The Narrowboat Girls

by Rosie Archer

Genres: Sagas; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Elsie Barker is desperate for a new start after her husband leaves her. When her friend Izzy — who needs to escape her abusive boyfriend — tells her about the jobs going for women as narrowboat crew on the canals between London and Coventry, she jumps at the chance. Their new boss, Dorothy, is kind and fair, but it's clear she has a secret of her own. The crew is completed by Tolly, searching for a new vocation.

The work is hard, but the girls forge close friendships that will see them through the darkest times. They could never have predicted how much the canals could change their lives…

Release date: June 14, 2018

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

Chapter One

Gosport,1944

‘I couldn’t help it. Now she’s having my baby, what can I do?’

‘You could have kept it in your trousers!’

Elsie Barker turned away from her husband of ten years. She wasn’t going to allow him to see her fall to pieces. No matter what she felt on the inside, outside she would show him she could handle things.

‘Who is the woman who’s carrying your child?’ She was finding it difficult to keep calm.

‘Just someone from my office.’

Unanswered questions began hurling themselves around her brain. ‘Does this “just someone” have a name?’

‘Hmm.’ He coughed. ‘Sandra. But it’s not her fault that . . .’

For someone usually so articulate her husband was having difficulty in answering.

Sandra? Even the name sounded more glamorous than her own, thought Elsie. Then came his second blow.

‘I’m happier now than I’ve ever been so I’m putting the house on the market. There should be enough money for you to buy somewhere in Gosport.’ He screwed on the lid of the home-made marmalade and the scent of the oranges faded as he calmly picked up the newspaper. Fleetingly she remembered cutting the rind into chunky pieces just the way Geoffrey liked and marvelled that he could even think about reading and eating after telling her she should be the one to leave their home.

‘Why can’t I stay here? My severance pay from teaching helped buy the house!’ Tears were pricking at the back of her eyes. How could he do this awful thing to her? She thought suddenly of the early days, the fun they’d had searching antiques shops for just the right pieces of furniture to fit into the five-bedroom Western Way house in Alverstoke. This was her dream home, backing on to Stanley Park, a house with a considerable garden on which she lavished care and attention.

Geoffrey put down the paper and adjusted his cuffs beneath the sleeves of his dark pin-striped jacket. At forty years of age he liked his highly polished shoes to complement the colour of his suits and ties, to add just that little something extra to inspire confidence in his clients. He eyed her speculatively.

‘This house is too big for one person. When I bought it we were going to fill it with children but you—’

‘Don’t you dare make it out to be my fault! Our doctor says infertility can happen to couples who want children too much . . .’

Elsie longed to hold a baby of her own in her arms. She blinked back the tears.

‘It’s no one’s fault,’ Geoffrey said quietly, with surprising gentleness. ‘But you must surely understand why I need to buy another house, and I can’t afford it until this one is sold.’ His eyes met hers. ‘You’ll be happier in a small place of your own.’

The silence that followed was almost palpable. Elsie found she was staring at him as though she’d never seen him before in her life. So many questions needed answers but every reply might split her heart into pieces.

Then, despite everything, she could see his logic. The house, after all, belonged to him, Geoffrey Barker of Barker and Knowle, Solicitors, of the high street, Gosport in Hampshire. He was nothing if not logical and his quick brain was what made the partnership so successful. Even the terrible war years had been profitable for the firm.

‘Will you leave me now?’ Elsie asked. ‘I need to think about this carefully.’ She looked past him to the conservatory where the honeysuckle she had lovingly planted a couple of years ago was beginning to climb the glass to give shade during the hot days of summer.

Geoffrey folded his newspaper methodically. He was a very tidy man. For a while he simply stared at her, then asked, as he laid the newspaper by the side of his plate, ‘Will you be all right?’

‘I’ll be as all right as any woman whose husband tells her over the breakfast toast and marmalade that he’s fallen in love with a tart from his office.’ Her anger was rising again.

‘Stop it, Elsie. Sarcasm doesn’t become you.’

And suddenly she could hold herself back no longer. ‘Go!’ she yelled, leaping up and shaking her fist. ‘Get out! Get away from me!’

He beat a hasty retreat from the kitchen. Presently she heard the front door slam and his car start up. Then there was the crunch of tyres on the gravel in the driveway and he was gone.

Of course she hadn’t wanted him to leave.

What her heart desired was for him to take her into his arms, beg her forgiveness and say they would get through this together. Tell her there was no Sandra from his office, no baby, and that he would always love her. But that was as impossible as him suddenly swinging her around in his arms, high off the floor and telling her he adored her. The spontaneous part of their marriage, despite her own efforts, had died long ago.

