Read Online The Boat Girls by Margaret Mayhew - Free Book Online Page A

Like I said, the boaters will usually help if they aren’t in too much of a hurry.’
    It was hard to imagine the silent washerwomen, or the weasel-faced man, helping anybody but their own kind.
    Cetus
trundled on slowly and steadily. The pace was tortoise-slow – no more than about four milesan hour – and she began to see why it took so long to get anywhere.
    â€˜Bridge coming up,’ Pip shouted. ‘Keep your head down.’
    They chugged under the archway of an old brick bridge. With the motor unloaded and riding high, the arch wasn’t much above their heads. Soon afterwards the scenery improved, with fields on both sides and a magnificent group of beech trees just below the lock. They tied up and walked along the towpath running beside the cut. It was blowing an icy wind, and Frances found a silk scarf in her raincoat pocket and tied it over her head.
    â€˜It’s an uphill lock,’ Pip said. ‘You’re going
up
the staircase. The bottom gates are open, as you can see, and the water’s down at our level, so if we were on the boat we could have gone straight in. We’ll go up onto the lock-side so we can see properly.’
    Frances peered gingerly over the edge at the water ten feet or so below. The brick walls of the lock sprouted ferns and weeds and were dank and slimy with moisture. At the far end, the heavy wooden gates were closed against the water above the lock. Pip was pointing and giving more lessons.
    â€˜The gates are V-shaped to withstand the weight of water, and those big wooden balance beams sticking out each side are for pushing themopen and shut. There’s a walkway along the top of them over the gates so you can get across, holding onto those iron rails. You can’t see the paddles because they’re always underwater, but they’re worked by ratchets on each side which you turn with a windlass.’ Pip cocked her head, listening. ‘We’re in luck. Here comes a pair of boats. Now you’ll be able to see how they work through a lock. If they’re boaters they’ll be very quick. Watch carefully but for heaven’s sake stay out of their way.’
    Frances watched them approaching, the motor boat pop-popping along far ahead of the butty, which followed on a long tow rope. Both boats were loaded, black sheeting strung tent-like over the cargo, their gunwales only a few inches out of the water. The motor slowed to come into the lock below, the boatman steering it with one hand behind him, the other hand forward on the engine lever. The butty was steered by a fresh-faced girl of about her own age, nothing like the old crones at the lay-by. She was wearing a shabby-looking coat and a woollen scarf wound like a turban round her head. As the butty came gliding silently into the chamber the man unhooked the tow rope from the motor stern and threw it onto its fore-end. He shinned up the ladder in the wall and pushed the bottom gate shut on his side. The girl was already on the opposite lock wall, tying thebutty to a bollard before she shut her gate. The boatman passed close to Frances as he headed for the top gates and he gave her a nod. He was young, too, and dressed the same as weasel-face – flat cap, jacket, waistcoat, cord trousers, boots – but he had a nice face. She watched him winding up the ratchet with a bent piece of iron and the girl doing the same on the other side.
    The water in the bottom of the lock began bubbling and swirling and rising and the pair of boats rose with it. When it had stopped, the man pushed his gate open, leaning his weight on the beam. The girl was back on the butty and he stepped onto the motor’s counter, now at his level. The engine pop-popped throatily as the boat moved forward, nosing the other gate open. As he came abreast of the butty’s fore-end, he scooped up the tow rope and fixed it to the motor’s stern again. The butty, tugged along, followed docilely, its wooden