There was a feeling of warmth, radiating from somewhere to his right, and down near his feet. His memory of being in the cabin, before he had fallen asleep, was hazy, confused, he found he could not picture its interior in any detail – but there had been a stove there, hadn’t there? He could remember its warmth then, sitting there wrapped in this same blanket, the woman next to him, holding him, cuddling him…
Tears suddenly rose to his eyes, the thought of such affection from a stranger, the memory of the lack of it from his own mother, too much for him. He swung his feet to the floor, holding the blanket around his body, rested his elbows on his knees and sank his face into his hands, crying quietly. Crying for the pain and sorrow of his own life, crying for his past, and his future: What future? What will I do now?
Take me with you! He’d asked it, hadn’t he, last night? But how could he expect these people to do that, to take a kid they didn’t know, make him a part of their family? Why would they want him, anyway? They obviously had a son of their own; and hadn’t they said something about other children? No, they wouldn’t want another mouth to feed! They’d send him home… He’d stopped short of telling them who he was, where he lived – but could he keep that up? If he didn’t tell them, they’d have to take him along, wouldn’t they? But they only had to go into the town, ask a few people – someone would soon tell them who he was…
His heart sank; his tears kept coming, despite his best efforts: Cry-baby! Act your age, Michael!
The curtain dividing the cabin was pulled open beside him, and the comforting bulk of Vi Hanney eased herself around to sit on the edge of the cross-bed. Michael felt her stand up, reach over him; a match flared, and an oil-lamp came to life as she replaced the glass chimney over the wick. The lamp, attached to the cabin wall near the range, spread its light around the confined space; Michael raised his eyes, curious, despite his empty heart, to take another look at his strange surroundings. The wooden walls reflected a golden glow; brightly-coloured decoration in the form of painted flowers and a picture of a castle by a river enlivened their plainness; and the soft light sparkled from polished brassware, from decorated plates hung on the walls around and above the stove.
Vi sat down again, looked at the boy whose awakening she had sensed, whose sadness she had heard; the look of fascination in his eyes which now masked the tears made her smile:
‘Good mornin’, Moichael.’ He turned to her:
‘Good morning…?’
‘Oi’m Vi’let Hanney. We didn’t get interduced, last noight, did we?’ He smiled at her, shook his head, as she asked: ‘’Ow are yeh feelin’ this mornin’?’
‘Better, thank you, Mrs Hanney.’
‘Mm. Glad ter ’ear it, Moichael.’ She fixed him with a steady gaze: ‘Now – ’ave yeh had toime ter think things oover, choild? Are we gooin’ ter tek yeh home ’fore we go on our way? Or what?’
The boy hung his head, unsure what to say. Vi held her silence for a moment, gave him time to think; at last, when he still said nothing, she went on, gently:
‘Things are pretty bad, are they? They moost be, fer a nice kid loike you ter troy ’n do away with ’imself. Boot – do yer really want ter leave ’ome? What about yer folks – aren’t yeh goin’ ter miss ’em, after a day or two?’ He hesitated, but then shook his head:
‘No – I’m only in the way, they don’t want me, they don’t…’ Sadness swallowed his words, and the tears spilled from his eyes again. Vi’s heart went out to him; she completed his sentence:
‘They don’t love yeh?’ Michael’s head sank forward onto his chest as he shook it again:
‘No – there’s only Ginny… She’s my little sister…’ Vi gazed at the forlorn child:
‘Oh, Moichael…’ She reached out, drew him into her arms and held him, stroked his hair as he sank his face into her shoulder, smiled as she felt his arms worm their way tentatively around her, as if still fearful of rejection.
After a few minutes, she gently pushed him away, held him at arms length:
‘Moichael? Look at me, choild.’ He raised tear-stained eyes to hers, the look in them half-afraid, as if he expected to be told that he had to go home. Her smile began to reassure him; her words made his heart sing:
‘Moichael – we’ll tek yew along with oos, fer a day or two, any’ow. If yeh change yer moind, we’ll see about getting’ yeh back ’ome, roight? If not… well, Oi’ve got the beginnin’s of an oidea…’
‘You mean it? Really?’
