The Boat Girls (15 page)

They walked on up to the crest of the hill but it was too misty to see the sea.

She said, ‘You're quite wrong about Ros, you know. She's a lovely person.'

‘I'm sure she is.'

‘So's Prue. We all get on awfully well.'

‘You're going to need to, by the sound of things.'

She went up into the attics again, taking Ros with her on a hunt for sensible boat clothes. They foraged through more old trunks and tea chests and discovered a man's riding mac. It was a stiff and crackling affair with belt and straps and buckles – too big for Ros, but she could turn up the sleeves.

Frances wandered about the attic rooms – dusty repositories of the past. Boxes of letters and photographs, skittles, Vere's train set, her dolls' pram, an old steamer trunk covered with fading labels, a dressmaker's dummy. In one dark corner, she came across a crocodile suitcase stamped with her mother's initials. The knobbly skin was dull and cobwebbed but when she snapped open the clasps, the colours inside were as bright and fresh
as when they had been worn. Evening gowns and day dresses, hats and shoes, long white kid gloves, silken wraps, a white fox fur . . . she fingered them.

Behind her, Ros said, ‘Beautiful things. Whose were they?'

‘My mother's. I'd no idea they were up here. I suppose Father kept them after she died.'

‘What was she like?'

‘Smiling. Lovely. Kind. My father worshipped her. He'd had a breakdown when he came back from the war and she helped him get over it. When she died he more or less gave up.'

‘How sad.'

She replaced everything carefully in the suitcase and they went downstairs. In the hall she pointed out the portrait of the first John de Carlyon.

‘He made his fortune looting galleons on the Spanish Main. I always think I'd like to have met him.'

‘So would I.'

‘Everybody thinks Vere looks a lot like him.'

‘Hmmm.' Ros cocked her head to one side. ‘I can see the resemblance. But your brother doesn't wear ringlets or an emerald earring. And somehow I don't think he'd ever have been a buccaneer. Do you?'

‘Not likely. He'd never do anything like that.'

She turned to see that Vere had come into the hall.

‘We've been up in the attics,' she said before he could cross-question them. ‘Looking for things to wear on the boats.'

He was looking at Ros dressed in the riding mac. ‘That's Father's, isn't it?'

‘He wouldn't mind. He never goes riding now. Ros needs it for the boats.'

He was still staring at Ros. What on earth was the matter with him?

‘It suits her. She's welcome to it.'

When Prudence arrived home her mother took one horrified look at her and sent her to the scullery, where her clothes were put straight into the wash. The bath was filled with hot water, Dettol poured in, carbolic soap and nail brush handed over. By the time her father came home from the bank she was wearing clean and neatly pressed clothes, hair curled with hot tongs, the bedbug bites camouflaged beneath dabs of pink calamine lotion.

‘I ought to tell him the state you were in,' her mother had threatened. ‘But it would only get him all upset and I don't want that this evening. I'll have to talk to him later, though.'

Her father didn't notice the bites or how her hands looked, and, naturally, she didn't say a
word about the bugs or the bucket in the engine room, or anything else like that. She sat listening dutifully to him talking about the bank and the rumours that Mr Holland, whose health had seemed poor lately, might be retiring early. In which case, of course, her father would hope to be made manager.

‘There'll be a position for you there after the war, Prudence. You don't need to worry.'

She did worry, but not in the way he imagined. The idea of going back to the bank made her feel sick.

She took her tweed overcoat to be cleaned and repaired and drew money out of her post office savings account to buy a pair of boy's lace-up boots and workmen's overalls which needed a lot of turning up and taking in. At a jumble sale she found some old woollen vests, thick socks and a cable-knit jersey.

