The Waterway Girls

by Milly Adams

  There was a long table down the middle of the room, at which sat mechanics, carpenters, and painters too, from the look of their paint-spattered overalls. Alf, from the Enquiries desk, was sitting at the end of the table, head down, shovelling in his dinner.

  They picked up trays, Verity pushing in front of Polly but staying behind Bet in the serving queue, which moved remarkably quickly. Soon, the women in hairnets and white overalls behind the food counter were slapping liver and bacon, and a great mound of cabbage and mash, on to their plates. ‘There you are, ducks. Home away from home.’

  One grinned at Polly. ‘Still pale around the gills, are you, eh? I heard you thrashed our old buggers in the pub.’ To Verity another said, ‘You threw a few good darts too, I hear, though if I were you, I’d have made ’em ’ave a bet. Adds a bit of spice, it do. Surprised you won, especially you, Blondie, after you downed more’n the blokes, or so it’s said.’

  Verity snapped, ‘It’s like as living amongst a load of gossiping old women.’

  The woman said, ‘Less of the old.’

  Bet raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m running a kindergarten here,’ she said.

  The women roared with laughter, and Verity shrugged. Perhaps, thought Polly, she’d just made a mistake counting the money because of her hangover? She hadn’t thought to check the jar herself, she’d been so shocked. Looking down the table when she took her seat, she thought that there were so many who could have nipped into the cabin, or could even do so now, and they hadn’t locked the doors. But how could they? It would intimate that they didn’t trust the boaters.

  She ate her liver though she had little appetite, finished, and laid her knife and fork together, while her headache thumped. The man next to her said, ‘There’s sponge and custard for afters, duck. Go on, do you good. And I want you on my darts team next time. You’ve got a cool head, and a steady hand. Who taught you, then?’

  ‘Oh, someone I once knew,’ she said, and then, out of the blue, added, ‘My brother, actually. My Will, he was really good.’

  The man, old and grizzled with paint around his cuticles and across the back of his hands, said, very quietly, ‘Was?’

  She nodded, suddenly feeling unutterably lonely. ‘Yes, was.’

  ‘I have a son who “was”. Now go and get some pudding, and you take care of yourself, you hear. Life goes on, and some day you’ll join it again. Or so the missus tells me.’

  He stacked his empty pudding bowl on top of his dirty plate, and stood up. ‘You remember that, because you ain’t there yet, but you will be. See you when you’re back from your run. You might have come on a bit by then.’ He nodded, and was gone.

  She watched as he put his dishes on a trolley and left the canteen, and just for a moment she felt something real stir, not just fleeting irritation, not … Then it was gone. She looked down at the gravy-smeared plate. Verity leaned forward. ‘What was that about?’

  Polly said, slowly and clearly but quietly, ‘Yet again I must tell you that something is none of your bloody business.’ She rose, to fetch three bowls of sponge and custard. ‘You can take my dirty bowl when you take your own, Verity, as a thank-you.’

  Verity stared, shocked, but Bet nodded. ‘Fair exchange,’ she said. ‘And I’ll take the dinner plates.’ Someone called from the canteen door. ‘Tannoy for Steerer Burrows. Steerer Burrows to the office.’

  Bet flung her hand in the air. ‘Coming.’ She nodded to Polly. ‘After my pudding, though. Chop-chop, if you will, Polly.’

  While Polly hurried to collect the pudding, Bet piled up the three plates and took them to the trolley. Polly asked a burly man in grubby overalls if she could jump the queue, because the tannoy had called them. He nodded and gestured her before him. ‘Can’t get in the way of someone with a strong throwing arm, can I?’ He laughed. She smiled, collected the pudding, hurried back to the table. Bet, still standing, snatched it, gobbled it down, then slapped the bowl back on the table. ‘Verity, don’t forget the bowls. See you both back at the motor. Chop-chop.’

  She was gone, followed by Polly, who wanted to see what was entailed. She waved to the women behind the counter, and then opened the door, striding through the yard, her hands in her pockets, the wind riffling through her hair. She looked down at Will’s sweater.

  One day, Will, I will feel really alive again, and so will Mum and Dad. I think I know that now, but when, and how?

