Sunday 2 April – the Marigold’s arrival at Tyseley Wharf
The Hatton locks, in spite of being much closer to Birmingham, had become Polly’s least-favourite flight, but it was mainly because she was always exhausted after the long slog. It was also something to do with the rushes, which looked so dark and sinister. But it was Verity’s turn to lock-wheel and she thanked her lucky stars that she was just steering.
Polly changed with Verity to handle the Knowle flight of locks, the last before Birmingham, and as she cycled past Marigold she envied Verity and Tom their time together, but knew it was short. Dodging a puddle, she wondered about Saul again, hoping he’d forgotten about enlisting; but would the longing start again, once his new friend Tom left for war?
She cycled past allotments, waving at those who were hoeing and planting. Was her dad doing so yet? Were her mum and Joe helping? She remembered how she and Will would be drafted in to weed, and to pick the sprouts. She liked the picking, but not the weeding, because the soil seemed to clutch at the roots. Was she clutching at Saul? She must not, for the boaters needed their freedom. She cycled on.
A flyboat passed on its way to London. She waved, and the young men called ‘’Ow do.’ She looked behind as Tom steered away from the centre, giving them space. She could see Verity cleaning the outside of the cabin. Behind, on the butty, Sylvia was doing the same. She smiled to herself and cycled off again; there were locks to open and close, miles to travel, cargoes to deliver, with the team.
She whizzed beneath a bridge. Ahead an elderly couple were walking their equally elderly Labrador. She slowed. ‘Good morning.’ It seemed rude to use her bell. She swerved onto the grass verge, and the man called in his Birmingham accent, which underlay the boaters’ dialect, ‘’Ow do.’
She lock-wheeled until they were past Knowle. Next stop, Brum, as the boaters called it. The bridges were more frequent and warehouses lined the cut, shutting out the spring sun. Barrage balloons tugged at their moorings. Factories belched smoke from their soot-stained chimneys. Soon, very soon, at the end of the week, it would be Easter. It meant little to Polly, because they had a cargo to deliver.
The traffic became more congested as they had to wait for oncoming pairs to come through bridge-holes. She kept on cycling under the overhanging trees rather than return to the boats, reluctant to invade Verity and Tom’s privacy, or that of Sylvia, who seemed preoccupied and distant once more.
She skirted a wide part of the cut, with some dead leaves still on the surface, even after the long winter. They were half an hour away from Tyseley now, and from the public baths and a bed at Mrs Green’s boarding house. She flashed a look behind her. Would Tom come to the baths? She heard Marigold’s hooter signalling that they would pull in under the next bridge for her. Soon they’d be amongst the noise of the wharf, the warehouses and the cranes, breathing in the smell of soot and industry.
‘But please, please don’t unload us too quickly. Please be busy. Please let us have a hot bath, and a bed on land,’ she said aloud as she finally clambered onto the butty, in order to leave the lovebirds on the Marigold in peace for a little longer, and slung the bike on the roof.
Sylvia said, ‘I can’t wait for a bath either. I do so hope the wharf is busy, and I’m sorry Saul won’t be there this time. We were so wretchedly slow that he and Granfer must be at least a couple of days ahead.’
Polly smiled. Sylvia’s remoteness came and went, and it had gone again. Did Tom make the difference, or was it, as Tom had suggested, the teamwork she experienced when Sandy fell in?
Within twenty minutes they were at the wharf, the kerb of which was almost on a level with the boats, unlike Limehouse Basin, which always loomed above them. Pairs queued ahead, still unloaded, and even as they moored, they heard other boats approaching from the south and Polly’s heart lifted. She said to Sylvia, ‘Maybe we’ll get that bath and bed.’
Sylvia grinned. The foreman trotted across to Verity, moored just in front on Marigold. ‘’Ow do – be tomorrer, t’will. Break yer ’earts, no doubt, to be nipping off and ’aving a shop, or whatever it is yer do with yerselves, though I sees yer have an ’itch-’iker. Been in the wars, lad? Ah well, bit of a cruise does yer good.’
