Love on the Waterways

by Milly Adams

  Joe came through the wrought-iron gate. ‘Hello, Auntie Joyce.’ They set off for home, Joe walking beside her, his socks down around his ankles, his knees grubby.

  ‘Did you play marbles in your lunch break?’ Mrs Holmes asked.

  He nodded. ‘I won.’

  Mrs Holmes laughed. ‘Don’t tell our girls or they’ll scoop you up for their darts team.’

  Joe wouldn’t hold her hand these days because he was too old, he’d said a few weeks ago. She remembered Will saying just the same. They reached the main road and looked both ways, and then again, and she felt his hand slipping into hers. She looked down at him in surprise.

  ‘I saw Dad today at playtime,’ he said. ‘He was waiting at the gate, but he’d gone by the end of school.’

  Mrs Holmes kept walking, her heart like stone, but by some miracle her voice sounded unsurprised and calm. ‘Perhaps you were mistaken?’

  ‘No, I’m not. He waved to me. I didn’t wave back, because I didn’t want to see him, or know him.’ His grip was tight. Joe snatched a look behind, and Mrs Holmes longed to as well and so, as they reached another road, she looked right, left and right again, with a quick look behind them. She thought she saw Leon. But only thought.

  She wouldn’t hurry; no, that man wouldn’t see that she was frightened. But when they arrived home she bolted the front door, and checked that the back door was locked and all the windows closed. Joe removed his shoes, put on his slippers and took his satchel to his bedroom, while she used the telephone in the hall, giving the operator her husband’s work number in a low voice, knowing that she should only do this in an emergency.

  ‘Come on, Thomas,’ she whispered, tapping her foot. The number was engaged. She replaced the receiver. How foolish; of course it wasn’t an emergency – nothing had happened, and perhaps it wasn’t Leon, because he should be in Yorkshire. But what if he wasn’t? Should she telephone the police? But there was a war on; they were busy with these V rockets and heaven knows what.

  Joe tore down the stairs and into the sitting room, sprawling on the sofa. Mrs Holmes slipped to the bow window, standing behind the sofa, staring out and then to the left. It was a cul-de-sac, so Leon would have to come from the left. No one. The clouds hung dark and heavy as they so often did in November, and so although it was only four o’clock, it was surely dark enough to draw the curtains without looking alarmist.

  ‘Against the chill,’ she told Joe, who was bent over, writing in his book. It was the one in which he wrote his stories about Lettie, the sheepdog who lived on the cut. He had worried about the name, because he didn’t want Auntie Lettie or Granfer to be upset. Mrs Holmes had said Auntie Lettie would be pleased; after all, sheepdogs were lovely. Joe had written and asked Auntie Lettie in the end, promising to send the story to them in Buckby when it was finished. Granfer and Auntie Lettie had been pleased.

  Mrs Holmes made tea and poured a glass of milk for Joe. While he was drinking it, she shut the sitting-room door behind her and telephoned again. This time Thomas answered. ‘Wilkins Stores, how can I help?’ She told him, and Thomas said he’d leave work right that minute, and she was to telephone the police only if she saw Leon, because there was a war on and they were busy.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said.

  She kept an eye out for Thomas through the opening between the curtains, seeing him cycling down the avenue fifteen minutes later, his lamp with its larger slit bobbing up and down in the mist that had fallen. He turned into the drive, leaning his bike against the laurel hedge. He bent down to remove his cycle clips, and it was then that Leon stepped out of the side-passage of the house.

  Mrs Holmes wished she’d telephoned the police straight away, but she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. How could that dreadful man grab Thomas and punch him so many times, and so quickly, kicking him as he lay on the grass, and cursing and swearing? Joe came over to her. She telephoned the police and the ambulance, of course she did – and bother the explosions and the rockets; this was her Thomas.

  ‘Sit down this minute, on the sofa,’ she shouted to Joe, because he’d rushed to the front door. He did so. She in turn rushed to the kitchen for the frying pan, then down the hall again, telling Joe not to come out of the sitting room, because this was between adults. She slammed the front door behind her as she tore into the garden and hit Leon, hit him and hit him, feeling the judder up her arm. And she was shouting, ‘No, no, no, you don’t, you horrid, horrid man.’