There was nothing much to do at home except help her mother with the housework and the shopping and the cooking. They went to the pictures one afternoon to see Deanna Durbin. The Pathe News showed British soldiers fighting in Italy and American marines landing on an island far away in the Pacific Ocean, and the King and Queen shaking hands with American air crews. Afterwards, they had a pot of tea and toasted teacakes in the cinema café. Her mother kept on
asking questions about the narrowboats but she only told her the good bits – like what an excellent teacher Miss Rowan was, and how nice the other two girls were. She mentioned that Frances lived in a big house in Dorset because she knew her mother would like to hear it, but not that Frances had said it was falling down. And she told her about them having dinner at the Ritz Hotel in London and meeting Frances's brother who was a wing commander in the RAF. She didn't mention the smoking and the drinking or the pubs, or that Ros was an actress. Her mother looked quite pleased about the good bits.

To please Father, she went to the bank one morning. Mr Holland happened to come out of his office when she was there, and actually stopped to speak to her. They would see what could be done about finding her a position after the war was over, he said. He couldn't promise anything, of course, but he would bear her in mind. Meanwhile, he hoped that she would never forget about the Psychology of Accuracy. It was very important. He looked perfectly well, and she thought that the rumours might have been wrong and Father's hopes falsely raised. To her relief, Mr Simpkins was away ill with influenza. She peeped through the door at her old desk below the frosted-glass window. The girl who had replaced her was sitting entering figures in the ledger, one
after the other. Her head was bent so low that her nose nearly touched the paper.

The weather had been cold and dull, but the sun came out on their last day at Averton and Rosalind, wearing Sir John's riding mac and her red boots, took herself off alone for a walk – not the energetic hike up the windy hillside to admire the distant view of the sea, but a gentle amble along the valley. She crossed a stream by a little plank bridge, climbed over a stile and followed a pathway into the woods, wandering along until she came to a grassy clearing with a convenient fallen tree trunk. She sat down and discovered a brave little clump of violets growing in its lee.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows . . .

Oxlips were a kind of cowslip and it was still much too early for them or for any of the other things in Oberon's speech: woodbine, musk-roses and eglantine. Titania had been one of her best parts for Sir Lionel. No need for a wig, her own hair had been exactly right, so had her pale skin and green eyes. She'd worn a gauzy costume embroidered with silver thread and sequins, and a lot of glittery eye make-up. The scenes with Bottom had been fun.

The two spaniels burst suddenly out of the trees and bounded up to her, wagging their stumpy tails. They were followed by Frances's brother not looking quite so pleased.

‘We were wondering where you'd got to, Rosalind.'

‘I went for a walk, that's all.'

‘I was afraid you might get lost – it's an easy thing to do in these woods if you don't know them. They stretch for miles.'

‘How did you find me?'

‘I didn't, the dogs did. They picked up your trail. Then we heard your voice.'

The spaniels had sat down beside her, tongues lolling, and she patted their smooth heads.

‘I was practising a speech from
A Midsummer Night's Dream
.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I recognized it.'

She said, surprised, ‘You know the play?'

‘Doesn't everybody? I expect you've played Titania.'

‘Once, yes. And I was an extra fairy when I was six years old.'

‘You started very young.'

‘It's in the blood. You rather disturbed me just now. I was rehearsing.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘I like to keep in practice. For when the war's over.'

‘You'll go back to the stage?'

‘Of course. I'm an actress. It's what I do.'

‘I'm sure you're very talented.'

‘You've never seen me act, Vere, so you don't know. All you do know is that you'd much sooner your sister didn't have anything to do with me.'

He didn't trouble to deny it. ‘She comes from a sheltered background; it's my job to protect her. Unfortunately, she takes considerable pleasure in doing stupid things just to annoy me.'

‘And you think I'm a very bad influence.'

He didn't deny that either; instead he looked up at the sky, frowning. ‘There are some rain clouds building up. We ought to get back before it starts.'

Presumably it came with the job. A wing commander commanded and everyone else obeyed. Snapped to attention and jumped to it. Except that she wasn't in the Royal Air Force.

‘It's very nice here and I'm wearing your father's mac, so I won't get wet.'

‘Nevertheless, I think you should come back with me. You could easily take a wrong turning.'

It was true about the black clouds and, anyway,
her peace had been disturbed. She sighed. ‘All right. If you insist.'

The dogs ran ahead of them, snuffling through undergrowth, crashing about and scaring off Pease-blossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustard-seed. The magic was gone, the wood just an ordinary wood.