Elsie sat down at the kitchen table, put her head in her hands and gave way to her grief. Her marriage was over. Her home was shortly to be sold. Her life was in pieces.

She wanted to curl up in bed and die.

But in less than an hour she’d be standing on the line in Priddy’s Hard munitions factory where she worked part-time filling shells with gunpowder, helping the war effort in the fight against Adolf Hitler.

Tonight after work she was to attend a farewell get-together. Her friend Izzy was off to do another job left vacant by a man who’d gone to fight. Elsie couldn’t possibly put her own feelings first and not meet Izzy at the Fox public house in Gosport town. Could she put on a brave face and pretend everything was fine with her, Geoffrey and their marriage so Izzy wouldn’t have to worry about her?

She realized she’d been a fool for never questioning Geoffrey’s tales of working late. She’d tolerated his stories of weekend conferences at Brighton, Worthing and other seaside places – there had been quite a few, these past months. Excuses for meetings with Sandra?

Had she been too occupied with the house, her job, the garden to wonder about Geoffrey’s frequent disappearances? It had honestly never entered her mind that Geoffrey was straying further and further away from her. She’d accepted her marriage for what it was, and she had trusted him.

Elsie picked up the teapot to pour herself more tea and saw that she hadn’t touched the first cup but allowed it to go cold. She stared at the beautiful blue creation in her hand. She and Geoffrey had discovered it in an antiques shop in Winchester on a wonderful summer’s day just before the war had started.

‘Damn you!’ Elsie cried and flung it towards the wall. The pot smashed. Brown tea streamed down the pale wallpaper in rivulets, then dripped onto the cream rug. For a moment she felt triumphant, then distressed. Her outburst had changed nothing.

She could dig in her heels and refuse to budge from her home. But what good would that do?

Her mother had told her many years ago, ‘You catch more flies with honey, than with vinegar.’ She had been a wise woman. Did she really want to hang on to a man who had so callously cast her aside?

Elsie would take the new home offered her. Better to do that than pursue a long-drawn-out fight over property that she couldn’t win. Geoffrey’s name was on the deeds and his profession meant he would already have covered all aspects of a possible divorce, including any maintenance claims she might make.

Geoffrey’s job didn’t stop him enlisting but he’d had rheumatic fever as a child and it had left him with a heart murmur. There was no way Fate in the form of call-up papers would intervene and leave her in the house she loved.

She would not dwell on her husband sleeping with another woman – why waste mental anguish on something she couldn’t change?

She stared across the table at herself in the mirror. She was thirty years old, still slim and by no means stupid. Then it hit her like a ton of bricks: losing her husband wasn’t as painful as thinking about him impregnating another woman. That hurt. Like a knife twisting in an open wound.

It might be wise to remove herself from Gosport.

The thought of bumping into pregnant Sandra on Geoffrey’s arm in the small town was too much for her to think about.

She would get ready for work. The chatter of the factory girls on the line was enough to brighten anyone’s day. She would decide where she could go to get on with her life while her affairs were put in order.

That would pose a problem. How long would it take Geoffrey to find a house buyer? Where could she go to lick her wounds until she was ready to buy a place of her own? Elsie had no relatives. Her mother had died earlier in the war. She had very little money of her own. Could she rely on Geoffrey to fund her? Probably not if he needed to sell the house: his excuse would be that his new family must come first.

Automatically Elsie began to clear up the mess she’d made. When she had swept up the broken china and tea leaves, she took the dustpan outside, then slid the pieces of her beloved teapot into the dustbin, with the rest of her broken dreams.

Chapter Two

Elsie propped her bicycle beneath the shelter among the long line of other bikes. With petrol rationed, most of the staff cycled to work. She liked riding along leafy Green Lane, down Whitworth Road then Weevil Lane to the munitions factory, even though due to the incessant bombing Gosport’s roads frequently changed shape and were sometimes difficult to negotiate. Heaps of rubble that had once been homes and shops were piled like gapped teeth. The stink of dust and cordite seemed ever present.

Izzy caught up with her at the main gate to Priddy’s.

‘You are coming tonight, aren’t you?’ Isabel Baker, whom everyone called Izzy, looked worried. She reminded Elsie of a mischievous pixie, with her cloud of red hair framing a heart-shaped face. Her black eye, courtesy of her boyfriend, had changed colour today and the thick Pan Stik foundation almost, but not quite, disguised it.

‘Wouldn’t miss it,’ said Elsie. She really liked the nineteen-year-old girl who was quick and nimble-fingered at her job, always ready with a smart retort.