  Chapter 8

  27 October – after lunch the same day at the depot

  Polly passed the short queue of boaters filing slowly into the office. Bet stood, arms crossed, tapping her foot, at the rear. ‘You go on,’ Bet called. ‘When Verity comes along, make sure the boats are absolutely ready to go.’

  Polly nodded, but didn’t know what that meant, though she’d be told by Madam Clement in short order. ‘On second thoughts,’ Bet called, ‘wait here with me.’

  Polly stopped, walked up to her, hands still in pockets, and whispered, ‘Why? So I’m not alone with the kitty?’

  Bet raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t be childish, Polly, it’s so you know what to do when you’re a steerer. It’s time to grow up, and park that nonsense until we understand quite what happened. I’m not having a couple of kids on the scheme playing silly buggers.’

  Polly could think of nothing to say, so stayed quiet as the queue shuffled forward, while the hammering from the sheds and the hoarse shouts of the workmen carried on all around. She saw Verity leave the canteen and saunter towards them, but Bet waved her in the direction of the lay-by.

  ‘I’m just showing Polly the ropes as I showed you, and if the wind changes your face will stay like that, so you can stop being silly, too. As I said to Angie in the canteen, it’s like running a kindergarten, so just get on as per usual, and make sure the ropes, water can and dipper are all in place, and that we have some spare windlasses. If not, pick some up from the blacksmith.’

  Steerers were coming out of the office door every couple of minutes carrying sheets of paper, which they stuffed in their pockets. Each time that happened, the queue shuffled forward a few feet until finally Bet and Polly reached the innards of the office. A man eyed them as he finished a telephone conversation, slammed the receiver down and reached towards a pile of papers. ‘Tell me your boat’s ready, Bet? Bit of a rush on, all of a sudden.’

  ‘Ready and able, Ted, but don’t know about willing.’

  Ted grunted, checking his list. ‘Well, ready and able will do if it gets a couple of boats run by daft women to toddle along to Limehouse Basin, or Regent’s Canal Dock, whichever you like to call it – and pick up from there a load of steel billets to Brum. And trust me, they will be rusty, having come from our Yank friends across the sea. Thank the Lord that particular merchant vessel escaped the U-boats, but I gather the same can’t be said for lots more in the convoy.’

  ‘See, Polly, there’s no damn time for nonsense,’ Bet said, taking a card he handed her. ‘The trip card,’ she told Polly. He added her loading orders, and several pink cards with North Bound on them.

  She stuffed it all in her pocket, and turned on her heel as the telephone rang again. She headed towards the door at a rate of knots. ‘Chop-chop, Polly. We’re supposed to drop the pinkies off at certain points along the way, and usually forget.’

  Ted called, ‘I bloody heard that.’

  Bet laughed, and waved without turning. ‘Get back to the telephone, and break my heart by talking to your fancy woman.’

  ‘Nah, don’t give the game away, the missus’ll have me guts for garters,’ he yelled. Then yelled again: ‘Next steerer, come along now, we ain’t got all bloody day.’

  Once out in the yard Polly diverted to the toilet, hearing Bet’s laugh in her wake. Polly called back, ‘You go on now, boss, we ain’t got all bloody day.’

  Bet laughed again, ‘Hurry, and brace up, because you’re on the motor with me.’ Polly did hurry, and once on board the Marigold she saw the tiller was returned to its rightful position, looking very m
uch like a swan’s neck. She joined Bet in the engine room as she fired up the engine, which promptly died. Bet clicked her tongue. ‘Watch closely, this’ll be you coaxing the beast one day.’

  Bet pulled the choke, fired the engine again and, finally pat-pattering, the engine caught, but died once more. Bet swore, and shut down the choke a fraction. ‘Come on, you ruddy thing, I’ve polished you till you shine, so stop buggering about.’

  The engine clearly heard, because it fired, and held. Bet backed out, wiping her hands down her trousers. ‘Come to the counter. You’ll need to cast off both boats, and then be ready to catch Verity’s tow-rope and slap it over our counter stud. It’ll be a short tow until we get a load up, then we’ll go to the long snubber.’

