Monday 3 April – arrival at Coventry to take on coal
Tom steered through the locks and the stretches of water in between, called ‘pounds’ apparently, feeling like a shirker, because he should be taking his turn handling the locks for Sylvia, or hauling the damned butty for the girls. When he said as much, Sylvia just shook her head. ‘It’s our job, we can manage, but thank you. If you fell, we’d feel bad.’
The rain began again and kept falling heavily, then fading, but always falling. His greatcoat was soaked, the rain ran off his beret into his eyes, but he stood as the other boaters would be doing; and in the oven a pheasant stew was simmering. Pheasant from Saul’s nocturnal activities. That bloke should be in the Special Forces, because he must be able to move silently through the dark and could probably live off the land, just as they had to; and Tom expected that Saul could kill, if necessary. Tom hesitated. Could Saul really, though? There was something essentially gentle about the bloke. How would Saul fare in the army, if his plan worked out? Had he found his ‘important person’ to try and sort it?
The tiller was slippery under his hand, and a second horse-drawn pair passed them, heading for Birmingham. A child steered the butty, standing on a box, while a couple of slightly older lads hauled it.
The steerer of the main boat called, ‘’Ow do’ and tipped his hat, looking curiously at Tom, but saying nothing. On the bridges over the grimy cut he saw soldiers breaking stride to cross, as dictated by the manuals, because the resonance of the men’s marching could shake a bridge or pontoon down, but surely not old Victorian ones like these? The factories looked dreary, and the sky even worse. He didn’t light up a cigarette because it would fall to bits in the rain.
He muttered, ‘I thought it was all beer and skittles. You know, gliding along in the sunshine. I have blisters on the palms of my hands from the tiller, so what on earth are yours like, Sylvia?’
She was sitting on the roof of the cabin, beneath a large black umbrella more suited to a businessman, and the sound of the rain falling on it was drowning out the pat-patter. Though Tom had seen no other boaters using them, he couldn’t help wishing he had one, too. She balanced the umbrella and held out her hands. He saw the callouses, the grimy split nails. Sylvia said, ‘Polly and Verity will be getting blisters over their shoulders and round their waists from the tow-rope. We do it every couple of weeks, so you’d think the skin would toughen. One of life’s many mysteries.’
Tom nodded. ‘It’s a hard life, far more so than I ever imagined. It’s the day-after-day bit, whatever the conditions, that must wear you down, not to mention the children gobbing, and the filth.’
‘But we’re safe, when you won’t be, when you’re back with the army. And although you won’t have children spitting, you’ll have guns firing, and death will always be a possibility.’
Well, thank you for reminding me, he thought, knowing why Verity and Polly found Sylvia difficult; and then, within minutes, why they felt guilty for feeling annoyed, as Sylvia continued, ‘I think you’re all very brave, because it’s not something you’ll like – killing someone, I mean.’
He studied her as she sat beneath the umbrella, her expression preoccupied as though wondering if she could kill. He said, ‘Being killed is not something I’d like, either.’
A lock was looming now, as rain sheeted down ever more heavily. Tom mentioned it.
Sylvia nodded. ‘I know – don’t worry. I’ll rattle along, and we’ll be through before you can say boo to a goose. Just another thirty seconds and I’ll be off.’
He could think of nothing to say, as she looked over her shoulder, judging the distance to the lock. She nodded, closed up her umbrella, laid it carefully next to the kettle, jumped onto the bank and ran along the sludge-drenched path. The lock was ready, because the horse-drawn pair had been through. Within the lock the smell of the cut was even worse, but he barely noticed it now, as Sylvia wound the paddles. As he watched he realised that Sylvia reminded him of a spring that was wound tightly – too tightly to do anything other than hold itself in that tension; a spring that mustn’t relax or it would uncoil and fall apart.
When she returned and they were on their way again, and Sylvia was sitting on the roof beneath her umbrella, he said, ‘Where do your parents live? Are they in the Midlands?’
