Water Gypsies (25 page)

Next, they set off down the Oxford. After the first day on the move, Sylvia came to Maryann and said,

‘I don’t think I can stand much more of this – it’s awful!’

More and more tension built up between them all. Dot insisted on lock-wheeling, storming along the towpath and throwing herself at the paddle mechanisms. They could see she was explosive and both Maryann and Sylvia became almost afraid to speak to her. When they did, she answered abruptly, angrily. Sylvia looked pale and strained. She had told Maryann she was finding it hard to sleep with Dot lying close to her and so knotted up in herself. She was at her wits’ end to know what to do. They reached Fenny Compton late one afternoon when the sky was heavy with cloud. They had tied up at a reasonable hour and fetched in supplies. Sylvia suggested that they go over to the pub for a drink.

‘It might help her to have a break – make her feel a bit better. If I can persuade her to come out.’ Dot was usually game for a trip to the pub even if she never drank alcohol.

‘You go,’ Maryann said. ‘I’ll stay in. I’ve got umpteen things to do.’

‘Well,’ Sylvia said doubtfully. ‘I’ll see if she will. But it’ll be hard going!’

She must have eventually persuaded Dot that a change would do her good because the two women stopped at the
Esther Jane
to say they were leaving.

‘It’s getting pretty awful out here!’ Sylvia said from under her sou’wester. The wind was getting up and the drumming of rain on the roof accompanied Maryann as she worked through her evening chores. Maryann was relieved not to be with Sylvia and Dot. She found it hard to bear the weight of Dot’s silent agony and had no idea how to break through it. The strain was telling on all of them and tonight she didn’t want to think about anything. She undressed, got into bed and picked up one of Sylvia’s magazines. It had become her nightly treat to cuddle up on the tiny bed with her family all round her, hair loose, hugging her old cardi to her, reading and rereading the articles and stories. The magazines presented her with a world of feminine things she had barely been aware of over the years. Even though fashions and clothing were very limited now by shortages and rationing, to her it seemed exciting reading about patterns and sewing tricks and make-do-and-mend.

She gradually grew sleepy, but struggled to keep awake to finish a story. As she sat with the magazine propped against her knees, a strange sound came from outside in the dark. Maryann raised her head. For a second she thought it was an owl, but that could hardly be in this pouring rain. It was followed by more noises and her heart began to beat fast.

Pulling on her coat and boots, she let herself out, jumping down onto the squelching bank, the sound of the rain all round her, the plop and gurgle of it in the cut. A little way ahead she could make out the bobbing light of a torch, and as she moved closer against the wind, she could make out Sylvia leaning over the figure on the ground. In gusts there came to her the wrenching, almost retching sound of weeping.

Dot was kneeling on the ground, one moment curled forward, the next throwing herself up onto her knees, swaying and moaning, as if trying to work the pain out of her body.

‘Dot, sweetie – oh, do get up! Let’s go inside…’ Sylvia sounded distraught, as she begged Dot not to kneel out here in the rain. But Dot couldn’t seem to hear her, or anything. She was lost in her crying, and the sound of it cut through Maryann. She felt herself swell with pity at the little figure, wrestling in the darkness.

When Sylvia saw her she cried, ‘Oh, Maryann! She just – I don’t know what happened. I can’t get her to hear me, she’s in such a state and she’s getting caked in mud…’

Maryann didn’t need to think what to do. She flung herself onto her knees beside Dot, rain running down her face, the wet soaking through her nightdress, melting inside with pity for the girl’s distress.

‘Come here…’ She embraced Dot’s lunging, weeping form in her arms and held her, managing to still her a little, tender, motherly words falling from her lips.

‘It’s all right, Dot, you’re all right, have a good cry, that’s it – you let some of it out, my love.’ She rocked Dot back and forth like a child, feeling her shaking and sobbing.

Broken words and groans of pain were snatched from Dot’s lips by the wind. ‘My Stevie … my lovely Stevie…’ There was a long moan of pain, before she cried, ‘Oh God, he was all I had!’ Then her sobs would empty her of breath and she quivered, gulping until she managed a great, gasping breath.

Maryann’s own tears came then and Sylvia came up and hugged Dot from behind. ‘Poor darling,’ she kept saying. ‘Oh, poor love.’

Holding each other, crying, the three of them were soon soaked. Maryann lost track of how much time they crouched there. Then Dot’s crying quietened to shaking and gulping and she seemed to come to, as if from a trance.

‘Sorry.’ She struggled to her feet, regaining some of her gruff self-control. ‘We must all go in. This is ridiculous of me … only I… ’ She lowered her head and began to weep helplessly, but more softly than before.

‘Come on.’ Sylvia took her hand and, sodden and shivering, the three of them all went to the
Theodore
.

For a moment, in the light of the cabin, they were at a loss what to do. Water ran from them, forming puddles at their feet.

‘We’d better take these wet clothes off,’ Sylvia said, suddenly brisk, as if the emotions released just now should be swept away now that they were back in the light again. Dot perched numbly on the side bench, as if exhausted. Maryann sat beside her and unbuttoned her coat for her. Dot didn’t resist. She suddenly looked very young and beaten, her chopped fringe slicked to her forehead, her cheeks wet and eyes red.

‘Let’s have a cup of cocoa,’ Sylvia said. ‘Dot – you going to have some?’

Dot looked up slowly and nodded, her eyes filling. ‘I’m sorry – I can’t seem to stop now I’ve started,’ she said. ‘Oh, Steven…’

Maryann put her arms round Dot’s shoulders and held her close.

‘What’re you saying sorry for, you silly so-and-so?’

