A Country Girl

‘You didn’t have to stay in Kidderminster last night then?’ Algie commented.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘When we got to the carpet factory, Jack was there. I told him straight away as I didn’t see any point in us seeing one another anymore. I told him it was because I never knowed when I was gunna be there.’

Algie smiled with relief at this news. ‘And what did he say?’

‘That I’d been taking him too serious, and that it was nice just to see me when we did go to Kidder, even if it wasn’t all the time. Anyroad, we was offloaded in no time.’ She chuckled at that. ‘Just goes to show, I’m sure he used to fix it that we couldn’t get offloaded, just so as he could see me of a night time, just like you said. Lord knows how much that cost me dad, losing time like that, but I ain’t said nothing.’

They walked past the locks, towards the bridge that would lead them away from the canal. Three canals met at this point and, in whichever direction the couple went, there were collieries and wharfs. There seemed no escape from the sights, sounds and smells of industry.

‘If we go up this way, we get to Scott’s Green,’ he told her, wheeling his bicycle beside him. ‘Beyond that there’s some fields. We could sit on the grass there.’

She smiled at him admiringly.

‘Where’re you bound for tomorrow then?’ Algie asked.

‘Wolverhampton. But we gotta go through the tunnel first, loaded with iron bars … And Victoria don’t like the tunnel’s blackness. He can hardly see where he’s going, poor horse.’

‘So who’ll lead him?’

‘Our Charlie. He always does … Anyway, what’ve you done to your lip? It looks ever so sore.’ Marigold peered at it with evident concern.

‘I walked into a brass rod at work,’ he said glibly, repeating the excuse he’d given his mother. ‘It’s much better now. It won’t stop me kissing you.’

‘Ooh, I ain’t so sure as I want to kiss that,’ she said squeamishly, scrutinising it with a little more zeal as they strolled. ‘Are you sure you walked into a brass rod? It looks more like you’ve been fighting.’

‘That’s what my mother said.’

He had no particular wish to expose Kate’s disgracefully immoral behaviour, yet neither did he see any point in concealing it from Marigold. He felt he could confide in her, so he confessed that he’d had a scuffle with Reggie Hodgetts and what it was over.

‘That slime?’ Marigold commented. ‘What does she see in him? My dad hates the whole family of ’em. Troublemakers, they are. Thankfully, we don’t see ’em that often.’

‘I just hope he hasn’t put her in the family way, that’s all.’

‘Oh, that would be terrible,’ Marigold agreed.

‘Anyway, they must have moored up somewhere close to our house last night. Let’s hope they’re miles away by now.’

They crossed the Stourbridge Road at Scott’s Green near the Hope Ironworks, then ambled over an area of rough ground before crossing the busy mineral railway that operated between the Himley Colliery and the wharf at Springs Mire in Dudley. From that point they found themselves in undulating open fields at an area known as Old Park. Algie rested his bike on the grass, then they sat down in a hollow behind a grassy hillock. Marigold inched herself close beside him.

‘Did you tell Harriet about me?’

‘She knows I’m stepping out with you,’ he replied ambiguously.

Marigold smiled with satisfaction while Algie remained quiet for a few seconds, looking out onto the distant headgear of the pits that lay towards Gornal.

‘I think our Kate’s a trollop,’ he remarked. ‘Don’t you think so, Marigold?’

‘Depends.’ She teased some stray strands of dark hair from over her eye. ‘With him, yes, ’cause he’s horrible.’

‘Would you do such a thing?’

‘Lord, no,’ she protested. ‘Not with him at any rate.’

‘And not without being married either, I expect, eh?’ he suggested experimentally, trying to glean whether she felt the same as Harriet about such things.

‘Some o’ the couples that live on the narrowboats ain’t proper wed,’ Marigold said guilelessly. ‘But they share a bed all the same, and I know zackly what goes on between ’em when they’m abed, ’cause I often used to hear me mom and dad at it when we was all abed in the Sultan. They’m proper wed at least, though, me mom and dad,’ she added, to set the matter straight. ‘But the way I see it, you don’t have to be proper wed to do such things. It ain’t as if marriage is some sort of key what opens a lock to that sort of thing.’

‘You don’t go to church, I suppose, Marigold?’ he asked, somewhat astonished by the candidness of her response and yet encouraged by it. ‘I mean, it’s obvious you don’t follow the Church’s teaching.’

‘Me? Go to church?’ She laughed at the notion. ‘When do I get the chance? The only time I ever went to church was when I was christened, me mom said. What would I know about what the Church learns you? Anyroad, what do I care?’ She paused, pondering Algie’s question before she spoke again. ‘Am you religious, then, Algie?’

‘Me?’ he guffawed with exaggerated scorn. ‘I ain’t religious.’

‘But you’ve been going to church regular with that Harriet.’

‘And never listened to much of it.’

‘Too busy whispering sweet nothings into her ear, eh?’ she fished.

‘No. I preferred the singing, to tell you the truth … Are you sure you don’t fancy kissing me, Marigold, with my bad lip?’

Their spooning was seriously impaired by Algie’s poorly lip, but that did not prevent him from endeavouring to see how far Marigold would let him go. Yet he began to feel guilty that perhaps it was too soon in their courtship to expect her to be submissive. She rebuffed his advances repeatedly, but without rebuke, which only served to enhance his esteem of her nature.

‘No, Algie,’ she replied firmly, after he’d attempted several times to fondle her breasts. ‘I ain’t a girl like that, to give in to a chap when I ain’t known him that long.’

‘But you’ve known me years.’

‘Not like that, I ain’t.’

‘So how much longer d’you need to know me?’

‘Dunno.’

‘A week?… Two?… A month?’

‘I don’t know, Algie …’

‘Don’t you like me enough?’

‘Yes, I do … That’s the trouble.’

He was heartened by her candid admission. ‘But I want you, Marigold.’

‘What if I let you go all the way and you put me in the family way—?’

‘I wouldn’t.’

‘You can’t say that.’