The Boat Girls (14 page)

‘What would you like to eat, Miss Dobbs?'

Prudence said helplessly, ‘I don't know. It's in French, you see.'

‘How about some clear soup to start with? Then lamb cutlets afterwards, perhaps? They're usually very good here. Or would you prefer the Dover sole?'

Vere could be quite kind when he wanted to be.

‘Have
you
decided, Miss Flynn?' Her brother had turned back to Rosalind.

Rosalind's lips were painted scarlet and her nose carefully powdered, but there was a neat little row of bedbug bites down one cheek and a big streak of oil down the front of her leather jerkin. She had removed the Robin Hood hat and her russet hair, released from its bit of string, looked like an abandoned stork's nest. The chapped and cracked hand that held up the Ritz menu had black-rimmed fingernails and knuckles skinned raw from wrestling with the stiff nuts on the mud box. She smiled brightly at Vere and said in a loud cockney voice, ‘I'll 'ave the soup an' cutlets.'

He dragged his eyes away. ‘Frances? What will you have, then?'

The food was ordered, the champagne opened and poured with a flourish. The RAF officer beside Frances said, ‘What exactly are we celebrating?'

‘Finishing our first training trip.'

‘Training as what?'

She told him and he seemed surprised.

‘I've never heard of women doing that. Almost everything else, but not working on the canals. Aren't the boats a bit of a handful for you?'

‘We manage perfectly well, as a matter of fact.'

‘So, when will you finish your training?'

‘It takes two trips and we've just done one of them – steel from the docks up to Birmingham, then Coventry for coal and then back again – it takes us around three weeks because we have to learn as we go along. If we learn well enough, they let us take a pair of boats on our own – when we've finished the second trip.'

‘The three of you together?'

‘If we all stick it.'

There were two thick rings and one thin round his uniform sleeve which meant he was a squadron leader, and two medals sewn on his chest – the same as Vere's. Birds of a feather, flocking together. ‘Have you known my brother long?'

‘Sort of. We were at school together, but in
different houses and he's a couple of years older. I hadn't seen him for several years until we happened to be posted to the same squadron. I didn't know he had a sister.'

‘He wouldn't mention it. We don't get on particularly well.'

‘That's a pity.'

‘He's always trying to run my life.'

‘But I'm sure he means well.'

‘No, he doesn't. He's just incredibly bossy. Do you have a younger sister to boss around?'

He smiled. ‘I have a sister but she's older. She used to try to boss me until I grew taller than her.'

The hotel dining room seemed vast after the cabins. She had almost forgotten how to sit at a proper table and how to eat in a civilized fashion. They had become so used to grabbing and gobbling – one spoon, one knife, one fork making do for everything. It was an effort to remember how to use the right things and not to slurp the soup. Rosalind, she saw, had finished hers and was wiping a piece of bread round to clean the plate. Vere's face was a study. Serve him jolly well right.

She leaned across the table. ‘By the way, Vere, what day is it today?'

He frowned. ‘Thursday, of course. Surely you know that.'

‘No, we don't. Do we, Ros?'

A chirpy smile and more cockney. ‘No' a clue, darlin'.'

‘Is this some sort of joke, Frances?'

‘Not at all. We lose count of the days on the cut. It's either yesterday, today or tomorrow.'

‘The cut?'

‘The canal. It's called the cut. We don't know the date either. Or what's happened in the war, or anything else. No newspapers, you see. And no wireless. It's rather nice.'

The frown deepened. ‘It sounds uncivilized.'

‘Not at all. We're very civilized, aren't we Ros?'

A wide and innocent smile. ‘Oh, yeah. Ever so.'

Her brother said slowly, ‘Do you mind telling me what you're doing here in London, Frances?'

‘I already did. We're celebrating.'

‘I meant after dinner.'

‘We go off on leave. We've got six lovely days before we do the next trip.'

‘You're going home, I take it?'

