The Narrowboat Summer

by Anne Youngson

  “I think I might have spotted that as we came past. Rather elegant? Mainly black and simple?”

  “How kind of you to say so. It is my pride and joy.”

  He raised his hat and Eve lifted a hand and they parted.

  * * *

  IT WAS HOT. MOVEMENT WAS too much effort; everything was still. In the ripple of the Number One’s wake the weeds and reeds lifted and fell and were motionless again. Around the middle of the afternoon they reached a lock, beside a road bridge and a pub. The pub had a large garden and a children’s playground and was pulsating with people, colorful as to clothing and exposed flesh. There was no escape from the sun below the lock, but above it they could see a line of trees, so they went through. There was no need to put in any effort as an embarrassment of helpers was ready to open and close the gates and the paddles. Anastasia had directed them to refuse all such help as the general public could not be trusted to operate the paddles safely and let the water in, or out, gently enough to avoid damaging the boat. But Anastasia was no doubt impervious to heat and indifferent to exposing her summer wardrobe to close scrutiny by the frequenters of pub gardens, and Sally and Eve were neither impervious nor indifferent. So they stayed on the boat, smiling and trying not to hit the lock gates.

  Grimm was moored above the lock; there was no sign of Trompette or Billy, but there was what could have been an old sheet hanging from the roof on the towpath side and the public strolling past all stopped to look at it. Eve and Sally moored the Number One farther off, under the trees, beyond the official moorings so there were no bollards and they had to hammer stakes into the unyielding earth. They put the sparse mattresses from the cabin on the roof and lay, drinking lemon squash and taking bets on the color of the next boat to come past. After half an hour only two had, and they were both the wrong color.

  The sun was beginning to drop and the heat, though still gripping, was less extreme, so they stood up and walked down the towpath to look at Grimm’s sheet. It had red letters painted on it, which read:

  Canal Stories

  Hear it Here

  Tonight

  When the light was fading and the crowd in the pub had thinned out, Billy came out of Grimm and walked down the path, beating his drum. He walked from Grimm past the pub garden to the lock, along the lock and back. Then he set out again, only this time Trompette, a crisp little butterfly all in white, followed after him with a handbell which she rang at every fifth beat. Every tenth beat, she called out: “Story time!”

  People began to wander toward them. After four passes, they had a small crowd assembled: sitting on the lock gates, on the grassy towpath, on the low wall round the pub garden, on folding chairs and cushions. Eve sat on one of the bollards beside Grimm, but Sally did not feel ready to commit herself to this experience, so she held back, leaning against a post a little nearer the Number One, a little farther from the crowd.

  It was still daylight but, after the drum stopped beating, Grimm began to look mysterious, in its grayness and stillness, with a largely silent crowd around it. Sally could not see Trompette, only Billy. He was standing on the back of the boat with a Chinese lantern, unlit, which he placed on the edge of the roof. He jumped to the towpath and held his arms up; the one or two murmurs in the crowd were cut off and it became still.

  Billy began:

  Let me tell you a story—a true story. It happened here, on this towpath; maybe not on the very same section of this towpath as you are sitting on now, but close. Just about here, or hereabouts. Somewhere you’ve passed or will pass.

  It’s 1847. Think back. In a hundred years, the Second World War will be over. Thirty-two years ago, the Battle of Waterloo was fought and won. Queen Victoria is on the throne and she’s twenty-eight years old and married to Albert. This is the Grand Junction Canal and it has been open for upward of forty years. A masterpiece of engineering ingenuity. And toil. Hours and hours of hard work, months and years of hard living.

  As he spoke the last sentence, Billy seemed to bend under the weight of the words. He was wearing a loose, coarse jacket, a handkerchief round his neck and clips on his trousers, immediately below the knee. Now he took a flat hat from his pocket and set it on his head. There was an illustrated history of the canals on Anastasia’s shelf of books and Sally recognized the figure of Billy as a character from the photographs; any one of the bargemen captured by an early camera, standing by his boat or his horse. When Billy began to speak again, his voice was rougher, more melancholy. As he talked, he trudged up and down the towpath past the watching faces to the bollard where Eve sat, and back again.