Polly heard Tom’s strong laugh. She smiled at Sylvia. ‘Let’s clean up the old dear and then head for the trams, eh, Sylvia?’
As they began, Tom and Verity went to fetch the letters. On their return, Verity pointed towards the head of the queue of boats and shouted, ‘Isn’t that Seagull and Swansong? They should have been loaded a few days ago, surely.’
Polly nipped onto the kerb and saw that Verity was right. She broke into a smile, jogging along the wharf and weaving past men who were arguing about who should do what, as a lorry revved up behind them. The driver wound down his window and leaned out, a cigarette in his mouth. ‘Make up your bloody minds; this lot ain’t going to unload itself.’
She ran around crates, keeping her eyes on Saul and Granfer, and on Harry, the runabout, as they clambered onto the kerb of the wharf. ‘Saul, oh, Saul,’ she called out. He looked round and she ran into his open arms and felt his strength enfold her. ‘Did you break down? Why are you so late? Oh, Saul, I miss you so much, all the time.’
He tightened his hold. ‘And me too, lass.’
She breathed in the scent of him, but then drew back. It was different – clean. She looked up at him. ‘Have you had a bath?’ His gaze slid from her, and she reached up, holding his face so that he had to look at her. ‘Saul, where have you been?’
Granfer cut in. ‘Ah, lass, we been to Buckby to see me sister Lettie. She writes to me now I can read and said to come fer our lunch and a bit of a natter.’ He coughed, and Polly heard the rattle of his chest. Granfer continued, patting her shoulder, ‘Yer lad ’ad an bath, I ’ad me chest wrapped in goose grease and brown paper. He stinks clean, I stink o’ goose, but Lettie reckons it’ll do the trick. She always were the bossy one. Gettin’ on a bit now, she is, and her Arthur ’as gone to dust, so she’s a mite lonely, or so I reckon.’
She looked from one to the other. ‘I’m so pleased, partly because it held you up, but it must have been lovely to see Lettie, Granfer. Perhaps one day I can meet her, too, when we’ve time to stop. We can call in on Fran, Bet’s friend, too, and pick up some honey from their hives. Not sure how close their house is to Lettie’s?’
Harry was pulling at Granfer’s sleeve, asking him something in a low voice. Granfer smiled and answered, ‘Course yer can, lad. I saw yer da’s boat up ahead, too, and they’re loading his cargo, so he’ll be away soon, and he’ll ’spect yer to say ’ow do.’
Harry started to run off and then spun on his heel, tipping his hat at Polly and shouting out, ‘’E don’t ’alf smell sweet, yer Saul, don’t ’e, Polly? But ’e’s been right rude about us who pong. Yer just watch yerself, or yer’ll be catchin’ an earful an all.’
Polly laughed and turned back to Saul, who was calling after the lad, ‘Yer just wait, Harry. I’ll roast yer, so I will.’
She said, ‘Leave the lad, you great brute, and just think about how I’ll smell like sweet violets by the time we girls have been to the public baths. So why not meet us again at the Bull and Bush pub at the end of Mrs Green’s boarding house street. Then Granfer will be the only one ponging.’ She hoped her voice sounded light and carefree, when really she wanted to beg Saul to come. He mustn’t feel tethered, though.
Saul laughed loud and long. ‘I’ll be doing that, don’t yer fret, my lovely lass, and I’ll bring Verity’s Tom, too, but we have things to do before then. Now, off yer go. Verity’s talking pretty straight to the foreman, and it’ll be chop-chop to the baths, I reckon.’
She shook her head. ‘No, it won’t. It’s chop-chop to clean up the boats, and only then to the baths. She’ll be telling him Bet’s stuck at Mikey’s with a beggar of an engine. Tom got her that far by stripping a fuel line or something, but that was only a temporary measure.’
Verity came to stand with them. ‘Put Saul down, you bad girl, we need you to clean up. Tom’s walking Dog, then says he and Saul are off to do boys’ things and, if we’re nice, they’ll buy us a present. If not, they won’t; anyway, they’ll meet us later. He says we’re to book a room for him at Mrs Green’s, after he’s had a bath, but I dare say Saul will want to come back to the wharf to be with Granfer?’ She turned and walked back to Marigold.