  Leon turned from Thomas, holding up his arm and trying to kick at her, his face ugly, spitting fury, but he stopped when Mrs Holmes whacked his nose. The frying pan rang out. Leon’s nose burst with blood. She hit him again – whack – on the side of his head. He staggered, then they all heard the police siren.

  Leon ran off, shouting that he’d be back for the boy. ‘His ma’s dead, so he’s mine,’ he said, as Mr Sinclair came rushing from next door, waving his walking stick and calling out, ‘What the hell’s happening? Where are you, Thomas? Who’s that bloody thug?’

  Thomas lay on the grass, his head in the rose bed. He shouted to Mr Sinclair, ‘I think it’s my Joyce who’s the bloody thug, Sandy.’ He was laughing, but then he groaned and fell quiet as the police turned their car in order to chase Leon, while the ambulance came up. Joyce fell on her knees beside Thomas, and so did Mr Sinclair, wheezing that he could get down, but God knew if he could ever get up again.

  Polly received the tannoy summons to the office in the early evening, then together the three girls took the train from Waterloo to Woking, leaving Dog with Steerer Ambrose, and ran through the streets to Woking hospital. They sat for hours on hard benches with Polly’s mum and Joe, while ack-ack and sirens sounded outside. All the time Polly gripped her mum’s hand tightly, while Sylvia and Verity sat on either side of Joe, pale and shaken, but talking to him of his story about Lettie. They chatted about Dog, and how Dog had looked after M—But then they stopped, because Joe mustn’t know about his mother until she remembered him, they’d all decided.

  The police came, and Mr Burton, and one of the police constables talked to a doctor, scribbling in a notebook. The policeman then joined them, while Mr Burton walked Joe along the corridor, chatting about this, that and the other as the policeman drew the women nearer the top end of the corridor, out of the boy’s hearing. ‘We’ll go and interview your neighbour, Mr Sinclair, and get a witness statement. And this time, when we get Mr Arnson, he’ll be easy enough to snaffle, looking as battered as he sounds, and with an eyewitness.’

  ‘If you get him, you mean,’ said Polly.

  The policeman, who was elderly, said, ‘No, when. This has got to stop. The good thing is that Mr Sinclair said he heard Mr Arnson shouting that the lad’s ma’s dead. That means he doesn’t know Mrs Arnson is alive, and so she’s safe. Not just that, but why did he think she was dead? We will pursue this, with commitment – war or not.’

  By the morning Polly’s dad was out of surgery. His boss had arrived and was talking to Mr Burton. The doctors had thought they might have to remove Thomas’s spleen, but that had proved not to be the case. The surgeon said, ‘He’s a lucky man, Mrs Holmes. He has a broken arm, cuts, bruises and, of course, concussion.’

  Mrs Holmes, the girls and Joe waited outside the recovery room, eager to visit him once he was awake. The nursing sister said, ‘Only two at a time.’

  Joe and Mrs Holmes went in first, and then the three girls, because as Polly said to the nursing sister, ‘If I leave one outside, the other will sulk or, worse, have a tantrum, and we don’t want that, do we?’

  Sister Newsome assured her they did not.

  Polly sat by her father’s bedside and stroked his hand, while the other two girls sat on the other side. ‘You were so brave,’ she said.

  Her father shook his head. ‘No, I wasn’t. Leon was on me before I had me bike clips off. I just tried to defend myself, and I didn’t do a good job. It was your mum with her frying pan who saved the day, but she’s cross becau
se she dented it and the handle rivets have sheered.’ The girls laughed and laughed, and then all three found they were crying, until her dad said, ‘Oh, do brace up. I’m really quite well, but I will have to take time off work. And what about me allotment, that’s what I want to know?’

  Two days later a V-2 landed on the allotments, and that was one problem solved, said her mother, when Polly telephoned from Alperton on their way to Limehouse Basin. She also told her that Mr Burton had said she really should think of evacuation for the three of them, until Leon was apprehended, because then the wretched oaf would have no way of knowing where they were.

  ‘But where?’ asked Mrs Holmes.

  Two weeks later Mr Holmes and Lord Henry Clement were both limping around the walled vegetable garden at Howard House – Lord Henry on his two sticks, and Mr Holmes with his arm plastered, his stitches removed and his bruises healing. They stood together, staring out at the neglected plot.

