You Never Told Me Page 10

  ‘I’m sorry, half asleep down here.’ She gave a little shiver. Dave must be even chillier in his running kit.

  ‘I was just saying, I think you might have something wrapped around the propeller. There should be much more power than this.’

  ‘Oh no, really?’ And how were you supposed to deal with that? She tried to imagine what it could be. ‘Like weeds or something?’

  ‘More like rope. Or plastic bags.’ He broke off to manoeuvre away from a low-hanging branch. ‘A mate of mine managed to tangle with a mattress, one of those things made of metal springs.’ He waved to a couple on the towpath. The man called out some remark, which Charlie couldn’t decipher over the noise of the engine. Dave shouted back over, ‘No, just for the evening!’ then carried on with what he’d been saying. ‘Though I’d rather have that than a dead sheep.’

  ‘Really? No.’ She glanced up. ‘You’re having me on, right?’

  ‘Happened to another friend of mine.’ He caught her expression and started to laugh. ‘Don’t worry, that really doesn’t happen very often. Hardly at all, in fact.’

  ‘I could deal with it if I had to.’ As long as she didn’t have to. ‘Though I haven’t got the first idea how to go about checking.’

  ‘Are you going to be around for the next couple of days?’ The question made Charlie’s sensors twitch. This had felt like such a straightforward interaction, with no pressure or expectation. It would be an effort to have to push back now. Maybe she should have brought the boat back by herself after all. Dave carried on, though. ‘I’ve got stuff on tomorrow, but if you’re here the day after I could drop by and introduce you to the joys of the weed hatch?’

  They were back at the supermarket, the turning into the basin about to come up. It would be ridiculous to turn down an offer of help.

  Dave was kneeling at the back of the deck. He’d taken a board out, opening up access to the bilge, where apparently she should be checking for water on a regular basis. Charlie vaguely remembered Bob saying something, but there had been so many somethings. Now she was listening, but she was also enjoying the scene around her. The basin was quiet, an old space with high, curving walls and a feel of industry halted, absorbed back into nature. She’d slept so well, reassured by the other boats pulled up nearby and lulled by the absolute quiet, and now it was another beautiful day, the sun warm across her shoulders.

  ‘Any chance of turning the engine off?’ Dave’s question brought her back to the boat, and she blinked. It was really the perfect day for solar panels; then she wouldn’t need to run the engine. Maybe Dave would know something about it. Anyway, the engine had been on for long enough; the batteries would be well charged by now. She moved over to reach for the key, grabbing on to the throttle post for balance.

  ‘Watch out!’

  The shout made her step back, unsure what she’d done. ‘Sorry, I was just getting to—’ She waved to where the key hung from its ignition panel.

  ‘It was the throttle,’ he explained. ‘If you pushed it forwards and my arm was down when the propeller started to spin …’ He mimed his arm hanging uselessly by his side.

  Charlie stepped over with extreme care, keeping well out of the throttle’s way, and turned the key. In the sudden silence, she was picturing the propshaft spinning, Dave’s arm caught up and broken into a hundred pieces. ‘I’m so sorry. God, that would be much worse than a sheep.’

  ‘Speaking of which.’ Dave finished unscrewing a pair of oversized wingnuts and eased a dripping metal plate out of the space. ‘Want to come and have a look?’

  The water in the hole was black, fathomless, and she realized it must open into the actual canal. This wasn’t a contained amount of water. It was endless. She reached into it with an exploratory finger, ready for something down there to snap at her.

  ‘What do you do next?’ She twisted to look up at Dave, reluctant to relinquish her place now. She wanted to do this herself.

  He was leaning on the tiller, happy to let her carry on. ‘Stick your hand down, see if you can feel anything.’

