by Leo McNeir
Sally Ann’s Summer
Leo McNeir
© Leo McNeir 2007
Leo McNeir has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2007 by Enigma Publishing.
This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
for my mother
Jessie Eileen McNeir
(1921 - 1995)
in love and gratitude
for Beth Baldwin
(1906 - 2003)
in loving memory
and for Marilyn
whose chance remark
was the start of it all
Table of Contents
Foreword
Prologue
1. Shelf
2. Lumbered
3. Pub crawl
4. Sabbatical
5. Joshua
6. Crate
7. Police
8. Lesson
9. Plans
10. Engine Trouble
11. Old Peter
12. Transatlantic Call
13. Bitch
14. Gift
15. Paint
16. Blur
17. Casting off
18. Visitor
19. Dolly
20. Lazy Sunday
21. Routine
22. Anne (with an ‘e’)
23. Captain and Mate.
24. Stalker
25. Sun
26. Glebe Farm
27. Idle Woman
28. Envelope
29. Blisworth Tunnel
30. Braunston tunnel
31. Braunston
32. Totteridge
33. Parcel
34. Banbury
35. The Henrys
36. Oxford
37. Lombard
38. Fall from Grace
39. Postcard
40. River Boat
41. Gold
42. September
43. Henley
44. Tide
45. Procession
46. Homecoming
47. Legacy
48. Designs
49. Aura
50. Fame
Epilogue
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Foreword
All the events described in this novel are fiction, and any similarity between names or boats is entirely coincidental. While some of the locations are based on real places, others are invented. In reality, Little Venice is not only one of the most beautiful parts of the waterways system, it is also one of the most peaceful.
Reference is made to British Waterways because it seemed unnecessary to invent a body to fulfil its functions with a different name. The BW staff mentioned in this book bear no relation to my knowledge to any actual member of its personnel.
The first books about boating that I ever read were the writings of the young women who volunteered to work on narrowboats during the Second World War. They came to be known as the Idle Women because of the initials “I.W.” on their badges, denoting “Inland Waterways”. Their books, like their lives, became an inspiration. I hope that Iris Winterburn, who features in this book and, like all the other characters, is entirely fictitious, does not disgrace those extraordinary women.
As far as the central mystery is concerned, I leave it to the reader to decide where the facts end and the fiction begins.
Prologue
This was where it all began.
Marnie Walker was rummaging in the back of a locker on the boat when her fingers touched something unexpected, a notebook, weather-beaten as if left out in the rain, oil stains on its cover, a grimy thumbprint clearly visible in the corner.
She had been looking for torch batteries, but now abandoned her search and sat down at the table in the saloon. A few years had passed since she had last seen the book. The day she acquired it had been a turning point in her life, though she had not realised that at the time. It had been one significant moment in a summer that had led her not only on a tour of the waterways, but which had taken her away forever from the life she had known until then.
She flicked through the pages. Each entry brought back memories. The life she now knew – a life that had for some years been filled with incident and episode – had not just come about by careful planning and hard work. There had been the element of chance. Marnie sat back, gazing out through the window across the still water of the canal to the fields beyond.
Chance has determined the whole course of my life, she thought. At any other time those influences might have worked out differently or never come together at all. What started as a simple holiday trip brought me to where I’m now sitting in the saloon of the narrowboat Sally Ann, at our mooring on the Grand Union Canal, fifty miles from London.
It was all down to that summer. Marnie closed the logbook and cast her mind back, trying to remember. It all started, she thought, with a phone call.
1
Shelf
Marnie was on the point of reaching for a cigarette when the phone rang. It was Beth, and that was bad news.
“I'm busy, leave me in peace.”
“You're always busy, too busy, I keep telling you.”
Marnie definitely needed that cigarette and put the phone under her chin so that she could pull one out of the packet.
“I hope you're not smoking again.”
Marnie thought Hell – she must be psychic! and put the cigarette between her lips.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” she mumbled, stretching to reach for the Zippo.
“Very funny. I always did like your Humphrey Bogart impressions.”
If the truth were told, it was more the appurtenances of smoking that appealed to Marnie than actually breathing smoke into her lungs. She especially liked the Zippo, that was just then evading every effort she made to reach it.
“Do you have to ring me at work when I'm really busy, to nag me about giving up smoking?”
“What are big sisters for?”
“Good question. What do you want, Beth?”
“You know what I want. You promised.”
Marnie had a vague idea about a distant conversation, but had not registered anything remotely resembling a promise. She had by now given up all efforts to reach the Zippo and dropped the cigarette from her lips onto the drawing board in front of her.