‘Tomorrow. I've invited Ros and Prue to spend tonight at Aunt Gertrude's flat – I knew she wouldn't mind.'

‘I've got some leave as well, as it happens.'

‘Oh? Are you staying the night there too, then? It'll be a bit of a crowd.'

‘I'm staying at the RAF club and we can both go down by train tomorrow. I'll pick you up by taxi in the morning.'

‘There's no need. I'm quite capable of travelling on my own.'

‘I dare say you are, Frances. But we may as well go together.'

The soup was removed, the next course served. She crumbled her bread roll over the pristine tablecloth.

Hugh Whitelaw said, ‘So, what were you all doing before you joined the boats?'

‘I was doing nothing, Prue was working in a bank, and Ros . . .' she paused to make sure that Vere was paying close attention. ‘Ros was an actress. Acting.'

Of course, the squadron leader then wanted to know what she had acted in and where, and Ros was more than happy to tell him about her theatrical life. There was a good deal of pleasure in watching Vere as he listened to the colourful recital with all the funny bits and the different accents – cockney, north country, Irish, Scots. Ros switched from one to another with ease and she tossed in some juicy scandals – illicit affairs, queer actors, lesbian actresses. It was a brilliantly shocking performance.

At the end of the dinner the waiters brought coffee – dainty little porcelain cups and a dish of lovely petits fours. Vere offered his cigarette case to the squadron leader.

She said, ‘I'd like one, too, please. So would Ros.'

He lit Ros's cigarette and she blew a long plume of smoke up into the air as though she'd been doing it for years, which she probably had.

‘Ta very much.'

Hugh Whitelaw lit hers. ‘My parents' house is only a mile or two away from the Grand Union Canal – near Stoke Bruerne. If you ever need a bed for the night, I know they'd be glad to have you.'

‘We always sleep on the boats.'

‘Well, bear it in mind. Havlock Hall.'

‘I will,' she said, instantly forgetting it.

In the taxi that Vere had insisted on ordering for them afterwards, Ros said in her normal voice, ‘I don't think your brother approved of me very much, do you? Still, it was very nice of him and that other chap to pay for our dinner and for all the champagne. We might have had to wash up.'

Vere had paid for the taxi, too, but Frances was still cross at the way her brother had taken over their evening and spoiled it. And her leave would be spoiled by him being down at Averton.

She slept in Aunt Gertrude's room while the other two shared the spare room. After her side bunk on the
Aquila
the bed seemed too big, the mattress too soft, and she missed the warm glow of the stove and the gentle creaking of the boat.

Rosalind phoned her parents in the morning. Her mother sounded harassed.

‘We weren't expecting you home for a while, darling. It's a bit of a problem at the moment.'

‘You mean somebody's in my room?'

‘I'm afraid so. He's playing at the Winter Gardens all this week – I can't really turf him out, you see.'

‘Well, I'll just have to sleep on the sofa, I suppose.'

‘Oh dear, that's occupied too. Only a walk-on, but she's very nice. We're terribly busy. I'm sorry, darling. If you can let me know well in advance next time, I'll make sure we keep your room free. Is there anybody you could stay with just this once? Otherwise, we'll manage something.'

‘Don't worry, I'll find somewhere else.'

Frances said at once, ‘Come and stay at Averton, if you can stand my brother being there too. It's not a bad place and you'll like my aunt.'

Prudence went off with her suitcase to catch buses to Croydon and Vere arrived in a taxi.

‘Ros is coming as well,' Frances said without further explanation.