Polly kissed Saul hard on the lips. ‘Let me know about the room, and come to the Bull and Bush if you can.’
He pulled her to him, kissed her, his eyes closed, and whispered, ‘I’ll need to stay with Seagull for the night. Granfer worries me, so he does, with his chest an’ all.’ She understood and couldn’t have left the old man, either.
‘But you’ll be at the pub?’ she persisted.
‘Try and keep me away,’ Saul said, kissing her hand as she turned, then pulling her back once more and hugging her. ‘We’ll look after Dog an’ all, whiles you’re sleeping in a proper bed.’
She ran back to the Marigold. In the cabin Verity waved a letter at her. ‘From your mum, and one for me. I sent some sums for Joe, but I expect he does them with one hand tied behind his back by now. I asked him to tell me if they were too hard for Jimmy Porter, who should be letting us have his lessons, but they’ve gone on. Harry’s da thinks they’ll be at Bull’s Bridge on our return.’
Polly sat on the roof and read her mum’s letter, which mentioned weeding at the allotment and her evening games of Snakes and Ladders with Joe, and dwelt on his progress at school, and how pleased she was that Tom was with them. Polly smiled, and read Joe’s note at the bottom, about looking forward to the Easter school holidays and the Easter-egg hunt that Auntie Joyce had promised him; she smiled again. It’s what her mum had done for her and Will, even if it was only a painted hard-boiled egg. She folded the letter and put it in her pocket.
‘Mum’s pleased Tom’s back with you.’
Verity was washing the walls. ‘Oh, you told her.’
Polly picked up the mop and bucket and carried it to the steps, then stopped. ‘No, you must have done.’
There was a pause as Verity reached for the ceiling above Polly, working around her and saying finally, ‘Oh, you know me. I can’t remember from one day to the next, but I’m pleased she’s pleased, if you follow me.’
Polly lugged the bucket up onto the counter. ‘Mum just wants us both to be happy. Not sure what she really feels about Saul, though. I reckon they think I’ll outgrow him, but on the other hand, perhaps they really do like him? They certainly love Joe.’
Over on the butty Sylvia was on her hands and knees, scrubbing the counter. Polly looked at her mop and bucket and sighed. She nipped along to the stores shed and gathered up the scrubbing brush, then returned, hearing the hoot of a lorry, and curses. Ahead of Marigold a crane was swinging a load of pallets from a lorry onto a narrowboat. Someone was yelling. Well, someone was always yelling.
She scrubbed the counter, her knees becoming wet. Suddenly she was sick to death of being wet and filthy, and even more fed up with the endless cleaning. She kept going, her hands red and sore now, but when weren’t they? Finally she slung the brush into the bucket, dipped the mop in the cut, wrung it out and rinsed the counter.
It was the turn of the cabin roof next, and automatically she set about it while the gulls called, cranes clanked, men shouted, machinery from the workshops screamed, an external telephone bell sounded and a tannoy crackled. Then it was the turn of the cabin sides. She was in a rhythm. Inside, Verity would be polishing. It would have been the maid’s job in Howard House. She grinned to herself and called out, ‘You should wear a little black uniform, a bonnet and pinny, Verity.’
‘You should be quiet,’ Verity yelled, but then laughed. ‘Anyway, I’m going to offer to help Sylvia, now this is done. We have been sleeping there, after all.’
She emerged onto the deck, her hair awry. Polly said, ‘You look like the woman with snakes in her hair.’
Sylvia called from the butty roof, ‘Medusa, you mean. And yes, she does. And I’ve cleaned inside and out, but thank you anyway. I have made spam sandwiches for the three of us, and then I want a bath; and I don’t want to wait too long, and that’s jolly well that, so there.’
When Polly and Verity emerged from the cabin, Sylvia was on the quay, slapping her arms around her in the cool wind, her grip at her side. They heard Dog barking, and Tom came across the yard, dodging the lorries and workers. He was using just one stick now, and the other was Dog’s plaything.
