Lyric quote along the ribs

Her owner was Idris Pell, a widower who typed letters for half the towpath. Men paid him a penny a page to say what they could not say themselves, and he charged another penny for every apology, because apologies were the hardest to spell. One wet October a girl came down to the lock with a kitbag and no boat. She wanted one line typed clean on good paper, and she would not say to whom it was meant.

The line she gave him was from a song the lock-keeper's wireless played every night, a tune with a jaunty rhythm and words that didn't match it. Love will tear us apart. Idris typed it three times, each letter struck hard enough to bite the page, and when he handed it over she read it once and folded it into her coat. She paid him in pennies counted out on the lock beam, then walked up the towpath without looking back at the water.

The paper came back to the boat decades later, wrapped round a tin of tea in the hold. On the back Idris had typed one more line, small and careful, and it said only: The gates are open if she comes. Then the bell rang for the next boat, and I have been telling you this for longer than I have been telling anyone anything else.