Already the pair had begun shrugging off their coats ready to hang up when they entered the locker room. All the women starting their shifts would remove their everyday clothes and put on the navy-blue dungarees and turbans in different colours depending on the area in which they worked. They would be searched for contraband. Hair grips, jewellery, cigarettes and matches: anything that could cause a spark was a fire hazard. Safety at all times was paramount.

Elsie asked, ‘Is your Charlie coming back late tonight or tomorrow?’

She saw the flash of fear in Izzy’s eyes before the girl whispered, so that only she might hear, ‘He’s due back tomorrow afternoon from his business in Southampton. By then I hope to be arriving in the countryside. Mum won’t say a dickie-bird. She’s been telling me for ages to get away from Charlie Osborne.’

‘You keep it that way. That brute doesn’t deserve a nice girl like you. And, rest assured, when I get hold of an address to write to you, Charlie won’t worm it out of me.’

Elsie was aware that Charlie was obsessed with Izzy and needed to know where she was at all times. But his jealousy caused him to be cruel. Convinced he couldn’t trust her, he frequently lashed out at her. Gunpowder in cuts and grazes stung like hell. In Elsie’s locker in the changing room she kept a small brown bottle of iodine to dab on Izzy’s skin when Izzy refused to see the nurse at Priddy’s.

The temper that Charlie couldn’t control was what Izzy’s mum called being Highly Strung. One day he would be happy, almost over-excitable, and the next so down in the dumps that once Izzy had caught him crying over a newspaper account of the discovery of Hitler’s concentration camps. Not that the atrocities weren’t horrendous, they were, but on another day Charlie could read the same story and gloss over it as though it was simply part and parcel of war.

Charlie was generous but Izzy told Elsie that he seemed to imagine he owned her. He had been married when he was younger – he was now thirty – but his wife had left him and he’d taken a long time to get over the shock and the shame. Izzy thought Charlie was terrified the same thing might happen again, so he hardly let her out of his sight. It wasn’t as if she could look forward to the possibility of Charlie being called up because forged medical papers meant he would never fight for his country. Charlie dabbled in the black market, courtesy of the American stores at Southampton, lent money at exorbitant interest rates and often went to extraordinary lengths to make sure the money was repaid. At present he was working on a project, he’d told Izzy, that would make him exceedingly rich. A small band of his faithful satellites shone about their star leader.

Izzy had been flattered when the curly-haired, good-looking young man had asked her to dance with him at the Connaught Hall. She’d been sixteen, naïve, and now rued that fateful night.

‘If the only way I can get out of his clutches is to leave Gosport, I have to take this job. I’m frightened of making a new start but more scared that one day Charlie might do me some proper damage,’ she added.

Weeks previously Izzy had gone for the job interview. She hadn’t said a word to anyone at the factory except Elsie. She’d asked for the day off, telling her line manager a fib about a hospital appointment.

Charlie had been waiting as usual outside the main gate when her shift had ended. Izzy had run from Hutfield’s coach station in Forton Road to arrive at the munitions factory only minutes before Charlie had arrived to collect her.

Elsie knew Izzy hated deceiving anyone, but with Charlie it was sometimes a necessity to stretch the truth a little.‘I heard of a woman once whose husband was like Charlie,’ Elsie said. Sometimes Geoffrey offered her morsels from his cases. ‘She was too frightened to tell the hospital what was happening to her when she had to return time and time again with injuries. Kept saying she was walking into doors and falling downstairs. She was too scared not to keep taking him back every time he walked out on her and the kids after he’d given her a beating. Each time he told her things would change.’

As her friend tucked her hair beneath her turban, Elsie saw the blue marks of new bruising around her wrists and knew she’d touched a nerve.

‘Was it ever different for her?’

Elsie shook her head. She watched Izzy pull on the special boots they all had to wear. She wouldn’t tell her that the woman had died by her own hand. She’d had every shred of her confidence knocked out of her and sooner than strike out on her own, away from her awful husband, she’d ended it all with a rope in the shed.

Her two little girls were being cared for in a children’s home. Izzy didn’t need to be aware of that either, thought Elsie, not when she had the chance and the courage to run from her own abusive relationship.

Inside Priddy’s the air smelt of sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal. Gunpowder clung to every surface and Elsie hated it. The dust turned skin yellow, and although the turbans protected the women’s hair, fringes that hadn’t been tucked in properly went orange. The cordite was also responsible for most of the respiratory difficulties to which the women succumbed. Itchy skin and kidney problems featured a great deal in the workers’ lives.

Though the women, and men, were aware of the health risks, they felt they were serving their country.