  It’s October. You can feel the chill through your worn coat, the wind gets under your neckerchief and cuts you to the bone and you’re bone-tired. Your name is Isaac Bridges and you work for Bissell’s in Tipton, taking cargo to London and back. From Tipton to London by canal is 154 miles and there are 69 locks. You’ve walked those 154 miles, worked those 69 locks, taking a boatload of iron to Paddington Basin. It took you seven days. You’ve unloaded your iron and loaded up the hold with corn, and you’re on your way back to Tipton. The barge is heavy and the horse is sleepy and you’re walking along behind him, driving him forward. You’re thinking of the inn you’ll be stopping by tonight, picturing the tankard of ale that’ll be waiting for you, tasting the bitterness of it and the strength of it on your tongue as you go on putting one foot in front of the other, keeping the horse moving. And there, in your mind, is the end of the day; the moment when you lay yourself down next to your wife, Ann; you’re thinking of the comfort and softness of her as the miles go by. It’s her stout little figure you can see at the tiller of your boat—or you could see her, if you had the energy to turn your head sideways and look.

  Billy didn’t turn his head to look, but the audience did, as surely as if he had lifted a finger and pointed, to make them take note of the hunched, shapeless bundle of clothes that was suddenly—or was it sudden? had it been there all along?—at the tiller.

  You’ve walked as far as … say hereabouts. Between Cowley and Braunston. Coming toward you is another barge. Laden, low in the water. Another horse pulling another rope. This is no surprise. You’ve passed several boats already, traveling toward London, and you’ve crossed smoothly. There are rules; the right way to do things. These rules are written down, pinned up in the toll houses at the locks, but you don’t need reminding. You know how to do it.

  The boat going toward Tipton—yours—keeps to the towpath side. The boat going toward London—his—moves over to the opposite side. Your horse keeps to the side of the towpath by the water’s edge. The other horse passes on the hedge side and, as the horses and boats meet, the London-bound boatman lets his rope go loose. Your horse steps over it. Your boat floats over it. The other boatman waits till you are clear of it then takes up the slack and goes his way. That’s the way to do it.

  Only the boatman coming the other way doesn’t do it. His name is William Hickman, though you don’t know that until later. He’s only been working this canal a few months and you’ve never seen him before. He’s younger than you. As you walk toward him, you call out—you’re pretty sure you will have called out—“Pull your horse to the hedge side!” But William Hickman keeps his horse by the water’s edge. His boat is on the far side of the canal, as it should be, but there is no room for you to pass his horse on the canal side of the towpath. It all comes upon you too quickly. You have no time to think. There’s a horse where it shouldn’t be, two ropes strung across the path going opposite ways. You lift yours up and over his horse’s head—what else were you to do? You pass him, but it’s all wrong, it’s all wrong. You’re trying to hold your rope up and look round to see what is happening behind you. You see William Hickman’s rope sweep across the roof of your boat. You see Ann, caught up, swept off her seat. You hear the splash as she is dragged backward into the canal by a rope that has her caught up in its strong, wet grip.

  There was a splash. Something moved on Grimm’s roof—too qui
ck to see what, or by whose hand—and the woman-shaped bundle was jerked off into the canal. The audience gasped. One or two even took a step toward the canal, but Billy was there, between them and the edge of the towpath.

  “Stop the horse, stop the horse!” you shout. Then you jump into the canal, of course you do. There’s Ann, with her long skirts, her petticoats, her shawls wrapped round her and over her head to keep off the chill—it’s October, it’s near the end of the day. You jump in and your brother Alfred, who works for Bissell’s, too, and is following along behind with another boat, another cargo, comes running up to help you. You reach Ann, loosen the rope, try to hold her up—she’s not helping herself—grab the end of the rope Alfred has thrown to save you both. You reach the bank; pull Ann out, the whole weight of her, the plumpness of the body and the wetness of the clothes. You look up and see William Hickman standing, watching, a little way off. When he sees you out of the water, he clicks his tongue at the horse and walks on.

  “You’ll pay for this,” you say, or maybe you only think it.

