The Boat Girls

by Margaret Mayhew

  I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows . . .

  Oxlips were a kind of cowslip and it was still much too early for them or for any of the other things in Oberon’s speech: woodbine, musk-roses and eglantine. Titania had been one of her best parts for Sir Lionel. No need for a wig, her own hair had been exactly right, so had her pale skin and green eyes. She’d worn a gauzy costume embroidered with silver thread and sequins, and a lot of glittery eye make-up. The scenes with Bottom had been fun.

  What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? . . .

  I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:

  Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note;

  So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape . . .

  The two spaniels burst suddenly out of the trees and bounded up to her, wagging their stumpy tails. They were followed by Frances’s brother not looking quite so pleased.

  ‘We were wondering where you’d got to, Rosalind.’

  ‘I went for a walk, that’s all.’

  ‘I was afraid you might get lost – it’s an easy thing to do in these woods if you don’t know them. They stretch for miles.’

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘I didn’t, the dogs did. They picked up your trail. Then we heard your voice.’

  The spaniels had sat down beside her, tongues lolling, and she patted their smooth heads.

  ‘I was practising a speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I recognized it.’

  She said, surprised, ‘You know the play?’

  ‘Doesn’t everybody? I expect you’ve played Titania.’

  ‘Once, yes. And I was an extra fairy when I was six years old.’

  ‘You started very young.’

  ‘It’s in the blood. You rather disturbed me just now. I was rehearsing.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I like to keep in practice. For when the war’s over.’

  ‘You’ll go back to the stage?’

  ‘Of course. I’m an actress. It’s what I do.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re very talented.’

  ‘You’ve never seen me act, Vere, so you don’t know. All you do know is that you’d much sooner your sister didn’t have anything to do with me.’

  He didn’t trouble to deny it. ‘She comes from a sheltered background; it’s my job to protect her. Unfortunately, she takes considerable pleasure in doing stupid things just to annoy me.’

  ‘And you think I’m a very bad influence.’

  He didn’t deny that either; instead he looked up at the sky, frowning. ‘There are some rain clouds building up. We ought to get back before it starts.’

  Presumably it came with the job. A wing commander commanded and everyone else obeyed. Snapped to attention and jumped to it. Except that she wasn’t in the Royal Air Force.

  ‘It’s very nice here and I’m wearing your father’s mac, so I won’t get wet.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I think you should come back with me. You could easily take a wrong turning.’

  It was true about the black clouds and, anyway, her peace had been disturbed. She sighed. ‘All right. If you insist.’

  The dogs ran ahead of them, snuffling through undergrowth, crashing about and scaring off Pease-blossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustard-seed. The magic was gone, the wood just an ordinary wood.

  They walked on in silence. When they reached the stile he tried to help her over, but she ignored his outstretched hand. To be fair, she had only herself to blame after her behaviour at the Ritz, but, even so, he had not only disturbed her peace, he had wounded her pride.

  Cetus and Aquila, now fumigated and bug-free, were waiting for them at the Bulls Bridge lay-by and Pip had already been given their new orders: Limehouse docks again and a cargo of timber to be taken to the Midlands, another load of coal to be brought back. This time the trip was shorter, the weather better, the mistakes fewer, Pip more pleased. At the end of it, they were awarded their Inland Waterway badges, which they sewed on with pride, and were told that they would be assigned their own pair of boats. After six more days of leave they returned to the depot as fully fledged boatwomen.

  Ten

  THE MOTOR WAS called Orpheus, the butty Eurydice. They stood staring at them in awe, wondering how they were going to manage to manoeuvre the seventy-two feet of each of them out of the lay-by, let alone all the way down to the docks, all the way up to Birmingham and Coventry, and all the way back again.

  ‘I’ve forgotten the story,’ Frances said presently.

  Ros sighed. ‘It’s very sad. When Eurydice died, Orpheus went to look for her in the underworld. Pluto liked his lute-playing so much that he agreed to let Eurydice follow him out of the underworld, so long as he didn’t turn round to see if she was there.’

