‘In our shed.’
‘What d’you do for a living, Algie, if you can afford to buy a bike?’
‘I make brass bedsteads at Sampson’s up at Queen’s Cross in Dudley. A bike will be handy for getting to work and back.’
‘Don’t you fancy being a lock-keeper, like your dad?’
‘Me? Nah. It don’t pay enough wages. You get your coal for free, granted, and a house to live in as part of the job, but I wouldn’t be a lock-keeper. Me dad gets called out all hours. I wouldn’t want that. I like peace and quiet. How about you, anyway? D’you intend to spend the rest of your life on the narrowboats?’
‘Depends,’ she said with a shrug.
‘On what?’
‘On whether I marry a boatman – a number one, f’rinstance.’
‘A number one? You mean a chap who owns his own boats?’
‘Yes.’
‘Got your eye on anybody?’ he asked, dreading her answer, but grinning all the same.
She shrugged again. ‘Dunno. Nobody on the boats at any rate.’ She gave him a sideways glance to assess his reaction.
‘Who then?’
‘I ain’t telling you.’
So there was some chap in her life. Damn and blast. It was naïve of him to think otherwise, a girl like Marigold.
‘Go on, you can tell me.’
‘There is a chap I like,’ she admitted. ‘He ain’t a boatman. He works at one of the carpet factories in Kiddy. He’s one that generally helps offload us.’
‘Oh, I see … So the crafty monkey sees to it as you don’t get offloaded on the same day as you arrive. That way, you have to stop over till next day, eh? Then you can meet him at night. Is that it?’
Marigold blushed, smiling in acknowledgement of the truth of Algie’s astute assessment.
‘So you’ll be doing a spot of courting tomorrow night, then?’
‘I suppose. It depends.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Jack.’
‘Shall you tell him about me?’
‘What is there to tell?’ She glanced at him again.
‘Well … you could tell him that you went a walk with another chap.’ He regarded her intently, and caught a look of unease in her clear blue eyes at the idea.
‘So, what about you?’ she asked, intent on diverting the focus from herself. ‘Do you have a regular sweetheart?’
‘Me? Not really.’
‘Not really? You either do or you don’t.’
‘There’s this girl I’m sort of friendly with … But it ain’t as if we’re proper sweethearts … I mean we ain’t about to get wed or anything like that.’
‘And shall you tell her you been a walk wi’ me this afternoon?’
‘Like you say, there’s nothing to tell, is there?’
‘Not really …’ She smiled at his turning the tables back on her. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Harriet.’
‘That’s a nice name.’
‘Maybe we should get Harriet and your Jack together, eh?’
She laughed at that. ‘Is she pretty, this Harriet?’
‘Nowhere near as pretty as you. Jack would fancy you more than Harriet, for certain. I do at any rate … I’ve been noticing you for a long time … seeing you come past our house from time to time. I’ve often thought how much I’d like to get you on your own and get to know you.’
‘Have you, Algie? Honest?’ She laughed self-consciously.
‘Yes, honest.’
‘That’s nice … I’m surprised, though.’
‘Don’t be surprised. Next time you come through the lock and pay your penny let me know you’re there, eh? ’Specially if it’s of a Sunday, or if you’re mooring up for the night close by. We could go for walks again then. I mean to say, the summer’s only just around the corner.’
‘And you wouldn’t mind me asking for you?’
‘Course not. I’d like you to. I’m inviting you to.’
She looked him squarely in the eye, with an open, candid smile. ‘I just might then … And your mother wouldn’t mind?’
‘Why should she mind?’
She shrugged girlishly. ‘Dunno … What if she don’t like me?’
‘Oh, she doesn’t dislike you, Marigold. She knows your family. Lord, you’ve been coming through our stretch of the cut long enough.’
‘How old is your mom, Algie?’
‘Two-and-forty.’
‘She don’t look it, does she? She looks about thirty. I mean she ain’t got stout or anything.’
‘No, she doesn’t look her age, I grant you. She looks well. We got a photo of her when she was about your age – what is your age, Marigold, by the way?’
‘Eighteen. I’ll be nineteen in July.’
‘Anyway – this photo of me mom – she was really pretty when she was about eighteen. There must’ve been one or two chaps after her, according to the things I’ve heard said …’
‘But your dad got her.’
‘Yes, me dad got her. Just think, if he hadn’t got her, I’d have been somebody else.’
‘No, Algie,’ she chuckled deliciously. ‘If he hadn’t got her, you wouldn’t have been born. It’s obvious.’
‘Course I would. But I’d have been somebody else, like I say.’
She smiled, mystified and amused by his quaint logic.
‘Your mom’s nice-looking for her age as well, ain’t she?’ Algie said easily. ‘It’s easy to see who you get your pretty face from.’
‘So how old are you, Algie?’ Marigold asked, not wishing to pursue that line.
‘Two-and-twenty. I’ll be three-and-twenty in September.’
‘So how old was your mom when she had you?’
‘Can’t you work it out?’
‘I can’t do sums like that, Algie. I ain’t had no schooling like you.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He smiled sympathetically. It was difficult to imagine what it must be like for somebody who couldn’t read, something he took for granted. ‘Well, she must’ve been about one-and-twenty,’ he said, answering her question. ‘Something like that. What about your mom?’
‘My mom was nineteen when she had me.’
‘Nearly your own age,’ he remarked.
‘I reckon so,’ Marigold admitted. ‘She must have bin carrying me at my age.’
‘So how old is your dad? He looks older.’
‘He’s nearly fifty.’
‘Quite a bit older, then?’
‘I suppose,’ she mused. ‘It’s summat as I never thought about. Anyway, I don’t see as how it matters that much.’