‘Not a word ter moy man, though, boy! Let me ’andle ’im, oonderstand?’ Michael nodded, eagerly; then he stretched up to plant an impulsive kiss on Vi’s plump cheek. She laughed him off:
‘Git away, boy! Yew don’t knoo what yeh’re lettin’ yerself in for, yet!’ Michael just smiled up at her, feeling as though the warmth to which he had wakened had spread to fill the whole of this strange, compact world that he’d found himself in – the warm glow of the oil-lamp on his surroundings, the cosy heat radiating from the little iron range by the cabin doors, but above all the warm comforting presence of the happy, buxom woman at his side.
‘Moy man’ll be about soon – yew feel oop ter getting’ dressed, Moichael? Would yeh loike a coop o’ tea?’
‘Yes, please, Mrs Hanney. What time is it?’
‘Oh, it’ll be ’bout six, Oi’d guess. We’ll be on the move pretty soon, once moy Bill’s oop.’ She stood up and lifted the kettle from the range, where it had been quietly murmuring to itself all night, and set about making a pot of fresh tea. Michael looked around:
‘Mrs Hanney?’
‘What is it, boy?’
‘Where are my clothes?’
‘Oh, they’re ’anging oop in the injun-’ole, Oi put ’em in there las’ noight, ter droy out round the motor. There’s soom of ah Stevie’s things there, boy yer feet, they should ’bout fit yeh.’
He looked down, groped about in the folds of the blanket and found a pair of heavy grey cloth trousers, a white shirt with no collar, a pair of rather threadbare underpants and some thick woollen socks, an obviously-handknitted red pullover. Vi poured the tea, added milk and sugar to one mug and placed it within his reach; she gave him a broad smile before reaching up to slide open the hatch above the cabin doors. Climbing up onto the step, she took her own tea with her and stood, elbows on the slide, sipping it, her head and shoulders in the frosty air, to give the boy a little privacy in which to slip out of the blanket and dress himself.
Michael stood up and dropped the blanket behind him on the bed. It felt so delicious to get up in such a cosy, warm place after his own cold room; he stretched luxuriously, ducked instinctively when his hands hit the low roof of the boat’s cabin, smiled at his own reaction. He looked down at himself and smiled again, feeling rather embarrassed – he’d never slept without his pyjamas before! He picked up the pants, slipped them on, then sat down to pull on the socks. Everything fitted, more or less – a bit short in the legs and arms, maybe, but otherwise okay. He was just finished when sounds of movement from behind the curtain made him jump – he’d almost forgotten that the boatman was still asleep in there. Vi had heard the noises too, and ducked down into the cabin once more:
‘Good boy, Moichael! Sit here in the corner whoile Oi pours a coopa fer moy man.’
Chapter Eight
Dawn rose to a day as beautiful as only a fine English winter day can be. The Acorn and the Angelus were making their way along the six-mile pound which separates the single Cosgrove Lock from the flight of seven at Stoke Bruerne as the sun edged above the horizon, its pale golden rays striking across the fields, bringing a sparkle like diamond to the frost on the grass and the hedgerows. The air was still, the sky brightening to a clear, pale ice-blue with just the faintest, scattered wisps of thin white cloud; all the world’s colours were rendered in the finest pastel tones.
The first part of their journey had been slow, difficult: The overnight frost had been harder than Bill Hanney had anticipated, the water of the cana
l bearing a solid layer of ice from bank to bank. He and his son had had to walk around the gunwales of the boats, breaking the ice with their long shafts, to be able to move at all; and then, progress had been hampered by its thickness, the stem of the motor boat forcing its way through to a cacophony like the continuous shattering of glass. Close to the aqueduct which passes over the River Ouse, the canal is so exposed that the ice was even thicker, making Bill back up to take a run at it several times when the sheer weight of it brought the boat to a halt.
They had made it to the lock while darkness still reigned, worked through with the help of the keeper, who had had to rake the broken ice out from behind the gates before they could be opened.