She looked at the warehouse they were passing. A boat was moored at its unloading wharf. She pointed. ‘There, can you see the flyboat? It’ll be picking up beer, or something that needs to go somewhere in a rush. Those young men don’t stop for anything. I think they must just take shifts to sleep.’
He nodded. ‘Perhaps they do.’ Sylvia was not about to relax the coil even one iota.
Quite suddenly the rain ceased as they pattered along the short pound, and he snatched out his cigarettes and offered one to her, knowing she’d refuse. She closed her umbrella and laid it precisely against the kettle. He lit up, dragged on it, chilled to the bone, wondering how Verity and Polly were doing, so glad that Verity had Polly’s friendship, and Sylvia’s too, though it was at a different level. And what of Bet? How was her engine getting on? The damned thing was almost done for, he was pretty sure.
Sylvia said quietly, ‘I have no parents. I grew up in an orphanage, north of London.’
‘I see.’ He thought that in fact he did, at last. ‘I’m sorry, that must have been hard.’
She shook her head. ‘The nuns were kind. We were a family, or perhaps a community. We children quarrelled, of course we did, but within the community, and soon the new ones settled in. Life was ruled by bells, by order, by tradition, by faith. That’s why I’m not scared of death, just of dying. As long, of course, as I do as I should, as God … Well, we should do what is right, for then there is no regret.’
He said again, ‘I see.’ He did. Yes, perhaps it was a bit like the army – another world. But he was a man. Sylvia had been a child. He lit another cigarette from the stub of the first, which was burning down too quickly in the wind. It was stronger now, and looked as though it was shoving more black clouds in their direction.
Another pair was coming towards them. Good, it meant the lock would be ready for Verity and Polly.
He said, ‘Were you very young when you entered the orphanage?’
‘I can’t remember. I only remember the community.’
He nodded. ‘I expect you miss it?’
She looked at him, searching his face, his eyes, then said, ‘I used to wonder why boats came towards Birmingham on this Bottom Road, but I think it must be that they are carrying coal from Coventry to Birmingham. You can see they are loaded. We never come this way, and I keep forgetting to ask why.’
They continued down the locks and Tom thought of the ARP warden who had let him talk because, as he said, it was easier to talk to a stranger. But one day this girl must talk to her friends. He stared ahead as a wider stretch of water hove into sight. Sylvia lowered herself from the roof, pulling at her sweaters, which had rucked up, and instructing Tom to stop and they’d moor up. He slowed the Marigold and drew in. Sylvia nipped into the cabin and came out with a trip card, shoving it in her pocket.
‘I’m taking this to the lock-keeper’s office. The butty will be through soon, but not too soon. Why not stoke the range, make some tea and try and dry off; perhaps wash your hands and make some spam sandwiches. I’ve taken some money from the kitty for eggs. Sometimes the lock-keeper, Mr Edwards, has some – and vegetables. Perhaps he’ll have some winter or even spring cabbage?’ She stepped onto the bank and tied up Marigold. Dog stirred in the cabin and barked.
Tom opened the doors. ‘Come on out, girl. Stretch your legs.’
Dog bounded onto the towpath. Sylvia put up her hand. ‘No, Dog, don’t follow. Mr Edwards isn’t keen on dogs, you know that.’ She set off up the slope to the office, then stopped and called back, ‘It’s just hard to leave.’
‘The orphanage?’ Tom called, and into the silence that resulted he answered himself, ‘Yes, it’s always hard to strike out on your chosen path, but we all have to grow up and do just that.’
He thought he heard her say, as she scrambled up to the top of the slope, ‘That’s the choice I need to make, you see.’
He shrugged. It was the choice they all had to make. He heard the butty’s hunting horn, far distant, but it meant the girls were on their way. He clambered crabwise down the cabin steps to stoke the fire, wash his hands and make tea and sandwiches, longing for the plaster to be off his leg, but not wanting it to be, either, because with the plaster on, he had a few more days with Verity.
That thought reminded him to phone the army depot from Coventry. The sergeant he had phoned from Tyseley had said there was a bit of a sweat on and so to touch base, if Tom didn’t mind very much, from Coventry. The sarcasm had been unmissable. He closed his eyes. Well, he did mind, very much.