  Billy moved aside and there, on the towpath, was the wet bundle of clothes that might have been Ann Bridges.

  Well, is that the end of the story? Is it? Oh, no. Not for Isaac, not for William, not yet for Ann. She is taken to hospital, hardly conscious … But wait a minute, what about William Hickman? Shouldn’t we hear his story, too? Imagine you’re William, for a moment. Indulge me.

  He straightened up, loosened his necktie, tilted his hat at a different angle and was at once a fitter, jauntier man.

  You’ve tried a few things in your life and done well at them, but nothing has quite suited you, you haven’t found something to stick to. You’ve always been a laboring man; you’ve worked with horses, and with boats, the first on the farms, then the other in the port and on the rough, rough sea. You’ve not long started in the canal business—you know boats, you know horses and you’re just beginning to think this is the right line for you. You’re quick; you get a move on, work hard, don’t drink or fornicate more than the next man—maybe less, because you’re always looking ahead, ready to spot the next chance coming along, and you won’t succeed in getting a hold of it if you’re forever nursing a headache, or dreaming of the lock-keeper’s daughter.

  So here you are. It’s October 1847, and you’re driving your horse along the towpath somewhere between Braunston and Cowley, keeping one eye on the boy you’ve got steering the boat—you’re not sure he’s to be trusted—and the other on the horse, making sure it keeps up a good pace. And along comes old Isaac Bridges, plodding toward Tipton, head down. You don’t know him, but you know his type. His horse is in the middle of the towpath and you slow your pace a little, waiting to see which side he’s going to go. Oh, you know the passing rule all right, but you’ve noticed not everyone obeys it, so you don’t make assumptions. You watch to see what this dozy old beggar is going to do. He doesn’t call out to you—you’re sure of that, nothing wrong with your hearing—and he seems to be drifting toward the hedge side, so you keep on the water’s edge. What else are you supposed to do? You’re new to this game, don’t know the people; it’s not up to you to shout instructions to a man who’s probably been up and down this towpath every week since it was first built.

  Old Isaac wakes up as you pass him and lifts his rope over your horse’s head. He seems to be in a complete muddle, fusses over the rope, not watching where he’s going, what he’s doing. You’re distracted, too. There’s more slack in your rope than there would normally be because you checked your pace, and you were preparing to drop it down, if Isaac had taken the path he should have done. So the rope isn’t taut, and so isn’t high enough out of the water to clear Isaac’s boat. There’s his wife, all wrapped up like a woman who has to wear all her clothes on her back because she’s no space to store them. Dozing away like Isaac. Your rope snakes over the top of the barge toward her. You think—and this is something you can’t prove, and you’d never get Isaac and that brother of his to back you up, but you think that Isaac’s rope also comes adrift from the mast it’s fixed to for towing. You think that’s what was bothering him, fussing about on the bank. So, and this is important, you don’t think it was your rope caught round the old lady. No. When it was all over, your rope was lying loose in the water and you think it was Isaac’s own rope that grabbed old Ann and jerked her off her perch.

  After the splash—two splashes as they go in one after the other—you stop your horse and wait to see them hauled out onto the towpath like two parcels of dirty washing. Then you move on. You thought that was the end of the story. But it wasn’t. Except for Ann. Time to shed a tear for Ann.

  Billy took off his hat and pointed to the bundle. Trompette appeared with a wheelbarrow that normally sat among the other debris on the roof, loaded the wet clothes into it, and wheeled it away as Billy kept talking.

  She’s on the bank. She’s not looking too good so a cart is called and she’s taken to hospital. The doctor comes. Looks at her wrist, sees the mark of a rope on her skin. Shakes his head over her. Two days later, she dies. The doctor says it was shock, and mortification from the wound to her wrist traveling all the way up the arm to the lungs.

  Poor Ann. Poor Isaac. No more soft, warm cuddles in the cabin. No more hot food ready for him on a cold night. No one he can trust to steer the boat while he drives the horse. And poor William. The police catch up with him on the canal close to London. Where else would he be? They arrest him for manslaughter. It’s 1847. Manslaughter—you could go to the gallows for that. You could find yourself in a transport ship and lucky to reach Australia alive—or unlucky to reach Australia alive, who knows?

