Another Chance, Another Life

by Another Chance, Another Life (retail) (epub)

  ‘I’d leave a mucky trail behind me.’

  ‘I can clean it up, so she’ll never know.’

  ‘Becky? Would take more than a mucky trail to annoy that one. But it’s a nice day, spring’s heading north. We could sit out here and sip our brew.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Noel said. ‘I’ll get the kettle going.’

  Henrietta hesitated, then sat down on one of the canvas bags – at least she could see where the worst muck was on that, and fold it inside. The cabin door opened, and the boy came shyly out.

  ‘You’re Jonathon,’ she said.

  ‘Nobody ever calls me that.’

  ‘Then I will.’

  Jonathon hesitated. ‘Noel sent me to interview you,’ he apologized. ‘Mum’s set me a project of finding out the history of every place we stop at for more than a couple of nights. I was going up to the library tomorrow. But Noel says that people always know more interesting stuff than books. So can you tell me, please, what do you know about Longbank’s history?’

  ‘Well, you’re a one!’ Henrietta said, taken aback.

  ‘C’mon, your family have been here for generations,’ Noel’s voice came through. ‘Do you take milk and sugar in your tea?’

  ‘I take it black. No sugar neither.’ Henrietta glanced up the canal to the village. ‘My dad always said that we were the most important wharf on the whole canal. He said the canal boats brought up coal from Burnley and Blackburn, and cotton goods from Liverpool and Manchester. Then they tipped their loads on the wharf here, and we hauled it up into the Dales. Then we filled our wagons with the raw wool from the Dales up north and loaded that into the canal boats, for them to ship down to the mills in Bradford and Leeds. Then the canal people collected all the woven woollens and worsteds, and took them back through us and down to Liverpool and the west. And the wool that was grown in the Dales here – up on these hills back there – that went all round the world from the Port of Liverpool.’

  Noel emerged through the doorway, a steaming mug in each hand. ‘See!’ he told Jonathon. ‘People are always more interesting than books.’

  After following her instinct and bringing back Mike’s mobile phone, Becky’s courage ran out. She hesitated outside his office, before knocking.

  ‘Come in.’

  The words were said absently, as if his mind was on something else.

  Becky pushed open the door. ‘So this is your domain?’ she said, glancing round the neat shelves and the technical drawings pinned on every wall, and thinking that the office reflected the man. Calm, uncluttered and somehow understated – at the opposite end of the scale from Henrietta’s nightmare den.

  Mike rose from where he had been working on repair estimates.

  ‘This is where it happens,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Or at least where it’s meant to happen. Thanks for bringing back my moby. I leave a trail of things behind – it drives everybody mad. But I could easily have nipped up and collected it tomorrow.’

  ‘By tomorrow, I will be working,’ Becky smiled. ‘Part-time. In a coal yard.’

  She was glad she had trusted her instinct. She liked this easy-going giant, and sensed that she could like him a whole lot more. Pity they would soon be moving on, but she was happy just to live for the day, like any canal family.

  ‘Will you be carrying bags of coal?’ he teased.

  ‘My new boss does,’ Becky laughed. ‘She’s brought me in to sort out the mess of paperwork. Everything’s so neat, both here and in your workshop.’

  ‘That’s my granddad’s long shadow. In his day, every tool had its own place on the wall. And the first job in my apprenticeship with him was to learn the name and the uses of each single tool.’

  ‘I thought you were a football player?’

  ‘My dad made me finish my apprenticeship – in case my football career went pear-shaped. It’s a tough physical sport, and we all know the risks.’

  ‘Good thinking – but didn’t you resent that at the time?’

  Mike ran fingers through his unruly hair. ‘It’s so long ago . . . but I don’t think there was any clash. All I ever wanted to do was what my family did – work on boats. We’ve been here for three generations, and I can trace back my roots to full-time canal families on both sides – to real Romanies, in one of them. Canals are in our blood. Football was only a diversion.’

