The Waterway Girls

by Milly Adams

  ‘Ah, that’s a typical “Polly” remark. We also have a family tree, and a position, and the importance of that, dear Miss Holmes, is carved in stone on my heart. “We have a position, Verity, and you will not besmirch it. I have paid off your bit of rough.”’

  As she looked at Polly, tears were streaming down her face. ‘She called the boy I love a bit of rough. He was the chauffeur, and I thought he loved me, but he just disappeared one day and left no note. I kept trying to find him, going to all “our” places – the pubs where he taught me to play darts, the woods where we walked. But nothing.

  ‘One day he was cleaning our Rolls, the next he was gone. Mother said, in the drawing room, when I asked, that she knew not where. She said that he appeared to have packed his bags the previous evening and was gone by morning, and why on earth should I care? Well, I wasn’t going to tell her, was I? Then six months ago, Mother called me into that same drawing room, shut the door behind me, and said that she couldn’t stand this “ghastly mooning around”, and then told me she had offered Tom three hundred pounds to leave because she couldn’t have her daughter making a fool of herself.’

  Polly reached out to Verity across their cabin but Verity shook her head. Polly started to rise, wanting to comfort this girl, but Verity snapped, ‘Don’t be kind, I can’t bear it when I’ve been such a bitch; just let me finish. Mother said, “Verity, now can you see just how much you were worth to him, and how I have saved you from a disaster?” She then said he’d told her he would have taken two hundred pounds, which was all he had been after the whole time. Leading me on, he said, in order to get money to set up some business or other. The look on her face, Polly. I will never forget it. Such contempt and not for him, but for me.’

  Polly could hardly believe any of this but it was written clear as day in the pain on Verity’s face. But no one must think they had only been worth money to the person who said they loved them. To have to experience this seemed to Polly almost worse than the death of Will or a lover. It was dirty, without honour, and left one no consoling memories, even. No wonder Verity was so hurt and angry.

  Polly insisted, ‘You are beyond price, we all are. If the person you love took that money, he is not your love. If your mother told you all of this, then you must somehow put it to one side, and perhaps be better than the person she is. You must find the girl that your friends like, you must … oh, I don’t know, make something better for yourself.’

  ‘I was rude, and unkind to Saul. I just have this …’

  ‘Anger, which is perhaps grief?’ Polly suggested but it was to herself as much as Verity. The two girls nodded. Of course, thought Polly, it is grief. Poor Mum and Dad, poor Verity, poor herself.

  ‘I joined the boats because we keep on the move, in a separate world, and one which Mother can’t be proud of, and won’t come to, as she would have, had I been a WAAF or something. My friends would be shocked if they knew what I am doing, and she won’t tell them and I promised I wouldn’t. I pretend I am in intelligence. I just feel I have to be what she thinks I now am: a person beyond the pale. I have to be as different to her as I can.’

  Verity stared at her hands, which were gripped into fists. ‘Polly, Tom bought me, or she sold me. I can’t quite work it out, but what I do know is that she let me look for him, trawling the pubs, asking, always asking. Everyone must have been laughing. He wanted to start a garage, we talked about it, and I would live with him in a flat above and do the figures. I would have put up with the ridicule of my friends, but all the time he must have been looking at me, and seeing the price of a garage.’

  She laughed, harshly, her voice still thick with the tears that were falling. ‘But it’s not your fault, or Bet’s or Saul’s, or Reggie’s, who you write to, and it’s time I stopped wanting to kick out all the time. I want to stay on the cut, and not just because if Bet sacks me I have nowhere to go any more. I just want to stay.’

  Verity’s eyes were red from weeping, the straw was still stuck in her hair slide.

  Polly shook her head. ‘Just pick on someone your own size before you insult a person who can’t read, and who is shepherding us.’

  Verity half sobbed, then laughed. ‘He’s a fine figure of a bloke, I reckon he can look after himself.’

  Polly shook her head. ‘No, he can’t. Words hurt a bloke like him because he isn’t as articulate as you. Well, they’d hurt me if I wasn’t used to you by now. He has his pride, it’s almost all he has. His sister’s gone, his parents are dead and, what’s more, this is his world we’ve barged into, and he will now think we are sneering at him, at everyone like him. You’ve done what the chauffeur did to you, in a way.’

