You Never Told Me

by Sarah Jasmon

  ‘You’ve got a week,’ he was saying, comfortably uninterested in what her meeting might be. ‘Bugsworth’s a two-day trip, no locks, couple of bridges to open. And it’ll be quiet this time of year.’ He looked up at the sky, eyes squinting into the light. ‘Your mother had some Canal Companions. Hop down and get the one for the Cheshire Ring, and we’ll have it sorted.’

  It was the first time he’d mentioned Britta directly, and he did it with his face turned away, whether out of consideration or an unwillingness to get involved in emotional talk, she couldn’t tell. She knew better than to invite him in. After the first teaching session, she’d asked if he wanted some tea, beckoned to the door. Keep your boat to yourself, lass, he’d responded, with the same gesture of turning away as he was using now. I’ll have mine out here.

  She knew the books he meant, the pile of small, brightly coloured guides on the top of the bookshelf. There were seven or eight of them there, each with a cover in the style of traditional canal boat decorative art. She’d leafed through a couple, a little bit enchanted by the vivid artwork and gentle explanations. It was like stepping into a child’s picture book, just one way to go and nothing complex waiting around the corner, each page a snapshot of a cosy, manageable world. Maybe that was exactly what she needed. She shuffled through to find the right volume before heading back outside.

  Now she was actually on the way, part of the picture. The canal was a dark green lane unrolling in front of her, the boat’s nose pushing the water aside in exploration. First, they were in a tunnel of overhanging trees, the water reflecting the dark mosaic of the leaves. The view down into the valley briefly opened up, only to disappear again behind a stretch of red-brick apartments. Some of the balconies had chairs set to face the water, but there was no one out to watch the boats go by. On her other side, the ground fell away in ridges, down to open fields dotted with sheep.

  Charlie tucked the tiller under her arm. She was probably just imagining it, but at that moment she could feel that Skíðblaðnir was happy to be working with her. Behind her, the troll watched over everything, the small, judgemental deity of the boat. She still had him turned to look behind, so she didn’t have to feel him watching her, but today even he seemed less distrustful of her ability. She began to see individual moments, the panic of being in charge easing off just enough. The lone stump of a tree topping the rise of the bank, solid and defiant in its remains. The curving swoop of an improbably beautiful bridge. (Snake bridge, Bob’s voice said to her. Speciality of the Macclesfield canal.)

  Another boat was coming up. Charlie swivelled round, wondering if Bob was still in view. But he was long gone now, the twenty minutes or so of sailing taking her into a different dimension. He’d told her what to do, though. Her nerves began to settle, and she steered towards the right-hand side. The other boat was coming up quite fast and didn’t seem to be moving over. Charlie reached for the throttle. It wouldn’t hurt to slow down, even if this was quite normal. But had she remembered it right? What did Bob say? Always pass on the right, the opposite of being in a car. So she was doing it properly. Skíðblaðnir was almost at a standstill now, which made steering near impossible. Was this boat just going to stay in the middle and bash into her? She could see the man on the back deck now, making some kind of gesture. She edged forwards. The breeze was catching her side-on, making the boat’s nose drift across on a diagonal, at risk of colliding with the oncoming boat. Her body thought before her brain did, leaning into the rudder and bringing the boat round. She felt the resistance of the water and pushed against it as the boat began to turn. Not too much, ease it back.

  ‘You on your own, love?’ The other boater’s voice broke into her thought processes. He was right next to her, then slipping past. She’d just managed to avoid contact. ‘You want to make sure you keep over more.’

  He was gone before she could respond, and her reply was lost in the combined engine noise. Then there was a bump and a scrape as she hit the far side, and she had to put her annoyance aside. Of course, there were people watching her now, a couple with a dog and an old boy clearly enjoying her struggles. She closed them all out, correcting her line, moving back into the middle of the waterway. It was bound to happen, she told herself. She just had to carry on moving, ignore the stares. She met a couple more boats before she stopped for lunch, both times each of them gliding to the right like a move in a well-choreographed dance. There was nobody on the towpath watching then, of course.

