Water Gypsies (12 page)

Mrs Higgins was one of those women beside whom Maryann felt weak and inadequate. She couldn’t forget that Ernie had been the ninth of her thirteen surviving children, who’d all grown up on the cut. It made Maryann dizzy just thinking about it. Where had they all slept? They must have been stuffed under the cratches, she thought. The cratch was replaced on some boats by a very small forecabin in which a couple of young children could be tucked out of the rain for the night. But Maryann felt that women like Mrs Higgins were somehow a different and hardier breed from her altogether. Whatever would Mrs Higgins think if she could see into her mind now?

The days were grey and dull, though the clouds let out nothing more than drizzle. As they wound along between pastures and ploughed fields, Maryann saw that spring was coming in the buds pushing out on the trees, the fuzz of green shoots along the furrows, all the spring promise of new life. But she felt so ill, so unequal to giving life herself, that the sight made her feel even more lonely and desperate than before.

On the second afternoon she sat in the cabin as Bobby steered the butty; Joel was way ahead of them with the motor. Maryann was positioned opposite the stove, cooking and feeding the twins in turn. She could balance a baby on her lap and let her feed, keeping her hands free to chop onion, carrot and beef, though it made her back ache. Suddenly the smell of onions filled her with nausea and she had to snatch Ada from her breast and lean over the waste bucket as Ada lay back roaring on the bed.

Spent, she sat with her head down, too tired to move, even after the retching had stopped, the smell of old potato peelings unpleasant in her nostrils. A sob escaped from her.

‘I can’t go on …’ she whispered. ‘I just can’t. Not like this … ’

They left the Higgins family behind at last and headed south. When they reached Thrupp, Joel found a spot to pull in for the night.

‘Don’t want to be starting down the Thames in the dark,’ he said. ‘Best start fresh for that in the morning.’ He lifted the water cans off the roof and went off to fill them.

The family ate their stew and potatoes without speaking. Meals were often silent at the end of the day when they had all been up since before dawn and sometimes worked on until after dark. Joel scraped his plate clean and made a satisfied sound.

‘Ready for a quick one, Bobby?’

So the men went out to the pub, which nestled among the pretty stone cottages of Thrupp.

Maryann cleared the crocks away, her hands trembling as she stacked the plates. There was no Higgins boat tied up behind them tonight and the place wasn’t busy. She knew the time had come.

‘Joley, Ezra, Sally, Rose. Come on.’ The four of them bedded down on the big bed on the
Esther Jane
still, while Bobby squeezed onto the side bed. Still in their clothes, they snuggled down together, Joley and Ezra at one end, heads in the cupboard into which the bed could be folded up when necessary and the two girls at the other end.

‘Night, night.’ Maryann kissed them all. She tried to be as affectionate to Rose as to her own children, which wasn’t difficult as she was very fond of the little girl. Poor little mite – no mom and now separated from her real brothers as well.

‘Night, Mom,’ they said. Even Rose called her Mom already.

‘Oh, Nance.’ Maryann found her lips moving as she closed the hatch and went, shivering, back to the cosy cabin of the
Theodore.
‘I know you’d never understand what I’m about to do, but if you’re watching, don’t be too hard on me. I won’t be able to carry on being a mom to any of them if I have another one now. It’d just finish me off, Nance, heaven forgive me.’

Inside the cabin she continued muttering to herself. The twins slept on on the side bench, and she tried to keep herself calm.

‘Now or never. I’ve got to do it – it’s got to be now or they’ll be back. Oh, please don’t let it hurt too much. Let it just be over!’

She knelt down and reached into the monkey hole under the bed, where Joel kept a few of his tools. The screwdriver felt heavy in her hand. It had a sturdy wooden handle and a long metal shaft leading up to its flattened end, which was about a quarter of an inch wide. Maryann knelt there, turning it round in her hands, which she noticed were trembling. The metal was tarnished, dotted with rust. She knew she could have sat there for hours putting off the moment, but then it would be too late. It had to be done.

Feeling something was necessary in preparation, some ritual, she poured a cup of hot water over the metal part of the tool and wiped it on her skirt. As she went about these humble preparations, tremors began to move through her body, as if she was running a fever; her teeth started chattering. With difficulty she adjusted the wick of the lamp and the shadows shifted round her.