  He led her out through the office door. ‘Come on, I’ll give you the full guided tour. All three minutes’ worth. You’ve seen the office. I’ll show you round my workshop and the Wharf, to see the narrowboats I’m working on.’

  ‘A one-man business?’

  ‘In the summer months, when everybody’s wanting repairs done yesterday, and the hire firms are wanting me to look at problems their own fitters can’t solve, sure, I could use some extra hands to help me out. It’s dawn to dusk and longer, then. But for eight months of the year, there’s only full-timers on the waterways and a steady trickle of work from folk like Noel, who have used us all their lives.’

  ‘There can’t be many like Noel, who knew all three generations?’

  ‘You’d be surprised. We’ve a good name, and I mean to keep it that way – we’re not going from clogs to clogs in three generations on my watch. Not after the hard work and sacrifice by my dad and granddad.’

  This was another side to his personality, she thought.

  ‘So your family started up the business?’ she asked.

  ‘They took it over. My granddad gambled everything, sold up his two boats and borrowed from the local bank, to buy the yard when its owner died. He worked here all his life, paying off that loan at a few pounds a month. The banks were your friends back then, and stood by you. When my dad took over, the freight-carrying business was dead on its feet – everything was going by road and rail. We were in a state of collapse, with some of the original loan still outstanding.’

  His voice was quiet, but she could sense how deeply he felt about the yard and the generations who had gone before him.

  ‘What turned things round?’ she asked.

  Mike stared over the moored narrowboats. ‘Things hit rock bottom in the seventies. All the old working boats were abandoned, some left to sink and rust or rot in the canal. The banks fell in, the waterway silted up. Then a bunch of enthusiasts who had helped in reclamation work down south started hounding the Water Board and local governments into rescuing the Leeds and Liverpool.’

  He looked down at her: her face was serious, eyes intent and a slight furrow of concentration on her brow. She was interested, he decided, and not just making small talk. The slight breeze had drifted some of her hair across her face. He wanted to reach out and sweep it back.

  ‘You’ll make it, you know,’ he said gently. ‘The job and everything.’

  Becky blinked, taken aback. ‘How do you know?’

  He smiled. ‘How do you know, before you even step onto a new canal boat, that she’s a good ’un? I just know.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right. But what finally rescued the canal?’

  ‘When the waterway was restored, people began to use it,’ Mike said. ‘Not working boats, but leisure sailors. For ten to fifteen years there was an explosion of work in converting the old hulls into narrowboat cruisers, like the Emma Mae. I’m glad my granddad saw his dream finally realized. He was over eighty by then, and still the best fitter on the canal. He saw us worked off our feet, by conversions and repairs, and making money for the first time.’

  ‘So why are you back to being a one-man business?’

  ‘I like it that way. It’s a choice of lifestyle, as much as a job.’

  ‘And you never miss the bright lights?’

  ‘Not ever. It’s so much better here.’

  ‘Is that why Noel calls this God’s Own Country?’

  He smiled. ‘He’s a Scotsman, and we Yorkshire tykes are the nearest you can get to that.’

  ‘If you mean direct and down to earth, I agree. From what I’ve seen, I like the people and the place. I
’m Scottish too, was brought up in Perth until my dad moved south with his job. I feel at home here.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he said. There was something in this woman that touched him deeply. Simply standing here and talking to her made the day seem brighter.

  ‘I usually have a cup of tea around now,’ he said. ‘Like to join me?’

  ‘That would be nice. But I can’t hang about too long. My bus back to Longbank goes through the village in forty minutes’ time.’

  ‘I’ll run you home,’ said Mike. ‘So long as you don’t mind travelling in a Transit van.’

  ‘Why should I? But what about your office? Your work?’

  ‘I’ll ask my CEO,’ Mike said solemnly. He tilted his head. ‘He says it’s OK.’

  ‘Then you must have a very understanding boss.’

  ‘One of the best,’ agreed Mike. ‘We seldom quarrel.’

  ‘OK,’ said Becky. ‘You can drive me home on one condition. You will stay and have supper with us tonight.’

  ‘I’d only leave my mobile there again. . . .’