  She rolled her sleeve up and started to lower her arm into the water. It wasn’t as cold as she’d expected and felt soft against her skin. Her hand seemed to be going down and down, out of the boat, out of reach. Then she touched metal. She let her fingers explore, letting her mind visualize the information they were sending her. Smooth flanges flaring, angled out in the darkness. The propeller itself, the maker of the white surge of water when Skíðblaðnir was moving forwards. It felt intimate, somehow, reaching into her inner parts. She moved her touch further in. There was something there all right, a roughness twisted around the smooth surface of the propshaft. She worked her fingertips to get a grip on it, trying to find an end to pull, but it was wadded into a solid mass.

  ‘Ah, arm starting to get cold!’ She sat back on her heels, shaking her hand to get the water off before rubbing the skin. Dave squatted down next to her, leaning to peer into the hole, even though there was no way of seeing through to the obstruction. She moved back to give him some space. ‘It’s not an animal, but I can’t get it to shift.’

  ‘You might need a knife.’ He was wearing a T-shirt with short sleeves today, so his arm was free to plunge straight in. ‘There’s something a bit veterinary about this, feeling around in a blind space to diagnose.’ He looked round. ‘Have you got anything sharp?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ There were some tools in the engine room but she wasn’t sure exactly what. ‘Would a vegetable knife do?’

  He nodded, and she climbed down into the boat. The knife was in the drawer, new and solid, the metal handle integrated into the blade. It felt heavy in her hand. Back on the deck, she hesitated before passing it over. ‘Do you mind if I have another go?’

  ‘Absolutely, your boat!’ Was there the smallest hint of reluctance there? He moved back readily enough, though. ‘Watch out with the blade. Easy to cut yourself instead of the rubbish.’

  She held the knife with her finger pressed against the flat edge of the blade, keeping her other fingers wrapped around the handle and sawing into the obstruction. Slowly, slowly, it started to give. ‘Gotcha!’ It gave way and she eased the blade further along, sensing the slight movement as the propeller began to rotate. The mass thinned, separated, and she brought the knife up to the surface, putting it to one side. Soon she had a handful of frayed and knotted blue rope on the deck next to her, intertwined with an assortment of shredded plastic bags. There was something else there, fabric, even more firmly caught. Back in with the knife and finally she had a fingerhold, then a loose end. When it gave up its grip, the whole lot came out with a rush, and she was grasping the remains of a sodden school blazer, embroidered badge still intact.

  ‘Let’s hope that’s all he lost,’ Dave commented, taking it from her and bundling it around the rest of the rubbish. ‘I’ll drop these in the bin on my way off.’ He stood, watching as she fitted the covering plate back in, let her work out how the screws went together. Finally, the deck board went back on and the boat was once again in a fully dressed state. ‘You’ll feel a difference with your steering.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’ Charlie pushed herself up, kneading out a cramp in her shoulder muscle. ‘You’ve been so kind.’

  ‘It’s nothing. And I got to go afloat, payment enough.’ He hesitated for a second and then stepped across to the bank. ‘Let me know if you’re ever back this way,’ he said. ‘Unless you’ve got time for a drink to see you on your way?’ He half turned, looking over towards the pub.

  It would probably be the right thing to do, as a thank you, if nothing else, but Charlie felt an urge to get going, try out the newly liberated propeller. ‘I’d love to, but I really need to make a start …’

  ‘No worries, I’ll let you get on. Hope it all goes well!’ He waited on the bank as she started the engine, giving a kind of salute as Skíðblaðnir edged out into the water. She still needed to be turned around, but there was plenty of space this time and the manoeuvre went
without a hitch. As she pulled away, she heard Dave’s voice behind her. ‘Attagirl!’

  She waved, giving a thumbs up, and then turned back to focus on where she was going.

  ELEVEN

  She arrived much too early. Max had said half two, and Charlie had vaguely planned to have a wander around the town and something to eat before meeting. Now she was there, though, she couldn’t think of anything that she’d want to go and see. It wasn’t even as if they’d spent much time there, not in the centre, anyway. What with work and travel in the week and getting the house sorted at weekends, they’d never had time to explore. It made her feel strange, coming back to the town she’d lived in and not feeling that she knew it at all. Instead of walking towards the shops, she followed a sign pointing to the canal.

