Darkest Before Dawn (6 page)

Harry had quite seen the justice of this; though he had never done so himself, he knew that most of those who dwelt on the canal, and their families, thought it no particular sin to take a bag of potatoes, a couple of swedes or a good, big armful of hay from a farmer's field. The men snared rabbits for the pot or shot a couple of fat wood pigeons, and if a farmer's hen laid astray, they would collect the eggs as their children collected blackberries or hazelnuts. The warehousemen under him were the same. For the most part, though, they were careful to take only damaged goods. Harry knew that in a good many cases they damaged the goods themselves, coming to him to show a cracked jar or a dented tin before quietly pocketing it, and he supposed there was no harm in it.

At this point in his musing, Harry reached the warehouse and banged cheerfully on the door, which was the signal for the night watchman to start packing up. Then Harry produced his keys and let himself in. Immediately, the many and varied smells of the warehouse invaded his nostrils. He sniffed appreciatively; coffee beans, cocoa, the country smell of grain, the soft sweetness of sugar – they all blended into a smell which he was beginning to enjoy because there was no doubt that he really liked the work and knew himself to be very good at it. The most important thing a head warehouseman has to do is to see that every inch of available space is put to good use whilst making sure that those items which are needed on a regular basis are stacked where they can be easily reached.

Mr Bister knew a thing or two about barges since he owned a fleet of them. He knew how important it was to load the goods they carried correctly and had guessed that Harry, used to the far smaller space available aboard the
Mary Jane
and her butty boats, would find the stocking of a warehouse both familiar and yet a challenge. He had been right; after only a few weeks in the job, Harry had worked out the best place for everything. He could look at a gap and gauge with considerable accuracy how many crates, boxes or sacks he could wedge into it, and he moved his stock around with complete confidence, knowing that as fast as he moved goods out from the floor on to the delivery vans, more would be coming up from the docks. Harry was neat by nature and he enjoyed the challenge the warehouse represented, though he had made mistakes; everyone did. Once, he had stacked a large quantity of tinned goods against the back wall of the warehouse, only realising after it was walled in by other commodities that the stuff was needed urgently by a wholesaler on the other side of the city. There had been a good deal of swearing and a good deal of laughter as the men worked frantically to get at the tins, but it had taught Harry a lesson. Since then, he always kept his paperwork handy and consulted it before choosing where to place each consignment.

‘Mornin', Mr Todd, sir.' Mr Fuller, the night watchman, hefted the old canvas bag which contained his sandwich box and his flask – both now empty – over his shoulder, and shambled across the warehouse, a good-natured grin splitting his craggy, unshaven face. At night time, he had the run of the place and brewed himself many a cup of tea in the little kitchen behind Harry's office. But his wife made his sandwiches and filled his flask as though he were still employed down on the docks where there had been no facilities for making cups of tea. And no nice comfortable chair in which an old man might snooze peacefully when the night was quiet. He had a fat black mongrel bitch, far too rheumaticky to chase a rat, let alone catch one, but she would give tongue immediately if a stranger entered the warehouse, or she heard someone acting suspiciously outside the building.

Herbie Hughes had disliked dogs – or said he did – so Mr Fuller had not brought Bessie with him whilst Herbie had been head warehouseman. No doubt, had Bessie been around, she would have warned the old man when Herbie entered the building, so both Mr Bister and Harry had gladly agreed to the old man's bringing his companion with him, and now Bessie grinned up at Harry, and butted his knee with her head.

‘Good morning, Bess, old lady. Morning, Mr Fuller; anything to report?' Harry said, bending to fondle the dog's silky ears.

‘No sir, us had a quiet night, though Thomas caused a bit of a stir by catching a rat,' Mr Fuller said, with a chuckle. ‘That young cat is going to be worth his weight in gold; I'm thinking Mr Bister ought to pay him a regular wage 'cos that's the third rat he's caught this week.'