  ‘D’you really think we can do something with it, between the two of us?’ muttered Lord Henry.

  ‘We’d better,’ growled Mr Holmes, ‘or our Joyce will be after us with the frying pan. As she said, “You’ve got your legs, Thomas, and Lord Clement has his arms so it’s not beyond the bounds of imagination for you to sort it out between you,” so we’d better manage something. The girls will expect it.’

  ‘Ah yes, the young and old girls,’ Lord Henry sighed, heading for the bench set up against the wall. ‘Thomas – if I may be informal – rest your bones for a moment.’

  ‘Of course, Henry – that’s if I may?’ said Thomas, sitting beside him.

  The two men laughed.

  Henry drew out his cigarette case. Thomas took one of his host’s Players and offered a light from his match. The two of them sat smoking, as Thomas scanned the garden. There was some produce that could be picked: cabbages, leeks, and who knew what else amongst the chaos. The espaliered trees growing flat against the walls could be pruned to produce apples and pears the following year, and the box hedges that enclosed the herbs could be clipped.

  Henry said, ‘Are you settling into the gardener’s cottage?’

  Thomas smiled. ‘Thank you kindly, it suits us down to the ground.’

  Henry stared at the top of his cigarette. ‘You were more than welcome to stay with us in the house. Joyce and my wife, Pamela, seem to have hit it off; and of course Joe is just wonderful. To have some young blood about the place again brings it alive. I hope he’ll be happy at school, when the new term starts. There’s a bus stop quite close by.’

  Thomas nodded. ‘It’s kind of you to have us, but just until the V-2s have finished their spree.’

  Henry shrugged. ‘Oh, I think we must leave the date of departure to our daughters, don’t you, or they’ll be after us all with their frying pans. They and Sylvia are a monstrous regiment, are they not?’

  Thomas laughed, nodding. ‘That they are.’

  Henry shook his head slightly and tightened the scarf around his neck. ‘Wouldn’t change a thing, though, would we?’

  The two men looked at one another and smiled.

  On the Marigold, three days later, they moored at Fenny Stratford and the girls ate the pheasant that Timmo had caught for them. They had stewed it, of course, with a bit of bacon and lots of carrots. Sylvia put her knife and fork together. ‘To think I was once so soppy and thought we shouldn’t add to our ration. Have you heard from your mothers?’

  Verity waved her letter from Dorset. ‘Indeed we have. They are a mafia, and have manoeuvred the two men into taking charge of the vegetable garden while they amuse Joe. They’re even taking on a farmer’s pony, as there is plenty of grazing at Howard House and it’ll be nice to have Star’s stable used again.’ There, she’d said it, with no residual anger at Star’s death. Accidents happened after all, Verity could see that now. ‘It was an excellent idea of mine, I do think, to bring the two families together,’ she added.

  Polly looked at Sylvia and groaned. ‘We’re never going to hear the end of this “good idea”, are we?’

  Dog sat up and yelped. The girls tensed, but then they heard an owl. Sylvia reached down and stroked her head. ‘Good girl, you’ll look after us until the police catch Leon, won’t you?’

  Verity grinned. ‘Oh, come on, Sylvia, we’ll look after ourselves, won’t we? If your mum can wield a frying pan, Polly, then so can we.’

  They remembered then that they weren’t afraid of Leon any more. There were three of them and they were that ‘monstrous regiment’, as her father had written to tell Verity they were called now. They just needed to bear in mind that they might have to fight a bit of a battle should the wretch appear, but no more or less than everyone else, as the Allies pushed through France and the British home front endured for a while longer.

  Read on for an exclusive extract of the next book in the series …

  20 September 2018

  Chapter 1

  Early January 1945 heading along the Regent’s Canal dodging V2s

  Sylvia Simpson leaned against Horizon’s cabin, examining the grey looming clouds, and then the empty fifty-foot hold stretched out in front of her as they headed east along the Regent’s Canal towards Limehouse Basin. Horizon, an engineless butty, was strapped alongside the motor narrowboat Marigold, with both boats under the control of Polly and Verity. All three girls had been recruited the previous year on to the Inland Waterway Scheme set up to replace the boaters who had gone to war.

