Tuesday 28 March – early afternoon, leaving Cowley lock
Verity steered the Marigold while Polly cycled along the towpath, lock-wheeling as they steadily climbed towards Watford. Verity had tried to make Tom return to the warmth of the cabin, but he had refused. ‘I need to be here – freezing with you – because at some stage we, or rather you, will find the words, and I don’t want to miss the moment.’
She realised, as the miles passed, that Tom was more his own man now, someone who would never work for people like the Clements again. Even as she thought this and they passed other pairs heading south, dog-walkers on the towpath, a few fishermen freezing in this weather and the backs of terraced houses, warehouses and factories, she said nothing. She simply steered, or watched the geese flying over, or studied the bridges for children, although it was still too cold for them to come out to gob them. The mist was still thickening.
Why had her father not stopped her mother’s interference? Verity wondered. Why had he said, last time she went home with Polly, to force the truth from her mother, ‘Don’t give up on us, darling’? But then he had done nothing to make her want to be with them.
As they drew alongside Watford, Verity slipped into the cabin to plate up the rabbit and bacon stew, which should keep them all going. There was enough for Tom, especially as she had baked potatoes on the top shelf; potatoes bought off one of the allotment sales tables set up along the cut. In the next lock she handed a plate to Sylvia, who waited on the butty alongside, and Polly jumped down from the lock edge, shoved Tom up and ate her stew on the roof with him, while Verity forked hers, standing by the tiller.
No one spoke, just as she and Tom had not really yet spoken. Verity made herself concentrate on the bits of bacon, not the rabbit, because she was as sick of rabbit as Polly. Would Saul or Thomo have managed to trap pheasants on this trip, as well as the rabbits? Oh, she did hope so, although she knew that she shouldn’t complain about her long-eared friends, as it kept the girls’ meagre rations ticking over. Aloud, she wondered if the mist would ever lift, or would it still be here in the summer?
Sylvia called across from the butty, ‘Don’t be absurd – it’s only the last of the winter.’
Tom scraped clean his enamel plate. ‘Ah, but like an Indian summer, a late winter can be harder than at any time in the preceding months, and sometimes snow even falls in April.’
By the time Verity finished her stew, the lock was up to the level of the top cut. Time to open the gates. ‘I’ll do it,’ she declared.
Tom shook his head. ‘Please don’t. Polly, would you do a few more locks? It’s time Verity tried to talk, and me, too – it really is.’
Polly nodded and handed her empty plate to Verity, but said to Tom, ‘I won’t have Verity hurt again. No one on this cut will. What happened isn’t your fault – far from it, apart from letting her down at the all-important meeting at Sid’s – but it isn’t her fault, either, and you should know that. You have both been manoeuvred by the Clements, but you are adults, so sort it out. I will be watching, and into the cut you will go, Tom Brown, if you so much as say one word out of turn.’
Sylvia said, ‘Quite right, Polly. We won’t have her hurt, but neither will we have you hurt, Tom.’
Polly and Verity looked at one another and smiled. Were they becoming a real team of three, after all?
Once free of the lock, they headed along the cut towards yet another lock, but Verity said, ‘Unlike you, Tom, I’m not ready to talk, or listen. Not quite.’ He just nodded as they continued to climb the multitude of locks alongside Cassiobury Park and eased himself from the roof, collecting the plates and opening the cabin doors.
‘I’ll wash these, and make a cuppa for us all. Sylvia and Polly can have theirs in the next lock. I’m getting the hang of it all now. But why do you spend so much time looking at the bridges we come to? Do you think you’ll see another convoy of soldier boys?’
‘You might well find out why, young Tom; and no, it’s not to see soldiers, though it’s hard to miss them. Something is building, we think.’
Tom crabbed down the steps, washed the plates and cutlery and then made tea. He carried two mugs in each hand, and placed Polly’s and Sylvia’s on the cabin roof as the boats exited a lock and set out for the next. ‘I’ll give them a call once we’re in the next lock, but for now I have things to say, even if you haven’t. How about it?’
Verity nodded, though she was scared. She pressed her elbow against the tiller, feeling the engine’s vibration as usual. Yes, as usual. She sipped her tea, and that tasted weak, as usual. She prepared herself to listen.
‘I have loved you since the day I arrived at Howard House, Verity.’ Tom was leaning against the cabin, looking at her intently. ‘It wasn’t my place to feel that way, but neither was it yours to love a chauffeur. But somehow we came together, and I never once felt that you thought you were superior.’
Verity shook her head. ‘Of course I didn’t.’
He held up his hand. ‘Let me make an idiot of myself once more, and then you can tell me to go to hell.’
She nodded.
Tom continued, ‘There’s no “of course” about it. And your mother was right, you know; it was, or is, inappropriate.’
Verity knew he was speaking the truth. Her friends, if they were ever such, had thought so, as had everyone else, because where would they ‘fit’, and what would they do, out of their ‘places’? In her heart she had felt it too, sometimes, but when she was with Tom she always knew they’d find a way. The only ones who seemed to understand were Rogers, the butler, and Mrs B, the cook; though understanding wasn’t agreeing, and they often looked as though worry consumed them.
She inched the tiller over, as a pair passed on the way south with a full load. Coal from the Coventry coalfields for a factory? Or wood for Aylesbury, perhaps? Who knew.