  The two girls held their mugs of tea, which were cold now, and silence fell. Finally Verity whispered, ‘Should I apologise to Saul, and thank him for looking after us?’

  Polly looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know. It would then mean that we really know he can’t read, when you didn’t quite exactly say that. What was it? – “that’s not something you can do, is it”. It might have meant he needed glasses or something. Perhaps we should all thank him for being our shepherd, but on the other hand, let’s be like the boaters and accept it as paying off an obligation. The obligation he might feel he owes us for helping him. The question is, will he go on guarding us now?’

  Remembering Mr Green, who might be swinging the crane around outside above their heads, Verity said, ‘I hope Mr Green feels he’s paid his penance. I can’t imagine how it must feel to kill someone or even to have seen it happen.’

  They looked at one another, remembering how Bet had seen her father do just that. Verity said, ‘Bet’s such an admirable woman. I can’t think how you get used to that. Do you think she will ever visit him? Will he ever improve?’

  ‘He had a fall from a horse, and was damaged, she said, so I don’t know.’

  ‘You know she left teaching – the whole thing made her walk away, first to a narrowboat, but since the war, to a house at Buckby, and now she’s back.’

  ‘It’s so awful, really truly awful.’

  Verity sighed. ‘Yes, you’re right. That is awful, mine is just grubby, and one day I suppose I will forget, but she never will. It makes me think that I’ve lived inside my head for too long. Self-pity is never good.’ She put her shoulders back. ‘Hey, Polly, this unloading will take for ever, or at least most of the day, then we head for the ghastly Bottom Road, hell bent for Coventry.’

  Polly smiled at her. ‘Where else have you got to go? Relax, and tell me about the “ghastly” Bottom Road.’

  Verity rose, took Polly’s mug. ‘Can we be friends in time, do you think?’

  ‘I think we probably already are, don’t you?’

  ‘On the way to it, Polly, if I don’t mess it up.’ She took the mugs to the range and placed them on the rest.

  ‘If you do,’ Polly said, ‘it’s into the water with you again, if only to keep your mouth shut.’

  Verity flicked her with water from the bowl. Polly shrieked and leapt up the steps, with Verity in pursuit. Bet, who was on the kerb talking to the foreman, turned at the noise. ‘I’m still running a kindergarten, I see, girls,’ she said. There was a question left hanging in the air. Verity called, ‘I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, really it won’t.’ She clearly meant more than chasing Polly.

  Bet just nodded, and said, ‘We’ll see.’

  Chapter 18

  5 November – Tyseley Wharf, Birmingham

  It was early evening and Saul felt exhausted. The motor, Seagull, had been unloaded after the Marigold and Horizon, and was riding high while the butty, Swansong, was still slung low in the water. They’d get to it in the light of day, the foreman had said. Granfer had quarrelled with the foreman, pointing his finger, saying the Seagull had money to make and loads to pick up; besides, didn’t they know there were a war to win?

  The foreman had said, ‘Look ’ere, we’re only human, and don’t do miracles every day. Them’s take a bit longer, so yer calm ye
rsel’, Granfer Hopkins. You’ll be off by lunchtime tomorrow.’

  Saul lit the hurricane lamp in the Seagull’s cabin and hung it from the ceiling hook, because there was no way he wanted to charge the battery again. He could hardly sit still, though he were so tired. He should have been heading to Coventry by now, having picked up his load of coal, hot on the heels of them girls. They’d be way ahead of him so how could he protect them? Especially that Polly.

  Granfer stuck his head through the doors and said, ‘Don’t yer fret, our Saul, them’s safe enough. The bugger went through a day afore them. ’Sides, you cain’t keep ’em safe for ever. Something’ll ’ave to ’appen, and mayhap ’e’ll forget.’

  Granfer pushed the slide shut, and the doors, in case they were yelled at for breaking the blackout, and Saul stood there, listening to make sure Granfer made it on to the butty counter, and heard the slap of the cabin doors closing after him.

  Young Joe looked up from the book given to him by the teacher at the school he had gone to today. ‘Them women was rude, you know, just before school ’ttendance bloke called. Them taunted yer with t’newspaper. Don’t know why yer hold oop our loads for ’em.’