He spread margarine on the bread and cut spam into slices, then slapped them into sandwiches. He thought they’d all start looking like lumps of spam any day now, and certainly if they were to be cut open, they’d be pink inside. He checked the kettle, wanting to distract himself from the thought of anyone being cut open. He was here, and soon he would see Verity again. Every minute without her hurt.
The butty was hauled from the opened lock gates, and Tom brought the sandwiches and tea on board it as they took turns to scrub their hands, avoiding the blisters on either side of their callouses. Tom watched as the oily soot remained embedded in them, whilst his hands were still relatively virginal. In recompense, he attached the short tow as Sylvia returned, bearing eggs and cabbage. They moored as darkness settled. He slept alone in the cabin; well, not quite alone, he muttered to Dog.
At the crack of dawn they were off again. The rain of yesterday had left Tom stiff and aching, but hadn’t set back his leg function, which was improving daily, although if the doc thought it was because he’d been lying on a couch, eating peeled grapes, he’d be told loudly how wrong he was. The image made him laugh aloud. They were on the flat, with no more locks for a while, and fields on either side. He was sure he spotted a raptor, but didn’t pay much attention, because Sylvia had moved to the butty and Verity had now joined him on the motor. They stood on either side of the tiller, close together. Occasionally they spoke, often they kissed; invariably his arm was around her, with the tiller captured between them.
The wind gusted across the fields and, just past a ruin of a farm at the side of the cut, Verity took the shaft from the roof and ran along the top planks, calling back, ‘We’re liable to ground on the silt along here. The bottom is too close to the top, as the boaters would say.’
They grounded more than once, and each time she shafted them off, digging deep, the water running down her arms and soaking the sleeves of her sweaters. She called out, ‘Steer more towards the centre. We’ve discovered the other side is deeper, so we feel entitled to stray.’
‘While we’re talking about deep water,’ Tom said, steering as she had directed, ‘you might feel I’m up to my neck in it, because I must call the barracks from Coventry, in case there’s a sweat on. I just didn’t know how to tell you back at Tyseley, when you were so agitated about Saul’s intentions, whatever they might be – if you understand what I mean? I was frightened it might spoil the days we’ve had.’
Verity stared ahead as he straightened up the motor and said nothing.
He pulled her to him as she returned and kissed her dirty old woollen hat, loving every stitch of it because it was hers. ‘Talk to me,’ he muttered.
‘Of course you must. There’s a war on,’ she said, making it easy for him. ‘After all, you’ve been in the lap of luxury with three lovely nurses obeying your every whim, and that can’t go on.’
He kissed her, hard.
She said against his mouth, ‘I’ve had you for a time, and of course you must go when you are told, but I think I understand why you didn’t tell me.’
Her courage made Tom love her more than ever, and together they travelled on and he realised how used to this life he had become, as Verity washed some clothes on the range and strung them up behind the bucket cabin.
‘It’s the bucket I won’t miss. In fact I’m pretty sure I’ll have nightmares about it all my life, or panic attacks.’
She leapt off the roof and slapped him. ‘Don’t mock my affliction.’
They laughed together, because she mocked the panic attack herself, and it had not happened again; even if it did, she knew what it was, and would ride it out.
They pat-pattered towards a bridge over which a squad broke step. One of the squaddies looked across and yelled, ‘AWOL, are you, lad?’
‘I wish,’ Tom replied, waving his stick. ‘Broken leg, but no sick leave for me. Instead I’m here steering a ruddy boat.’
The sergeant bawled to his troops, ‘Get yourselves over this bloody bridge, because this isn’t a bloody picnic – it’s a bloody war.’ He leaned on the parapet. ‘They’ll want you back pretty damn quick, lad. There’s no time to waste.’ The troops hurried on to the roadway. Tom smiled as he heard, ‘By the left. “Left,” I said, laddie; that’s yer bloody right, for Pete’s bloody sake.’