  She must have known it was there really. Had they talked about walking along it, perhaps? She didn’t think so. Or maybe it had been Max’s father, or one of his sisters. A conversation about potential holidays, the whole family in a fleet. As she walked, she let memories of his family play through her mind. Max was one of five, the only boy, and all of his sisters had children. For years she’d revelled in their closeness, the care they had for each other. She’d really believed that she was part of the circle, that they embraced her as one of them. Then one year, just one year out of so many, she’d persuaded Max to go away for Christmas rather than join the gathering at his parents’ home. They’d all been so understanding. Of course they needed to get away, how lovely to think of them in a cosy cottage with a log fire and no Wi-Fi. In the grind of the New Year, Charlie hadn’t noticed the dropping off of calls, but she’d noticed brittleness over a family weekend, the conversations closing off as she came into the room. Max’s youngest sister, the one Charlie felt closest to, was about to have her first baby, and Charlie’s being a godmother had been part of the planning, spoken of as an absolute. Now it wasn’t mentioned and Charlie, too proud to show how much she cared, had let the ceremony pass without comment, even to Max. She could still taste the rawness of the betrayal, though that was nothing to what happened that Easter. She still couldn’t think in any detail of the things his oldest sister had said to her. She’d never told Max about it, but it was the final straw in her decision to leave. Would she ever tell him? Probably not. They were his family for ever, after all.

  The footpath took her down a shabby passage, with a tall brick wall on one side and metal fencing on the other. Through the fringing sprawl of buddleia and ivy, she could just make out a yard, filled with old cars and piles of worn tyres. Underfoot, the gravel was damp and thinly spread. She walked with her head down, dodging the dog mess. Spots of rain started to fall. It had been warm enough when she left to gamble on her denim jacket’s being enough. Now she wished she’d picked up that extra jumper.

  And then she was there, the dank pathway opening onto a cobbled stretch of bank. In front of her was a lock, one big wooden gate open to let a boat emerge from inside the chamber. Charlie stood and watched as it came out. An older woman stood at the tiller, and Charlie felt herself plotting movements in her own head as she watched the boat being angled expertly towards the bank. She wanted to go and say hello, to align herself to the boats rather than the pedestrians. Was three weeks on a boat and one short journey enough to qualify, though? There didn’t seem to be anyone with the helmswoman, and Charlie wondered about going to offer a hand, as Bob would have done, or Dave. She hesitated too long, overwhelmed by impostor syndrome, and the moment was gone. The woman on the boat had already lashed her rope around the waiting bollard and was on her way back to the lock to close it behind her. There was something self-absorbed about her movements as she leaned her weight against the long wooden arm, allowing it to move against the water at its own pace. There was no rush, just the natural rhythm of the process. With the same efficient air, she picked up her windlass, let a hidden sluice fall down and walked back to her boat. A flick of the rope, a step across and she was gone, the boat chugging away at the same unhurried pace.

  Charlie found a bench tucked under the lee of an old brick building and sat there, watching the lock being worked another couple of times. There hadn’t been any locks on the route up to Whaley Bridge, but Bob had taken her down to Bosley and they’d spent a couple of hours working the gates for passing boats. She knew in theory how it all worked – lock filled, boat in, water out, boat down – but could she manage it herself? Seeing a solo boater had given her a little burst of determination, and she tried to pick out the stages that would be hard, single-handed. One of the boats had a family aboard, the two children clamouring over who got to do what as their father directed their energy and their mother concentrated on getting the boat in and out. That must be hard to do. The father cheered as the manoeuvre was completed, ruffling one child’s hair and high-fiving the other. It was basically a language that Charlie knew she’d never be able to learn. She could manage to use it for short bursts, but was always on the edge of saying the wrong thing. Even when she tried really hard she came up short. Martha’s texts, for instance, waiting for replies. It would take so little to tell her something nice. Take a photo every now and then, of a duck, or a funny boat name. That was what you did to build friendships: you put the time in, made the effort. Maybe that was the problem, that she was worried about building too much between them in case she let Martha down. Maybe that was the problem with her whole life. As if on cue, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out to see a message from Max, not Martha this time, saying he was at the café.