‘Jolly good,' Harry said, trying to infuse his voice with enthusiasm. Rats did not only infest warehouses. They were quite capable of getting aboard canal boats as well, and, as a young lad, Harry had met one face to face when fastening a canvas cover to the combing. Unwisely, he had crawled forward, expecting the rat to flee, but instead it had jumped at him and bitten his chin. He had the scar still and felt a revulsion for rats which he could not quite conquer, though he was continually impressing upon others that rats were still God's creatures and should be dealt with as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Now, he looked around him, a trifle uneasily. ‘What have you done with the body? It's not in the office, is it?'

Mr Fuller chuckled again. ‘I purrit just inside the main doors. Thomas broke its neck, just like a terrier does, so it's crouching there, lookin' real lifelike. I hopes as it'll give Baldwin a turn, since he's the one as told the boss I must be in league with old Herbie.'

‘But Mr Bister knew that wasn't true,' Harry protested. ‘I suppose I ought to move the corpse . . . but I don't think I shall. Heaven knows, the lads have played enough pranks on me.'

The night watchman cocked a knowing eye. ‘Pranks? Oh aye, I s'pose you could call 'em pranks. But you wants to watch that Baldwin; if anyone was in league with Herbie, it were him. Oh, don't worry, I reckon he's learned his lesson, but he's a spiteful sod and I reckon he's missin' the little extras he got because he were Herbie's mate, like. Still an' all, he's in work which is more than you can say for a lot of poor devils.'

‘True,' Harry said. ‘Is the kettle over the flame, Mr Fuller? I'm that parched I could drink the canal dry. Want to join me in a mug o' tea?'

‘I wouldn't mind,' the old man said, turning back towards the kitchen. ‘I put the kettle on 'cos I know how you are – allus thirsty.' He grinned up at Harry, his watery eyes twinkling. ‘That remark tells me you're a bargee, Mr Todd. A scouser would say
I could drink the Mersey dry
, not the bleedin' canal.'

Harry returned the man's grin as they entered the small kitchen where the kettle was beginning to hiss on the Primus stove. ‘It doesn't matter what I say; one glance at my leathery face would tell you I'd spent my life on the canals,' Harry said, rather ruefully. ‘You know I'm a lay preacher? Well, I were preaching away last Sunday, up in Everton, when I heard a little boy in the congregation ask his mother whether I were an African or an Indian. She, poor soul, was rare embarrassed and gave him a cuff, but not an answer, so I leaned down from the pulpit and told him I were a water gypsy, which had the poor little feller in a rare puzzle, I can tell you.' The kettle came to the boil and Harry spooned tea from the caddy into the small brown teapot and poured a judicious amount of conny-onny into two tin mugs, then left the tea to brew. ‘Children say straight out what everyone else is thinking, but I dare say he'd never heard the term “water gypsy” before. But he knows it now, for I'm sure his mother enlightened him once we'd gone our separate ways.'

‘Mebbe so,' the old man acknowledged. ‘It's strange how some folk feel about them as lives and works on the canal. Why, you're no more like a gypsy that I am meself, Mr Todd. Save that your complexion is – is kinda tanned. But in the old days, when there was sailing ships, the seamen were as brown as yourself an' no one called them gypsies.'

Harold picked up the teapot. ‘Tea's brewed,' he said. ‘There's nothing wrong with gypsies and we do have one thing in common: we can't put down roots, can't have a regular place to call our own. Oh, don't get me wrong, I loved the life, but I wanted something better for my daughters. My eldest is going to be a teacher and there wouldn't be any college education for her whilst we lived on the barge.'

‘Do you miss it? Life on the canal, I mean?' the old man asked curiously, sipping the hot tea. ‘It must have been an adventurous sort of existence; every day different, never waking up to the same view through your window.'

Harry gave this some thought, then finally shook his head. ‘I've had forty-four years of wandering,' he said slowly. ‘I loved it but I didn't know anything else. Now, I'm enjoying this job and appreciating things you'll take for granted. There's cinemas, cafés, big shops, all sorts. And when you're on the canal it's all work and very little play, especially if like myself you aren't a drinking man. Some of 'em spend every evening in a pub but I never could see the point of it. Anyway, one of these days, when I've saved up enough money, I'll buy me a neat little canalside cottage in Burscough, where all the barge masters go to retire. I'll be able to relax there and so will Mrs Todd, and we'll do so with a clear conscience because we'll have given our girls a good start in life.'