  Prudence looked anxious. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Silly duffer. He couldn’t resist a quick peek and she vanished for ever.’

  The two narrowboats were newly painted and varnished, but had, as yet, nothing inside them except rusty cooking stoves, empty coal boxes and empty cupboards. No brasses or curtains or decoration. All the essentials had to be bought from the depot stores with the five pounds provided: ropes and lines, batteries, windlasses, water cans, axes, tools, shovels, brooms, mops, kettles, dippers, pots and pans, china, cutlery, cleaning materials, engine grease, even handles and catches. One essential had been brought from home by Frances – a bicycle. It was a man’s one, retrieved from a barn at Averton, as ancient as Pip’s but in better condition. At least the saddle stayed in place and both the brakes worked. They cleaned and blacked the stoves, filled the cupboards with tins and packets of provisions, the coal boxes with company coal. A door at the back of the butty cabin opened onto a small storage place at the end of the hold which would take coats and coal, vegetables and all kinds of oddments. Prudence had found an empty Fry’s Cocoa tin to use for a kitty and they each put ten shillings into it for food shopping.

  At the lay-by, the boaters watched their to-ings and fro-ings impassively. Staggering back with a laden box, Frances passed by a young woman standing at the fore-end of a butty who smiled at her.

  ‘Seen yer before, ’aven’t I? Up at Croxley lock. Yer the lady with the pretty scarf, if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘I’ve still got it, if you’d like it.’

  ‘I would an’ all – long as yer don’ want it.’

  When she returned, the young woman had disappeared down inside the butty and, remembering Pip’s warnings about observing boat manners, she leaned over and knocked on the cabin, waiting for a formal invitation to step on board.

  Her name was Molly Jessop. Her husband, who’d gone off to the depot, was called Saul. They’d been married eight months and she was to have a baby soon. She patted her rounded stomach under the pinafore she was wearing over her skirt. Any day now, she reckoned, by the way it kept jumping about. Like most boatwomen, she was short with strong arms – fit for cabin-living and working locks – and she wore gold rings in her ears.

  The butty had been spotless outside – ropes scrubbed white, brasswork gleaming, roses painted over the big water can, the fairy-tale pictures of castles on the door panels, hearts and diamond shapes everywhere. Inside, the cabin was pin-neat and clean, with a stove that shone like black satin. When the kettle had boiled, tea was brewed in a pot decorated with roses and there were more roses painted over the dipper on its hook. Just inside the door by the stove, six shiny brass knobs were screwed to the wall and, opposite, a fretted china plate, slotted through with pink ribbon, hung on a nail. The cross-bed was down, framed by crochet lace curtains looped back with a red ribbon. Crochet runners edged the shelves and a pretty lace cloth covered the table.

  ‘Brought it all with me, when we was wed,’ Molly said. ‘Me dowry, see. ’Cept Saul’s mam give us the Banbury Cross plate up there. Sit yerself down.’

  She sat on the side bed, Molly presiding on the cross-seat. The tea was dark and stron
g, the cups and saucers fine china. Frances took the silk scarf out of her pocket.

  ‘This is for you. I’d like you to have it.’

  Molly held it up, delighted.

  ‘Prettiest one I ever seen. Look at all them flowers! Thanks ever so much.’ She tied it round her head at once, knotting it under her chin. ‘Saul won’ know it’s me.’

  The scarf framed her smiling face. Frances wondered how long her nice looks would last – the bright eyes, the pink cheeks, the all-present white teeth. Most of the boatwomen she’d seen looked worn out, though they were probably not so very much older than Molly. After this baby was born, there’d be others – two, three, four, five, six, maybe more – and Molly would have to be boatwoman, wife, mother, cook, washerwoman, cleaner, mender, drudge for all the days of her life.

  She looked round the cabin again. ‘Do tell me, why do you always paint roses and castles and hearts over everything?’

