The Boat Girls (10 page)

Pip said cheerfully, ‘Looks like you've been bitten in the night, Prudence.'

‘Bitten?'

‘Bedbugs. Just a couple of bites on your cheek. I'm afraid most boats seem to get them. The company fumigates them regularly, but they always come back.'

She put a hand up to her cheek. ‘Oh.'

‘It's really nothing to worry about. You'll get used to it.'

They started the loading soon afterwards. Slings of long steel bars were lifted from the quayside by a giant crane, swung out over the boats and manoeuvred by the dockers down into the holds, almost without a bump. The boats sank lower and lower until the gunwales were only just above the
water. Frances was sent to make more tea for the men and Prudence passed round the mugs. The dockers thought it was all a great joke.

‘You'll be after our jobs next, I dare say,' one of them said to her, grinning. He'd been down in the hold, manhandling the steel bars. ‘We'll 'ave to look out for you lot.'

When the loading was done, their work began – the sheeting-up that Pip had tried to explain. Back went the beams and the rigging chains, screwed up tight enough to pull the sides of the boat together. Then the stands had to be wedged into place, the top planks put back, even higher up than before, and fixed with screws and ropes and uprights so they were safe to walk along. Then the sheeting-up began – scrambling about the hold, unrolling the black tarred canvas from the boat sides, uncoiling tarry strings and throwing them over the top planks to be laced through an eyelet on the other side. Tightening those up meant a terrifying crawl on hands and knees along the top planks with Pip shouting instructions from below. The three top sheets, which weighed a ton, had to be hauled out and hoisted up over their heads to cover the hold from the front end down to the cabin, and every top string had to be threaded through a metal ring and tied off all along the edges. Prudence added a lot more bruises to the ones collected before, as well as cuts and blisters all over her hands. Her arms
and knees were aching, and the bed-bug bites on her face were itching.

‘Well done both of you,' Pip said in her nicest and most encouraging voice, but Prudence didn't feel she'd done at all well; she only felt exhausted.

Pip left Frances to guard the boats and took Prudence off to get the jersey and trousers. The shop in Commercial Road sold all kinds of seamen's clothes – boots and overalls and trousers and jerseys and vests and long johns crowded the front window and hung from the ceiling inside. The cockney woman at the counter called her ‘duck' and went off to find a jersey that didn't swamp her and the smallest pair of bell bottoms. The jersey came down to her knees and the serge trousers had to be rolled up, but no clothing coupons were needed and they only cost seven shillings. Pip said she'd need a leather belt so she bought one for two and sixpence and the woman punched some extra holes in it for her. On the way back to the dock gate, Pip stopped at a phone kiosk to ask about the replacement trainee and came out looking rather pleased.

‘They're sending one to join us at Bulls Bridge. Let's hope she's keener than Janet.'

Off they went again, out of the dock basin and back to the canal, and through the locks – uphill this time – and under the bridges. Frances came on the butty with her to steer and, instead of
being tied up close to the motor, they were towed on a rope about ten feet long. The laden boats, sunk so low in the water, seemed to behave quite differently. Frances, struggling with the tiller, kept making mistakes and the
Aquila
kept charging off in the wrong direction. Once it charged straight into the bank and got stuck firmly in the mud. That was when Pip shouted to Prudence to go up to the front with a long shaft to try and push them off. She had to walk the top planks to get there, carrying a heavy wooden pole that was at least twice her height, like a circus balancing act. It wasn't quite so frightening with the hold full. If she fell off she'd slide down the sheets into the water, but it didn't seem nearly as bad as falling headlong into an empty hold. She reached the fore-end safely, stuck the pole into the bank and pushed with all her might. Nothing happened however hard she tried and, in the end, a passing barge stopped and the bargee, a huge man, clambered aboard the butty, took hold of the pole in his great fists and with one shove they were free.

They got back to Bulls Bridge before dark and tied up at the lay-by for the night. Pip cooked the supper – tinned stew and tinned peas and mashed potatoes – and Prudence fell fast asleep over her plate. They were allowed a lie-in until seven the next morning, but as soon as breakfast
was finished and cleared away they had to clean the cabins, black-lead the stoves, polish the brass, fill the coal boxes, chop the firewood, scrub the decks and cabin tops, refill the water cans – Janet would have grumbled like anything. When all that was done to Pip's satisfaction, she gave them another lesson on tying knots and a demonstration on how to splice ropes – mending broken ones by winding the strands together.

