Camden. Her teacher, Crosbie, is just as awkward as before, but the lesson starts well and her talent for steering is just as evident. She comes away from the bank expertly and holds a steady line down the centre of the canal, keeping a boat’s width between the Nelson and the line of moored narrowboats on her left. But she finds herself frustrated by her fat and taciturn teacher. He is again wearing a sweatshirt and baseball cap – his white hair streams out in a triangle beneath it – is breathing heavily, and has one hand permanently jammed into the pocket of his baggy jeans, which are belted beneath his low stomach by a piece of yellow rope. His face is stodgy like dough. He is an entirely graceless figure. And again his only conversation is mumbled quotations from the British Waterways Narrowboat Manual. She looked up his instructions in the Manual after the last lesson and found them all in there, word for word.
And Odeline wishes she could talk to him. To anybody. She wants to tell someone Vera’s terrible story. Odeline thinks there must be something that can be done; it is outrageous that Vera is living as an outlaw when she has done nothing wrong. Wiping tables and washing up plates: it must be a punishing existence for someone with an able mind, a person who is such a good judge of things.
Odeline suggested, immediately after hearing the story, that Vera go to Downing Street to appeal directly to the Prime Minister. He would surely be swayed by the story. But Vera laughed, and then became serious; they would put her straight into a police cell followed by an aeroplane back to her country. So Odeline has instead advised that Vera lie low while she comes up with a plan. She feels there is an opportunity for heroism here. She hopes Ridley will be back to witness it. Vera thanked Odeline for her concern and said she has become very good at lying low.
Odeline knows she cannot talk to her steering teacher about Vera. She decides to see if she can coax him into talking about boats. ‘What’s that for?’ she asks, pointing at a raised metal grille about a metre along the roof. There is no answer and she looks quickly at her teacher before turning back to the correct eyeline. His jaw is juddering silently up and down, making the walrus cheeks wobble. She looks again: his eyes are lifted to the peak of the baseball cap, as if he is scrolling through his internal narrowboat manual for the answer.
‘Is it a chimney?’
He begins to shake his head, his bottom lip drops from under the moustache and tries to form a word. No sound comes.
‘Is it a vent?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘The steerer’s gaze must be directed at all times towards the bow of the boat.’
God, thinks Odeline, swivelling her head back to the right position. She could hardly steer off course in four seconds of not looking. Ridley had completely ignored the eyeline rule when he’d steered them to the gathering. He’d been looking everywhere but ahead. The eyeline didn’t even exist on his boat, there was so much strapped to the top of it.
‘I’d like to point out that your instructions about the engine were wrong,’ she says. ‘On my boat, the engine is in a compartment at the back of the cabin, not under the steering platform, or the poop deck, or whatever you called it.’
Surprise surprise: no answer. She keeps on holding the tiller straight, changes her stance to settle her hips against the rail, as Ridley had done. And then Crosbie speaks, speaks his own words, in a low Scottish voice scratching through the moustache.
‘Your boat must be a traditional model. What year was she built?’
‘It says 1936 on the side.’
Another silence. Perhaps that’s it. But no, he pipes up again. ‘I have built my own boat in the traditional style from 1936. Boats built at that time have a separate boatman’s cabin for the engine.’
‘Someone told me I wouldn’t be able to drive such an old boat,’ Odeline says. ‘Will the engine still work?’
He clears his throat. ‘In the world of waterways, driving a narrowboat or barge is referred to as steering.’ Unbelievable! This is the first line of chapter one in the Narrowboat Manual. Odeline has read it at least fifteen times.
‘I know that,’ she says. They are cruising past the huge white houses – the decorated cakes – behind Regent’s Park. She wonders if anyone ever makes it past a second lesson with this infuriating man. ‘So, will the engine still work?’
‘I have installed an engine from that year on my boat. I modelled the engine room as an exact replica of a traditional narrowboat.’
She remembers now exactly how Ridley stood on their sunset journey to Kensal Rise, and picks a leg up underneath her, heron-like, pressing her brogue against the metal rail.
Then she has a eureka moment.
‘How many free lessons am I allowed under the Community Boat Scheme?’
‘Three.’
‘Could I have my last lesson on board my own boat so that I can practise steering on it?’
No answer.
‘Would that be possible?’
‘I will have to check the regulations.’
She thought bureaucrats lived behind desks, not on canal boats.
‘I don’t see why it would be a problem. Don’t you think it makes sense seeing as my boat is very different from this one? Seeing as it’s a traditional model.’
Silence. Then, ‘No, I don’t see that it would be a problem.’
She gives him the location and name of her boat and asks if she will see him there, in little Venice, at the same time next week. He is silent again. It’s a very long and profound silence this time. It occurs to Odeline that he might be slow to understand things. She turns to him and asks more clearly, shaping each word carefully in case it helps him to lipread. He moves to prop himself against the edge of the boat. His eyes are doing the scrolling thing again, squinting upwards. His mouth has dropped open to show the red bottom lip and nothing is coming out. He looks as if he has been hit in the face.