Verity handed him the keys. ‘You know where the baths are. I wrote it down, remember?’
His salute was a good deal smarter than theirs would have been. The three girls ran across the yard, aching to be free of the cut and its environs and longing to soak in the deep, hot water, which had become a tradition inherited from Bet. They gobbled down the sandwiches on the tram, then sat back as it rumbled towards the baths, jumping off when the soot-streaked building was in sight, running to it and into the lobby. Panting, they paid their ninepence each from the housekeeping kitty.
The lady behind the counter slammed her hand on the counter bell and, like the good fairy, Mrs Green – plump, grey-haired and rosy-cheeked – appeared through the door on the right, in her starched white uniform. She opened her arms, then dropped them again. ‘No,’ she said, ‘not till yous clean, not after last time.’
They all laughed, even Sylvia, who at the time had been mortified at the smudges they had left on the pristine Mrs Green. Sylvia said now, ‘I still don’t know how you stay so starched in all this steam.’
They followed Mrs Green into a cavernous white-tiled room, which was divided into cubicles. ‘Same cubicles as always,’ she said. She pointed to Number Two. ‘That’s yous, Blondie. Polly, yous is next; and little Miss Sylvia is the next, and nice and spotless she leaves it, too. Cleanliness is next to godliness, our parish priest says. He’d like yous, lass, but he’d know when ’e was beaten with t’other two.’
She winked at the three of them.
‘Yer can go up to the top line marked on t’side of the bath, sluice it, then fill it once more. Towels on the back of the doors – two each. I’ve left soda and a scrubbin’ brush for each o’ yous at the end. See if yous, Blondie, and yous, Polly, can change the ’abits of a lifetime and leave it so it sparkles. Needs some elbow-grease, so it do.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Green, I think,’ grinned Verity. ‘By the way, Bet will be in sometime with her lot. I think they’re sending her a new trainee to make up the crew. They’ll meet at Braunston.’
Sylvia was letting herself into Number Four. They heard her bolt the door. Mrs Green nodded. ‘I ’eard. Nothing much happens that my Alf don’t ’ear about, swinging around in his great big crane. Staying tonight, is yous?’
‘If you have rooms, Mrs Green. But we need an extra, for Tom Brown.’ Verity sounded tentative all of a sudden.
‘Yes, I ’eard about ’im an’ all. Didn’t turn up when he should ’ave, but managed to swing it anyway, so he must have something, if you’ve forgiven him. In yous go, Blondie; it’s three-thirty now, and I dare say you needs to be at Bull and Bush fer yous tea, and darts.’
Verity entered her cubicle and bolted the door. Polly heard her murmur, ‘Oh, bliss.’ The sound of the tap running covered anything else.
Polly waited while Mrs Green opened the door to Number Three. ‘There you go, Miss Polly Pocket, and I ’ear yous and yous Saul are still sticking it out. Warms me ’eart. He’s a good ’un, a keeper. You just remember that, that’s what I says. In yous go.’
Polly entered. The white tiles gleamed. She stood on the doormat, bolted the door behind her, dropped her grip, removed her boots and socks and turned on the tap. Did Mr P. O. Thompson at the Ministry of War Transport tell the trainees about the filth? Well, Potty, as they called him, hadn’t told her, not in any detail. Neither had he told her about the public baths that saved the sanity of many a girl, or woman, who joined up. But Bet did, and to heaven she would go.
The steam was billowing as Polly ran hot water into the bath almost up to the 8-inch line. She ran in some cold, tested it, ripped off the rest of her clothes, putting them into the dirty half of a sheet they each carried, and stepped in. As she lowered herself she heard Verity singing softly, ‘I’m in the mood for love.’ Sylvia joined in, with her marvellous soprano, ‘Simply because you’re near me.’ Polly eased herself down, letting the warmth wash over her, listening to the other two and catching up in the second verse. ‘Oh, is it any wonder.’ And all three of them chimed in with: ‘I’m in the mood for love.’