  Polly followed her along the gunwale and on to the counter, leaping to the bank, where she cast off the mooring straps for motor and butty. Verity caught hers, and coiled it. Bet took the tiller and Polly jumped back on board the Marigold as it eased from the kerb, while Verity ran the planks and crouched on the butty’s tiny fore-end counter. ‘Don’t drop the ruddy tow,’ she yelled at Polly, and threw it. ‘Hook it over your counter stud.’

  Polly did. There was a jerk, and then the butty slid in behind Marigold as Verity ran back along the butty’s top planks. They were off. It was 2.30 in the afternoon.

  Bet said, as Polly stood on the gunwale, looking over the length of the boat to the cut beyond, ‘Well, time for tea, and light the range while you’re about it, if you will.’ Polly did.

  They pat-pattered until they reached the fork to Limehouse Basin along the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal via Alperton. While Polly lit the range she heard Bet blowing what sounded like a hunting horn. Polly stuck her head out through the doors. ‘Seen a fox, have you?’

  Bet was staring ahead, as they approached a bridge. She blew the horn again. ‘It was my father’s. He enjoyed hunting when he was younger. He and my mother would do it together but I was an odd little thing and preferred the fox. I could have understood it more if he had been a military man, charging about on a horse, but he was in the navy until his ship sank in the last war and he spent too long at sea on a raft, all alone. He was never quite the same again and the only thing he enjoyed was the hunt. Now watch, Polly, I’m heading to the centre of the cut, where the bridge is highest and the cut is deepest.’

  Bet steered into the middle, heading towards the bridge while Polly watched carefully. ‘We have an electric horn on Marigold, Polly, but this is better, especially for tight turns like this fork. If the oncoming boaters can’t hear this, they’ve no right to be on the cut. If they do hear it, they’ll wait for us to come through this upcoming bridge hole. It’s also how I get your attention on the butty, so be warned. No doubt Verity’s mother has a bell which has the same effect on the butler.’

  Only now did they enter the bridge hole, and Bet pointed up at the worn stones. ‘This is where the horse-drawn boaters would walk the boats through while the lad took the horse over the top and down to the towpath the other side.’

  Bet then peered to look behind her in the dim light of the bridge hole, and then to the front again. ‘Verity’s steering through really well. Once we’re out of the murk, and heading on a straight course, you can steer. We’ll be going up to Alperton where we’ll tie up for the night. You and Verity can take the Tube into Piccadilly, or wherever you like. Do you good to spend some time together, in view of the dust-up, and I trust you to be a good influence, and get her back upright and tickety-boo. Hard as it may be, try to be a friend to her, and remember how much she drank last night in the pub. It happens far too often and can’t go on, and if we’re to be a team we must help her, somehow.’

  For an hour or two they drank tea, or cocoa, and took turns with the steering. The butty was on a short tow and Verity could be seen resting her book and her tea on the cabin roof, reading, because so little steering was needed. ‘Once it’s on the long seventy-foot snubber with a load on board, it will be a different story. The butty-steerers have to stay alert. It’s a heavy load to handle, remember.’

  A pair of boats were approaching, and as Bet steered to the right, so did the others. They passed left side to left side, or port to port, the sailor in Polly translated. The engine pat-pattered on and on, the water slapped against the bank. Bet didn’t steer right up to the edge of the cut. ‘We need to be careful we don’t ground her, or you’ll be shafting again. The cut is always shallower at the edge, or as the boaters would say, the bottom is too near the top and it’s so often a very muddy bottom.’

  Another laden boat and butty passed by. Twins, Polly thought, and then stopped. She looked ahead, standing on the gunwale, leaning in, feeling safe and strangely at home. She was on the water; a quiet artery, not the surging sea but it was enough. There were two golfers on a fairway and a factory, grey and high, with a pitched roof appeared to the left. Then the country opened out into fields, and there were hawthorn trees by the towpath. It was her turn to steer, and now Bet was on the gunwale, ready to step to the counter and take over if need be.

  Polly steered round a long bend, and snatched a look behind. Verity was watching, her hand behind her on the tiller. The wind was cold; more leaves had been blown into the cut and floated alongside, sucked from the bank by their wash. They approached another bridge.

  ‘Bet,’ Polly called.

  Bet turned to look at the bridge as she sat on the roof, and smiled.

  ‘Well, sound the electric horn, or blow mine, and take it through. I can reach you in less than a second.’

