The Boat Girls (24 page)

Father invited Mr Simpkins to Sunday lunch. ‘An admirer of yours, Prudence, as I'm sure you're aware. And with a promising future.'

He sat opposite her at the table, looking at her in his creepy way. His hands were soft and white –
hands that never lifted anything heavier than a knife and fork, or pen and pencil. She wondered if he had noticed how rough hers were, and hoped he had. It might put him off. He leaned towards her.

‘You'll be returning to the bank before long, Miss Dobbs, no doubt.'

Her father said, ‘As soon as the war is over, isn't that right, Prudence? Not long now that we've got the Huns on the run.'

‘Do you think we have, Father?'

‘Of course. We've got the finest armed forces in the world. There's nothing to worry about now.'

It seemed to her that there was still quite a lot to worry about – not only the buzz bombs but what the newspapers had been saying about the trouble the Allies were having in Normandy. Far from being on the run, it sounded as though the Germans were fighting back hard, defending every town and hedge and orchard to the death.

After lunch they went out into the back garden, where Father had patriotically Dug for Victory and the lawn had been replaced by orderly rows of vegetables – potatoes, carrots, cabbages, broad beans, peas, spinach. Mr Simpkins, who lived in a flat, said all the right things and confided aside to Prudence that it might not be long before he, too, would be purchasing a property in Croydon. Was she acquainted with Princes Way, only three streets away from Mr Holland's Chestnut Drive?
That was the sort of select neighbourhood he had in mind. What did she think of the idea? All she could think was that she would sooner be dead than live anywhere with Mr Simpkins.

When he had gone and her father had sat down to read the Sunday newspaper, she crept into the hall and dialled the number of the Three Horseshoes pub. The same woman answered.

‘May I speak to the landlord, please.'

‘Can't hear you. You'll have to speak louder.'

‘Could I speak to Ron?'

‘He's busy.'

‘It's rather urgent.'

‘Huh.'

The receiver was banged down and then picked up after a moment.

‘Yes? Who is it?' He sounded impatient too.

‘This is Prudence Dobbs. I'm a friend of Sergeant McGhie and I just wondered if you had any news of him? Whether he's all right?'

‘Haven't seen him lately. Not since the Landings.' The voice softened a bit. ‘Do you want me to give him a message, if he comes in?'

‘Could you just tell him I rang?'

‘What did you say your name was?'

‘Prudence Dobbs.'

‘I'll do that. If he comes in.'

They paid a visit to Auntie Dot and Uncle Ted who lived in a house in Purley that was as big as
Mr Holland's. Uncle Ted had been very successful, buying and selling things. Father always said that that sort of thing wasn't like having a proper post in a bank, but Prudence thought he was secretly envious of the house. Her mother always went on about the parquet flooring, the convenient serving hatch to the dining room, the big Kelvinator refrigerator in the kitchen and the French windows from the lounge to the garden. Not that Father cared much about any of those; the thing he really envied was the car in the garage. The Sunbeam Talbot had been put away on blocks for the duration, but Uncle Ted liked to show it off. When they trooped into the garage after tea, Prudence was invited to sit in the passenger seat. It was upholstered in green leather and the dashboard was made of polished walnut, with a compartment at the side where Uncle Ted kept a road-map book of the British Isles. She took it out and ran her finger down the As and Bs in the index until she came to the Cs. Cramlington, Cramond, Cranage, Cranberry,
Cranborough
. Page 34. Mother started tapping impatiently on the window. The page, when she reached it, was a maze of roads, marked with towns . . . Luton, Hitchin, Toddington. Thesmall black dots were the villages: Tebworth, Wellbury, Potsgrove . . . Tap, tap, tap on thewindow. Tap, tap,
tap
. Biddenham, Wootton, Millbrook.

She found it. South-west of Bedford and at least fifteen miles away from Leighton Buzzard. Mother opened the door and stuck her head inside.

‘Whatever are you doing, Prudence? We're all waiting for you.'