“Look, Beth, I'm not in the mood for promises. In fact, now is not a good time to be asking favours.”
A change of tone. Sisterly concern. “Actually, you don't sound too cheerful. What's the matter?”
“I'm just a bit fed up, that's all.”
“Fed up!” Beth yelled down the line. “How the hell can you be fed up? You've got just about everything anybody could want: a good job, big salary, no ties, no debts, your own place, good prospects –”
“Okay! Okay!” Marnie yelled back. She lowered her voice. “I don't need the inventory. Anyone can feel fed up once in a while, can't they?”
“Is it the work or the private life?”
Marnie sighed. “It’s the work and it's the private life.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Of course I don't want to talk about it. I'm sitting in an open-plan office with nine other people. I might as well sell serial rights to the News of the World.”
“You're the boss aren't you?” Beth had a logic that was curiously her own.
“It doesn't make the others deaf.”
> “I meant that you had more space around you on account of being a senior executive.”
“I am not a senior executive or any other sort. I'm an interior designer.”
“Well, you're senior,” Beth insisted.
Marnie had had enough of this. “Look, I am senior in that I have two plants, a bigger chair and a view over the litter in the canal just outside my window. Big deal.”
“That brings me back to the promise. You said you'd look after Sally for us and I have to see you to give you the keys.”
There was a pause. “Look after Sally?”
“You promised you would. Don’t you remember?”
Marnie had completely forgotten. “Sure. When and where?”
“Ring me at home tonight. I've just remembered, I have to get to the cleaners before they close. Must rush. Bye!”
That was it. Gone.
Marnie cradled the phone, looked at the plans in front of her and felt stale. She seldom chatted with her sister, but now, with Beth and Paul going away for a year's sabbatical, she realised she would like a confidante for her various woes.
Without noticing herself, Marnie had the cigarette in her mouth and leaned across the drawing board for the Zippo. She enjoyed the smooth feel of the metal against her fingers and flipped the lid open with one movement, just like Bogart or Cagney. The striking wheel felt rough on the edge of her thumb and she looked at it thoughtfully, willing it to light first time. On the point of flicking down on the wheel, she heard a cough over her shoulder. She knew that cough. It was Larry, the office creep, one of her assistants. Of course, he was making his point. They had all democratically decided that the office should be designated a no-smoking zone, and she had gone along with the idea because at the time she had given up and thought it would be an inducement to persevere.
She would not give Larry any satisfaction. Deftly, she slipped the lighter and the cigarette into the pocket of her long cardigan and set off towards the loo.
Washing her hands, she glanced in the mirror. Could this really be the promising young designer of not so long ago? It was not that she had totally gone to seed, at least she persuaded herself of that. But the signs were there. Were those bags forming under the eyes, and was the skin becoming just a little slack around the jaw line? She was glad the mirror only showed the top half and had already given up inspecting herself in the full length mirror at home. The weighing scales had acquired a light coating of talc-scented dust, standing alone and neglected in the corner of the bathroom. These were not good signs. She was not a complete person at ease with herself, as the magazine articles were wont to tell her.
Involuntarily, Marnie found herself opening the door onto the tiny patio that everyone in the office called the shelf. She stepped out and stood by the murky waters of the canal, lighting her cigarette in the shadow of the bridge and keeping out of the range of vision of those in her office, such as Larry, who would smirk to think she had had to retreat to this forlorn smoker's haven, where she always felt like a schoolgirl skulking in the lavatories for a clandestine drag.
This was meant to be an idyllic waterside social area, where creative people would come to be refreshed by contact with a soothing element. At least that was how they had planned the office building several years before. It had looked good on the drawings, with sketchy figures standing languidly among pots of geraniums, coffee cup in hand, thinking creative thoughts, swapping creative ideas and looking like the colour supplement people they imagined themselves to be. Few came here now, apart from one or two hardened cases who found it impossible to kick the smoking habit.
Marnie flicked the butt into the canal and turned to go. As she did so, she heard the rumble of an engine and, looking round, saw the prow of a boat painted in bright colours in a bold diamond pattern coming under the bridge, swirling the floating litter aside with its light bow wave. She paused on the threshold before going in, drawn by a vague curiosity to watch the narrowboat pass. It was green and yellow with red lining over a black hull and had flowers in tubs on the roof. The effect was cacophonous and jaunty, all the colours merrily vying for attention.
Marnie became aware of a middle-aged couple standing on the minute rear deck, each clasping a mug of coffee. They seemed free of cares, glancing around as the boat chugged along at walking pace. Suddenly, they caught sight of her and raised their mugs, calling out a cheery greeting that was made indistinct by the throb of the diesel. Marnie waved back and noticed that their mugs did not match.