Yesterday Elsie had heard on the wireless that the Allies had taken back Florence in Italy from the Germans. But the news reader had also spoken of the dreadful V-1s that had fallen on London and along what was known as Buzz Bomb Alley, the strip of England running across the south coast. Adolf Hitler was concentrating the showers of bombs on where he knew airfields, factories, munition yards and ship builders abounded.

Children were being evacuated again: a hundred to a hundred and fifty V-1s were aimed daily towards the area and had caused, so far, almost three thousand deaths and serious injuries.

Elsie tucked her arm through Izzy’s. Working together and sharing secrets had made the two firm friends, despite the difference in their ages. Today Elsie was determined she wouldn’t spoil Izzy’s pleasure in her new job by telling her about Geoffrey’s infidelity.

Izzy mustn’t be allowed to leave Gosport worrying about her.

‘Come here,’ said Elsie. She swung Izzy round to face her and poked into the turban the ginger curls that had already strayed out. ‘Red hair goes green! You’ve got to remember that!’ Izzy laughed.

After being searched and checked by Petunia Yates, the overseer, the two women crossed the stone floor and walked down to their workroom. Their rubber-soled boots were silent as they moved. Leather soles were forbidden, as were the metal toe and heel clips called Blakey’s that prolonged shoes’ wear but caused sparks.

‘Just you think yourself lucky the wedding never happened.’ Elsie stared at Izzy. ‘You’d find it more difficult to get away from him if you were married.’

‘Some angel must have been looking after me when Charlie got into a fight on his stag night and ended up in hospital.’

Elsie squeezed Izzy’s arm. ‘I know you were too scared to tell him you didn’t want to get married.’

‘He’d spent a fortune on the reception.’ Izzy tried to make light of the wedding that hadn’t happened at Fareham register office.

‘And he’s never let you forget it.’ Elsie knew Charlie was angry with himself for messing things up and took it out on Izzy. ‘Thank goodness you never went to live with him,’ she added.

Izzy still lived with her mum in Albert Street. Of course Charlie wasn’t happy about that but Izzy could hardly cohabit without the advantage of a wedding ring, so for the sake of propriety, Charlie had had to abide by her decision. Gossipmongers were rife in Gosport.

Elsie remembered when Izzy had broken off their engagement and thrown the ring at him. Charlie had scared her mother half to death by hammering on their front door in an effort to get Izzy to speak to him. After the door knocker had broken and Charlie had shattered the front-room window, Izzy had given in and opened up to see him, tears streaming from his eyes.

Apologizing, he was soon on his knees, in front of all the neighbours. To save further embarrassment Izzy had taken back the ring that Charlie had searched for and found in the gutter.

Everything had gone well for a while. Until Charlie had taken her to a dance at Bury Hall in Gosport and a sailor on leave had spoken to her. Horror of horrors, she’d answered him. Izzy had said then, ‘The only way I can escape from Charlie’s clutches is to leave Gosport and pray he doesn’t find me.’

Now she confided to Elsie, ‘These few days have been so nice without Charlie driving me to and from work. It’s been lovely being on my own.’

‘You’ve got it all to come again after tomorrow, don’t forget,’ Elsie said, patting Izzy’s arm.

Izzy gripped Elsie’s hand. ‘Charlie’s due back from Southampton around four. Promise me, no matter how much he goes on, you won’t tell him anything? He’s bound to be waiting outside the gates, and when I don’t turn up he’ll make a bee-line for you.’

Elsie tried to make light of her friend’s fears. ‘It won’t be a smack from your feller you’ll get, but one from me if you ever think I’d tell anyone.’

The two women had reached the long workroom where the huge machines and conveyor-belts sent along the shell cases to be filled. On the line, concentration on the job was of the utmost importance. Whatever Elsie was feeling about Geoffrey’s ultimatum, she dared not allow it to interfere with her work. Lives depended on steady hands. Already the wireless was playing the music that helped to keep the girls’ spirits up. Vera Lynn with her patriotic songs, to which they all sang along, and the latest heart-throb Frank Sinatra, the skinny Italian boy with the wonderful voice.

The munitions factory, hidden in woodland but set on the banks of Forton Creek, had easy access for ships to carry the shells across the harbour. It had its own railway line that connected to another munitions factory on the outskirts of Fareham. Wages were high, but Elsie spent most of what she earned on the garden and the house.

‘I’ll be getting bed and board,’ Izzy began, then became quiet as two chatting workers passed them. ‘The pay isn’t good but I can’t see what I’d need to spend it on.’

Elsie nodded. ‘You’re so much more relaxed when Charlie’s not about,’ she said. She didn’t want to think of her own unhappiness.

‘He’s doing a deal on drink and cigarettes at the American base. Those black-market sche. . .