On the next trip they transported scrap – shell casings from anti-aircraft guns. The flying bombs were coming over all the time and the boats got in and out of the docks as fast as they could. Doodleboogers, the boat people called them. The weather was cold with heavy cloud and driving rain and nothing dried out properly. Bedding was sodden, clothes put on in the morning still wet. Deck surfaces were slippery as glass, locks even more so. Prudence lost her footing crossing a gate and toppled into the water just as
Orpheus
came charging in. The lock-keeper hauled her out just in time, choking and spluttering and badly shocked. Next day, the gears started to do strange things and they had to stop and phone for a fitter. It took hours before one turned up, and two days for a new gearbox to arrive. Then Frances caught her hand on a rusty nail. She bound it up with a handkerchief and it bled and throbbed and, finally, turned septic. Another hold-up while they went in search of a doctor. The only one to be found was off duty and drunk. He prodded about, poured something stinging from a bottle and managed a clumsy
bandage. The bandage fell off the next day, but the gash felt better and began to heal.

They unloaded the scrap shells at Tyseley and, once again, were spared the Bottom Road. At Hawkesbury, three days later, they were given their orders from the Grand Union office. They were to load up with coal at Griff Colliery, six miles north of Coventry, and to unload at the ABC bakery again, almost as far down the cut as Limehouse. From there, they continued straight on to the docks to take on steel billets. After that it was more bags of cement. Then a few days' leave.

Instead of going home, Prudence took the train up to Bedford and, from there, a country bus out to Cranborough. It was a very small village with one street, just as Steve had described – a row of cottages, a church, a shop and the Three Horseshoes pub. Opening time was not for another hour, so she took a walk down a lane which led to the aerodrome a mile or so away. There was a barbed-wire fence all the way round the outside and an armed guard at the main gate. Inside, she could see Nissen huts and hangars and airmen going to and fro. She walked round the barbed-wire fence and saw the four-engined bombers standing out on the far side of the aerodrome. Halifaxes. One of them started up, engines roaring and fading several times. She watched it swing round and roll along
the track to the start of the runway, turn and stop. The engines bellowed again, roaring and fading as before, and the bomber suddenly charged forward and lumbered down the runway until it left the ground and climbed slowly into the sky. It seemed a miracle to her that such a heavy thing could fly. She waited and, after a while, it returned and went back to its place. No other planes took off and there was no sign of preparations for a night raid.

In the early evening she went back to the village. The Three Horseshoes was open, bikes propped against the pub wall or thrown down on the ground. Inside, it was crowded with RAF.

‘Hallo there, love.' An airman grinned at her. ‘What's your name?'

‘I'm meeting someone,' she said. ‘Excuse me.'

She squeezed a way through, ducking under arms and around backs. And then she saw Steve. He was leaning against the bar, pint mug at his elbow, cigarette in hand, and he was talking to a WAAF. A very pretty WAAF in a smart blue uniform with shiningly clean, neatly curled hair. He was smiling down at her and she was laughing up at him.

‘Not leaving already, are you?' the same airman said. ‘What's all the rush, sweetheart?' He put a hand on her arm but she pulled herself free.

BY AUGUST THE
weather had changed to blistering heat. Frances took to wearing her old school games shorts and aertex shirts, Prue a blue and white cotton frock she'd had for work at the bank, Ros a peasant skirt and blouse with a floppy straw hat tied with ribbons under her chin, appropriated from a stint as a simple country girl in
Babes in the Wood
.

The cabins were stifling by day – the butty cabin worse because the stove had to be kept going for cooking. At night they slid back the hatches, leaving them open to the stars, and lay coverless, sleepless, drenched in sweat. Fresh milk from friendly farms went sour in hours, margarine melted to a greasy pool, and any leftovers quickly turned bad. One good thing: they could hang their washing out to dry on a line across the decks, though they still dried their smalls in the engine room to avoid upsetting the boaters. In any case,
as most of their underclothes had somehow turned a dingy grey, they were better out of sight.

Soon there was a water shortage on the cut. Levels dropped and even the boaters were often caught on the mud. Only sixteen pairs were allowed to cross the Tring Summit each day, and the lock gates after the Summit were chained and padlocked sometimes from early afternoon. Those that hadn't cleared them were left to wait until the next morning. The first time that happened to them, they tied up next to Molly and Saul's pair.

‘Locked up fer the night with Jack Carter, lars' trip, we was,' Molly told Frances with relish. ‘Yer seen him lately?'

