Cat wheels the bicycle a long way down the lane before mounting it, in case she should fall; and fall she does, so startled to be moving forwards that she forgets to steer, and wobbles into the grass verge before clattering to the ground. She brushes grit from grazes on her hands and one knee, picks the thing up, gathers her skirt and swings her leg over it again. She will not fail at something the vicar does so easily, with his too-short trousers and his milksop complexion. Gradually, she gathers speed, and finds that the faster she goes, the easier it is to stay upright, and to steer. With a few more near disasters she makes fine progress, wheeling the bicycle down the grassy path to the canal side. She does not need a light. The pale dusty towpath is straight and well visible, cutting through the deep green rushes and cow parsley, the thistles and dock and dandelions. Cat pedals as fast as she dares, the wind fingering through her cropped hair, making her eyes water and cooling her skin. She finds herself grinning in the darkness, thrilled and carefree. She would have cycled right past the barge boat where George sleeps each night, and sought him out in Thatcham, but there is a light on in the cabin, so she judders to a halt.
Suddenly still, Cat is dizzy, and stands for a while on the path, catching her breath, finding her feet. The water of the canal lies still and silent, and in the faint light of the stars she sees water birds drift noiselessly past. Reaching from the bank, Cat knocks softly on the side of the boat. Flaking paint comes off on her knuckles. There is a thump from within, the scrape of boots on wood. George opens the cabin door and holds up a lantern, which stabs at Cat’s eyes, makes her clap her hands to her face.
‘You’ll blind me!’ she calls. Talking makes her chest tighten, and she coughs violently, bending over at the sudden pain behind her ribs. This cough still waits inside her, then. It has not left her yet.
‘Cat, is that you? Are you all right?’ George peers into the darkness, shutting the lamp halfway to dim it.
‘How many other girls call upon you in the night, George Hobson?’ she asks tartly, when the fit subsides.
‘Only you, Black Cat.’ He smiles.
‘Well then, it is me. Are you busy? Why aren’t you in town?’
‘I can’t go to town every night, Cat Morley. I’d drink myself impoverished before long. Indeed, before very long at all,’ he says, ruefully. ‘Why are you puffing? Did you run?’
‘I bicycled,’ Cat says. ‘I borrowed the vicar’s bicycle, and got here in a fraction of the time it takes walking! So I can be back again in a fraction of the time, and can stay longer with you instead.’
‘You borrowed his bicycle? That tends to mean you got permission …’
‘Don’t be daft. What he doesn’t know can’t harm him. What do you do in there of an evening, in such a small space?’
‘Come aboard and I’ll show you,’ George offers. In the muted lamplight, his face is thrown into contours. The creases around his eyes that the sun has carved, the furrow above his brows, the strong line of his jaw. The bruises of his last fight have faded now, leaving only vague brownish smears, like grubby thumb prints. His shirt is open at the throat, the sleeves rolled up. So much skin he shows. So much of his living flesh; so much evidence of vitality. Cat drinks in the sight of him, feeling herself stronger with each second that passes. Something inside her unfurls when he smiles, like the new green leaves of a fragile plant. She takes his hand and steps onto the deck, but hesitates at the cabin door. The space within is confined indeed.
‘I … I do not like small spaces,’ she says.
‘I shan’t shut us in, if you don’t want me to,’ George says, not at all troubled by her admission. Cat goes down a couple of the narrow wooden stairs and then sits, wrapping her arms around her knees. Behind her head the night sky still spreads, huge and reassuring.
The cabin is low and narrow. Nothing in it really but a bed along one side, some shelves and a stove along the other. The bed is made up with rag rugs for a mattress, and worn blankets as covers. A tin kettle sits on the stove, but the embers within it have long gone cold. George watches her eyes flit briefly around his living space. He frowns slightly, seems suddenly uncertain.
‘It’s not much, I’ll grant you. It must seem poor indeed, to one used to living in fine houses.’
‘I work in the fine house,’ Cat corrects him. ‘But I live in a cramped attic room that swelters in this heat,’ she says.
‘It’s hot indeed. I couldn’t bear to light the stove, so can’t even offer you tea, or cocoa.’
‘You keep cocoa about the place, as a rule?’ Cat asks, raising an eyebrow.