  ‘Then I’d have to bring it back tomorrow. After work.’

  ‘And I’d have to run you home again . . . on headlights.’

  Becky laughed. It had been years since she had felt this happy.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier in the long run, if I caught the bus?’ she demanded.

  Mike smiled down, grey eyes twinkling in a face tanned dark by weather: ‘Yes. But it wouldn’t be half the fun.’

  ‘OK, you win,’ said Becky. ‘But I’m taking the bus home tomorrow night . . . or we could spend the whole summer travelling up and down to Longbank.’

  ‘I could think of worse ways to spend a summer,’ Mike said quietly.

  She registered his change of mood. ‘Me too,’ she smiled.

  Thinking that it had been years since she had felt so alive, and young. And enjoying – indeed taking huge pleasure from – the company of a man.

  They had just finished the second week of rehearsals, and the clamour of excited children’s voices had gradually diminished as parents collected them. The read-through had gone well and they were planning to tackle the first two ensemble songs the following week.

  Kathy felt drained but contented. Running rehearsals single-handed was demanding, but the enthusiasm which the kids generated made them easy to control. Her main problem was holding them back, not coaxing them to perform.

  She was left with Sally, by far the quietest of the bunch. And the janitor hovering in the doorway, willing them to go, so that he could lock up the building and head home.

  ‘Dad’s usually here, Miss,’ Sally said, looking worried. ‘He’s always waiting outside, when we finish.’

  ‘He’ll have been held up in the traffic. And it’s Kathy, remember?’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  This was the same little girl who had voted for Miss rather than her Christian name, and was still too shy to change her mind. Kathy sighed inwardly: you can’t win them all. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll wait with you until he turns up. If we stand at the school gates, that will let the janitor lock up.’

  With a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder, she steered her outside.

  ‘I’ll never learn my part,’ Sally said miserably. ‘There’s so many words.’

  ‘Of course you will. We’ll be over them so many times in rehearsal, you’ll be saying them in your sleep. Have you acted in a play before?’

  ‘No, Miss.’

  ‘Kathy.’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry about it. You’ll never be on stage on your own, there will always be somebody else there. Somebody inside you. Some of our greatest actors are always a bundle of nerves before the show. Can’t learn their lines, no matter how they try. But when they go out on stage, a strange thing happens – they become the character they’re playing, and all the words that they thought they couldn’t remember come pouring out of them. Because the character takes over, and he or she has been listening inside, all the time. They know the words, even if you keep forgetting them.’

  ‘And I can’t sing either.’

  ‘You’ll all be singing together. Nobody is expecting you to sound like a pop star. The play’s all about children, children talking, children singing. So long as you can make some sort of noise – squeak, even. . . .’

  At last, she broke through. Sally gave a gurgle of laughter.

  ‘Like a little mouse?’ she asked.

  ‘Like a musical little mouse . . . squeaking in tune. Squeak, squeak!’

  Kathy’s put-on falsetto squeak turned the gurgle into a real laugh.

  ‘I can do better than that,’ Sally said.

  ‘Bet you can’t!’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘Then show me – and I’ll tell you if your squeak is better than mine.’

  In the dusk, a dark car slid in to the pavement beside them and stopped.

  ‘It’s Daddy!’ said Sally.

  ‘I still want that squeak,’ Kathy demanded.

  ‘Squeak!’ It was a very small squeak.

  ‘That was only a baby squeak,’ laughed Kathy. ‘Now, do me a proper one.’

  ‘SQUEAK! SQUEAK!’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ said Kathy.

  She turned to see the tall figure of a man climb out of the car.

  ‘We’re rehearsing, Daddy,’ Sally said. ‘Wasn’t my squeak better than hers?’

  ‘I haven’t heard hers, so I can’t pass judgement,’ the man smiled. ‘Sorry I’m late, I had a puncture. Had to change to the spare. My hands are filthy. . . .’

  He held up his hands for them to see, but it was too dark.

  ‘Thanks for staying with her, Miss,’ he said.