Verity looked at him. ‘Seriously, Tom, I know you’ll go from either Coventry or Alperton, and it’s all right. We’re the same as thousands of others, and we’ve had these days, and you’ve not complained of the pain once. I love you, Private Brown.’
He pulled her to him and kissed her hard. ‘It doesn’t hurt when I’m with you.’ It was a lie, but soldiers learned to ignore pain.
They travelled on, alongside ploughed fields, which Verity said they had watched turning from wheat to ploughed land, and which were now showing traces of green again. While he steered, Verity washed down the cabin, inside and out. He laughed. ‘When did you ever do dusting at home?’
She flicked him with water. ‘This is home – here on the boat, with my friends and you.’
It made him sad. ‘Sometimes things aren’t as simple as they seem. You need to talk to Rogers and Mrs B about your mother. So go home and talk; there’s some sort of an undercurrent, or so I think.’
She wrung out the mop over the side. ‘Why do you think that?’
Tom shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, I can’t get out of my mind Rogers’ mention of things not being as simple as they seem at Howard House. Perhaps there is something going on that makes, or has made, your mother’s life difficult? She can be very kind.’
They were approaching another bridge. This time POWs were being marched across. It was these men who gobbed them this time, and Verity lunged at the hooter, blowing the hunting horn again and again, making them jump. But not just them; Tom, too, and his laughter as they went beneath the bridge echoed back.
The bridges became more frequent. Verity said as she sat on the roof, ‘I’ll think about going to Howard House, but for now, lovely boy, Coventry isn’t far. You can always tell if civilisation is close, from the frequency of the bridges.’
Buses, cars and pedestrians crossed the cut over narrow or wide, old or new bridges. Marigold and Horizon pat-pattered past a coal mine. Tom watched miners coming off-shift, their faces black, their shoulders hunched. Polly and Verity had looked similar at the end of their hauling activities, though not quite as black, not as hunched, but probably just as exhausted. Now he saw that there were lumps of coal on the towpath, as well as deeper coal dust, filth and litter. He noticed that lumps of coal also floated on the cut. While he continued steering, Verity fished them out with a net on the end of a pole.
She saw him looking. ‘We created these coal nets ourselves. We can’t have rationed goods going to waste, and the coal soon dries out.’ She stored it in the bucket cabin.
They kept going and slagheaps now reared up on either side, and before long they were at Coventry’s loading yards. He saw Polly alongside, cycling furiously, overtaking the Marigold. Verity said, ‘She’s going ahead to queue for our orders.’
They passed many pairs moored up alongside the bank, some loaded, others not. Verity waved at one. ‘How do, Steerer Porter. Has Jimmy finished his homework?’
Steerer Porter tipped his hat. ‘We’re just off, but ’tis left at the office. They’ll give it to whoever goes in for yer orders.’
Tom hugged Verity close. ‘You are an extraordinary woman. It’s so important for children to read.’
She shook her head. ‘But is it? Saul wouldn’t be so restless if he didn’t read the newspaper. He’d just accept his lot, and not fiddle about with enlistment plans behind Polly’s back, because that’s what he’s doing, isn’t it …?’ She petered out. ‘Well, what’s the point of me saying anything.’
‘There isn’t any.’
They both watched as Polly reached the Orders Office, and Tom steered, wanting to put his arm around Verity, but she was double-checking the traffic in and out of the loading arm of the cut. ‘Let me take over, Tom. I need to get the boats in position. And I don’t want to talk about this again, because it’s just making me angry, and you fed up. And we’ll end up rowing about some silly bugger wanting to rush off to war, and I can’t bear to spoil what we have.’
He moved from the tiller, sitting on the roof and saying, ‘We can be cross with one another and still be in love, idiot.’
‘Idiot, yourself. And you didn’t deny that was Saul’s plan, so now I know definitely.’
Tom sighed, groaning, ‘Enough. Look, Verity, promise me,’ he went on as she checked for other traffic. ‘Promise you’ll stay schtum.’
She said nothing, just sorted out the butty and motor. As she finally moored Marigold she called, ‘I promise.’