Odeline finds herself feeling a little contrite.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
He doesn’t answer.
She thinks perhaps it is time to end the lesson and pulls into the bank.
‘I’m just pulling into the bank,’ she says loudly.
He still doesn’t move.
‘Are you all right, Mr Crosbie?’ she says. And then, ‘I don’t mind if you want to check the regulations first.’ She wonders if he has gone into some kind of spasm, but she can see he is breathing, quite fast in fact. She throws the rope on to the bank and gets out to knot it around the mooring post as he has taught her. She says goodbye and gives a small salute. He doesn’t salute back and so she walks off down the towpath.
When she turns around to check, he is still in the same position, shoulders hunched and propped against the side of the boat. Both fists are jammed into his pockets. Perhaps he is just a bit of a slow case, who runs out of words if made to talk too much. She rather hopes he won’t turn up at her boat for the third lesson. She might try to find a new teacher – perhaps there is another Community Boat Scheme elsewhere. Hopefully only a single bus journey away, so she won’t have to pay two fares.
August has slipped into September, but this day is as hot as any in high summer, and as she walks back home along the towpath, Odeline feels her feet sweaty and sliding in her brogues. She has a thought and then dismisses it, and then it pricks her mind again. With a feeling like she is breaking all the rules, all her own rules and all the rules of London and Arundel and everywhere else, with a feeling of defiance and a surge of something like spontaneity, she unties the laces, loosens the cracked leather and takes off her shoes. She hooks two fingers into the heels, stands up and looks down at her feet, which are brown and long and quite perfect. She takes a few steps forward and the towpath concrete is hot on the soles of her feet, slightly rough.
But the roughness is pleasant. She walks on. She is a hippy, she thinks, she is a tightrope walker, she is a shoeless joe. She is free.
An hour later she runs, shoes on, past the customers at the tables outside the barge cafe, knocking over a potted plant outside the d
oor. Inside Vera is at the counter, arranging salad on to a plate next to a panini. Odeline waves the letter in Vera’s face – she is too excited to know what to say. Her forehead is corrugated with delight and the concentration of running in the sweaty, slidey brogues. Vera realises what the letter is and her face opens into a smile which Odeline beams back. Odeline feels as though someone has hooked a coat hanger inside her mouth. It is straining so wide it is almost painful. She looks at the salad dressing on Vera’s fingers and decides she mustn’t let her touch the letter. Instead she holds the letter open in front of her friend’s face. Vera seems to understand: she keeps her hands next to the plate as she reads the letter carefully, nodding as she looks down the page. When she gets to the end she looks up, her droopy eyelids creasing even more than usual.
‘Odi,’ she says, ‘I knew he will write.’
‘He sent a ticket,’ Odeline says, her top lip catching on her teeth, which have gone dry she has been smiling so long. ‘I’m going, this Saturday!’
‘It is wonderful news, Odi.’
‘I don’t know whether to take everything with me. What happens if I join the circus straight away?’
‘Have your meeting first. You can always come back to collect your things. Where is the circus?’
‘Luton.’
‘Not so far away then.’
‘How shall I get there?’
‘Oh, there will be trains, or buses.’
‘Bus is usually cheaper.’
‘Well then.’
‘But I’ll take my props. Because I’ve got to show him my repertoire.’
‘Good idea.’
‘Where is the nearest launderette?’
‘I think there is one on the corner of Harrow Road.’ Vera points a finger over her shoulder. But then her face reddens as she hears a voice outside. She bats her hand at Odeline. ‘Zjelko! Please, you must go!’
Vera dives into the fridge and pulls out another bag of salad, rips it open and begins pulling the leaves out and frilling them around the sides of plates. Odeline folds her letter carefully back into its brown envelope, snug next to the ticket. She steps towards the door. A man with oiled black hair, a blue shade of stubble and a leather jacket is winding his way through the tables outside, speaking a foreign language into his mobile telephone. His bottom lip pouts out as he talks. He is holding the phone delicately, a little finger protruding like a classy lady drinking a cocktail. Ferrari, says the label on the breast of his jacket. He reaches Odeline, looks her up and down, winks a pink-rimmed eye and makes a gesture to allow her past, clicking his phone shut as he does. She wrinkles her nose in a sniff of disdain as she walks past. He smells of coconut.
‘Ciao, Vera,’ she hears him say in a velvety accent. ‘How many customers today?’
But today Odeline has more important things to think about than low-life gangsters. She dashes under the bridge with her beautiful brown envelope – she must prepare a routine to show her father this Saturday. Perhaps she will be a member of the Cirque Maroc by the end of the week!
When she gets back to her boat she finds two plastic pots balanced on top, planted with brightly coloured flowers, one orange and the other mauve with a purple stripe. Plastic tags jammed into the soil read ‘Busy Lizzie Herbacious Perennial’. Whoever put the pots there has spilt soil all over the roof. She takes them off and ditches them on the other side of the towpath – they are extremely silly looking plants. She will have to borrow a cloth from Vera to clean the roof. But this can be dealt with later.