  ‘We’s obliged, is why. Besides, it’s just the toffee-nosed one who is, not t’other one who hit your da.’

  ‘She be called Holly, or summat like that.’ Joe kept his finger on the picture in the book, the one he’d been tracing with his finger because he liked the shape of the bear. ‘She’s the one who made Da savage with oos. She be the one who make it worse.’

  Saul shook his head. ‘I told yer since, and I’ll tell yer now, she stopped it being a damn sight worse, you daft lad. After ’e finished with me, ’e’d ’ave been after yer granfer, and Lord knows if ’e’d ave survived, then ’e’d a took you off with ’im. Yer got to listen to me, Joe, and give credit where it be due.’

  Joe put his hands over his ears. ‘I don’t want to, cos it means yer can’t keep me safe on yer own. Then I be scared all the time.’

  ‘I told yer, and so did Granfer, that I won’t be caught like that again, so stop yer worrying.’

  Joe just looked at him as though he was thinking of something else. After a while he said to Saul, ‘Her ’ead is better. Got cut, didn’t it, going into a bridge ’ole?’

  Saul was surprised. ‘I suppose so. Yes, it were raw and now it’s fadin’.’

  Granfer stuck his head through the slide. ‘Time the lad was in bed, our Saul.’

  ‘Right, Granfer. I’ll come on up on t’counter and give ‘im some peace.’

  Joe called up to Granfer, ‘The warden’ll ’ave your guts if yer let the light show them bombers the way. Is that how the bombers found Saul’s mam and da?’

  ‘Who knows why they found ’em. It’s life, in’t it,’ Granfer said. ‘Anyways, what’s that book you got given from school? Did they show you the letters in’t?’

  Joe shut the book, and traced the letters on the front. ‘I forget what they said.’ He traced his finger around the last big letter. ‘I likes these shapes. These circles.’

  Saul, who had sprawled on the side-bed, rose and came across. ‘That’s a nice picture,’ he said and flicked open the book. ‘The teacher writ summat ’ere. What do it say?’

  Joe flushed. ‘Can’t rightly remember, but summat like “To Joe, to help with yer letters”.’

  Saul nodded. ‘I reckon I needs to go and see ’er, give ’er some money for it. Get ’er to read it to me, then I can ’elp yer, maybe.’

  Joe snatched up the book and held it against him. ‘No, no, I did work for ’er. I … Well, I emptied them bins where they put the paper and things like that. And she’ll ’ave forgot by the time we come again, won’t she, Granfer?’

  But Granfer had gone, and the slide hatch was shut. Saul sat down on the side-bed again, as he watched Joe reopen the book as though it held treasure. The pictures were grand: a little lad and a bear, and a honeypot, and summat that looked like a donkey. The lad had to learn to read. It’d open up the world to him and then no one could say what that girl said today. He dug more coal from the coal bin beneath the second step, feeling his stomach churn with such a sorrow that it made his eyes sting, like they had when that snooty one had said he could read her paper. He looked across at Joe, thinking about the snooty one. Then he thought that … that … p’raps she thought he needed eyeglasses.

  He gripped that thought, swallowed and said, ‘Yer must go to school, when we stop at depot for orders. If yer can go at the start of a trip, and at Birmingham, and then at depot again it’s sort of reg’lar, and yer’ll get the ’ang of it, Joe.’

  ‘I don’t want to go. What if Da gets me on the way?’ Joe turned a page, not looking at Saul, but the furrow between his brows told Saul he was sizing up the pictures. Would he draw them?

  Saul replaced the coal tongs his mam had bought off the blacksmith in the depot, and murmured, ‘If ‘ttendance officer don’t come to take yer, then one of us’ll do it. Like I’s said before, the cut runs won’t last, and we needs to think of land jobs, or so I reckon. So did my mam and da, they wished …’ He stopped.

  They had wished they’d sent him off to the live-in school, but he hadn’t wanted to go. He wanted to stay with them, on the cut where the birds flew over as they travelled along, as the otters slid in and out of the water, as the owls hooted, and the night sky showed through the open slide hatch. He was glad he hadn’t now, because the bomb had taken them when they was walking near the depot. If he’d gone to the live-in school like the teacher had said, cos he was clever, he wouldn’t have had that growing-up time with them, or been able to help Granfer and Joe now cos he just wouldn’t have wanted to.