‘It’ll be all right,’ she whispered, trying to steady herself. ‘Calm down … Steady … Tomorrow it’ll all be over. I’ve just got to do it…’

For a moment she stood by the bed, holding the screwdriver, at a loss. She realized suddenly that in order to begin she would have to remove her bloomers. She wore the full, old-fashioned kind still, for warmth. To do that she’d have to take her boots off. Perched on the edge of the bed, she struggled with the laces. Her hands were shaking so much that this seemed to take for ever, but at last she pulled off her boots, placing them silently on the floor, then rucked up her skirt and pulled down her bloomers, feeling vulnerable, embarrassed even, at finding herself standing there with no drawers on and no shoes either. It was a relief to let her skirt fall down again over her thighs.

‘Come on, come on,’ she urged herself through chattering teeth. It had to be done quickly or she would lose her nerve.

Again, she sat down on the edge of the back bed, the implement with its sharp, square end in her hand. Everything felt unreal, as if she was dreaming. Her legs twitched convulsively and she couldn’t control them. She opened them shakily, closed them again. How was she going to manage this? She had to prod hard enough to make sure she started bleeding. The only way, she saw, shuddering, was to lie back, to get in the right position. Shifting her weight, she lay diagonally across the bed so that her head was pressed right into the darkest corner. She could smell coal strongly. It got into every crevice of the boats. The hard wall pushed against the top of her head, the blanket was scratchy against the back of her neck.

Her skirt fell back as she lifted her legs and at once lying in this position filled her with horror. It was unbearable. The air felt somehow indecent about her private parts and she felt helpless and full of shame. She was a child, lying pressed to her mom’s front-room floor by Norman Griffin, when he had forced her dress up. She began to sob, but she made herself remember what she was doing. She couldn’t stop now: it had to be done to free her of the child. Just this one, she promised. She’d never, ever do anything like this again.

Quick. It had to be quick. The steely end of the screwdriver felt cold as she eased it into herself, guiding the handle. Her breath was coming in loud, juddering gasps. In a couple of seconds she felt it reach in as far as it would go. What now? Push in further, slowly? No, quickly … Do it, do it, the blood throbbed in her ears.

She pulled the handle out a little, trying to take aim. Without giving herself any more time to consider she jerked her hands back towards her with all her strength, driving it into her.

The pain was instant. Her eyes stretched wide at the shock of it and she heard herself giving off screams and moans. She thought she knew pain, but this was not the coming, going waves of labour pains but an appalling sharp agony which was getting worse, tearing at her. Waves of heat and nausea swept over her. Unable to control her cries of agony, she tried to sit up, to pull the thing out, but she could hardly keep her hand still enough to get a grip on it she was shaking so much. God in heaven, what had she done? It wasn’t supposed to be like this!

Sweat soaked her chest and back. Grinding her teeth, she grabbed at the handle and tried to pull on it, but it wouldn’t come. She tried to get to her feet, easing forwards, the thing still in her, but her legs wouldn’t stand the weight and she nearly collapsed onto the stove. Sounds came from her mouth, whimpers, groans.

Crouching half upright, she felt a hot surge over her hands, running down to drip from her wrists, over the handle of the screwdriver to the floor. It took her a moment to understand why her hands were red. From somewhere she could hear a baby screaming, and she knew it was the baby inside her crying out in pain, the tiny life to whom she’d done this terrible thing.

‘I’m sorry, little one …sorry…’ she managed to say. She slumped back across the bed and in seconds a thick, rubbery darkness had covered her face.

Twelve

Something was pressing on her eyelids. It was not painful, but warm, and seemed to have weight. Next she felt her left ear, that it was pressed down into a pillow. Maryann became aware of herself piece by piece, as if a thaw had set in throughout her body, each part of it warming slowly back to life. She could feel the air passing in and out through her nostrils. There were unfamiliar smells. Her head, the central core uniting her eyelids, ears and nostrils, was throbbing with pain.

She moved her fingers and, somewhere far away, her toes. Pressure mounted inside her which it took a moment to recognize, its urgency increasing so rapidly that her eyes snapped open and seeing a bowl on the chair beside her bed, she grabbed it and leaned up on her elbow, suddenly aware as she moved, that there was a tube attached to her arm. Her innards contracted until a miserable spurt of liquid was wrung from her and she lay back, unable to control her moans. There was a sick banging in her head and in the lower part of her body raw, tearing pain.