Then there was silence, until Verity said, as though half asleep, ‘Never ever wake me. I am in heaven right now, and I don’t think I can live any longer without running hot water.’
Polly smiled, almost floating herself. But then Sylvia said, ‘One day the war will end, and we’ll look back on this as a time of immense freedom and purpose. It’s not real life, you know. It’s just a pause.’
Verity pulled out her plug, the water glugged as it drained, and Polly knew she would be spooning the gunge from the bottom of the bath, then spraying the tub with the hand-shower as she shouted above the noise. ‘Well, it’s a pause that would be greatly improved by hot running water, so there. And now I’m going to wash my hair, have another soak, and only then am I going to scrub-a-dub-dub the bath. We will then toddle to the Bull and Bush and hope that, just for once, Gladys can serve our fish or sausage tea without a fag in her mouth, and her ash dropping onto the chips.’
Polly knew, at that moment, that Sylvia was right. This was just a pause, but one filled with friendship, shared hardship and love. She sat up, hauled herself out of the bath and rubbed herself dry. Where had Saul and Tom been off to so secretly? She feared it was to sign up, but Saul had just been turned down. She ran another bath, soaked, washed her hair, counting the tiles on the wall, not thinking of the war, or of Saul, or Ted – Steerer Mercy’s son-in-law, who had beaten the Reserved Occupation order.
She let out the water once more, then scrubbed furiously at the bath, as the soda fumes stung her eyes. She dressed, putting on her boots, and sat down on the painted wooden chair, listening to the rustling, the whistling of Verity, the humming of ‘Begin the Beguine’. She joined in.
Yes, Sylvia was right. This was a pause in the whole of their lives. She clung to the word. A pause, and who knew how long that meant. It could even be forever, but in the meantime she would write it on her mind, and live in the present. She heard Verity drawing the bolt and joined her in the white-tiled corridor, and Sylvia, too. Polly said, ‘Those were wise words.’
‘Which ones?’ Sylvia asked, hitching her grip onto her shoulder. Her hair was still wet and smelt of shampoo.
‘That life on the cut is a pause.’
Sylvia nodded, looking down. ‘They are wise, aren’t they, but they’re not mine.’
Verity turned. ‘Whose then – your mother’s?’
Sylvia shook her head and said nothing more, just walked along and out into the foyer, thanking Mrs Green, who waited for them by the counter. Mrs Green put her head on one side. ‘They is wise words, whoever said them, lass. I’ll think of ’em when me sons come to mind, out there on them seas, protecting the convoys. We got to live, girls. Live in the pause, and not be frightened. Fear is a right nuisance, and it be just thoughts.’ Mrs Green held open the door to the outside. The noise of traffic hit them.
‘We’ll go straight to the pub for our tea, and then on to you in the evening. Should we know what numbers our rooms are?’ Verity huddled behind her scarf.
Mrs Green smiled. ‘Four, Five and Six; and yous young bloke, Tom, is on the floor below. Can’t be having any ’anky-panky, even if it is wartime; that’s what I say.’ As they left, she kissed them, one by one.
She always smells of washing soda, thought Polly. As they walked down the steps Verity said, ‘Let’s make a pact, the three of us. Let’s try not to think of what might happen in the future. And if it comes into our heads, we’ll say to ourselves, or to one another: It’s just a pause.’
Sylvia said, ‘But what happens after the pause?’
Polly slipped her arm through Sylvia’s. ‘We go on, with whatever our lives become. It’s all we can do.’
Verity muttered, ‘Fine words butter no parsnips.’
‘Ah, but at least they’re fine, and we must either believe, or pretend to believe, in them.’
They stood at the side of the road, waiting for a break in the traffic. A lorry from the wharf stopped, hooted and gestured them across. They waved and began to cross. He hooted as they passed in front. They jumped, he laughed and they did, too.
Polly said, to no one in particular, as they were caught in a stream of pedestrians heading the same way, ‘Who’ll bet me it’s Verity who gets Gladys’s fag ash, when she brings us the Bull and Bush food? Any takers?’