* * *
Once Bill Hanney had risen, Vi had given a knock on the butty’s cabinside to wake the rest of her brood. In fact, as she well knew, they were already on the move, Gracie up and about and brewing tea for her brothers as they dressed around her. Soon, all four piled out onto the snow-drifted towpath; Bill climbed around the outside of the motor boat’s cabin and down into the engine-room, where he began the half-hour procedure which was needed to start the big single-cylinder diesel, while his daughter and eldest son began breaking the ice around them – Stevie and Jack enjoyed a raucous snowball fight alongside the boats, their voices shrill and happy in the bitter morning air, their breath blowing like steam around them as they ran and ducked through the pre-dawn darkness.
Before long, Bill heaved the flywheel over, and the engine started with a loud report and a cloud of black smoke, settling to its off-beat thudding as he emerged once more into the open. Vi had stepped over to take the tiller of the butty, beckoning Michael to follow; her two youngest sons had dropped their snowballs, remembering the presence of their strange, uninvited guest, and had quickly climbed onto the cabin-top, staring at him in frank and slightly awe-struck curiosity. But Vi had ushered him down inside:
‘Yew stay down there in the warm, Moichael. Yeh had a real chillin’ las’ noight, n’ yeh doon’t need ter be catchin’ yer death now. Coom oop later, when the soon’s oop – yeh’ll be able ter see what’s what then!’
Michael had done as she suggested, grateful for the warmth as he sat on the side-bed: The cabin on this second boat appeared all but identical to the one on the motor, only a different array of plates hanging on the walls above the stove, a different rug on the bare floor, telling him that he had changed abode. He felt the movement from alongside as the motor boat pulled away, the broken ice scraping and jingling as it pushed its way through; then the gentle tug as the towline drew taut, starting the butty on it way. Feeling cosy and content, he leaned back, resting his head against the wooden cabin wall behind him, hearing the distant throb of the Acorn’s engine, and the hushed voices of the two boys sitting on the cabin-top, their words almost but not quite audible. He smiled: I bet I know what they’re talking about – or who, rather!
He had passed the next hour relaxed, half-dozing, in the cosiness of the warm cabin, listening contentedly to the sounds of the canal in winter – the low murmur of water against the boat’s hull, the rustle and tinkle of the ice, the occasional stirring of the stocky boatwoman at the tiller, whose lower body intruded upon his world from the hatches, her heavy black boots firmly planted upon the step next to the range. Every now and then, she would bend to peer in at him, and smile proprietorially at the sight of his closed eyes, the peaceful look on his face. Once, she caught him looking up at her:
‘Moichael? Be a good lad ’n put soom coal on the range, will yeh?’
‘Yes, Mrs Hanney – but…?’ he looked around, puzzled.
‘It’s oonder me feet, choild, in the box! ’N use the iron, boy the stove there, or yeh’ll burn yer fingers, roight?’ Michael nodded up at her:
‘Right!’ He found the iron, spent a minute or so working out how to use it to open the firedoor of the range, and then located the supply of coal – big bricks of best house coal, stacked in the wooden box which was designed to double as a lower step under the cabin doors. There was no shovel, so he put a few lumps carefully into the fire with his fingers, and sat back again, disproportionately pleased with himself at having achieved even so small a task for her.
At the lock, she had looked in on him again:
‘Stay where yew are, Moichael – we’re goin’ through the lock. ’N doon’t mooind the bumpin’ about.’
‘Can I come up and see, Mrs Hanney?’ She shook her head:
‘Not now – when we get ter Stoke Bruin locks, later, all roight? It’ll be dayloight then. It’d be too risky ’ere in the dark, til yeh know what yeh’re doin’.’
‘Oh – all right.’ She smiled at the disappointment in his voice:
‘Yeh’ll ’ave ’ad enough o’ locks boy the toime we get ter Braunston, boy, yew mark moy words!’ He smiled back at her, settled into his corner of the bench again, listening to the sound of voices, the cracking of the ice, the creaking of the lock-gates, the rattling of the paddle gear – all so mysterious to a boy who had never seen a lock worked! Itching to see what was happening, he held his curiosity in check against Vi’s promise to let him watch at the next flight they came to.