She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for it to subside and struggling frantically to make sense of things. Where, from this white glimpse of her surroundings, was she? A hospital, that much was clear, but where? What had happened to her to cause this agony? Had she fallen in and been hit by the butty? She forced her eyes open, squinting, the bar of sunlight from the long window opposite still falling across her face. She saw the tube running into her arm, and then another bed next to hers. Panic flooded her. How did she get here from the cut? And where were Joel and the children?

Gradually her life poured back to her. She’d been in the cabin, that much she knew. She remembered kneeling there in the lamplight, that she’d been alone. Then blackness. Lord above, what had happened?

A face leaned across from the neighbouring bed, a skinny brown plait draped over the shoulder. Narrow grey eyes stared at her, unashamedly curious.

‘You’ve come round then?’ the young woman observed. ‘Took your time. You’ve been out for ages.’ She sounded neither friendly nor unfriendly. ‘Only had my appendix out, me. What’re you in for?’

Maryann wondered if she could make her voice work. ‘Wh …’ she attempted. Her mouth was dry and sour. ‘Where am I?’

‘Where
are
you? Don’t you even know that! The Radcliffe, of course.’ Seeing Maryann’s blank look undispelled, she added, ‘In Oxford. D’you want the nurse?’ Self-importantly she called out to one who was not far off, sitting at a table in the middle of the ward. When the woman came she was tall and very thin, with porcelain skin and pale eyes.

‘Ah –’ she stood over Maryann – ‘you’re back with us. How’re you feeling?’

‘My head.’ Maryann pressed her hand against her forehead. ‘I’ve been sick,’ she added wretchedly.

‘I don’t suppose it’ll be the last time either.’ The nurse had picked up Maryann’s other hand and was taking her pulse. After a short silence she nodded and released her hand. ‘Good. Yes– it’s the after-effects of the anaesthetic. Makes everyone feel ropy.’

She removed the bowl and Maryann watched her willowy figure go along the ward, before coming back with it empty and rinsed.

‘She’s not so bad, that one,’ her neighbour said during the nurse’s absence.

‘The doctors will be in to see you soon,’ the nurse told her. ‘Drink plenty of water.’

Evidently it was morning. There was a flurry of bed-making and bed baths, although Maryann was left alone. Then the doctors came. The nurse drew screens around her bed and a middle-aged man, with a clipped voice and a moustache, and two very young men came and stood in a row at the bottom of her bed. Maryann lay looking up at them. The older man had papers tucked under his left arm. The two younger ones looked uncomfortable and their glance kept flickering towards her and away again.

‘Well,’ the older doctor said, ‘I hope you’re ashamed of yourself. You’ve managed to do yourself a great deal of damage.’

Maryann tried to fight the tears which welled up in her eyes. Why was this man accusing her in this cold, cruel voice? What had happened? And where were her family, all the people she cared about and most wanted to see?

He flicked through the notes, while the two students stared at the wall above Maryann’s head.

‘I’ll tell you, I take a very dim view of this sort of thing,’ the doctor went on. ‘You damaged your uterus beyond repair and we’ve had to carry out a complete hysterectomy. You’ve lost a good deal of blood in the meantime and we’ve had to transfuse you.’ He spoke as if these medical necessities had been a huge personal inconvenience.

‘Of course, there was no possibility of saving the child.’ Abruptly he pushed the notes back under his arm. ‘But then I don’t imagine that was what was required, was it? Anyway –’ for the first time he looked directly at her – ‘there won’t be any more babies for you, that you can be sure of.’

To his two underlings, he said, ‘Ten-inch screwdriver – still in place when they brought her in. These women are beyond belief.’ Shaking his head, he pushed the screen out of his way and moved on without a further word to Maryann.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. The way he had spoken made her feel lower than nothing. She hadn’t understood a lot of the words he used but he had made her remember what had happened. Of course. She was expecting …she remembered the light in the cabin, her legs bare to the air, the screwdriver … and then those dying cries of the child, which seemed to ring in her head. Oh, God above, what had she done? She covered her face with her hands. The screens had been taken away and there was no privacy now. She felt so exposed in the long ward with eyes all around her, when she was used to her tiny cabin. And she hadn’t meant any of this to happen! Not like this. No one was supposed to know. How would Joel ever forgive her if he knew she’d murdered their little babby?