‘Don’t you dare break your ethics and bet, Sylvia. Because this dreadful girl will jog our Gladys to make absolutely sure it drops over my plate.’
They were laughing as they hurried along in the glum light. Clouds had gathered and seemed to bounce back the light from the searchlights. Polly realised how the accoutrements of war had become part of everyone’s lives. But since the Blitz had finished, there was no cause for alarm; after all, the Luftwaffe was busy in the east, fighting the Russians, and the Allies … Stop thinking, Polly insisted to herself. She finally said, ‘Never mind the bet then, we’ll just thrash the locals at darts.’
They had almost reached the now-familiar Bull and Bush, the door of which opened onto the corner. Once upon a time, pre-war, light would have fallen out onto the pavement, along with the drunks, but the blackout was still in existence, and the beer wasn’t plentiful or strong enough for too many drunks. Their boots seemed to crash against the pavement as they hurried along, weaving round a pile of discarded rubbish and past the bombed-out buildings they had come to know so well. Sometimes a charred beam would crash; the last time an Edwardian iron fireplace, which had hung like a piece of strange art on a bedroom wall, had creaked and fallen, only to be caught on some sort of cord. It still dangled there. Rosebay willowherb would probably grow over all the damage when the weather grew warmer, just as it grew over the ruins everywhere else, come summer.
The girls heard laughter from the pub and smiled at one another. They crossed the road and went into the lobby, closing the door behind them, and only then did they draw aside the heavy curtain and enter the fug of cigarette and pipe smoke. Sylvia snapped at Polly, ‘I hate this. We wash, get clean, come here and leave, stinking of stale smoke. I wish I’d gone straight to the boarding house.’
Polly and Verity didn’t look at one another, but Polly said quietly, ‘Mrs Green won’t be back yet, but you can wait on her steps. She’ll be there soon, but what will you eat?’
Sylvia tutted. Verity grimaced, ‘Stay with us and have a generous helping of ash.’
Sylvia said too loudly, ‘Like I said, I don’t know why we come.’
Polly felt anger stirring, at the insult to the regulars. She muttered into Sylvia’s ear, ‘Why do you fight the inevitable. You know full well this is our world, and that it’s the same every trip. If you don’t want to come, go back to Horizon. For heaven’s sake, we’re in a pause, aren’t we? It is what it is, and it’s not forever; and it’s safe, and think of those fighting. That isn’t safe. And what’s more, these people live here, and like it.’
Sylvia crossed her arms and stomped to a spare table right in the corner of the room, beneath a tatty print of seventeenth-century Birmingham.
Verity raised an eyebrow at Polly. ‘Oh dear, cross-patch,’ Verity said. ‘Feel better now?’
‘Oh, shut up,’ Polly murmured, turning back to the bar.
Verity leaned on it with her. ‘I say even more firmly: Oh dear. Let’s buy Sylvia a large sherry, if Boris has one under the bar. Sweet, very sweet, because …’ The girls exchanged a grin.
Polly shook her head. ‘It’s my fault. I’m just not in the mood for one of her moods, so I’ll pay.’
Verity nodded. ‘That you will. A large sweet sherry, if you would, Boris; and a pint of mild for you, my girl, and the same for me. Polly, Sylvia really is getting much better, and I hope it means she’s happier.’
The menu was the same as always, chalked on the board behind the bar. Polly called to Sylvia over the hubbub, ‘Fish and chips or sausage and mash?’
A group of men playing dominoes, with mufflers at their necks, nodded at Polly. One called, ‘Game of darts soon, Missus?’
Verity called, ‘Dig deep into those pockets, boys. The Waterway Girls are here.’
A group of three women who were drinking stout cackled. ‘Yous tell ’em, lass.’
Sylvia looked up from playing with a beer mat. ‘Fish and chips, please. And thank you, Polly.’
Polly smiled with relief as Verity picked up the tray of drinks. Boris was wiping the counter, then flung the cloth down, took out his ordering pad, licked his finger to flick over the page and fumbled above his ear for his stub of pencil. ‘Right yous are, Polly, what’s it to be? Her over there wants fish and chips, right, but the sausages is off.’