  But he wished he’d been at the school with every bit of the rest of his heart, because most of the time his head was buzzing with thoughts that ended nowhere, cos he didn’t have the learning to take them on to somewhere. He’d tried to teach himself, resting a book on the cabin top, but he didn’t know where to start, and he didn’t want to ask no one, or they’d have a good laugh.

  Joe looked up from the book and said, ‘Maybe that’s where Mam is, getting herself a banker’s job.’ Joe yawned, the hurricane lamp spluttered, and shadows danced.

  Saul shook his head. If he let the lad start thinking on Maudie, then there’d be no sleep for either of them, for he’d toss and turn, and then Saul’s stomach would turn too, cos he’d go and sit with the lad, all night, but had no answers for him.

  ‘Maybe she is,’ he answered, chasing around inside his head to find another thing to talk about. He closed his eyes and let the pictures come, and the first made him smile. He opened his eyes, and said, ‘D’you see ’ow that snooty one went in t’cut. Did that Polly toss ’er in, or did ’er fall? It’s Polly yer see, not Holly. I reckon that Polly gave ’er a piece of ’er mind, whatever, so I reckon she got a right good ’eart. Your grandma, my mam, said that people who ’elp have a good beat to their heart, which is why we need to ’elp back. Them might not be the best boaters, but them’re different. Yer never know what they going to do.’

  Joe was smiling, but then his face clouded, and his lips thinned. He stared at the book and pushed it away, lying down, his eyes open, staring up at the hurricane lamp which shifted slightly as the Seagull drifted to and fro, tethered though she was by the mooring rope.

  Saul saw and sighed. Where was the lad going in that head of his?

  He leaned back on the side-bed, watching the flames in the grate. There weren’t much coal because it got too hot with the slide closed. He heard Granfer’s footsteps, and the slide was shoved back again. Granfer looked in. ‘Time the lad was in bed, I said, Saul. Use the lav in t’yard, and your Uncle Saul’ll go with you.’

  Saul and Joe sauntered into the yard, and while the lad used the lavatory Saul looked out at the chimneys, the crane, the warehouses, black against the starlit sky. Somewhere he could hear men and women’s laughter from a pub. He wanted to be there but he was a father now, at least till Maudie
came back. He turned on his heel and stared out over the water. A queue of laden boats waited behind the Swansong, mostly Grand Union too, they were, as the days for the independents were closing, and the horse-drawn nearly gone and all.

  There were bitty bits of light on the counters as the women smoked while their men drank in the pub. Bitty bits that were like pinheads.

  It were the same, always the same, hour after hour on the cut, standing, working, lock-wheeling, loading, unloading, never a day off. Them women worked their guts out. Had Maudie had enough o’ that, on top of being belted black ’n’ blue by the bastard? They’d all tried to stop it, but Maudie wasn’t having none of it. ‘I love ’im,’ she’d say, ‘and after, ’e always be sorry and lovin’.’

  Saul loved the cut, and he hated it. With the war he thought he could escape – he could learn to fight proper, but then he weren’t allowed because the war needed the boaters. Then they brought in the women cos some men had managed to go early. He laughed aloud again when he saw Polly having a right go at the blonde one till she fell in, and then that Polly’d helped her out.

  He could tell Bet liked her. Bet? The women had thought her strange, teaching women to run the boats cos she’d lived in one herself. What would make a woman live like that, without a man, without kids? A nice woman too? It were different for the young like Polly. It was just for a while. The thought churned, but life was what it was. They had other lives, the young ones.

  He dragged his cigarettes from his pocket, lit one, let the match burn for a moment, expecting, and hearing, ‘Put that light out.’ Then a laugh. It was the policeman at the gate.

  He drew deeply as the searchlights began their stabbing of the night sky, dimming the stars. Joe came out of the lavatory, slamming the door behind him. Saul said, ‘Did you do your teeth?’

  ‘Course. I don’t want ’em falling out like Granfer’s.’

  They walked back to the boat and were hailed by Mrs Wakely who was sitting on the cabin counter of the Norfolk, just behind them. ‘You keeping up with yer washin’, young Saul? Joe, I haves a nice biscuit for yer.’