Free The Narrowboat Girl by Annie Murray

task, the sounds of shovels digging into the coal or scraping at the boards of an emptier vessel to gather up the last pieces into the waiting barrows to be trundled into the boiler storehouses. Maryann could hear voices and the hard breathing of men exerting themselves, men who had already worked for sixteen or so hours that day. The horse stopped and they found a place to tie up. There were gas lamps here, and she saw the breath unfurling from the animal’s nostrils. The lights of the basin jittered brokenly in the black water.
    Maryann stood on the edge of this activity, looking along the row of boats, her eyes searching in the dim light. Could it be – please God could it be that the Esther Jane was here, and Joel? She crept along peering into the gloom. Many of the boats were joeys, with a few family boats among them. Looking down into one she saw it was nearly empty and the man shovelling up into the barrow on the bank was having to lift each shovelful almost five feet in the air to get it into the barrow. Every time he lifted one he gave a loud grunt at the effort required. Small pieces of coal rattled back into the boat. Noticing her watching, he straightened up, expelling air loudly from his mouth and pressing a hand to the small of his back. He rested on the shovel, wiping the back of his arm over his forehead.
    ‘What’re yer after?’
    ‘I want to see a man called Joel Bartholomew,’ Maryann said. She was still holding tight on to Tiger and felt small and silly. She wondered if the man could see what it was she was carrying.
    ‘What ’d ’er say?’ The figure who had just approached behind the barrow, waiting to empty it, spoke up and to her shock, Maryann realized it was a woman.
    ‘’Er’s after some bloke, Joel what was it?’
    ‘Bartholomew.’
    The two of them were silent for a moment.
    ‘I dunno ’im,’ the man said. ‘’E work on the day boats, does ’e?’
    ‘No – ’e’s on a boat like that one—’ She pointed. ‘Called the Esther Jane .’
    ‘Oh well—’ The man bent over to start work again. ‘Sounds like one of the Number Ones. ’E could be anywhere, bab, if ’e’s a long distance . . . Needle in a bleeding ’aystack.’
    The woman stood braced by the barrow as the man started shovelling again.
    ‘Tell yer what,’ she shouted over the racket. ‘We’ll keep a look out for ’im, like. The Esther Jane did yer say?’ She called over to another man who was passing. ‘D’yer know the Esther Jane ? One of the Number Ones I should think.’
    The man shrugged, seeming almost too exhausted to speak. ‘No. Can’t say I do.’
    ‘We’ll ask around for yer,’ the woman yelled across. ‘And who shall we say was asking for ’im?’
    ‘Maryann Nelson,’ she said, without hope. She wasn’t going to find him tonight and that was what mattered.
    ‘Awright then. Cheer up. Word gets about fast.’
    Maryann thanked her and turned back along the towpath. There were more joey boats, pulled by plodding horses and mules towards the city’s canal loops and basins from the Black Country coalfields, so it was not completely dark, the edges of things picked out by the glow from their lamps. The disappointment that Joel had not been there was an ache in her that cut through her numbness. She hardly knew the man, but he was kindness and warmth; she knew instinctively that he was someone who could help her bear all the feelings that were welling up in her. Of course Joel wasn’t just going to be there, like he had been the time before when she came down here by chance! How could she have been so stupid, as if she could just will him to appear? The horror of that afternoon came flooding back to her. First Tiger, then Nanny Firkin. And Sal had gone all funny and wouldn’t speak to her any more . . . If only there was someone she could run to . . .
    ‘Oh Tiger!’ She held him to her and brushed her cheek against his fur but it was wet and nasty and pent-up sobs began to shake her.