The Boat Girls (11 page)

Pip said hopefully, ‘I don't suppose any of you can cook?'

‘I can.'

‘Good. Then you can do supper tonight for us, Rosalind. We've got potatoes and a cabbage and a tin of mince. Think you can make something with that?'

‘Any onions?'

‘There might be. We'll have a hunt.'

She cooked on the little stove in the motor while the others kept out of the way in the butty cabin. Two onions had been discovered in the locker under the side bed – sprouting but still
edible – so she fried those before she added the tinned mince. The potatoes went into the oven, in their skins, and the cabbage was cut up, ready to do last. She'd been cooking meals on all kinds of tricky stoves since she was about twelve, making up dishes out of any scraps she could find. Cooking bored her mother, but not her.

They sat down to eat in the butty cabin, next door, where there was a bit more room. Pip said, ‘This is very good, Rosalind. Did you work as a cook?'

‘No. I'm an actress.'

They all stopped eating, forks halfway to mouths.

Pip said, ‘How
very
interesting. I don't think I've ever met an actress before. What sort of parts did you play?'

‘Oh, lots of different ones. I've been acting since I was a child.'

‘What did you do most recently?'

She told them about being with Sir Lionel's company, which impressed them no end.

Prudence said, ‘Why ever did you leave?'

She embroidered that bit. ‘Well, I thought if I didn't do my war bit soon, I'd get sent into a factory, or called up into the services. I thought this would be more fun.'

Pip frowned. ‘I wouldn't exactly call it fun. It's very hard work on the boats and pretty
uncomfortable, as you'll discover. And, speaking of hard work, we've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow, so we need to get off as early as we can in the morning – which means being up before dawn. We'll have to let the boaters go ahead first – they won't want us holding them up – and that also means that the locks are likely to be against us unless we're lucky with boats coming the other way. Rosalind, you can go on the butty with Prudence while Frances comes on the motor with me and does some lock-wheeling – that's taking the bike along the towpath to the next lock ahead and getting it ready for us, if necessary.'

They drank cocoa and smoked cigarettes – except for Prudence who didn't smoke – and they talked. Pip had once worked a narrowboat of her own on the Worcester Canal, so no wonder she knew so much about it. Frances said she came from Dorset and made her home sound like a ruin, though it was probably very grand. Poor Prudence had been working at a bank in Croydon, totting up figures all day long. They wanted to know more about the theatre, so Rosalind entertained them with stories of various disasters – forgotten lines, falling scenery, faulty props – some of them exaggerated, others made up, a lot of them perfectly true. And with tales about Sir Lionel – though not everything about him. There was no point in shocking them.

The stove in the motor cabin was still warm when she and Prudence went back there for the night. They let down the bed out of the cupboard, across the bulkhead, and she arranged her makeshift bedding. Prudence sat on the edge of the other bunk in her nightie and woollen dressing gown, winding her hair up in curlers to make the sausage curls. She kept scratching the bites on her face.

‘Pip says they must be from bedbugs. She says they always get them on the boats. I haven't seen any, though.'

‘You wouldn't, sweetie, they're too small. I've had bites like that before, as well.'

Many times, indeed, but she didn't say so. Prudence wouldn't have come across such things, any more than the bucket in the engine room. Her home in Croydon would be clean and neat and entirely bug-free.

Rosalind put on her flannel pyjamas – left behind by one of the travelling salesmen – unclipped her silver earrings and curled up on the cross-bed. It was surprisingly comfortable and with plenty of room sideways, though she had to bend her legs to fit in lengthways. It must be the marital bed in the boat people's cabins, husband and wife cosily tucked up together. They'd have to like each other a lot, mind, and it wouldn't do to be tall – not that any of the boat people
were, so far as she could see. Height seemed to have been bred out of them so they could live on the boats without bumping their heads. They were short, but they were very tough and they were very strong.