The replacement trainee turned up at midday. Pip had gone off to the depot office and Prudence and Frances were practising rope-splicing in the motor cabin when they heard someone call outside. They stuck their heads out to see who it was.

She was standing at the edge of the wharf above – a tall, slender and very beautiful girl with russet-red hair that reached to her shoulders in a mass of curls. Her face was pale, her lips painted scarlet, and the silver earrings in her ears dangled like miniature chandeliers. She was wearing the strangest clothes: a green velvet cloak over a leather jerkin and corduroy breeches tucked into high red boots, and, on her head, a Robin Hood hat with a long quill feather sticking out of it. A carpet bag lay at her feet and a roll of bedding was tucked under one arm. She gave them a dazzling smile.

‘Hallo there,' she said. ‘I'm Rosalind Flynn. I've come to train.'

SHE REALIZED THAT
they had no idea what to make of her. Maybe it was the theatre-wardrobe clothes, or maybe they'd expected someone quite different, or maybe she was just in the wrong place.

She said, ‘This
is
Miss Rowan's boat, isn't it?
Cetus.
That's what they told me.'

One of the girls – the fair-haired one – nodded. ‘Yes. She'll be back soon.' The rest of her emerged from the cabin doors. ‘I'm Frances Carlyon. And this is Prudence Dobbs. We're both trainees.' She held out her hand. ‘How do you do.'

Rosalind shook it politely and did the same with the other girl – the shy one with the sausage curls and what looked like bedbug bites all over her face. She indicated the old carpet bag at her feet and the rolled-up blankets and pillow that had done many years' faithful service on all manner of couches in all manner of lodgings. ‘What do I do with these?'

They helped her on board and guided her down, backwards, into the cabin which made her feel like Alice in Wonderland after she'd drunk from the wrong bottle and grown too big. Sausage-curls said that she could have the bigger bed that came out of a cupboard at the back, if she liked. The fair-haired girl told her that she slept on the butty next door.

‘The butty?'

‘The boat without the engine. This is the motor – it has one to pull the butty. That's why this cabin is a bit smaller.'

They showed her where to store her things, and where everything else was kept, and how the dolls-house stove worked. And then they all inched their way along a very narrow ledge outside the cabin to where the engine was, and the bucket.

‘You get used to it,' the one called Frances said. ‘After a bit.'

Neither of them, she guessed, had ever come across anything like it before. Lavatories, in their lives, would have been made of white china and come with chains to pull and torrents of flushing water. But she had known buckets before, and outside privies, and chamber pots under the bed.

They clambered back along the ledge to the cabin, their feet almost in the water. The boats
were all loaded up and ready to go, the fair-haired girl said. They'd been down to Limehouse docks for the steel billets and now they were going to take the Grand Union Canal north up to Tyseley near Birmingham to deliver them. After that, they'd go to a coalfield somewhere near Coventry and fill up the empty holds with coal for factories on the way back.

Rosalind said, ‘I'm afraid I don't know a thing about barges. I've never been on one in my life before.'

The fair girl grinned. ‘Don't worry, we hadn't either, had we, Prudence?'

The other one shook her sausage curls and scratched at the bites.

‘And they're called narrowboats, never barges – just to warn you.'

Miss Rowan appeared and introduced herself as Pip. She was bossy but not bitchy. Some of the theatre-wardrobe clothes, she explained kindly, were going to be a problem. The cloak would get dangerously in the way and the hat would fall off. The breeches were quite practical, especially the leather belt that held them up, and so was the jerkin, but the smart red boots would get ruined in a trice. Did she have any other footwear? Alas, no. In the end it was decided to make do for the time being with the breeches, the jerkin and the boots, and Pip lent her an old jacket to wear
on top. It would be a good idea, she added, still very kindly, if Rosalind tied her long hair back or it would blow about and stop her seeing properly and might get caught in machinery. A piece of string should do the trick – there was plenty of it on the boats.

They had thick spam sandwiches and cups of strong tea in one of the cabins and, afterwards, three bent pieces of iron were handed out ceremoniously like precious gifts. They were for winding up things called paddles in locks and for letting them down. They must NEVER be lent, lost or dropped overboard, but kept safe and worn tucked securely in their leather belts. Assisted by the girl, Frances, who obviously had more of a clue than she'd let on, Pip gave a demonstration of how to start up the engine which seemed to require a combination of brute force and split-second timing.