  ‘Kathy’s her name. But she can’t squeak as good as me.’

  The man was walking round the front of the car. At the name, he stopped, and stared through the gloom.

  ‘Kathy?’ he said. ‘Is that really you, Kathy? I’ve been looking everywhere for you . . . for days.’

  She froze, goose pimples rising on her neck and across her shoulders.

  ‘David!’ she said. ‘I didn’t recognize you, out of a tracksuit.’ Her heart seemed to stop beating, for several seconds. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘Collecting my daughter,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Your daughter?’ whispered Kathy. ‘I didn’t even know that you were married. . . .’

  Chapter 5

  ‘You ran away, before I could explain,’ David said. ‘Yes, I was married, but. . . .’

  ‘Mum died,’ said Sally quietly. ‘In a car crash.’

  ‘Not her fault – she was the innocent victim,’ said David.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Kathy stammered. ‘I had no idea. . . .’

  ‘Of course not. Why should you? Where’s your car?’

  ‘I don’t have one. I’m one of nature’s pedestrians.’

  ‘Then can I run you home? After all, you stayed behind with Sally.’

  This guy was seriously nice, thought Kathy. For days, she had been trying to get over her embarrassment, put him out of her head, but without success. Now she could see why. Go with the flow, and see what developed, she decided.

  ‘That would be nice,’ she said. ‘I’ll sit in the back.’

  ‘That’s Sally’s territory, She still needs a booster seat to be safe. Sit up-front and direct me back to your place.’

  ‘I’m warning you,’ said Kathy. ‘I only know the bus routes.’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ David smiled, in the dusk. ‘Come on, Sally. Climb onto your throne, and I’ll fasten your seat belt.’

  ‘I can do that myself!’

  ‘Yes, I know. But just in case. Hop in, Kathy. Won’t be a second. . . .’

  It was lovely and warm in the car – at least she hoped it was that, and not that she was blushing. I’m far too old to blush, thought Kathy, tucking some stray hair behind her ears.

  ‘OK, where to?’ asked David, dropping o
nto the seat beside her.

  ‘Down to the end of the road, and turn right. Into John Street from there, then follow the Ormskirk signs. I’ll tell you when to turn off again. . . .’

  As he eased his car into the traffic, David glanced across. ‘I even went round some supermarkets, looking for you,’ he confessed.

  ‘We’ve got enough shopping to last us for a month,’ came from behind.

  David winced. ‘You never told me you were still working part-time at teaching,’ he said.

  ‘I wasn’t. This came out of the blue. I grabbed it with both hands.’

  He nodded. ‘Every penny helps, when you’re out of work.’

  ‘Not this time. The Head scraped up some sponsorship, but we’re using that to rent performance rights. It was only a couple of hundred, anyway.’

  David frowned. ‘So you’re doing this for nothing?’

  ‘I like working with kids.’

  ‘It’s a great play,’ said Sally from behind. ‘It will be mega.’

  ‘That’s because I’ve got good actors,’ said Kathy. ‘Turn left, here.’

  David turned into Kathy’s street. ‘OK, where’s your flat?’

  ‘Just after that white car.’ Kathy got out, hesitated, then leaned back through the doorway. ‘Coming in for coffee?’ she asked. ‘By way of me saying thanks?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Sally, as David hesitated.

  Kathy looked at him, the query still in her eyes.

  He smiled. ‘The Boss has spoken. So long as we’re not too much trouble.’

  ‘None at all.’ Kathy ran lightly up the steps and opened the door, praying that her flat was tidy. She switched on the lights, and glanced around. When you live alone, things tend to get put down and forgotten. But the flat was fine.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ she asked over her shoulder.

  ‘Coffee, please,’ David replied, ushering a wide-eyed Sally before him. She moved, as if pulled by strong magnets, to the shelves where Kathy kept her CD collection – floor to ceiling – along two walls. ‘Don’t touch!’ he warned.

  ‘Let her be. . . .’ Kathy’s voice came from the kitchen.

  David walked through to stand in the kitchen doorway.