  On the bridge children were leaning over, shouting at them. ‘Dirty bloody boaters. Gyppos, scum, the lot of you.’ Polly sounded the horn. One of them jumped back, startled. She sounded it again. There was nothing coming so she steered to the centre, and as she entered the bridge one of the children spat, and the gob landed on the counter between her and the cabin.

  Polly looked at Bet, who insisted, ‘Keep your eyes on the cut. This happens all the time, try and ignore it, or put an umbrella up.’

  Verity’s voice rose behind them. ‘How dare you, you little guttersnipes,’ she called. ‘You need a damned good spank. It’s just so disgusting.’

  As they exited the bridge hole another gob landed, this time on the cabin roof. Bet muttered, ‘At least it missed the water can, and me.’

  Polly felt quite sick.

  ‘That’s just so disgusting,’ she echoed Verity. ‘She’s right, they need a good smack.’

  Bet shrugged, looking back at the bridge. ‘You’re right, and they’re so wrong to despise the boaters, but they do, as do their parents, probably. Can’t they see them, day after day, taking loads up the cut in all weathers, their faces chapped, hands bleeding from the cold, their blisters septic, their kids unable to go to school because they’re not in one place long enough. Standing out in all weathers, soaked through …’

  Polly stared at her, then groaned. ‘Oh, Lordy, time to stop talking, Bet, if you don’t want to scare the pants off me, because I rather think you’re explaining my fate.’

  Bet laughed loud and long.

  Polly continued, ‘No wonder Verity’s hands are as they are, and then to be spat at, it’s an absolute disgrace. Is it every bridge?’

  Bet was smiling. ‘No, sweet child, not every bridge, but some, and remember you are only here for the duration. The boaters live with it.’

  Polly heard the sadness in her voice and said, ‘You like doing this, don’t you, Bet?’

  Bet stepped on to the counter as they passed some beech trees, from which starlings flew in a cluster. ‘I love the sound of the water lapping against the hull at night, the owls hooting so near us, the herons, otters, voles, passing towns, tying up at pubs, where we’re part of the place for a night, then somewhere else the next day. I feel free on the cut.’

  ‘Did you start on narrowboats with the war?’ The tiller was steady in Polly’s hand, though the wind was so cold her fingers were numb.

  ‘A friend int
roduced me long before. She lived on one, can you believe? She bought Blossom and chugged her to a shipbuilder. He put in a deck the length of the hold, though he thought she was mad. Then he built cabins to her specification. I used to join her for school holidays. I taught at a girls’ boarding school, English actually, before buying into the motorboat, and making it my home too. We still have it, but only for holidays. We are on terra firma now, but near the canal. Keep your eye on this bend, Polly.’

  Bet jumped down on to the counter and took over the Grand Union red, white and blue tiller. ‘She had a canal artist paint her narrowboat red, with a riot of flowers. Marigold will always be G.U. colours but I got Saul to paint the roses and castles on her door. He had his own boat, or his parents did, and that was quite a picture, but being independent is too difficult now. The loads are far more regular working on a company boat.’

  They pulled in to the bank at Alperton in the early evening and while they tied up Polly wondered what had once bound Bet so tightly that she needed such freedom. Had school got to her?

  The tie-up was close to the Tube station, with the Piccadilly Line taking passengers straight to Piccadilly Circus. Verity put on her glad rags, but pulled a face when Bet insisted the girls went together; still, she could not object when Bet pulled her ‘trainer’ card, and added, ‘I’m happy for you to have the evening out, but only if you both go and you must stick together, because it’s not safe in the blackout; you never know who is around. What’s more, we must press on tomorrow, so I want you to be each other’s keeper, and make sure you don’t miss the last Tube. Walk back from the station to the cut with all senses alert. And please, please, no hangover. After all, miracles happen and we could be loading some time tomorrow.’

  Polly felt far too tired but if she didn’t go, Verity couldn’t, and she still hadn’t posted her letters and there was bound to be a letterbox somewhere along the way. She pulled on her wool skirt, licked a brown pencil and ran a line up the back of her legs in lieu of stockings. She dragged a comb through her hair, and slung on her mackintosh. Verity pulled on her stockings, adjusted her suspenders, eased her dress over her hips, held up her handbag mirror and applied lipstick.