  The whole thing was harder than she expected. Everyone else seemed to manage with no effort. The man – and it was almost always a man – would be standing on the back deck as if the boat was steering itself with just the slightest help from the tiller. Skíðblaðnir wouldn’t keep to a line for more than a second. Bob had explained about over-steering, but whatever she tried, it didn’t seem to work for long. And she couldn’t let her concentration slip for a moment. She’d be going along with no trouble, move the tiller the tiniest bit and end up zigzagging from one side to the other, each adjustment making the turns worse until she couldn’t be sure that she even knew what to do. At one point she got stuck on the offside, overhanging branches jabbing at her face as she did everything she could think of to get out into the channel again. She could get the bow away from the bank, but as soon as she tried to straighten, some kind of magnetic attraction drew the boat back in. By the time she got free, she was shaking with the exertion and wondering if it was worth carrying on.

  A quiet lunch with views over the hills made her feel better. Libby had packed her some sandwiches (You won’t be wanting the effort of making your own, I can tell you!) and knowing someone else had also found it hard helped. She studied the map as she ate, counting out the distance left. It showed the route in time, broken up into hours rather than miles. Less than six, which would bring her into Bugsworth Basin at the right time for tea. There was a pub there as well. She traced the blue line over the pages. A couple of bridges to open and a junction to watch out for. That was manageable, surely.

  She’d almost changed her mind again a couple of hours on, thinking she might stop overnight when she reached the swing bridge, but another boat had just come through and they held it open for her, waving cheerfully as she went by. Then she fell into a state of near-stupor. It seemed easier to keep on going than decide where to stop. The landmarks on the map ticked by: roads, pubs, a mill redeveloped into shops and craft studios. Libby had also made her take biscuits, and she ate them automatically, hardly tasting them other than to register sugar and the movement of her mouth. She began to feel stubborn, competitive. There was an end goal to reach and she was going to get there.

  And then she missed the turning. Not the Marple Junction – that had been flashing in her head all day, a warning light to go right when the moment came. Knowing she’d done that made her relax, if that was the right word after spending so many hours standing and steering and making a hundred decisions about speed and direction. Bob would be proud of her. And either the way was easier here, or Skíðblaðnir was working with her, because everything was going smoothly. The biscuits were gone, and she was starting to fantasize about dinner. Something hot and spicy, topped with a bubbling layer of cheese and served with potato wedges. Or a pie, the pastry golden and crumbly and sitting on top of something rich and covered in gravy. And she was going to have wine. And dessert. A boat was coming towards her, not fast but with a steady purpose. She moved to the right automatically, Skíðblaðnir responding like a well-trained dance partner. As Charlie waved to the jolly couple on the other boat, she realized that the arm of the Bugsworth Basin was slipping past and out of reach.

  TEN

  It was a beautiful moment, with the golden light of the late afternoon sun flooding past her to pick out the warm tones of a curving stone wall. Charlie had just enough time to register the row of boats moored beyond a metal footbridge. They were like broad dashes of colour, red and yellow and lime, marking a line between the rich greens of the surrounding trees
and the flat, smooth water of the canal. The scene was perfect, tranquil, and beyond her reach. For a second, she considered reversing. She wasn’t far past, it wouldn’t take long. Bob had shown her what to do, but if steering forwards was sometimes a challenge, going backwards brought in a whole new level of difficulty. By the time she’d thought about it, she was too far away.

  Exhaustion flooded her limbs, making it feel as if her grasp on the tiller was the only thing holding her up. She went on, because she couldn’t think what else to do. A line of boats moored to her left, leaving no place for her to stop. The low, white sprawl of a supermarket hiding behind a belt of trees. The sun had gone below the foliage, the shadows deepening the opaque brown tint of the water, light patterning through the leaves like lace on the surface. A pair of children ran by, shouting and waving sticks, a dog bounding at their heels. A road to the right, buildings ahead. And then the end.