Rosalind was given the job of untying ropes from iron rings – she managed that all right – and hopped onto the back of the motor boat which Pip was driving, balancing on the ledge at the side, to keep out of her way. Frances and Prudence were in the one they'd called the butty, towed along behind them on the end of a piece of rope with Frances doing the steering. They pottered off along the canal, the engine making loud pop-popping noises. A row of urchins, leaning over a
bridge, shouted rude things and hurled clods of mud. Pip took no notice.

‘Pointless shouting back or getting angry – it only encourages the little perishers.'

After a while, they came to a lock – the first one she'd ever seen. The gates were standing wide open and in they went, the butty sliding in beside them. Pip, who had undone the tow rope, chucked it neatly onto its front end as it passed.

She followed Pip up some slippery steps to help heave the gate shut on their side. Frances was struggling with the gate on the opposite side of the lock, while Prudence was holding the butty on a rope, like a dog on a lead.

‘We have to lower the paddles,' Pip said. ‘Watch carefully.' The bent piece of iron was fitted onto the end of some sort of winding gear and given a quick turn and, hey presto, there was an ear-splitting rattling as the thing unwound. The other gate was still half open, Frances still struggling. ‘Come on, Frances, put your back into it!'

They ran up to the gates at the top end and Pip said, ‘Got your windlass? Soon as Frances has finished at the bottom, see if you can wind this paddle up.'

It reminded her of cranking the handle of the wind machine backstage – only fifty times harder. She could hardly move the wretched thing at all.
Luckily, some old man appeared from somewhere and took over with a lecherous wink and a grin.

Pip said drily, ‘You won't be able to count on a lock-keeper every time. You'll have to be able to manage it yourself.'

The water rushed in to fill the lock and the boats rose up with it. Then the top gates had to be heaved open before they stepped back on board. More rope tricks from Pip as the motor overtook the front end of the butty, and they were off again with it trailing behind them. On a straight stretch, Pip handed over.

‘Take a turn with the tiller – let's see how you do.'

Badly, as it turned out. At the first bend, she pushed the thing the wrong way and the boat headed straight for the bank. Pip grabbed hold of it and they veered away just in time. They went on veering this way and that. Shoving the tiller in one direction to make the boat's nose go the opposite way made no sense at all, and it was no help that the front end was miles away from her and that the boat was so slow to react. Still, after a while, with Pip constantly correcting her, she began to get the hang of it.

They were gradually leaving London behind, chugging north-west at a funeral pace along the canal – the cut, as she was supposed to call it. Another pair of boats came past them, from the
other direction – not with trainees but with the gypsy-like people she had seen at the depot. Pip called out something and the man steering the motor jerked his head and muttered something back. Rosalind smiled and waved at him but he ignored her. So did the woman in the butty.

‘Why are they so grumpy?'

‘They're not grumpy. It's just their way, if they don't know you.'

They went through two more locks, and each time the gates were open for them.

‘We're lucky today,' Pip said. ‘We've got a good road. Sometimes they're all against you and it takes twice as long if you have to get the lock ready each time. Fill it, or empty it, as the case may be, before you can get in.'

Across the fields the sun was already setting, painting the sky with lovely crimson streaks. They did two more locks, both obligingly open and ready, before they stopped in a wooded spot above the second one, close to another pair of boats. She had to walk along the top planks to the front end to tie up, but it wasn't too difficult. Ballet lessons had taught her about footwork and balance. She'd been rather good at ballet and if she hadn't grown too tall, she might have become a dancer instead of an actress. The lock was called Black Jack. According to Pip, the boaters gave them all names – Black Jack, Copper Mill,
Springwell, Stockers, Batch, Rickey – one hundred and fifty-four of them all the way up to Tyseley, and the names had to be learned and remembered. There was no map to help, not in wartime. Maps, like signposts, could help the Germans if they invaded; they'd been burned, torn up, hidden away under lock and key. Pip had made her own notes of what she called Useful Information: names of locks and towns, pubs and good places to eat, shop, have baths, fill up with water, get repairs done. She'd written it all down in a book which she carried in the pocket of her jacket. By the time they'd got both boats tied up, one alongside the other – which took some doing with the three of them scrambling about and a lot of yelling from Pip – it was dark.