‘I don’t suppose you want to come a walk with me now, do you, Marigold, after making a fool of meself like I have?’
‘Why should it make any difference?’ she said pleasantly. ‘It was an accident. Anybody could see that. At first I thought it was funny, till I saw Victoria was in trouble. Then, when that ninny pulled us into the bank and the tiller swung round …’ She put her hands to her face with the horror of recalling it. ‘Well, our Billy’s lucky he didn’t get his head wopped off. Anyway, Algie, you did well to get Victoria out.’
‘Victoria? Is that what you call the horse? Victoria?’
‘Yes. After the queen. What’s wrong with that?’
‘But it ain’t a mare, is it?’ He grinned amiably, amused at the incongruity of the horse’s name and its gender. ‘Even I can see it’s got a doodle.’
Marigold chuckled at his irreverence. ‘The horse don’t know it’s a girl’s name,’ she reasoned.
He chuckled. ‘I suppose not. Anyway, if it’s good enough for a queen, it’s good enough for a horse, I reckon. Male or no.’
While Algie was at the Bottle and Glass trying to get back into Seth Bingham’s good books, Marigold picked up her mother’s basket and made her way to the lock-keeper’s cottage. She tapped on the door and Kate answered it.
‘Oh, hello, Marigold,’ Kate greeted pleasantly. ‘Our Algie ain’t here, he’s at the Bottle and Glass.’
Marigold blushed at the implication. ‘I’ve come to see Mrs Stokes, not Algie,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something for her.’
‘You’d better come in then.’
Marigold followed Kate into the scullery where Clara was at the sink. She greeted Marigold with a warm smile, which was returned.
‘Hello, Mrs Stokes … I just wanted to bring you these …’ She placed the basket on the table and invited Clara, by her demeanour alone, to peer into it.
‘Eggs!’ Clara declared. She looked up at Marigold and smiled. ‘For me?’
‘For being so kind, Mrs Stokes. For letting me have those choolips for me mom last time we was through here. She loved ’em, you know. As soon as I gave them to her she put them in a vase and they took pride o’ place in the Sultan’s cabin. They lasted ever so long, as well. She was ever so pleased with them. So when I knew as they’d got some new-laid eggs at a farm up by the viaduct when we came past this morning, I thought getting you a dozen would be a good way of saying thank you.’
‘You didn’t have to do that, Marigold,’ Clara said, touched by her thoughtfulness, ‘but it’s very kind of you. Thank you. It’s a lovely thought. Algie will enjoy having eggs for his breakfast in the morning, especially since it’s you that’s brought ’em. So will Mr Stokes.’
‘Did you hear about Algie falling in the cut this morning, and taking our horse with him?’
Clara laughed. ‘He told me all about it. I can just picture it.’
‘The silly devil,’ Kate chimed in with scorn. ‘I suppose he was acting the goat.’
‘It was an accident, Kate,’ Marigold said gently, immediately coming to Algie’s defence. ‘He couldn’t help it. It could’ve been much worse than it was, but it was an accident. Nobody was hurt, thank goodness. Him and me dad just took a look in the cut with the horse, and got wet.’
‘And now they’re celebrating the fact in the public, I suppose,’ Kate replied.
‘I hope so,’ Marigold said. ‘It’s just a pity our poor horse can’t be there with ’em as well. I think he deserves a drink after what he’s been through.’
Washed, dried and wearing his Sunday best suit, Algie Stokes left the Bottle and Glass after imbibing more beer than he was used to, in his endeavour to redeem himself in the eyes of Seth Bingham. He stepped unsteadily round the back of the public house, and winced at the bright afternoon sunshine that lent a dazzling sparkle to the canal’s murky water. He headed at once for the pair of narrowboats moored abreast of each other in the basin. The Odyssey was furthest from him.
‘Marigold!’ he called.
Marigold emerged from the Sultan. She stooped down to say goodbye to her mother, who was below in the cabin. She saw that Algie was wearing his best Sunday suit, his silver Albert stretched across his waistcoat.
‘How did you get on with me dad?’ she asked, clambering out of the narrowboat onto the towpath.
‘We’re the best of mates,’ Algie affirmed, with a misplaced sense of pride that amused her.
With an unspoken consensus they headed towards Wordsley, the direction he had taken at the beginning of his eventful ride that morning. Serenity enveloped them, a sort of reverential Sunday silence, punctuated only by the trickling songs of blackbirds. On other days such wistful and lovely birdsong went unheard, muffled by the intense throb of industry. Ducks and geese basked at the edge of the canal and a pen sat with propriety and elegance on a huge nest overlooked by the Dock shop.
‘How many drinks did you have to buy him?’ Marigold enquired.
‘Two.’
‘No wonder he’s the best o’ mates with you.’
‘He bought me one back as well.’
‘So you’ve had three pints?’
‘No, four, to tell you the truth. Somebody else bought us one besides. I never drink that many as a rule. ’Specially of a Sunday dinnertime.’
Marigold gasped. ‘Your hold must be awash. I wonder you can still stand.’
‘Oh, I can still stand all right.’ He teetered exaggeratedly, pretending to be more unsteady than he really was. ‘I don’t think I can walk very straight though.’ The sweet sound of her laughter appealed greatly to him and he focused his admiring eyes on her.
‘Then it’s a good job you ain’t riding your machine, else you’d be taking another look in the cut.’
‘I was intending to give you a ride on it,’ he said with a broad grin. ‘Shall I go and fetch it?’
‘Not on your nellie. Not if you’ve had four pints o’ jollop and you keeps plaiting your legs. Look at you, you’m all over the place.’ She chuckled again good naturedly at his seeming unsteadiness.
‘When we come back, I mean.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘How come it’s been so long since you came this way?’ he asked. ‘I thought you’d be through our lock well before today.’
‘I told you, we had work that took us up to