Polly raised her eyebrows. ‘It’ll be so difficult to choose then, won’t it, Boris? I know, let’s have the fish.’
Boris could hardly write for chuckling. ‘Yous girls just tickle me up, yous do.’
They drank at their table, sitting back to watch the life of the pub. Polly thought it probably hadn’t changed much for decades, except that there were no young men. Pause, she thought; breathe.
She felt a nudge against her boot. ‘Here’s our food,’ said Verity brightly. They all tensed and watched Gladys approach, carrying a tray that held three fish and chips plated up, with bread and margarine. The cigarette was in the corner of Gladys’s mouth, her grey hair stained yellow where the smoke rose.
Sylvia groaned quietly, then whispered, ‘All right, you win. To make it bearable, I bet a sixpence that it falls on Verity’s.’
‘You beast,’ hissed Verity, as Polly laughed.
Gladys lowered the tray onto the table. ‘Fish an’ chips, with mushy peas,’ she said. The cigarette wobbled up and down as she spoke. The inch-long ash shuddered and fell. The girls traced its descent. It landed between the plates. Verity nudged Sylvia and held out her hand, palm up.
‘Later,’ Sylvia muttered. ‘I might want double or quits on your two boys.’ She was looking behind Polly. ‘Who have just come in to land.’
Verity and Polly spun round, and Polly’s throat thickened and tears threatened. What on earth was the matter with her? They waved frantically, while those at the dominoes table watched with interest, nudging one another. The ladies across the room – one of them wearing a hairnet, Polly now realised – went into a huddle as Tom limped his way across in his khaki greatcoat, using his one stick, while Saul ordered at the bar.
Tom pulled a chair across from the dominoes table. ‘All right, is it mates?’ he asked.
‘Yous welcome to it, and tek this other fer yous mate, an’ all.’ One of the old boys shoved another chair across. ‘Sausages is off, so ’tis to be fish, chips, peas and ash.’
They all laughed, but quietly, because Gladys was old and though everyone wished she’d stop smoking for the good of her health, and the food, they didn’t want to upset her.
Tom sat down. He seemed to have brought the cool with him. Droplets of rain stained his greatcoat and beret. He gripped Verity’s hand. ‘All clean and bathed then?’
‘Oh, indeed we are,’ she said, raising his hand and kissing it. ‘You smell clean, too.’
‘I met your Mrs Green, when Saul and I went into the Men Only side. Very firm, she was, as she led us to Harry Harris, who took over. Saul didn’t bother, just read the paper, as he’d had a soak at his auntie’s. Our Harry Harris isn’t much of a one for smiling, is he? And I gather from Mrs Green that I have a room on the floor below you girls, and there’s to be no ’anky-panky.’
The domino players burst into guffaws. ‘Aye, right enough. That sounds like our Alice Green. Them players from t’theatre ’as the smiles wiped orf their faces good and proper, but who’s to know what happens after lights oot.’
The women across the other side of the fireplace called over, ‘Don’t you believe it. Our Alice has the ears of a bat, and ’as chucked out them tiptoein’ where they didn’t oughta be.’
Tom winked at Polly, Verity and finally Sylvia, who flushed and stolidly ate her chips. He said, ‘It seems to me that’s one battle too far, so I’ll keep my powder dry and wait until she’s me missus, shall I?’
The men nudged one another again, while the women huddled together, whispering.
Polly looked from Verity to Tom. ‘Missus? Something you haven’t told your team, Verity?’
Verity ignored her, but asked Tom, ‘Missus?’
‘Well, not sure what we’d call you, but I reckon it’s just plain Missus, or would it be Missus Lady Verity?’
Verity put her finger to her mouth, ‘Hush.’ She looked around, but no one had taken him seriously.
Sylvia laid down her knife and fork as Saul approached the table with a tankard in each hand. ‘If you haven’t asked Verity yet, Tom, you’ve just assumed, and that’s patronising,’ she said, shaking the salt over the chips. ‘And rather rude.’
