The Lock-Keeper

I decided, three weeks ago, that I would not cry when I sold *The Magpie*. I wrote it down in the margin of the inventory list, right next to the fuel gauge readings: *No tears. Just numbers.* It was a sensible rule. At fifty-two, grief is a logistical problem. You budget for it, you schedule it, and then you execute. I had done it with my mother, my career, and my marriage. I could certainly do it with a twenty-foot narrowboat.

The canal at dusk was grey and flat, the water reflecting the bruised purple of the sky. I nudged *The Magpie* forward with a half-turn of the wheel, watching the ripples break against the stone steps of the village lock. I knew this water. I had learned to swim in its chill depths at twelve, to skip stones at fourteen, to kiss boys behind its brick walls at sixteen. I had left this place at nineteen with a suitcase and a silence that had lasted thirty-three years. Now I was returning to put the boat under a hammer, to trade twenty years of winter damp and summer leaks for a flat in a city where the heating worked.

The paddle was stiff. I pulled it down, counting the seconds for the water to rise. One. Two. Three.