She'd come over with Abel in her arms, and sat on the motor-cabin coal box bouncing the baby on her lap while Frances boiled the kettle on the Primus. The baby had stopped looking like a wizened monkey and had plump cheeks and a thatch of dark hair.

‘We towed him off the mud the other day.'

Molly's mouth fell open. ‘Jack Carter stemmed up!
Never!
'

‘He was stuck fast on Muck Bend.'

‘That's a bad one, an' all. Never known that 'appen to Jack, though. Fancy that!'

‘We were rather amazed, too.'

She'd been steering
Orpheus
into the bend when they'd come across
Snipe
marooned on the
opposite bank. At first she'd not known what to do. Being stemmed up dented a boater's pride. They might take help from another boater, but if offered it by an Idle Woman, they usually refused. Boaters would skulk in their cabin, or pretend there was something wrong with the engine, or that the load was too heavy. Anything to save face. And she was wary of Jack Carter. On the other hand, she owed him, didn't she? Ever since the Quills. She'd slowed down and shouted to Freddy who was on the counter while his brother was wielding the long shaft at the fore-end.

‘Can we help?'

He'd looked doubtful. ‘Dunno. I'll ask me bruvver.'

Surprisingly, the offer had been accepted, bows hitched to stern, but the manoeuvre was far trickier than she'd bargained for and she'd only succeeded in making matters worse. Without a word, Jack Carter had come back to the counter and sprung across to
Orpheus
. He'd taken over the tiller and towed
Snipe
clear. Her thanks had been a silent nod as he handed it back, a grinning wave from Freddy and the dipped brim of the old lady's black bonnet.

Molly drank her tea and bounced Abel some more. She looked round the cabin. ‘Yer a scholar, then?'

‘A scholar? Heavens no.'

‘Must be with all them books.' Molly nodded at the shelf. ‘Stands to reason, yer can read. An' write, too, I'll be bound.'

‘Well, of course I can.'

‘No o' course 'bout it. I can't read. Nor write neither. Nor Saul. Never 'ad the larnin'. Don't know a boater what can. Mebbe a word 'ere an' there, but that's all.'

She was stunned. ‘But I thought everyone had to go to school, Molly. It's the law.'

‘Can't make us, can they? Not when we're allus on the go, like. Got a schoolroom for the kids at the Bridge, but don't do much good cos they can't stay there fer long.'

‘How on earth do you manage, if you can't read?'

‘Easy. We notices things, an' we remembers 'em. An' we knows all 'bout money an' what things cost. We knows what we're owed, see.'

‘Supposing you have to sign your name?'

‘We puts our mark. Makes no difference.'

No wonder they mispronounced so many words. ‘But wouldn't you like to be able to read? I could teach you, Molly.'

‘Naw. Don't 'ave no time an' Saul wouldn't like it. Thanks all the same. I can look at pictures, if I wants. That don't need no readin'. An' there's plenty to look at all day, goin' along. No call for books an' such. Not on the cut.'

That was true enough. Even the ugly bits of the cut were interesting; the rest an ever-changing picture, different round each bend and with each season. Towns, villages, trees, fields, cottages, gardens, stately homes, ancient bridges, wild birds, the light on the water, sunrises, sunsets. And no two days were ever the same, so life could never be boring. The cut measured the boaters' existence. Their whole lives revolved around it: their work, their customs, their manners, their speech. Everything centred on the waterways they inhabited all their lives. They had little in common with the outside world and almost no interest in it. No interest in the war, or in politics, or in what other people did or how they lived. She'd never heard them talking about anything but their own world; never been asked questions about her own. So, if nobody else on the cut could read or write, what could it matter to them?

Abel spewed up some sick and Molly wiped it tenderly away with a rag.

‘There's been talk on the cut that Jack Carter's sweet on yer. Ever since 'e done up the Quills fer yer.'

‘Oh, but that's nonsense.'

‘Wouldn't say that.'

‘But he's never spoken more than a few words to me.'

‘Don't need to, do 'e? 'E's got eyes in 'is 'ead.
An' I seen the way 'e looked at yer that time. Not frit of 'im, are yer?'