He took Rosalind's tatty old carpet bag and put it beside the driver. He didn't show it, but she knew he wasn't thrilled at the idea. Actresses were immoral and a bad influence, everybody knew that. You went to see them act on the stage, at a
safe distance, but you didn't associate with them or invite them into your home – not if you were someone like him. She sat in the back of the taxi with Frances, and very comfortable it was too. The brother was sitting on one of the tip-up seats, staring out of the window, which gave her the chance to take a closer look at him. Nice eyes, nice hair, nice hands – men's hands counted a lot, so far as she was concerned. They had to be lean and strong, not plump or pasty. And the RAF uniform looked impressive. He didn't approve of her, or like her, but she didn't hold it against him. In fact, it was a relief. She'd had plenty of attention in her life, never a shortage of admirers of all shapes and sizes and ages and, more often than not, they were a nuisance. Sometimes a real pest. Right now she wanted nothing more than to do as little as possible and sleep as much as possible for six blissful days. She decided to abandon the cockney accent. She could have kept it up indefinitely, if necessary, but it really wasn't fair to go on teasing him.

At Waterloo station there was another argument. Officers of His Majesty's Forces were apparently expected to travel first class, not slum it.

‘Ros and I can't afford that, can we, Ros? We're going third.'

‘No you're not, Frances. I'm paying for both your tickets.'

‘We don't want you to, do we, Ros?'

He won, of course, by simply going off and buying them. Not that she was going to protest. It was a treat to sit in style and comfort instead of squashed into a crowded compartment hopping with fleas.

When they arrived at the station, they took another taxi to the house which was much as Frances had described – sprawling, old, beautiful and run-down. Stone griffins guarded the entrance gates and inside it was stuffed with antique furniture and family portraits. It was also freezing cold. The aunt, Lady Somebody, was a nice old girl, straight out of the twenties. She chain-smoked and drank gin and since she loved going to the theatre they got on famously. What gossip Rosalind didn't already know about well-known actors and actresses she made up to amuse her. The father – another title there – was an old sweetie but rather weird and spent all his time in the orangery, growing orchids. Frances took her there on a visit and when she told him, quite truthfully, that she thought the blooms were lovely he cut one for her. It had no scent but its pure white frilled petals were perfection, and she wore it in her hair for dinner that evening. She slept until late every morning and bathed in a bath as big as a rowing boat. The water was never more than lukewarm, but she gradually scoured
away the grime and grease from her skin and scrubbed her nails clean again. She washed her hair every day. The cuts and scratches started to heal, the bug bites and bruises to fade. Sometimes she practised speeches aloud to her reflection in the bedroom mirror – just to keep her hand in.

She needed to remember it all. To keep rehearsing different parts. This was only an interval: the interval before the curtain swished up again, after the war.

‘She's not the right sort of friend for you, Frances. You must know that.'

‘I don't know anything of the kind, Vere. What exactly do you mean?'

‘She's an actress. From quite a different background and with quite different standards. And since when did you start smoking and drinking champagne?'

‘Actually, I usually drink beer.'

‘
Beer?
'

‘Yes, beer. In pubs. When we tie up for the night. There's nearly always a pub nearby.'

‘You mean you three girls go to pubs alone?'

‘Not exactly. Pip comes with us. The woman who's training us. She's very nice and very respectable indeed, if that's what you're worried about.'

‘I dare say she is, but that's not the point.'

‘What
is
the point, then?'

‘The point is that I want you to give this whole thing up. Do as I suggested originally and find some other war work near here. Something much more suitable.'

They were walking across the fields with the dogs. Ros had stayed behind to play gin rummy with Aunt Gertrude beside the fire. She wished she'd stayed indoors too and avoided the inevitable lecture.

‘I'm not going to give it up, Vere. Whatever you say. And I'm not giving up Ros as a friend, either. Or Prue. Or anyone else, just because you say so. I'll choose my own friends, if you don't mind.'

He was silent, striding along. She braced herself for what was coming next. At last he said, ‘All right, Frances. If that's the way you want it, fair enough. I've said my say, and we'll leave it at that. I won't interfere.'

She wasn't deceived. ‘You don't think I'll be able to stick it, do you, Vere? That's what you're hoping, isn't it?'

‘Frankly I don't and, yes, I'm hoping you won't.'