What was the attraction of these slow-moving vessels that led apparently normal people to set off like nomads, wandering at a slothful pace through the oily waters of urban decay? Why did they always seem to throw away any aesthetic sense they might once have possessed, as soon as they boarded a boat?
What on earth was she doing here, she thought, wasting time when there were drawings to be done, colour schemes to be devised? The canal boat was receding into the distance, and the couple were looking up at a hideous block of high-rise flats as if in wonder. She made a mental note to collect the keys to Beth's boat later that evening. Just what she was expected to do with the thing while they were away, she had no idea. She opened the door and went back to the drawing board.
2
Lumbered
“I don't suppose you'll be wanting another drink, will you?” Beth said, perhaps a little pointedly, picking up the bottle and putting it back in the fridge.
“Won't I?” Marnie glanced at the dregs left in her glass.
“Not when you're driving,” Paul said with a smile. He got up and walked to the door.
“Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten I was driving.”
“That's not a good sign.” Paul smiled cheerfully and went out.
That more or less summed up the evening, at least as far as Marnie was concerned. They sat in the kitchen over the remains of a Chinese take-away. Food stocks had been allowed to run down in view of the imminent departure for the year's sabbatical. In a cupboard they had found a medium dry Yugoslav white wine left over from a party and decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. Not a wise decision. If Marnie was honest, she could not regard its disappearance from the table with genuine regret. It was more a reflex action, a matter of principle. Was she drinking too much these days? Surely not.
“Do you think you’re drinking too much?” Beth asked in an even tone.
“Not much chance here, is there?” Marnie wondered again if Beth was psychic.
“You know what I mean. Is it all part of your being fed up?”
Marnie automatically reached for her bag to get a cigarette, remembered that Beth and Paul lived in what they described as a no-smoking house, and pushed the bag under her chair. She felt reluctant to talk about her malaise. This was partly because she was not sure what was causing it and was too lazy for concentrated introspection, partly because she knew that Beth's mind was occupied with other things.
“I dunno. Perhaps I've been working too hard.”
Beth agreed. “You ought to get out more. It’s not as if you’re short of friends. And there’s Steve, unless you’ve put him off.”
Marnie realised she hardly gave him a thought. Steve lectured at University College like Paul, and they had met the year before at a dinner party. Marnie was convinced that Beth had stage-managed the meeting. “He’s still keen enough, I suppose. God knows why. I don’t give him much encouragement.”
“I thought you liked him.”
“He’s all right, if you like people making sheep’s eyes at you. I’d rather just go my own way for a while. I’m not into relationships right now.”
“Perhaps you're in a rut. Though I suspect you can't be. It isn't fashionable.” Beth spoke without malice.
Paul came back with a document folder under his arm and a bunch of keys attached to a bizarre key-ring. It was a short length of thickish red string with a ball at the end, the size of a golf ball. It looked like a ball and chain, and Marnie was surprised that it was so light when Paul handed it t
o her. The ball was made of cork. There were only three keys, and Paul explained their uses: towpath gate, doors on Sally Ann, ignition switch.
“No problem.” Marnie dropped them in her bag. “I'll keep them in a safe place till you get back.”
Beth suddenly looked shifty. “It's not quite as simple as that.”
Marnie feared as much.
“All you have to do –” Beth began.
Marnie interrupted her. “You sound like a special offer on a corn flakes packet or a recipe. In the case of Mrs Beeton, she usually tells you to take a dozen plovers’ eggs and a pint of brandy.”
Beth was undeterred. “Pay attention, or it’ll be a recipe for disaster.”
Marnie disliked Beth's tendency to speak in clichés. She also disliked her tendency to have the last word.
Paul put on his best lecturer's voice. “Like all machines, it’s desirable to keep the engine in use as regularly as possible. That also goes for the internal systems.”
Marnie looked suspicious. “What internal systems?”
Paul put on his most encouraging smile. “Well, there’s the water pump, the stern bilge pump, the forward bilge pump, the hot water system, the fridge, the cooker, the shower unit …” he paused for breath.
Marnie was stunned. “All that on one little boat?”
“She's not so little,” Beth countered. “She's forty-five feet long, made of steel and weighs fourteen tonnes.”
Paul picked up the narrative. “There’s also the time switch for the fan that we like to run to keep her ventilated from time to time in the summer, which has to be changed to run the fan heater to keep her free from frost damage in the winter. And ideally, she ought to be opened up and the bedding aired each week, especially in the winter or during a spell of damp weather.”
“Right.” Marnie thought she should be taking notes of all this. “Anything else?” She sensed the question was a mistake.