As she did so, Polly cycled towards them, a huge grin on her face, waving not just the loading order, but what looked like a letter. When she arrived she shouted, ‘A note from Bet. We’re invited, after loading up, to a pre-Easter meal with her and Fran. She’s cleared it with Bull’s Bridge, because her engine refit won’t be finished until Saturday. Merle’s gone onto another boat, so Bet’s waiting for two new trainees to arrive. She’s also left a note for Saul and Granfer, because she’s fixed it for them, too.’ She skidded to a halt. ‘Tom, there’s a message for you as well. Chop-chop. You’ll have to queue, but you’re to make a phone call. Sydney has the number. Verity, I’ve Jimmy’s homework for you.’
Tom’s heart sank. It must be urgent for them to call him? Was he to report back now? He limped off down the cut, as trucks of coal arrived on what looked like a mining railway line.
He queued outside the Orders Office, amongst boaters who tipped their hats at him and stood quietly, their windlasses tucked into the backs of their wide belts. Tom leaned on his stick, his leg aching from the standing he’d been doing. What would the medics think of his plaster, which was almost black, as was his uniform? For a moment he worried, but then he thought, What the hell does it matter, against the backdrop of all of this.
In the background lorries revved, narrowboat engines throbbed, hooters sounded from both the boats and the mines, the tannoy bellowed and men shouted. His Verity was in this world, day after day, and thought nothing of it; or if she did, she bit down on her complaints. Would she keep her promise? She must, but he should never have let out as much as he had, so who was he to make a fuss?
He eased along with the queue, wondering how she would really manage as the wife of a chauffeur – though after the war would that role exist any more? Would they ever make enough money for him to run his own car-repair garage? Could she bear it? It wouldn’t be wartime and temporary; it would be forever, and if she married against her parents’ wishes, Verity would be an outcast from her real world. He looked around, watching the bustle of the cut and hearing the laughter as the men jostled one another, intent on some task or other.
But was Howard House her real world any more? Somehow Verity really was more alive, more in tune with herself, here, working and earning her space in life. Or was that just wishful thinking?
He shuffled along, as orders were handed out in the office and steerers left with their dockets in their hands. Pre-Easter at Bet’s? She seemed so important to Verity and Polly, like a mother hen. As for Sylvia? Well, nowt so queer as folk, his mum used to say, but if you’ve been brought up in a Catholic orphanage, of course you would think of heaven, hell and all points in between; and how extraordinary to be able to accept death. He laughed to himself.
The steerer in front turned. ‘Yer goin’ to share yer joke?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Just thinking, mate. Women, you know.’
The steerer, an old boy, about a decade younger than Granfer – although burned dark as a nut by the wind, rain and sun, just as Granfer was – nodded. ‘Aye, women, eh. Who knows what they’s thinkin’, ’cept yer done it wrong.’
All the men laughed. Tom grinned, but he was thinking of these men’s wives, who steered, made lunch, lock-wheeled and then boiled up clothes on the bank while their blokes were in the pub. But the blokes were here, getting the orders, and somehow keeping food on the table, living in a tiny room cos they couldn’t afford to live on the bank. What a team these couples made. He reached forward and lightly punched the old boy. ‘Wouldn’t be without them, eh?’
‘Right enough. Reckon yer made things oop wi’ yer Verity then? But telephones foller yer around. Got to make a call, ain’t yer? What to do? Is yer goin’ back to yer sergeant, to ’ave him beat yer balls, or not?’
Tom laughed again. ‘I reckon my business gets carried on the wind, and while I’m chewing coal dust, you’re all chewing on my doings.’ The whole queue laughed then, as they continued shuffling forward. The old boy gave him a roll-up he’d just made, and set to with another for himself.
Tom struck a match, then lit both. They inhaled. Above them pigeons flew their clumsy way towards distant woods, and high above them planes flew as well, in some sort of exercise.
Tom said, ‘I’ll be going on duty now, or maybe when we reach London.’