Tom went on, ‘You wouldn’t listen to your mother’s concerns, and I didn’t encourage you to do so. I think your mother felt she had to do something to end it, foreseeing disaster – for everyone’s sake, and not just hers.’ He examined his hands in their striped gloves, as though looking for inspiration. He continued, ‘But, dearest Verity, if your mother hadn’t lied to you, and to me, by cooking up a slightly different story for each of us, I don’t know what would have happened. Would we have petered out, or simply continued in an impossible situation? The results of your mother’s behaviour changed me for the better. I am more of a man now, more able to see clearly, to understand others. What’s more, I can see why your mother did what she did.’
Verity was listening so carefully that she forgot to breathe.
Tom continued, ‘It’s given us a fresh start, if we want one, because we’ve moved on in our separate ways and grown up, but I truly don’t believe we’ve grown apart. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve been idiotic and miserable, blaming others. I’ve been cruel, childish. Yes, of course I should have crawled to that telephone box, and I knew that then and know it now. But please know that I love you, beyond all doubt. I love you more than anything else in my life – in my world – and always will; and I like and admire you, too. You are here, in my heart, if you want me, and even if you don’t. You are lodged there, and no matter where the army takes me, there you will remain. We’re two adults, two independent beings, free to decide who we love. And I have decided.’ He stopped, then spread his hands. ‘That’s all I have to say.’
Verity felt it was as though he was describing her ‘path’ as well as his own and, thinking of her mother, she imagined a daughter that she herself might have one day: wouldn’t she want what she thought was best for her daughter? Yes, probably; but she knew that whatever Tom said, she, Verity Clement, would never be as cruel to her own child as her mother had been to her, with her sharp tongue and her lies, which had left her heartbroken. There had to have been another way.
Tom was leaning against the cabin, looking at her. Verity said nothing as she sorted out her thoughts.
Finally she held up her hands. ‘This is who I am now – dirty, calloused, tough. My friends are these people.’ She waved ahead and behind. ‘My absolute friend is Polly, whose twin brother, Will, died in a tank in North Africa. She loves a boater, Saul, and will marry him, God willing. Bet was our trainer; she fell ill with pneumonia and took a long leave, but she is back now. She is my absolute friend, too. Both of them – and the cut – turned me from a spoilt, miserable, resentful brat into someone of use.’
Tom said nothing, just listened. The engine ticked over, pat-patter; the wind was in her hair, so the mist would lift; Dog was asleep, and birds flew overhead. Yes, this was her home; this was the world that had made her. ‘But it is not just the day-to-day life on the cut that’s changed me, Tom. Joe, Saul’s nephew, lives with Polly’s mum and dad for now, as his mother has gone missing. We fear that Leon, her husband, might have killed her, but all on the cut go on looking for her, just in case. Perhaps she’ll float to the surface; perhaps she’ll appear on the bank one day, ready to look after Joe. We taught him to read, and he is going to school in Woking and is safe from his father now. Saul and his grandfather have also learned to read. This is the world that has also made me.’
Tom, sitting now on the cabin roof, was listening so hard that she thought he’d fall forward, but he said nothing.
‘These are my people: the lock-keepers, the boaters, the wharfmen; and heaven help them when the war is over, because who knows if canal transport will continue? Heaven help us all when the war ends, because where will any of us be? What’s more, being here and listening to you makes me realise a great many things about myself. I do think I have more understanding. I do know – and this knowledge has never wavered – that I love you, and every day without you has been full of heartache. I do know that if we end the war and we are together, we will carve out a good life.’
There were no locks for the moment as they approached Kings Langley. Both stayed utterly silent, until Tom eased himself down and held Verity so close that she could hardly breathe. He said, ‘I have ten days to two weeks’ sick leave. If you can’t come away with me, can I stay here with you and make myself useful? I want to know all about you, the real you, but I don’t want to rush you. I want to get to know your friends – all of them, the whole bloody cut – if you, and they, will let me.’
Verity had no answer for him.
He understood and said, ‘When you know, just tell me.’
As clouds threatened, they reached Marsworth Junction, having climbed the Tring locks to the summit. The cold shrouded them, the wind had died and the mist returned. They started the descent while there was still some light, one lock after the other, and this time Sylvia took over the lock-wheeling, on the condition that it was Verity’s turn tomorrow. Tom managed on his leg all day, but looked drawn and pale.
‘Don’t you ever stop?’ he muttered as he cleaned the outside of the cabin, having already done the inside; polishing the range brass rail and wiping the pierced plates hanging on the wall.
Verity felt as though she was a block of ice melded to the tiller. ‘Do you ever stop advancing on the enemy? Don’t worry, we’ll get as far as Leighton Buzzard and moor up near the pub. You can buy us all a drink, and who knows – Saul might be there, or, if they’ve gone on, he could well have left a pheasant or two for us.’
Tom dipped his cloth over the side into the cut, wringing it out, then attacking the roof. ‘There’s ice forming.’
‘Then wipe more quickly.’
‘Oh, don’t. This is supposed to be sick leave.’ There were birds swooping over the cut and dogs barking. ‘So, may I stay on?
Verity had decided the moment he asked, but had waited to see if second thoughts drenched her with doubt. They hadn’t. ‘Yes, I’d like that so much. I will ask the others, because it depends on them, too. We’re a team, or trying to be. Polly will be all right, but Sylvia might object. It will mean someone sharing her cross-bed with her in the butty cabin, you see, and the third person taking the side-bed. You and Dog can settle down together in the motor cabin, which Polly and I usually share.’
He looked at her while he wrung out the freezing cloth. ‘One day we’ll be able to share the same room, if you ever feel able to marry me. Would you, do you think – marry me, I mean?’
‘Do you think you’d ask me?’
They left it there.