  ‘Dunno exactly. Allus been done like that on the narrowboats. Some say the roses are fer beauty, the ’earts fer love an’ romance, an’ the castles fer honour. Could be so.’

  ‘Where did you find the brass knobs?’

  ‘Off old bedsteads, an’ such. See ’em dumped in the cut sometimes, or on rubbish tips, an’ the Brum factories throw out the bad ones. They shine up nice.’

  ‘What about that brass chain on the chimney?’

  ‘Pinched those from Croxley mills when we was unloadin’. We all do that. There’s sheds there full of army gas-mask cases they’re goin’ to make into paper an’ they got these buckles an’ clips on ’em. You cut them off, see, and put ’em together. Makes a pretty chain for keepin’ yer chimney an’ your water can safe.’

  They chatted over the teacups. Molly had been born and brought up on the boats with five brothers and an older sister. Two of the brothers had died early of some kind of fever. The sister had married a boatman when she was sixteen and already had four children. Molly and Saul had been courting for three years before they’d got married in the church at Stoke Bruerne – Bruan, she called it, in boaters’ talk. There’d been fifty guests, she said proudly – all boatmen and their families. They’d had the wedding feast round a long trestle table in the open air, with the boat tarpaulins at the ready, in case of rain. Luckily, it had stayed fine. The honeymoon had been a trip to Hawkesbury to load coal for London. She unhooked a framed wedding photograph from the wall and showed it to Frances – herself in a long white dress and veil, her bridegroom in a suit and stiff wing collar, the big family group dressed up in their Sunday best.

  ‘We’re cousins, see – but I never ’ardly knew Saul, cos we never spent much time together. Passed each other on the cut – him goin’ one way, me t’other – and sometimes we met at a lock, or here at the lay-by, but that didn’t ’appen often. Still, he’s a good man and treats me right – not like some of ’em.’ She poured more tea. ‘What’s a lady like yerself doin’ on the boats? An’ them others? It don’ seem right. There’s all sorts of accidents can ’appen if yer don’ watch out – bones broke, fingers crushed in them ropes, drownin’ in the locks.’

  ‘The Government asked for women to train for the work – so we volunteered. We’re not very popular, are we? Most real boat people seem to think we’re just a nuisance, getting in their way.’

  ‘Truth is they don’ know what ter make of yer. There’s some feared they’ll lose the work or get called up cos of the trainees, an’ others just don’ understand what yer about or what yer sayin’ cos yer talk different. Yer do everythin’ different, an’ yer dress different – in trousers an’ such – an’ yer don’ really live on the cut, do yer? Just visitin’, so ter speak. Yer a puzzle, see.’

  ‘Well, they scare us sometimes – when they don’t say a word and just stare.’

  ‘It’s just their way. Not showin’ what they’re thinkin’. Don’ mean they won’ do yer a good turn, if need be.’

  ‘I hope so. We’ve finished training now and we’ve been given our own pair of boats.’

  ‘We all knows that. News goes fast on the cut, see. Up and down in the wink of an eye. You’ll allus be trainees, though, no matter how long yer stays. And they’ll all be watchin’ yer, waitin’ to see how yer do when yer lets go, furst time. See if yer makes a fine mess of it.’

  ‘I’m steerer, so I hope I get it right.’ Being steerer was like being captain, but the responsibility was a worry.

  ‘Yer wants to use yer shaft as yer turns so’s yer don’ get stemmed up.’ Molly grinned. ‘An’ say yer prayers.’

  In the depot canteen they were greeted with whistles and the usual ribbing.

  ‘’Ere they come, lads . . . the Idle Women . . . wish I had your job, love . . . nuffin’ ter do all day . . . any room for me on board, sweetheart? I could do with a nice ’oliday . . .’