She did some more thinking. The evening performance would be ending at the theatre, with Felicia playing Portia, perhaps, though the role would be far beyond her range. Given the chance, she could have done it well. She recited the words in her head.

Or maybe Kate – that was a meaty part that she'd always fancied.
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Or Ophelia, drifting around, out of her mind.
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

And the thought she was thinking right now was that maybe the narrowboats hadn't been such a good idea. From what she'd seen and heard so far, factory work would be a rest cure; so would the services.

She propped herself up on one elbow, watching
Prudence winding up the curlers. ‘What happened to the girl I replaced?'

‘She left.'

‘Why?'

‘She hated it. But then, she didn't really give it a fair try. And she never stopped complaining. We were rather glad when she went.' Prudence stopped winding and looked at her anxiously. ‘Do you think
you'll
like it?'

‘I don't know, to be honest.'

‘But you'll give it a try?'

She flopped back onto the pillow. ‘Yes, I'll give it a try.'

There was silence and she turned her head to see that Prudence was kneeling beside her bed. At first she thought she'd dropped something and then realized that she was saying her prayers. Just as well somebody was; they were going to need all the help they could get.

THE BOATERS MOORED
at Black Jack lock had already left before dawn. Pip swore that they could see in the dark, like cats, and they played all kinds of tricks to keep ahead. Time was money to them. The sooner they were off, the sooner they delivered their load, the sooner they got paid and the sooner they could start the next trip. They'd make sure of getting away first by quietly loosing off the mooring ropes and then bow-hauling or shafting the boats along the bank before they started up the engine. And if they had the luck to meet another pair coming the other way, they'd be getting a good road with the locks ready for them.

After a quick breakfast
Aquila
and
Cetus
set off just as the sun was coming up over the trees, making the overnight frost sparkle. Frances was on the motor with Pip, to lock-wheel for her.

‘I'll put you and the bike off at the nearest bridge-hole. Your job is to see if the lock's ready
for us. If it isn't, then make it ready so that by the time I arrive, I can go straight in. But if another pair's coming the other way and get there first, then you'll need to warn me so I can wait out of their way.'

Just hop off, Pip had said, with the bike under your arm. As they approached the bridge-hole where the canal narrowed and boat and land came close together, Frances misjudged the hop and fell in a painful heap on the bank. Pip shouted something which she couldn't hear and the butty went sailing by while she was picking herself up, with Prudence and Rosalind waving encouragement. Pip's bike was a rusty old wreck without working brakes and a saddle that kept slipping sideways. To make matters worse, the towpath was full of ruts and craters which made steering straight impossible. Several times she ended up in thorny bushes and, once, narrowly avoided plunging into the cut. Finally, she reached the lock, threw down the bike and ran up to the bottom gates.

All was silent. No lock-keeper. No angry boatman coming the other way to claim priority. Only the lock and the still water . . . waiting for her to do something and do it fast before Pip arrived. She stared at the lock. Was it ready, or wasn't it? Her mind went blank – refused to work. Come on, it was simple really. Pip had always said so.
Think of the steps of the staircase. Think of the levels.
Think, think, think.
No, the lock wasn't ready. Of course it wasn't. It was full, the top gates wide open, the paddles up. Pip would be coming along at the bottom of the step with the gates shut against her, so the water in the lock had to be let out and brought down to her level and the bottom gates opened so she could get in.

Frances wrenched the windlass out of her belt and ran to the bottom gates and then remembered just in time that, first, she had to shut the top gates and drop the paddles. If the paddles were left open at
both
ends of the lock, the water would simply go on rushing through and gallons and gallons would be wasted. An unforgivable sin on the cut, according to Pip, since all the water going through the locks had to be pumped back at night up to the summit level.