She goes inside and sits down on the bed. She unsticks the gluey flap at the end of the brown envelope and takes out her father’s letter. Unfolding it, she reads again the wonderful words, runs her eyes over the green-ink capitals, the magical drawings. She looks at the stick-like letters, the decorative curlicue at the end of every word. She runs her hand over her own name, written by him. Odeline. Odelin. She feels her face break into a smile again and feels the muscles of her chest open and lift as the rest of her body rejoices as well.
TWENTY-TWO
Alwyn looks at his watch. ‘Still no Mary. Did she mention to any of you that she wouldn’t be coming to this session?’
Inga shakes her head and the young lad on John’s right does too, sinking back into his sweater. The sleeves are looped over his fists as usual, and he has tucked his rucksack under the seat as if trying to save room. He is wearing jeans with the crisp line of an iron down the front as last time. They sit neatly over his suede trainers.
‘I’ve not seen her all week,’ says John.
Mary hasn’t been on her usual bench by the canal. He’s seen the other two there but no sign of her, not even her trolley, which she sometimes leaves under the bridge.
Alwyn blinks at Mary’s empty seat. ‘Odd. She’s been very punctual at the last two. Oh well, shall we make a start anyway? Perhaps she’ll join us at some point.’
John puts his hand up to speak. ‘I could go and have a look for her. I know her usual spots.’
‘That’s kind of you, John.’ Alwyn lifts his glasses and rubs his eyes before slotting the glasses back on to his nose. ‘Perhaps you could keep an eye out for her after the meeting, if she doesn’t appear. I’d like to know she’s all right. I’m sure we all would.’ He looks around the group. ‘But let’s get on with the session now. There are some questions that came up last time that I’ve had a few thoughts about.’
‘I can’t make it to the next session,’ says Inga. Her voice is flat and her eyes swollen. Her beige crêpe shirt hangs off her shoulders as if they are the wooden frame of a chair. ‘I have a shift on Sunday.’
It’s that voice again. The way she talks without trying. John has been to the pub for a drink every night but one since Sunday, but hasn’t been himself there. They even said so. He’s just sat staring at the bar. Every time he’s had a drink all he can think about is Inga and the way she told that story, the way the words just came out of her, so dead.
‘What do you do, Inga? Do you mind me asking?’
‘No, I don’t mind. I work in the supermarket, up by Ladbroke Grove.’ She replies like a reflex; there is no space between Alwyn’s question and her answer. ‘I work on the checkouts.’
‘How long have you worked there?’
‘Since he died. There was no money.’
‘So you work there every day?’
‘Usually I do the night shifts.’ Voice as flat as if she was reading the shipping forecast.
‘That must be tiring. And then you sleep during the daytime?’
‘If I can. Or I go walking.’
‘Where do you go?’
‘Always the same place.’ Halways.
‘Is it somewhere to do with your husband?’
‘It is the place I left him.’
‘What do you hope for, when you go back?’
‘I don’t hope. I go because when I am walking there, I imagine I can feel him waiting.’ She offers up these terrible answers as if they’re nothing at all.
‘And when you get there?’
‘Obviously there is nothing.’
‘And so you turn back.’
‘Yes. I go to the wine shop. And I try another way of pretending he is still alive.’ It’s the way she says it. It’s the way she says it.
‘It sounds like a very cruel way to treat yourself. Almost like torture. What would happen if you didn’t go out for this walk every day? If you didn’t go into the wine shop on your way home?’
She lifts her bony shoulders in a shrug. John Kettle wants to surround her feet with flowers, to distract her and make her smile. Make it better.
‘Am I right in thinking it was your employers who signed you up to this course?’
‘Yes, that is right. It was the management.’
‘Because drinking during the day meant you couldn’t cope with the night shifts?’
‘They said people could smell the alcohol. But I never made a mistake on the checkout. So.’ She shrugs again. She looks so tired. J
ohn Kettle is tired – he rubs the bridge of his nose, smears his eye with his fingers.
‘How about swapping some more of your shifts to the daytime? I know it’s not a solution to much but it must be disorientating, working all night and trying to sleep when it’s light.’
A pause. ‘Maybe. I could try.’ She sounds exhausted now, the voice is lower, slower. Waterlogged.
‘It’s just an idea. I know it’s not getting to the heart of the problem. But it could be a way to get into a better sleep pattern.’
‘Maybe.’ She waves her hand. She is done.
Alwyn pushes his glasses up his nose. ‘You have been really open with us, Inga. I want to thank you for that. Have you found it helpful coming here? Beginning to speak about things?’
‘It gives me something to do.’
‘Yes.’ Alwyn swivels around in his seat. ‘What about you, Chris? We haven’t heard much from you yet. Is there anything you’ve witnessed here which has seemed relevant to you? Have you found it helpful coming so far?’
So tired. Like Inga. So tired. So lonely. Pull it together, John. Pay attention.
The boy uses his sleeved fists to push himself up in his seat. His shoulders are still curled in. His trainers begin to tap-tap-tap-tap.
‘It keeps my parents off my back.’
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