The Narrowboat Girl (17 page)

He brought her round in front of him and she took the handle of the windlass which was warm from his grip on it. Each of the men had a favourite one or two of these implements for turning the locks, and the handle of Joel’s was smoothed with use. His rough hand tightened over hers, concealing it completely and together they turned on the windlass, opening the gate to let the
Esther Jane
through now that the water was level. Maryann felt the immense strength of Joel’s arm.

Just before they reached Wigram’s Turn where Joel had told her they would join the Oxford Canal, Maryann was in the cabin and heard Joel and Darius suddenly start shouting and calling outside. She was astonished to hear them so voluble and excited and she poked her head out to see them both waving like mad at a boat approaching from the other direction.

The man at the other tiller was waving back.

‘Who’s that?’ she asked.

‘That’s our Darius,’ Joel said.

As they drew nearer, Maryann saw a large, muscular man with black hair curling out from under his cap, dark eyes and strong, chiselled features. He wore a rather solemn, austere expression. He reminded her of Ada except he didn’t have her cheeky grin. She wondered if old Mr Bartholomew had looked like that as a young man. The younger Darius was one of the crew on a Fellows, Morton and Clayton boat which was lying low in the water, its hold heaped high with packing cases.

There was a lot of ‘how do’ing and exchanges of greeting as the boats passed.

‘You’re low in the water,’ Joel called out. ‘You’ll ’ave sparrows drinking from yer gunwhales!’

The young Darius grinned back and what had looked rather a forbidding face lit up suddenly and Maryann decided he looked nice after all. Joel called out that he should keep an eye out for Ada with Josiah Morley and there were shouts of ‘see yer at Christmas time if not before!’ and then they were past. That was the nearest they were going to get to a family reunion. The boats had to keep moving. Maryann wanted to ask Joel more about his family but she was shy in front of the elder Darius.

She helped Joel as they went up the flight of locks south of Napton, carefully doing everything she was told. The day became blisteringly hot as they set off down the Oxford Canal, so much so that Maryann found that at times she could barely touch anything on the outside of the cabin without scorching herself. She busied herself with the mop. The sun glared off the water, blinding to the eyes, and she felt her nose and cheeks turning red and sore. There were trees in a few places close to the canal, but mostly it ran through remote, open fields, and the need to keep the towpaths clear meant discouraging anything inclined to hang down over the cut. So there was little shade either for the boat or for Bessie.

For a time, Maryann walked beside Bessie along the path, enjoying the feel of stretching her legs, the smells of the fields and the hot horse beside her. Bessie wore little crocheted sleeves on her ears to keep the flies off and she seemed to plod more slowly in the intense heat. The route wound and twisted along, nestling against the contours of hills. Sometimes there were villages and little wharves tucked right beside the canal but much of the time there were just the fields stretching into the distance, trees outlined against the skyline, and it felt as if they might not see anyone else ever again. The only sounds were the rustling reeds and the twittering of invisible birds. Once she saw a huge bird lift from the bank ahead of her, its legs trailing, flying off with a heavy, cumbersome flapping of its wings.

Later, back on board, Joel told her it was a heron. She went into the cabin. It was stifling hot in there and a heavy bluebottle was batting against the windows. Maryann felt like lying down and going to sleep, but she knew she mustn’t. The last thing she wanted was to be seen being lazy.

Joel’s head appeared at the door. ‘’Ent you got a bonnet with you?’

She shook her head. ‘I ran off in such a hurry – I forgot it.’

He hesitated for a moment, then seemed to decide something. He came into the cabin, squatted down and rummaged right at the back of the cupboard he called the ‘monkey ’ole’. He brought out a large, squashed paper bag and from it he drew an old-fashioned boatwoman’s bonnet with a peak at the front and layers of black frills which went right over the top of the head and ended up hanging down at the back.

Maryann stared at it. It looked old and dusty, like a dead raven.

‘It were my mother’s,’ Joel told her gruffly. ‘She ’ad it made special in black when the old Queen died. These ’ere bits’ – he pulled at the long material at the back – ‘them’s your curtains – ’ll keep the sun off yer neck.’

Was he expecting her to wear it? The hat looked so worn and old-fashioned. It was a heavy,
ugly
thing and she wished she had her little straw bonnet with her.