  The map showed this as another basin, roughly triangular. Charlie let the engine idle as she looked from the page to the scene ahead. There was clearly no space to moor, boats crammed along the outside edge in every spot. A winding hole was marked, so presumably she could turn. The thought made her want to cry. It wasn’t that she didn’t know she’d have to do it. A trip going out and then back would necessarily involve turning around. Canals didn’t have turntables, like the friendly little piece on Poppy’s wooden railway set. That would be too easy. Bob had shown her how to do it, stick the bow in the gap and keep the tiller hard round, to force the stern to swing. It was so simple, so logical. She’d even done one, with Bob at her shoulder telling her where to put things, when to make the engine work. This was different. She wouldn’t mind so much if no one was watching, but the widened spot she’d be using was right next to a car park. Already there were people standing on the towpath, sunning themselves in the mellow light and waiting for boaters to make idiots of themselves. She didn’t have a choice.

  It was even worse than she’d anticipated. A breeze had picked up, but surely not enough to keep the boat from turning in this way. It didn’t matter how hard she made the engine work; water was churning at the back of the boat but making very little difference at all to her position. In a pause, as she eased the throttle off to reconsider what she was doing, one of the children’s voices rang out.

  ‘What’s she doing, Daddy?’

  The parent’s voice replying was too low to hear, but she could feel the ripple of laughter that went around the spectators. She was going to be here for ever, in this adorable, picturesque little canal place, polluting the loveliness with diesel fumes and engine noise until someone came and towed her away. Why the hell was she doing this anyway?

  A different voice sounded, from the bank behind her. ‘If you back out a bit and go beyond the turning place, you can let the back of the boat go in. Then the breeze’ll push you round.’

  She didn’t stop to see who was talking, but followed the instructions with a relief almost as great as she’d felt the day she realized she didn’t want to be a lawyer any more. As if she’d been hypnotized, Skíðblaðnir did exactly what she was told. Charlie stood on the deck, watching as the bow made a perfect arc, coming to a halt with the lightest of bumps against the side of the canal.

  She’d been so focused on what was happening that she’d actually forgotten everyone watching. The round of applause breaking out from the spectators made her turn in such a hurry that she almost tripped over the mooring ropes coiled at her feet. Wishing she could disappear, she gave a half-curtsey of acknowledgement.

  ‘Well done, you did it!’

  She straightened up, recognizing the helpful man’s voice. He felt like the closest thing she had to an old friend just then.

  ‘Thank you so much. I honestly didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘No worries. It’s happened to most of us at some point.’ He held out a hand and she wondered what he meant. The mooring rope? He must be offering to help tie up. But where? There were no empty gaps to use, and she couldn’t moor on this side anyway.

  ‘I think I’m going to have to move straight on.’ She’d already picked up the rope and held the tangled mass uncertainly.

  He laughed and made a grab for it. ‘You can stop for a bit, no one’s going to mind that.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure.’ She still didn’t feel quite certain, but let him take the rope and shake it loose before looping it round a nearby bollard. ‘I suppose they wouldn’t have one of those if they didn’t want you to tie up.’ She paused, watching him secure the end. He was older than her, maybe forty, with a tanned face and greying hair slicked back with sweat. His running shorts and trainers showed what he’d been doing before stopping to rescue her. What was the etiquette for people saving you from eternal embarrassment? A cup of tea? It would have to do, she didn’t have anything stronger on board. ‘I was just going to put the kettle on if you’d like some tea?’

  ‘No, you’re all right.’ He gave the rope a final tug and stayed squatting next to it, his gaze fixed on the boat, an expression on his face she couldn’t decipher. Then he gave his head a shake and stood up. ‘Where have you come from?’

  ‘Macclesfield.’ So far away, but she could probably get there in about half an hour by car. ‘It’s my first solo trip. First trip of any kind by boat, actually.’

  He pulled the corners of his mouth down, nodding his head in appreciation. ‘Pretty good going. Are you living aboard?’

  There was a definite sense of relief at being a newbie rather than inept. ‘For the time being. I don’t really know long-term. Maybe.’ She waved towards the line of boats moored on the far side of the basin. ‘Do you live here?’