Fear of dismal failure and disgrace lent her strength.
Hurry, hurry!
She put her back against the balance beams, legs braced, heels dug in, summoning all her weight and strength. Down with the paddles as soon as both gates were shut – rattle, rattle, rattle – and then off to the bottom gates to crank the paddles open, feet slipping on the frosty walkway as she hurried across from one side of the lock to the other. She leaned over the lock-side panting and watched the calm surface of the water at the foot of the gates.
Oh
God, nothing was happening. Nothing at all.
Then she saw a little tell-tale whirlpooling movement disturb the calm and grow into a churning torrent as the water rushed out of the open sluices into the cut below.

As soon as the lock had emptied and the lower water levels were even, the gates could be opened – but not until then. In the distance, she could hear the steady pop-pop of
Cetus
's engine. By the time it came round the corner she'd got one gate open and was battling with the other.

Pip brought the motor in and the butty followed alongside with Rosalind more or less steering. Pip ran up the steps.

‘Jolly good, Frances. You can shut them now and drop the paddles. I'll do the top ones.'

She leaned wearily against the beam, sucking at a huge blister on her palm. A hundred and something locks ahead. And all the way back again.

Rosalind was rather proud of herself for steering the butty into the lock, alongside the motor. True,
Aquila
had banged its nose hard against the sides once or twice, and for a moment she'd thought they were going to keep on going and crash into the gates at the other end, but Prudence had already raced up the steps with a rope and wrapped it around an iron post to hold the boat steady. She lifted the butty tiller out to keep it
from getting bashed on the lock-side – another Pip lesson – and waved up to Frances, who was sagging against the balance beam as though the effort of getting the lock ready had nearly killed her. The boats were rising on their magic carpet, Pip was back on the motor, Frances opening the gates, the motor nosing its way out, Pip picking up the butty tow rope as she passed its fore-end, Prudence holding the butty back so it didn't try to barge out as well and get jammed up. Once the motor was clear, Prudence let go and hopped back on board. For once, it went like clockwork.

They had left London behind and it was very pleasant and peaceful with the butty trundling along quietly. The hatches were more sheltered than the flat steering counter on the motor and if Rosalind opened the cabin doors, the warmth from the stove below toasted her red boots. She could stoke up the fire, put on the kettle, reach for a quick snack, if need be. They passed under bridges, meandered through fields and woods, past houses and cottages and gardens and pubs, with ducks and moorhens quacking and scooting around the boats for any scraps of food they had left. Every so often, another lock had to be negotiated. They got easier, with practice, and after about the sixth one she could bring
Aquila
in without banging against the sides. No stopping for lunch allowed; they had it on the go. Prudence
made tea and some corned-beef sandwiches and passed them up to her from the cabin. She ate and drank with one hand, steering with the other. After a while, she offered the tiller to Prudence.

‘Want a turn?'

Prudence shook her head. ‘No thanks. I don't want to get us stuck again.'

Life must have been pretty grim for her at the bank, Rosalind thought. No adventures. No excitement. No fun at all. Her own life had had its ups and downs but, on the whole, the ups had been more than the downs and there had been plenty of fun. She couldn't imagine how anybody could bear being shut up from nine to five, day after day, chained to a desk, doing some boring work. She'd done her share of ghastly jobs – waitressing, pulling pints, washing-up – but they'd only been temporary while she'd been resting. The same with this boating lark. It wasn't something she'd want to do for too long. How the real boat people stuck it all their lives was beyond understanding, but for the moment it was OK. As soon as the war was over, though, she'd go back to the stage. Everything would be starting up again. People coming home – directors, actors, writers. There'd be new ideas, new opportunities, new everything.

She was dreaming happily about this when they came to yet another lock and Pip had decided that
she should swop over with Frances and do the lock-wheeling for a bit.

‘Think you can manage it?'

Pip asked that all the time and it was never so much a question as an order to be obeyed, whether or not you felt you could do whatever it was. And she was far from sure that she could. Riding Pip's beastly bike would be bad enough but that was nothing to the prospect of dealing with a lock, alone and unaided.