CHAPTER 18
The Ouse was low and slow, murmuring past the moorings as I laid out my tools. Somewhere overhead a lark was singing away, and there was a splash near the far bank as a vole dropped into the water. Dragonflies droned past, and when I looked down past the rail I saw a pair of dead eyes fixed on mine as a pike hung almost motionless, drifting slowly downstream as it waited for something to kill.

It never ended. Bob had written a short note the previous September, explaining how he was off in his shiny new Centurion to Korea, and with his letter he had enclosed a picture of his new tank. Why we had not had something like that in the War, God alone knew, but there it was. I remembered the rumours we had heard, about flying straight out to Burma once Jerry had chucked it in, and the promise that we were safe, and now here was Bob going off the same route. Just without the rest of us. Every month or so a little note would come, giving few details of what was actually happening to him but asking endless questions about home, about the boys, about what must have seemed like a dream of the past. What had Bob actually seen in the last few years, the better part of a decade, but war and preparing for it?

“Uncle Gerald!”

I dropped a spanner, but managed to knock it back onto the deck as I grabbed for it, and turned to the apron.

“Wilfie! Come here, lad, and give me a shake!”

Handshake be damned; he flung himself at me and tried to climb my legs, so I gave him a hug before throwing him up for a catch. He was getting a bit heavy for that, and I nearly dropped him like that spanner.

“Gerald Barker, you be careful with that boy! I just bathed him last night, and I’m not having him all mucky from Ouse!”

“Sorry, Mavis. How do? What brought you down here?”

She smiled, looking at the young boy I was now holding at my hip as tried to unfasten my overall pocket to get at the packet of sweets he hoped I had there.

“Happen it were a nice day, and the lad wanted to see his uncle the boatman. And David was in for a check at hospital in York”

“Nothing wrong with littl’un?”

“No, love, just part of all this new system. Seeing how the other half used to live, like”

I laughed. “From what I remember as a lad, it weren’t the other half, it was a much smaller fraction. Mam paid the scheme each week, but we were lucky. Never had to cash it in. How’s Bill?”

She smiled. “As he ever is, Gerald, as he ever is. Got two boys to spoil, and he didn’t have to work for one of them”

I lifted an eyebrow at that, and bless me if she didn’t blush. “Don’t you be so cheeky, Mr Barker. Anyway, you not courting?”

“Well…”

Another smile. “I know you’re working, but what have you got for snap? Summat from your Mam? Well, if you have a break for your dinner, WE have brought a proper picnic, haven’t we, Wilfie?”

“Yes, Mam! We’ve got sandwiches, and bananas! And Swiss roll!”

I looked at him, grinning away as he fished in my pocket. “How could I say no, then? I’ll have a quick word with the gaffer, then. Where do you want to go? If we go down opposite locks, it’ll have some boats for the lads to watch. Right, Wilfie, you’re getting to be a big lad now. You give your Mam a hand with your little brother, and I’ll go and get grease off my hands, right?”

“Right, Uncle Gerald! You want spam sandwiches or jam? Mam’s done me sugar ones an all!”

Mavis took the lad’s hand as I let him down. “Got some malt loaf as well, and don’t listen to him about spam. My Bill got a decent ham in from a lad at work, boiled up a treat. Car’s out front, we’ll wait”

That was a special afternoon. One lad ran around slapping his backside to be a cowboy on a horse, while his foster-brother staggered after him trying to work out what he was doing but laughing himself silly anyway. I’d boiled some water in the office for our tea, and while Wilfie tore through his jam and sugar sandwiches, and then the Swiss roll, I savoured some decent ham, with just a little mustard to set off the flavour, and the rich, deep sweetness of the malt loaf. Tea was drunk, boys watched, and I asked the question.

“Why are you really here, love? What’s on your mind?”

She sighed. “You were never a daft one, Ginge. That’s your trouble, my Bill says. You think too much. You’re not courting, are you? Thought not. Bill tells me you had some story about a girl whose dad had a pub, that right? To make you more of a man, aye?”