  Their task was to transport supplies from the London wharfs to where they were needed and then the same in reverse. This morning they were pat-pattering east as fast as they could, which, she sighed, didn’t amount to much. After all, four miles an hour didn’t exactly part anyone’s hair. Sylvia scanned the skies again, but what was the use? The layer of swirling grey would hide any V2 streaking towards them. ‘I just wish dear old Marigold’s engine could get a bit more of a head of speed going. I feel as though we’re the ducks at a fairground shooting gallery.’ She snatched a look at the other two standing on their deck alongside.

  Polly replied, resting her elbow on Marigold’s tiller, keeping both boats to the centre of the canal. ‘You’re not alone there, Sylvia. It’s an endless dog’s dinner, but what can we do?’

  Standing the other side of the tiller, Verity adjusted her green woollen hat and called, ‘We duck, darlings, since Sylvia brought up our little feathered friends.’

  The three girls laughed, and that summed it up, really; just keep laughing and get on with the job. So last night they’d moored up overnight at Alperton as usual and made an early start this morning to load up at Limehouse quick as a flash. What’s more, the rabbit and parsnip stew was simmering in Marigold’s tiny cabin range, and who knew, Sylvia thought, they might even manage to gulp it down while the blokes loaded the holds. Then they’d head hell for leather back down Regent’s Canal and finally on to the Grand Union Canal past Hayes to motor north for Birmingham, well out of the danger zone. Again, Sylvia snatched a look at the clouds, listening, always listening, but why, when it just made her irritated with herself?

  She called, ‘I need to break the habit of looking and listening because you can’t hear the V2s, as you did the V1s. Which makes me ask, clever clogs Verity, how can we duck if there’s no warning?’

  ‘Don’t be so picky, darling.’

  Sylvia grinned across as Verity moved to lean against Marigold’s cabin, lighting a Woodbine, then waggling the packet at Sylvia and Polly. Polly took one, but Sylvia shook her head as she thought aloud. ‘And, in fact, how can these rockets or anything come to that, go faster than sound? I just don’t understand.’

  Polly, still with her elbow on Marigold’s tiller, replied, ‘I’ve no idea either, and you’re not the only one on edge; if we’re not looking for the rockets, it’s the wind trying to freeze off whatever we’ve left exposed.’ So saying, she pulled her muffler up over her mouth.

  The wind gusted, making Sylvia’s nose run. Damn, she thought, wiping it on h
er sleeve, then feeling suddenly ragingly furious, she shouted, ‘Oh Polly, and you too, Verity, I know it’s winter but I’m sick, sore and tired of this weather, never mind that awful little Hitler sending his ghastlies over to blast everyone to kingdom come.’ Sylvia stopped, scared that she was being sacrilegious; kingdom come? Did that mean our Lord’s Kingdom? After all it was: ‘Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done’.

  The old uncertainty which was never far away tore at her just as fiercely as the wind. She could ask Sister Augustine next time she put pencil to scrappy paper, or perhaps not, because she didn’t want to get into a discussion about kingdoms, or more importantly, now the words had entered her head, His will being done. She shifted at the tiller, feeling guilty but even more angry, and now also upset because try as she might to ignore it, she was still in such a muddle about her future – to be a nun, or not to be a nun, as Shakespeare might have said. Her mouth dried, as panic began. Had she really been called as she had thought at the convent orphanage? Was she disobeying God’s will by being here, choosing another path, for now at least?

  Unable to bear it she jerked herself from this train of thought, elbowing her butty tiller a tiny fraction, which was pointless, but it might break the chain of agonising questions. When it didn’t she shouted to the other two, ‘I dream of the sun, only the sun, every night. Can you imagine being warm ever again on this wretched cut?’ She even banged the tiller with her fist. It hurt, and she was glad.

  Polly and Verity laughed from their deck, or counter as it was called by the boaters. Sylvia joined in, not sounding quite right, but muffled enough by her scarf not to cause comment. She began to feel calmer, keeping her thoughts on the cold, cold cut and pondering how working the canal boats had become such a different world that it required its own language.

  ‘How many of the people we pass on the towpath know that a cut means a canal, and a counter is a deck?’ she called.

  Verity, wisps of blonde hair slapping her eyes, ignored her but asked Polly, with a wink, ‘What’s the daft girl going on about now, eh?’