They walked on in silence. When they reached the stile he tried to help her over, but she ignored his outstretched hand. To be fair, she had only herself to blame after her behaviour at the Ritz, but, even so, he had not only disturbed her peace, he had wounded her pride.

Cetus
and
Aquila
, now fumigated and bug-free, were waiting for them at the Bulls Bridge lay-by and Pip had already been given their new orders: Limehouse docks again and a cargo of timber to be taken to the Midlands, another load of coal to be brought back. This time the trip was shorter, the weather better, the mistakes fewer, Pip more pleased. At the end of it, they were awarded their Inland Waterway badges, which they sewed on with pride, and were told that they would be assigned their own pair of boats. After six more days of leave they returned to the depot as fully fledged boatwomen.

THE MOTOR WAS
called
Orpheus
, the butty
Eurydice
. They stood staring at them in awe, wondering how they were going to manage to manoeuvre the seventy-two feet of each of them out of the lay-by, let alone all the way down to the docks, all the way up to Birmingham and Coventry, and all the way back again.

‘I've forgotten the story,' Frances said presently.

Ros sighed. ‘It's very sad. When Eurydice died, Orpheus went to look for her in the underworld. Pluto liked his lute-playing so much that he agreed to let Eurydice follow him out of the underworld, so long as he didn't turn round to see if she was there.'

Prudence looked anxious. ‘What happened?'

‘Silly duffer. He couldn't resist a quick peek and she vanished for ever.'

The two narrowboats were newly painted and
varnished, but had, as yet, nothing inside them except rusty cooking stoves, empty coal boxes and empty cupboards. No brasses or curtains or decoration. All the essentials had to be bought from the depot stores with the five pounds provided: ropes and lines, batteries, windlasses, water cans, axes, tools, shovels, brooms, mops, kettles, dippers, pots and pans, china, cutlery, cleaning materials, engine grease, even handles and catches. One essential had been brought from home by Frances – a bicycle. It was a man's one, retrieved from a barn at Averton, as ancient as Pip's but in better condition. At least the saddle stayed in place and both the brakes worked. They cleaned and blacked the stoves, filled the cupboards with tins and packets of provisions, the coal boxes with company coal. A door at the back of the butty cabin opened onto a small storage place at the end of the hold which would take coats and coal, vegetables and all kinds of oddments. Prudence had found an empty Fry's Cocoa tin to use for a kitty and they each put ten shillings into it for food shopping.

At the lay-by, the boaters watched their to-ings and fro-ings impassively. Staggering back with a laden box, Frances passed by a young woman standing at the fore-end of a butty who smiled at her.

‘Seen yer before, 'aven't I? Up at Croxley lock.
Yer the lady with the pretty scarf, if I'm not mistaken.'

‘I've still got it, if you'd like it.'

‘I would an' all – long as yer don' want it.'

When she returned, the young woman had disappeared down inside the butty and, remembering Pip's warnings about observing boat manners, she leaned over and knocked on the cabin, waiting for a formal invitation to step on board.

Her name was Molly Jessop. Her husband, who'd gone off to the depot, was called Saul. They'd been married eight months and she was to have a baby soon. She patted her rounded stomach under the pinafore she was wearing over her skirt. Any day now, she reckoned, by the way it kept jumping about. Like most boatwomen, she was short with strong arms – fit for cabin-living and working locks – and she wore gold rings in her ears.

The butty had been spotless outside – ropes scrubbed white, brasswork gleaming, roses painted over the big water can, the fairy-tale pictures of castles on the door panels, hearts and diamond shapes everywhere. Inside, the cabin was pin-neat and clean, with a stove that shone like black satin. When the kettle had boiled, tea was brewed in a pot decorated with roses and there were more roses painted over the dipper on
its hook. Just inside the door by the stove, six shiny brass knobs were screwed to the wall and, opposite, a fretted china plate, slotted through with pink ribbon, hung on a nail. The cross-bed was down, framed by crochet lace curtains looped back with a red ribbon. Crochet runners edged the shelves and a pretty lace cloth covered the table.