  She still didn’t move, weighed down by a reluctance to set off the next stage in their long dance of separation. And the town felt alien, an enemy area. She wanted to stay here, where the canal linked her, however tenuously, to a different life, one where she didn’t have to think about negotiations and bargaining. For the first time, she realized that this was literally true. The canal here was connected to the canal there. She could walk along the towpath and, sooner or later, find her boat. She could be here, in her boat. Maybe that was what she should have done, brought her boat here so that she had a place to retreat after the battle. Even the thought of it made her feel more positive. She stood, taking in one last glance before heading for the café meeting place.

  He’d seen her. It was too late to disappear. She made herself carry on walking. The door of the café swung open in slow motion and each step felt like another moon landing. The terrain ahead was just as unknown.

  ‘Hi.’ He seemed as awkward as she felt, rising from his seat and half holding a hand out in welcome. He pulled it back just as she decided to respond. A slapstick moment without the laughs.

  The café felt abandoned rather than quiet. As Charlie navigated the clumsy slide along the wooden bench, her hand went through a sticky puddle. And people wanted children why? She wiped the mess away with a discarded napkin, glancing over at Max and wondering again how much he really did want a family. During one of their more fraught evenings before the break-up, she’d accused him of sleepwalking into the decision, letting his sisters do the thinking for him. They all had children so of course he’d want children. She’d always known that he’d be a good dad, just from seeing him around his nephews and nieces. She’d known he wouldn’t be like Hugo; she was less sure that she wouldn’t be, and she couldn’t take the risk. They’d ended that evening with both of them in tears, clinging on to each other with a desperate and, it turned out, futile passion.

  It was odd, now, seeing him from the outside, a tall stranger with a suit that was slightly too big. He always gave the impression of being just a little undernourished, in a way that made people want to feed him up. It wasn’t that he was thin, Charlie had always told him, more that his cheekbones and nose made a statement and the rest of him disappeared. He was looking well: a new haircut, a recent tan. Ironic, really. She was the one who’d gone away on – what had his sister called it? Your self-indulgent escapade, that was it. Anyway, she was the one who’d been away, and here Max was looking like he wa
s just back from a cruise. She caught a glimpse of the two of them in a smeared mirror on the wall opposite. Strange that they’d been a couple. His first words went by without her hearing them.

  ‘Sorry, what?’ She heard the confrontation in her tone as it bounced from his face. Taking a deep breath, she rubbed her fingers against her eyes, realizing too late that she hadn’t been as effective with her cleaning as she’d hoped. ‘Look, I’m sorry, this is all, well …’ She made a vague gesture to indicate her discomfort.

  His reply was stiff, offended. ‘I actually am, though. Sorry.’ He was sounding impatient already. ‘About Britta.’

  ‘Oh.’ Max had found her family incomprehensible. Every time they visited, he’d tried a new approach, unwilling to believe that he couldn’t make a difference, couldn’t fix them with a day out or a better line of conversation. ‘Thank you. It was … unexpected.’ She didn’t know what else to say. Now was when she should probably ask about his family, but every approach felt wrong. It was as if she was walking along a glass path, and every potential step would break a little more of it away. The silence stretched out. ‘How’s Bella? I thought you might have brought her with you.’

  ‘I came from work.’ He sucked his mouth in against his teeth, the way he always did when he was trying to decide what to say. A waitress ambled out from a door at the back of the café and came to stand by them. Max waved a hand. ‘We’re all right for the moment, thanks. Unless you …?’ He half turned to Charlie.