her things. We’ll write, and tell her.’

  Sylvia sat on the side-bed, having directed them to Bet’s cross-bed. ‘I didn’t like to use her bed,’ she told them. ‘It’s bad enough for you to have a team replacement without me moving in completely. I’m aware I’m so much less than Bet is.’

  Polly spooned her porridge. She hadn’t thought of it like that; neither, clearly, had Verity, who said, ‘But no one expects you to be Bet. You are – Sylvia.’

  Indeed you are, thought Polly, but maybe …

  ‘Will we be at Tyseley by early afternoon, do you think?’ Sylvia asked.

  Asked? Good heavens, she isn’t telling us, Polly thought, looking into her porridge and saying, ‘Yes, we could easily be, if the remaining locks are with us.’

  The porridge finished, Sylvia looked at her watch. ‘Perhaps we should get going. The sooner we’re there, the sooner we can leave, and pick up coal from Coventry. Would you like me to be the first to take the bicycle today?’

  She reached for their bowls. Verity shook her head, as though to clear it. ‘Perhaps that would be a nice idea but we have the long pound first, so we can all just relax.’

  They climbed back on to the counter of the motor. Polly whispered, ‘She’s trying.’

  Verity said, ‘Indeed she is, very.’