‘I can’t put that on. Not if it was your mom’s.’ This was a rather awesome thought.

‘I’d like to see yer in it.’ Joel held it out to her. ‘It’s ten year since it were worn. She passed on before I came home.’

‘Why daint Ada wear it?’

‘Oh – she had her own bonnet.’

Seeing she didn’t take it, he put it on her head himself. Maryann felt strange, seeing the fond look in his eyes. The bonnet felt much too loose.

‘Bit big on you, ent it? But it’ll do just for a bit while it’s so hot. We don’t want you getting caught by the sun.’

Joel was the last person Maryann would ever want to offend so she smiled uncertainly at him. She felt like a granny in the bonnet. She had seen a few older women wearing them along the cut.

She followed him up out of the cabin. As she straightened up she saw Darius’s eyes fasten on her. He actually started at the sight of her and a look of utter outrage came over his face.

‘What’s ’er doing in that?’ he demanded.

‘I thought she could wear it for a bit,’ Joel said. ‘She ent brought a bonnet with ’er. And it’s nice to see it wore again.’

Joel had made a terrible mistake. Maryann could see just how terrible by the look in Darius Bartholomew’s eyes.

‘That’s my Esther’s bonnet – moy best mate. Not one else ever wears that bonnet. Get it off yer, lass!’

Maryann was already tearing the hat from her head, her hands trembling at the emotion in the old man’s voice. Joel took it from her.

‘Sorry, Dad – only I thought yer’d like to see it on again, the way I did.’

Darius was breathing heavily. ‘Put it away.’

Joel ducked back into the cabin with the bonnet. Maryann couldn’t look up. Her cheeks were burning and she had a horrible feeling inside as if she’d committed a crime. She had offended Mr Bartholomew so badly when what she wanted more than anything was for him to accept her. It was unbearable that he would think her uppity enough to take his dead wife’s bonnet and wear it.

‘I’m ever so sorry, Mr Bartholomew,’ she managed to say, her voice quavering.

‘It weren’t your idea I don’t s’pose,’ Darius said abruptly.

Though she knew this was true, his rough words scarcely made her feel any better. Joel came back out and laid a hand on her shoulder for a moment.

‘My mistake, not yours,’ he said.

But it was not until much later that day that the feeling of discomfort this incident had brought Maryann began to ease off and she could feel a little more comfortable with Darius Bartholomew again. After that she doubled her efforts to show him she could work hard and try to please him.

That night, after fourteen hours on the go, they tied up at Fenny Compton, where there was a small wharf and a pub. A couple of other boats were tied up there and the men went out to the pub as usual after they’d eaten. Maryann didn’t mind being left behind. She rather liked the novelty of having the cabin to herself.

As it was so warm, she didn’t feel like slaving away cleaning the cabin. She was hot and tired and she went out and sat on the bank in the evening air. She could smell smoke and food cooking and she breathed in deeply, a great feeling of well-being coming over her.

Glancing towards the pub, she suddenly noticed that Joel was on the bridge and there was a young woman with him. Maryann screwed up her eyes to see better. She was short and rounded looking, with a wide, healthy face and curly brown hair. She and Joel were standing quite close together, relaxed, each leaning on the bridge, and now and then their laughter floated over to her. Maryann was immediately curious. Was she someone Joel was very close to? She found herself full of mixed feelings. Joel had told her he had been courting a girl before the war changed everything. Of course he’d want to get married like other men, but she had had in her mind a future stretching ahead in which she could live on the
Esther Jane
and everything would stay the same.

After a time, the two of them left the bridge and walked round the wall of the pub, out of sight. Maryann sat on, feeling suddenly desolate. She wasn’t really part of all this, however much she wanted to be.

When Joel came back in she was already lying down. ‘Who was that lady you was talking to?’

He frowned for a second.

‘On the bridge.’

‘Oh – that’s Rose.’ He laughed, then coughed to clear his chest. ‘Ent seen ’er in a good long while. We’ve been catching up.’

‘She’s pretty,’ Maryann said. She knew she sounded sulky.

‘S’pose she is. Known ’er all my life.’

‘Are you going to marry her?’

To her surprise, both men started laughing.