“You’re not stupid yourself, Mavis, but you’re wrong. I have my eye on a lass. Just need to find the right moment, like, to ask her out”

“Well, do tell, Ginge! I like a good romance, me”

I had to laugh at that one. “No romance yet, Mavis! Just lass I fancy, and I think she might just perhaps not be too frightened off. Just not used to, you know…”

She smiled, and her eyes were away in her past. “Aye, happen I know what that’s like! Spent far too long waiting for Bill to find his courage, so I just goes up to him and says William Hamilton, I says, you either ask me down to next dance or I’m going with Danny Ormiston, because he’s at least got the sense to get his tongue round words!”

A fond smile. “So he blushes, and he stammers, but he gets words out, and, well…”

She waved a hand at the two manic children. “I don’t think life can get that much better than this, Ginge. Now, that were point of little visit, cause my Bill’s had an idea, and it might just make life that little bit better indeed. He wants to emigrate”

“You what, Mavis? Leave England?”

Another laugh. “Aye, and here’s me who’s never been further than Robin Hood’s Bay! Emigrate, that’s what he’s thinking, off to Australia. Land of opportunity, and it’s what they call assisted passage. We get a new life, and Wilfie, well, nobody knows us out there. Nobody knows him, and nobody knew Minnie. What do you think, Ginge? Is my Bill right?”

“Mavis, I can’t come between man and wife, can I?”

Another gentle smile. “You won’t be doing that, love. I’ve already agreed. I said that in church, and it’s what I hold to. Where he goes, I go, boys go. Just, do you think it will be good for boys?”

I thought it through, and I realised Bill was absolutely right. Everything that had happened over the last thirty years had flattened the soul of the country, frayed its hope and optimism to tatters. Even the end of the war and all the changes Labour had brought in still felt like new paint over rusty ironwork.

“Mavis…”

“Aye?”

“Bill’s right. There’s a new life out there, away from bomb sites and dole queues. This is a real chance, aye? Time to grab it with both hands. Look at Wilfie there: think of how much room he’ll have to run in”

She reached across the rug to squeeze my hand. “Thanks, love. I just wanted someone I trusted to tell us we’re not being daft, not throwing everything away for a will o’ the wisp. We’re having a dance before we go, big party at local pub for us friends to say so long, bon voyage, all that French stuff. You’ll get invitation. Now, where this girl of yours work?”

“Tricia? She’s in baker’s in Bishop---no, Mavis!”

“Look after boys for a few minutes!”

She stood up, and walked quickly away. I looked round to grab the lads and run after her, but Wilfie was part way up a tree while David sat toddler-style at the bottom watching him. It was an easy climb, but the bigger boy was already above my reach, and Mavis was making ground too quickly. I couldn’t leave the boys, so I stood beneath the tree in case the climber fell and worried myself stupid over what Mavis was about to do.

She was back in fifteen minutes, grinning in an evil way.

“Gerald Barker, you have a job to do!”

“What have you done, Mavis? Am I going to be able to show my face in there again?”

This time, she held her laughter in, but it left her snorting.

“Ginge, you didn’t tell me she worked with her own Mam!”

“Oh dear”

“So I walks in, and she’s a pretty little thing, your Tricia, a bit heavy in the backside, like, but I hear you like them cuddly”

She was absolutely merciless. “So, anyways, I walks in, and I says, hello, is there a Patricia here? And she says, yes, who wants her, and I says I have a very shy friend, but I’ve got this dance coming up, and I think he should have company, and there’s this other woman, older like, and she says this lad, is he the one mooning around the shop every morning, buys a bun or an Eccles cake, and I says what’s he look like, and she says great long streak of ginger, and that’s when your Tricia goes all pink, and woman says aye, and I’m her Mam and he’s not the only one been mithering around like a mooncalf—“

Amazingly, she paused for breath, and gave me a serious look. “Gerald, I think she does like you, and she’s nearly as shy as you are. Get yourself down shop after work, or better do it now. You’ll need a partner for dancing”

“When is this do, Mavis?”

“Er… next month. We’re off in forty one days. Come on. Sup up tea, and down shop”

A quarter of an hour later, I was outside the bakery, where a pretty dark-haired girl was just finishing with a customer. Her eyes followed the lady out, and met mine. She blushed, but smiled, and I walked into the shop.

Her mother was racking loaves, and looked round at the sound of the bell.

“About bloody time, lad!”