  There’s a trial. Old Bailey. Judge in a wig. Isaac tells his story. William tells his story. The doctor says Ann had an injury to her wrist. She stopped breathing. There it is. Now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, gathered here together on this towpath in this century, what is the verdict? Does William go free, sail away on the canals of England for another thirty years of hard, honest toil, or does he have his new career snuffed out? You decide.

  Billy picked up the lantern from the hatch and lit the candle inside; held it up. The glow was bright in the warm dusk of nearly-night.

  Let’s say this lantern is William Hickman, body and soul, and you hold his fate in your hands as I hold this lantern in mine. What will you do? Let him go, to float away down the canal into whatever adventures await him, or put out his light, send him into oblivion? Come along, now. You’ve heard the evidence. Hands up for guilty.

  No one spoke, at least not aloud and clearly.

  All right, then, not guilty. Is that your verdict? Hands up if it is.

  Now the audience became livelier, raised their voices to the friends standing next to them and to strangers nearby. But the majority of hands went up. Billy smiled.

  Not guilty, you soft-hearted liberals! There he goes, see, you’ve let him loose and you’ve no idea where he will go or what he will do next, be it harm or good.

  He let go of the lantern, which lifted and drifted—slowly, for there was no breeze—above the canal toward the lock. Sally watched it go and noticed a solitary figure of a man walking down the towpath toward the group around Grimm. He was deeply familiar in the way he walked, held himself, the way his hair bobbed as he moved. But she did not let the name into her mind. It could have been an illusion of the light, the night, the strange story of Isaac and William, the drifting lantern passing over the man’s head and vanishing behind a hedge—although it cast so little light the evening seemed darker when it was gone.

  Billy spoke for the last time.

  If you think you are better than the judge in his wig in the Old Bailey in the nineteenth century, if you think you have more understanding and tolerance and compassion, you would be wrong. He found William Hickman not guilty, just as you have.

  Billy and Trompette circulated among the crowd with upturned hats, collecting money. The people moved off toward the road and the pub, discussing t
he story, leaving Eve on her bollard and Sally leaning against her post. Through the chattering throng walking away from them emerged the man Sally had noticed, walking toward them. He sidestepped Eve and stopped in front of Sally, looking at her closely as if, in the dark and the strangeness of the location, he could not be sure who she was.

  “Eve,” said Sally, “meet my son, Mark.”

  “Well,” said Eve, “that’s a bit of a turn-up for The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.”

  * * *

  MARK WAS A SLIM BUT solid-looking young man, easy in his movements. Eve suspected he had come to entice Sally back to the comfort and familiarity of Beech Grove, and prepared herself to despise him. She decided at once there was nothing of Sally about him, so he must be a true chip off the block of Duncan. But he was so easy a companion it was hard to maintain her distrust. They had already eaten but walked back to the pub with him and had a drink while he ate. Eve had assumed mother and son would want to be alone, but they had both paused on the towpath, looking back over their shoulders (on second thought, he did remind her of Sally), and it was Mark who said, “Aren’t you coming, too?”

  He worked for the Forestry Commission, he told her, in between shoveling an enormous portion of fish and chips into his mouth. He was coming to the end of a Graduate Training Scheme and was ready to take up whatever role he was assigned, anywhere in the country. He loved trees, he said, in all their variety. He loved that he had been trained in practical skills as well as management skills. He liked that he worked outdoors, and he liked the pace of it, which was measured, as befitted the majesty of the forests.

  More often than not, when Eve talked to other people about their careers, she found she rather regretted not having had the chance to experience what they were experiencing. Other people’s lives, particularly if they were passionate about what they did, sounded so interesting, even though she knew that they were telling her only what was good, and how it worked in theory, leaving out the dullness, irritation and inefficiency that were inescapable in any organization, as far as she could see. So she was captivated by Mark’s account of the program he had completed and the openings ahead of him, and by the end of the evening had completely forgotten she’d ever thought he was an agent provocateur sent to disrupt their trip on the Number One. He was also completely unlike her picture of Duncan.