  They checked through everything again to make sure nothing had been forgotten, then all they could do was sit around, waiting for the summons from the office. When nothing had happened by evening, they went to bed – Rosalind and Prudence sharing the slightly larger butty cabin, Frances alone on the motor. She had chosen to use the cross-bed rather than the side one since it was larger and more comfortable, but she couldn’t sleep for worrying. Worrying about getting stemmed up on the turns, worrying about getting the snubber tangled up on the blades or getting the blades fouled with canal rubbish, worrying about the hundred and something locks that lay ahead, about something really terrible happening, like the butty getting caught up on the cill or one of them falling in to be crushed by the boat or chewed up by the propeller . . . about all the things that could so very easily go wrong. And there would be no Pip to put things right. No Pip to tell them what to do and what not to do, to shout encouragement or warning, to bear the brunt and take away the responsibility. Pip would be miles away with another set of trainees and she, as steerer, would be in sole charge. She’d refused the job at first but, as Pip had pointed out, she was the most competent at steering the motor and the most competent all round. A natural. She had copied Pip’s little book of Useful Information into a notebook of her own – lock names, towns, pubs, water taps, shops, public baths . . . anything and everything that might come in handy.

  There were the usual night noises on the wharf – footsteps passing, a dog barking, a baby crying, and then, just as she’d heard once before at the lay-by, the sound of a boatman playing the accordion and singing. Same voice, same song. She listened, comforted.

  They were up early, bolting down breakfast and dressed for action with their windlasses tucked into the leather belts buckled low around their hips. The boaters all seemed to have been up long before. They hung about, fiddling nervously with things and waiting. Suddenly the loudspeaker came alive, blaring out names. A string of others first, and then, ‘Steerer Carlyon, please report to the office. Steerer Carlyon, report to the office.’

  ‘That’s you, Frankie,’ Rosalind said. ‘You’d better get going.’

  She got going, riding the bike down the towpath at breakneck speed. There was a group of boatmen waiting in silence outside the office, shoulders hunched against the cold, stamping their heavy boots on the ground. Nobody said a word to her, or even looked her way. Every so often one of them went inside and came out again, carrying papers. Finally, it was her turn.

  ‘Got your boats ready?’ the stern-looking man at the desk asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Should she call him sir? ‘We’re ready.’

  ‘Limehouse,’ he said. ‘Cement. You’re to get down there quick as you can.’

  She was given a trip card, loading orders and money. He stared at her as he handed them over.

  ‘First one on your own, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you be careful.’

  Outside again, she threaded an apologetic path through the remaining boaters, who neither made way nor spoke. She heard a resentful mutter behind her: Bloody women trainees . . . don’ know what they’re about. Oughtn’t ter be allowed.
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br />   Back at the boats, she waved the papers at the other two before she put them away in the cabin ticket drawer. ‘We can go.’

  The first hurdle was persuading the National engine to start. It refused, point-blank, no matter how many times or how hard they swung the starting handle.

  Frances wiped her forehead. ‘Let’s try going a bit slower at first. And, Prue, you’re doing it just a bit late. Be sure to pull the lever over exactly when I say THREE.’

  It fired the next time and she pulled on the governor rod to give it an extra burst. They scrambled out of the engine room and Ros went to untie while Frances took up her steerer’s position on the counter.

  ‘They’re all watching us,’ Prue said unnecessarily.

  The boaters were watching, sure enough, leaning in the hatches with their unreadable expressions. Waiting, as Molly had warned, to see if they made a fine mess of it. She took the motor gently out into the cut and, as she passed the fore-end of the butty, snatched up the short tow rope from Ros and shoved its hollow eye over the stud on the deck. She looked back over her shoulder to make sure that Eurydice was following and in those inattentive few seconds, Orpheus ploughed straight into the mud and weeds on the opposite bank.

  ‘Prue . . . get the long shaft. Quickly!’

  Prue, who could barely lift the twelve-foot shaft, wobbled along the planks and plunged it into the bank. It did no good. The motor sat there, fore-end firmly embedded, its engine ticking over merrily while Prue went on struggling.

  The boy came from nowhere. He simply appeared beside Frances on the counter, edging her politely out of the way. The engine note changed, the motor moved backwards out of the mud and floated freely to one side. He grinned at her and wagged a grimy finger.