* * *
Now, in the fragile sunlight of the January day, their passage was a little easier. From Cosgrove village, above the lock, they had been following a broken track through the ice, left by a pair of boats which must have gone ahead of them after stopping at the Barley Mow overnight. Even the already-broken ice slowed them, its shifting floes pushing lazily aside as they passed through. Still, they had encountered no other boats travelling in the other direction – there was nowhere that the boaters would choose to stop for the night below the top of Stoke Bruerne locks, so any pairs moving South would probably still be working down the seven as dawn broke over them.
The going was still slower than Bill Hanney would have liked. He stood at the tiller of the motor, fretting quietly at their progress, considering his options – that night, it might be best to stay in Stoke. He hated the idea of losing time, delaying the end of the trip and his pay-day: They could make it through the tunnel to Blisworth – the sheltered water of the cuttings would be clear of ice in all probability – but if they did, and it froze hard again, they’d find themselves stuck until the thaw. They could probably make it to Whilton, at the bottom of Long Buckby locks, even if the sixteen-mile was slow, but, despite the presence of a pub there, it wasn’t a good place to be frozen in for any length of time… He’d talk to Vi, when they got to Stoke, decide then whether or not to stop there until the weather bucked up; and they had to talk about Michael, too – she’d overruled his doubts, insisted on taking the boy along with them that morning, and he’d bowed to her judgement in his haste to get ahead, but he still puzzled over what they were to do with the boy.
For her part, Vi was thinking deeply about him, too. Once they’d left Cosgrove Lock, she’d relinquished the tiller of the butty to Gracie, and stepped down into the cabin to make breakfast. She’d managed to ‘acquire’ a few eggs and a handful of sausages – fried up on the range with some thick slabs of bread, they’d keep her brood going through the day! Michael was dozing in a corner of the cabin again, propped against the partition which separated off the bed-hole; Little Bill was with his father on the motor – Oi moost stop callin’ ’im that, ’e ain’t so little any more! – and the two youngest had resumed their perch on the cabin-top, watching the sun come up over the fields.
Moving as quietly as she could about her cooking, her thoughts turned again to their mysterious passenger. Who was he, what was his background, whatever could have got him so depressed as to try to end his own life? And what was she to do with him, now? She had begun to doubt the idea which had come to her earlier, wondering if it was sensible after all – she’d talk to Bill about it, perhaps when they got to Stoke Bruerne. In the end, she knew, it would be her decision – they were a team, and a damned good one at that, but while she would always defer to her husband when it came to
the boats and the way they worked, the family was her responsibility, and now that she’d taken this errant kid under her wing, he fell into that category, too.
She glanced down, found him looking up at her:
‘’Ow are yeh feelin’ Moichael?’ He gave her a wan smile:
‘Okay, thank you, Mrs Hanney.’
‘Oi’m doin’ Breakfus’ – would yeh loike soome?’ His smile widened noticeably:
‘Yes, please – it smells great!’ Vi chuckled, scooped a sausage and an egg on top of a slab of bread on one of the plates she had ready, handed it to the boy:
‘There yew goo then! Tea ter foller in a minute, h’okay?’
‘Okay! Thank you.’
She piled two more plates, stuck her head out of the hatches to quickly confirm their location, called to her second son:
‘Stevie! Coom ’ere boy, tek these plates and joomp off in that bridge-’ole, run forward to yer Dad ’n Billy on the motor. ’And ’em oover, ’n coom back ’ere fer yer own, roight?’
‘Roight y’are, Mum.’
He stood, balancing on the gunwale, as she swung the stern over until it was close enough for him to step down onto the bank. Running forward as best he could through the snow to the next bridge, he got there in time to hand the plates over to his father and brother – Bill had slowed the engine to allow him to overhaul them – and then wait until the butty caught him up again. Meanwhile, Vi had handed a plate out to Gracie, and one for little Jack – she had Stevie’s ready for him when he tumbled eagerly back into the stern well, let him inside to sit at the table-cupboard to wolf it down.
A Boy Off the Bank Page 4