‘Marry Rose? Bit late for that – she’s got a chap and three kiddies, Rose ’as!’

Maryann went off to sleep feeling much happier. However much she told herself she was stupid to think she could have Joel all to herself, the thought of him being in love with that pretty Rose had made her feel jealous and left out.

The next day was just as long, and in the evening they pulled into Thrupp where the canal was edged by little terraces of canal workers’ cottages. Joel told her they were now only about three hours away from Oxford.

She helped to get the range going and cook the food. Joel had also made her responsible for unharnessing Bessie, feeding and stabling her. On these scorching days she also had to wipe out Bessie’s eyes with a rag dipped in paraffin, to keep them free from flies and parasites. Mostly, as they went about their evening chores, even Maryann was too tired to speak. Darius went off and kept himself separate, collecting water, or coal if they needed it, and at Thrupp he asked around for return loads to take back north after they had delivered the pipes in Oxford. She and Joel did their chores, often in silence, but always at ease. Sometimes he looked at her and smiled and she’d grin back.

She was more than ready for bed every night after all the physical activity and fresh air of the daytime. As they drew further south away from Birmingham, home seemed more and more unreal, like a bad dream. In the daytime she was so caught up in all the details needed to keep the
Esther Jane
on the move that she barely had time to think, and that suited her very well. She wanted to forget all of it: Sal, Norman Griffin. When she did allow herself time to think, she was filled with anxiety. Where had Sal gone? Was she with Charlie Black and were they both all right? And what about Tony and Billy, left at home? Most of all she felt badly for Tony, about her going off and leaving him. But nothing would have made her give up these days on the cut. Nothing.

By ten the next morning they were pulling into Juxon Street wharf in Oxford amid a collection of boats waiting to unload. The wharf was very busy. Maryann stabled Bessie, gave her a feed and cleaned her harness. She wound her way back to the
Esther Jane
through the stacks of cargo standing on the wharf waiting to be collected: coal and stone, barrels, packing cases, sacks. The hard work of loading and unloading was going on all round and she could have stood all morning watching, but instead she hurried back and got the stove going to make cups of tea. The
Esther Jane
was due a big clean-out while they were tied up. In the meantime she heated more water, got the tin tub and dolly from off the roof and did some washing, scrubbing at the men’s thick corduroy trousers, struggling to lift them when they were saturated with water.

‘They’re
filthy
,’ she said to Joel, pummelling them wearily with the dolly. Her shoulders were aching like mad.

‘You should see ’em after a hold full of coal.’ Joel grinned. ‘
That’s
filthy!’

The afternoon passed loading the
Esther Jane
, the long iron pipes swinging high in the air above her head before being deposited with a loud clanking on the bank. Joel and Darius were preoccupied with securing a return load to take north again. The country wharves sometimes wanted loads of grain taken up for grinding in the Birmingham mills, but it was close to a new harvest now and the stores were low. They needed to find something in Oxford. Joel went off to some of the other wharves, and by late afternoon he had secured a load of timber to be taken to Birmingham. In the meantime, Maryann strung the washing along the boat and helped Darius to swill her out with water. She was ill at ease being left to work with him, but she did everything he said to the letter and by the end of the afternoon she felt that even if she did not have his approval in great measure, at least he had accepted the help she was offering and she had not let herself down.

Eighteen

That evening though, for the first time, she felt lonely. With the work done and the cargo to be loaded in the morning, Joel and his father went to see Joel’s auntie, Darius’s sister, and then for a few pints at the pubs round Jericho, the area near the wharf. Maryann, as ever, was left alone.

She cleared up the tea things, put everything away. The men brought food in daily if they could, as nothing would keep in the heat, so there was only a bit of bread and bacon on board for next morning. The place was tidy, and as she had been washing and cleaning most of the day she could think of nothing she needed to busy herself with. Now they had achieved the journey down to Oxford the urgency had gone out of things. Before, she hadn’t minded being left here, had rather relished having the cabin to herself, but tonight, with nothing to do, she felt suddenly bereft. She sat by the table for a time, biting her nails, and unwelcome thoughts of home and Norman Griffin began to crowd into her mind. She knew if she started on that it would just keep on going round in her head. No – she must think about anything but him.