The steerer a couple of places in front of Tom turned. ‘London be better. More time wi’ yer Verity, and lunch with Bet. Us didn’t take kindly to them women comin’ on the cut, but they been good, most o’ them. Them that ain’t go on ’ome, cos they can’t be cluttering oop the cut. We’ve cargoes to shift for yer lads in uniform.’
Before Tom could answer, the queue suddenly got a move on and the steerer disappeared into the office. Tom stared after him, his worries over Verity, her present and her future settling, because she would never clutter up whatever place she chose in this world. Not now, not ever, whatever might come, or whoever she might lose. The same went for Polly, and it was as though a great weight was lifted from his shoulders, because yes, he had helped out Saul just a bit; but if Saul was lost, Polly would manage.
At last he was in the office. He could have skirted past the steerers, of course, but they wouldn’t have liked it, and he valued his nose and didn’t want it broken. He grinned at the thought, knowing it wouldn’t have come to that, but a few words would have been said and perhaps a foot stuck out. Then the other leg would be in plaster.
Sydney, the old boy behind the counter, whacked down a piece of paper. ‘Yer the squaddie, ain’t yer? Phone them ’ere and get yer orders, though you’d best be scrubbing that uniform, and how about that plaster? A bit of blanco, I reckon.’
Tom picked up the phone number and headed for the telephone at the end of the counter. He knew there was no point in keeping his voice low, because whatever he did, the gossip would travel. It was Sergeant-Major Morris this time, who barked, ‘Coventry, yer said. What I want to know is why ain’t you on a deckchair with knots in your handkerchief, sucking a bleedin’ lolly?’
‘One word, Sergeant-Major. A woman.’
‘That’s two, Soldier. Best you get to Alperton, as we thought. We’re all right till then, but the medics’ll need to see you up here, before we can ’ave you back, so don’t go to the ’ospital. There was a bit of a panic, but it’s gone over. You can put your knotted ’anky on your head at Bet Burrows’s; can’t ’ave you missin’ your Easter egg. You got to be back by the eleventh, if yer please. Can’t say fairer than that.’
‘Thanks, Sergeant-Major.’ But Tom was talking to himself, because he heard the click as Morris slammed down the receiver. Morris was one of the good ones. The powers-that-be wanted him to take a commission, but he wouldn’t. He preferred to be hands-on with the blokes, to keep them alive, as he said one night over too many beers. And besides, why waste his time worrying about which knife to use in the Officers’ Mess, or any of that bollocks.
He dug out money for the call, but Sydney shook his head and muttered, ‘I were in the last lot, so keep yer head down and come back and make an hash of yer life, like the rest of us.’
The boaters laughed and tipped their hats as Tom made for the door. The office smelled like Verity: of coal, dirt and sweat; and like Polly and Sylvia, too, and probably himself. He grinned to himself as he limped back to the loading platform. How on earth did Morris know about Bet? He stopped. The old boy behind the counter, that’s how. He laughed.
Coal dust was everywhere. A child ran past him carrying orders in his mouth, and hooking up his trousers. Tom heard a hoot, and saw the Seagull heading down the loading cut. Polly would be pleased. He hurried. He had five days: four of them with the girls, and the fifth for travel; because he realised that come one, come all three. They were a family, but did they actually realise it?
Trucks of coal were trundling along beside him, heading for the loading platform or wharf, he supposed. Men sat on top of the loads, smoking. Tom expected the coal dust to ignite at any moment. Others were already loading Marigold and Horizon, and coal gushed down chutes into the holds, as men guided it with the backs of spades. Black dust billowed.
He heard a bellow, ‘Where’s that tea then, lass?’
He saw Verity, standing on Marigold’s roof with her hands on her hips, her head thrown back, her woollen hat with its small bobble wobbling, laughing as Polly stabbed her finger at the bloke.
‘What do you want, jam on it? I said it’d be ready any minute now.’ Polly’s massive bobble was waving from side to side and would make a weapon in itself, Tom thought, as he heard Verity’s and Polly’s combined laughter soaring over all the noise of coal, men and chaos. He would remember the sound till his dying day.
Suddenly he realised that enlisting was Saul’s way of fighting for the girl he loved, just as he, Private Brown, would do.