Mr Fuller drained his mug, then stood it down on the table. ‘I've a gal of me own and a couple o' sons, all married and away from here,' he observed. ‘But as for retiring, I can't see that happening, somehow. Mrs Fuller is a dab hand with her old sewing machine; she makes curtains and cushions for one of the big stores and of course I've got me job here, which I enjoys well enough. I don't deny we could scrape by on my little pension but the money I earn here – and what Mrs Fuller makes from the stores – means we're real comfortable.' He sighed deeply and began to button up his shabby overcoat. Straightening his checked cap, he turned to leave the room, saying as he went through the door: ‘I allus feel as I should bid you good night, Mr Todd, when I comes off me shift. Eh, but it's an upside down life when you're awake all night and asleep half the day. See you at six.'

Harry accompanied the old man to the staff door, which he left open for the men who would be arriving in another thirty minutes or so to start the day's work. Then he crossed to the huge main doors through which goods would begin coming presently, and glanced down at the dead rat. He gave a slight shiver although, all too plainly, the creature was dead. He told himself he ought to move it, take it out to the dustbins, but then decided against it. Baldwin shared his dislike of rats and he was an awkward employee, slow to obey, quick to grumble, and surly. Harry knew the other man was responsible for many of the small irritants which had plagued him since he had first taken on the job, so if the rat startled Baldwin it might not be a bad thing.

Whistling beneath his breath, Harry returned to his office and got out the paperwork he would need once the day started. Soon he was absorbed, planning where he would put incoming goods when the day's consignments began to arrive.

Evie burst into the kitchen, her fringe on end, one half of her hair still in its bedtime plait and the other half hanging limp and straggly around her face. She was dressed in her school skirt and blouse but the blouse was buttoned in the wrong holes, and Evie looked pleadingly across to where her mother was cooking porridge. ‘Mam, Mam, do gimme a hand! This perishin' blouse must have a button missing or something 'cos it won't do up straight no matter how I try. I axed Fee to do it for me but she were too busy brushin' out her old hair, and Angie said I were quite old enough to dress meself, so she wouldn't help either. Oh, Mam, I know it ain't time for school yet, but I want to be early because me an' Annie Butcher means to gerrin a game of hopscotch before the bell goes.'

Martha swung round from the stove and shook a reproving finger at her daughter. ‘Why oh why d'you have to pick up the local accent when your pa and myself have always been at pains to teach you to speak properly? Your sisters don't say “ain't” when they mean “isn't” or “gerrin” when they mean “get in”, so why must you? And as for “axed”, well, if your father heard you . . .'

Evie stuck out her lower lip. ‘I have to talk like the others, Mam, or I wouldn't have no pals. Kids don't like it if you're different. It's all right for Fee and Angie; they're
old
, but I'm only ten an' if they think I'm tryin' to talk posh, the other kids will hate me.'

Martha sighed. ‘That's true, my love, but it applied to your sisters when they were in school just as much as it does to you now. Your pa always used to say that children have two languages, one for home and one for the streets, though in our case, of course, it was more like one for the boat and another for the bank.' She chuckled. ‘So try and speak nicely, Evie, when you're at home with us.' She pulled her daughter towards her and began patiently unbuttoning the little girl's cotton blouse, then buttoning it up correctly. ‘More haste, less speed,' she admonished. ‘Where's your hairbrush? And don't forget: talk nicely in the house, if you please.'

‘I won't forget, Ma,' Evie said resignedly, knowing that her mother spoke no more than the truth. She adored her pa, thinking him the best man in the whole world, and it would distress him if she talked with the local accent or swore, even though swearing was supposed to be the prerogative of canal folk.

Presently, neat once more and with her hair in two pigtails, Evie sat at the table and demolished a plateful of porridge. Then she jumped to her feet, seized her jacket from the hook on the kitchen door, and grabbed a round of buttered bread from the plate in the middle of the table. ‘Where's me carry-out, Mam – Ma, I mean?' she said, through a mouthful of bread and butter. ‘If it ain't – isn't, I mean – ready, I'll have to go without it 'cos I promised Annie . . .'