  ‘No, afraid not.’ He stood up, running a hand over his scalp. ‘I used to do some boating but, you know, things get in the way. I just run past them now, making plans.’ They both laughed. In the middle of it, Charlie’s laugh turned into a huge yawn. ‘Look, I’d better not keep you up. You’ll be needing to eat after your epic day.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ She yawned again. ‘It’s just that I need to get back to Bugsworth Basin. I was supposed to stop there but—’ She squeezed her eyes shut in what was now bemused acceptance, nothing like as soul-destroying as it had been before. It was almost funny, in fact. ‘I was trying to keep out of the way of another boat and went straight past the turning.’ She opened her eyes again, to find him keeping a smile back. ‘No, don’t! I’m so not looking forward to going all the way back. Is boating always this exhausting?’

  ‘It gets easier.’ He straightened his face, a thoughtful expression replacing the amusement. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind. ‘Look, you’re going to want to get sorted before dark. I’ve got to get back that direction anyway, so how about I come with you, take over a bit of the steering?’ He contradicted himself straight away, stepping back with his hands out in front of him. ‘No, forget I said it. That’s probably the last thing you want.’

  ‘Are you kidding? That sounds brilliant. As long as you really don’t mind?’ The thought of handing over even a bit of responsibility made Charlie’s body sag in relief. She held out a hand. ‘I’m Charlie, by the way.’

  ‘Dave.’ His shake was firm. ‘Seriously, you’d be doing me a favour.’ He bent to unwind the rope again, coiling it with practised movements before placing it on the roof. ‘You go and make that cup of tea, and I’ll make a start.’

  Down in the kitchen, Charlie began to have doubts. Was it really a good idea to invite a complete stranger on board? She remembered Bob’s strictures. But it wasn’t as though he was coming inside. In fact, he’d deliberately not tried to bother her. Under her feet, the floor vibrated as the engine started up. It was unsettling, to be inside when Skíðblaðnir was getting ready to move. As she waited for the kettle to come to the boil she dialled Eleanor’s number. She’d tell her where she was and get her to call back in an hour to check on her.

  ‘El? Listen,’ she said when her sister answered. ‘I’m out on the boat an
d someone’s giving me a hand with the last bit of the route.’ She waited for the flood of questions, the endless dictates to think what she was doing and interrogation about who this someone was.

  ‘Charlie? Look, I’m a bit busy just now. Can you talk to Martha?’

  ‘Yes, sure.’ There was a fumble at the other end as the phone was handed over.

  ‘Aunty Charlie?’ Martha’s voice was breathless, and the words tumbled out. ‘Guess what, Daddy gave me his old phone!’ She barely waited for Charlie to make the appropriate noises in response. ‘Can I have your number? So you can text me? Mum says I can see where you’re going on a map. I’m going to put pins in it, so we know where you are!’

  They were all assuming she was going to go somewhere then, so she’d better start planning something proper. And Martha’s enthusiasm made her smile. ‘OK, your mum has the number. You can put Whaley Bridge as the first stop.’ The kettle began to whistle. ‘Look, tell your mum I’ll call her back in a bit.’

  The tea was lapping the edges of the mugs as she carried them up the back steps. Dave was standing at the tiller as if he’d always been there, and Charlie’s doubts began to dissipate.

  ‘She really likes you,’ she commented, as she passed one mug over and settled down thankfully with her back resting against the closed door. ‘Just look how straight she’s going!’

  ‘Ah well—’ He came to a stop, paused, and gave a laugh. ‘Nope, no way of answering that. Moving on.’

  Charlie laughed with him. It was very relaxing, to sit and feel the sway of the boat beneath her, watch the canal stretch away behind. She sipped at her tea, wondering when she’d last felt this tired. Probably the day she came back from Thailand. The thought was a jolt, a poke in her synapses reminding her not to get too comfortable. The more she settled into living on the boat, the more it felt like she’d been given a new start. But that wouldn’t come without strings from somewhere. Hugo, perhaps, the wicked fairy godmother furious at being kept in the dark about the boat, the money. Britta’s plans, whatever they’d been, cut short before she could carry them out. They were back in the tunnel of trees now, and the air felt chill. Charlie realized that Dave was looking down at her, as if waiting for her to say something.