Saul placed the tankards on the table. Polly pointed to the chair next to her. Saul said, ‘Not yet, cos I’m going ter feel a right fool, but I got ter do it – and so’s yer, Tom. Yer said yer was goin’ to, and our Sylvia’s got it right.’
Sylvia stared at Saul, as Frankie, one of the domino players, said, ‘This be better ’n a show, it be. I reckon I knows what’s to ’appen. Anyone taking a shilling on it?’
One said, ‘’E never would, not in ’ere. Don’t be bloody daft.’
Old Cedric, who was playing darts, and was one of the many who had wanted Polly’s hat with the large bobble for a tea-cosy for his missus, yelled, ‘Get on wi’ it, lad, for the love of old Reilly.’
Tom said, ‘I can’t get down like Saul, cos of me leg, but I would if I could.’
Saul had sunk onto one knee. ‘We’ve been buying rings, but we needs summat to put them on. So’s I want to put mine on your finger, Miss Polly Holmes, if yer’ll say yes to marrying me, when this war is done. I’ll ask yer mum and dad later, but no point, if yer says no. No point in tellin’, ever, till things is sorted, is there?’ He sounded so anxious, and his eyes were so intense, that Polly felt she’d never loved him so much.
The pub had fallen silent, waiting for her answer; and for Verity’s, because Tom was standing now, an anxious look on his face, too, as he held out a ring. Tom said, ‘They’re not new rings, cos there aren’t any, but we found this little shop—’
Sylvia, who was eating, interrupted him, putting down her knife and fork again and dabbing at her lips. ‘Please stop, Tom, or you’ll end up telling Verity how much you spent. And, girls, do answer, or the drinkers will have a heart attack, because everyone is holding their breath. Remember that to accept the path you are to tread is a sacred oath.’
Polly barely heard the words, because she was bending to kiss Saul on the forehead and pull him to his feet. ‘Of course I will.’ As she spoke these words, Verity was saying the same thing.
The rings were too big, but the girls would wear them around their necks until they reached Bull’s Bridge or perhaps they’d stop off at Alperton, from where they would be able to get into London to have them altered. The regulars were clapping now, and calling out that the drinks were on Saul and Tom, who bowed and promised they would see to it, once they’d eaten.
At that moment Gladys bore down on them with two more plated fish dinners, and her cigarette where it always was. There was no ash, so it must already have fallen. The boys searched the plates when she had gone, and yet again Gladys had missed. Saul winked at Polly. ‘’Tis a sign of good luck, my Polly.’
The girls won at darts, the boys bought drinks for everyone, but Boris cut the bill in half because it was good news, for a change. It was then that Polly saw the black armband on Frankie’s sleeve as he put on his coat and tucked his domino box into his pocket.
At ten o’clock it was time to leave for Mrs Green’s, so Saul turned back to catch the tram, waving and calling that he would keep an eye on Dog; and if they were late, he and Granfer would start the unloading for them.
Polly watched him go, then followed the others up the steps to the boarding house, past Mrs Green, who admired their rings and scooted them up the stairs. ‘Yous know the way, girls, and I’ll show yous young man the way to yous room. I have good ’earing. So don’t even try.’
Tom promised.
Polly lay in her bed – so soft, so wide, so dry, so clean – watching the fire flickering and feeling the steadiness, the landlubber feel that always took her by surprise. She drank in the quietness; there was no lapping of water, no calling of owls, no shouts from other boaters who had not yet retired for the night and no sound of the wind. She played with the precious ring, hoping that she who had worn it before had imbued it with happiness. Well, if not, she would change all that.
‘Darling Saul, the love of my life, the man I will love forever.’ Is that what Sylvia, who had such a strange way of putting things, had meant by ‘a sacred oath’? Polly didn’t know, but wondered how often she and Saul would pass one another on the cut, unable to stop, unless they happened to coincide overnight. But they would wave, their eyes would meet and they would know that they belonged to one another and were so lucky to be away from the front line of the war. She sighed with relief. That’s what Saul’s preoccupation, and then his brightness, had been all about – the ring.
She smiled into the dark. She, Polly Holmes, was an idiot.