Twenty-Five

Easter was drawing near. Daffodils rippled bright in the spring breezes in gardens backing onto the cut. Soon it would be time for Sylvia to join her children for their school holidays.

During that time Dot allowed herself to begin to grieve. In fact grief took hold of her and would not let her hold it at bay any more.

‘I don’t know what’s come over me,’ she would say, finding tears running down her cheeks at unexpected moments. ‘This just isn’t like me at all.’

‘Dot,’ Sylvia would say, ‘you’ve lost your brother, who you loved more than anyone in the world and you don’t know what’s come over you!’ Their sympathy made Dot cry all the more. Maryann and Sylvia, both so much older, had developed a big-sisterly affection and protectiveness towards Dot in her unhappiness. It had changed everything.

On those chill, lamplit evenings they sat in the
Theodore
, and Dot began to talk about herself and her family in a way that she never had before. Things just seemed to come pouring out. One evening, to Maryann’s astonishment, she told them that her mother had died in her forties of a diseased liver and alcohol poisoning. When she came out with this in her strange, abruptly matter-of-fact, Dot-ish way, Maryann saw shock register on Sylvia’s face too and their eyes met for a horrified second.

‘It took Stevie and me years to work out what was the matter with her. That she was a tippler.’ Dot kept her eyes on her knitting. Her hair was loose over her plump shoulders and Maryann suddenly thought how young she looked. She could imagine her as a little girl of seven or eight, with her big eyes, rosy cheeks and sudden vulnerability.

‘How terrible!’ Sylvia murmured. Dot glanced up and Maryann could see she found sympathy hard to accept, even now. She had been so accustomed to burying her feelings.

‘When you’re young you accept things the way they are, don’t you? Stevie and I just knew that at times – in fact much of the time – our mother had to be left alone, or that she seemed to spend such a lot of time asleep. Passed out was nearer the truth. Then, other days she’d turn on us like a hyena. Poor Stevie – it was far worse for him. He was such a shy little boy. Clingy. Cowed, really. He needed a nice, soft, attentive mother.’ Dot gave a harsh laugh. ‘I suppose I got by by being his protector, poor little chap.

‘Of course, as we got older, we began to put two and two together. There was that smell our mother had about her: Scotch was her poison. Other things would do if there was none going, but that’s the smell I remember.’ Dot grimaced. ‘When she smelt like that, you left her alone. She gave up trying to hide it long before she died. We had housekeepers and
they
didn’t smell like that … And, of course, we’d hear them talking. One of them, I heard her say to one of the maids, “Mrs Higgs-Deveraux – proper dipsomaniac she is, if you ask me.” I went and looked it up.’ Dot sighed and stopped knitting, hands in her lap. D’you know, I can still see the dictionary. It was a big, heavy thing, the edges of the pages all brown. I sat with it in my lap, in the parlour. I was about eleven. And I just sat there reading the word over and over again. Dipsomaniac. It was almost like discovering you’ve got a brother or sister you’ve never been told about, but somehow you always knew was there – things suddenly making sense. Stevie and I had always kept out of her way – if we weren’t at school we were out somewhere. And soon after that, I remember, was one of the times we hid for
hours
under the big bed in the spare room when Mummy was in one of her states. We both lay there on the floorboards, on our backs, looking up at the springs, and the sheets tucked under the mattress and it was all dusty and smelt of mothballs, and we could hear our mother and father. He was so cold and cruel to her. Stevie and I started singing little songs, very quietly. “Here we go gathering nuts in May – ” Things like that. We didn’t want to hear what they were saying. Or what Daddy was doing to her…’ Dot’s voice faltered.

‘Is that why she drank – to get away from him?’ Sylvia asked gently.

‘I don’t know. Partly.’ Dot was silent for a moment. ‘No – I think she was frustrated. She married young when she really had wanted to have a life of her own, and there was just nothing for her in the country, where we lived. And she was married to a man who was as cold as the grave. A narcissist. Couldn’t see anything from anyone else’s point of view. He never gave her an inch. He always, always had to be centre stage. If we had visitors, everything revolved around him. He’s a completely self-obsessed man. D’you know …?’

Maryann tensed inside, almost panicky, as if she wanted to shout,
Stop! Stop – don’t tell me any more! Let me believe that you had a happy, charmed childhood, not one like mine, full of cruelty. Please let something,
somewhere, be innocent and loving!
Sylvia was silent as well. They could hear her little alarm clock ticking in the background.

‘When Stevie was fifteen, he—’ Again she ground to a halt, taking deep, distressed breaths.

‘Don’t.’ Sylvia had tears in her eyes. ‘Not if it’s too much for you, darling.’

But Dot couldn’t seem to stop now. The words poured out.

‘He took a rope into the stables. Tied it over the beam. And a chair. Only the chair wasn’t really high enough – he left the rope too long. Norris – the man who worked in the garden – found him hanging, just off the ground. It’d only been a matter of seconds, I think. But he’d meant it – to take his own life. Stevie would never do something like that without meaning it. Afterwards he couldn’t speak properly for days, he’d bruised his throat so badly. It was a Saturday and my father was in his study, preparing papers for some case or other. My mother ran to him to tell him what had happened, and he refused to come down before he’d finished the piece of work he was doing. It was nearly an hour before he came and my mother and I had put Steven to bed and called the doctor. He was in shock, of course: his neck was red and burnt from the rope. And my father came, finally. He stood in the doorway – he’s very tall and thin – and stared at Stevie with such
contempt
and anger. He said, “You bloody little fool.”’

Dot stared at the table with the empty cocoa cups on it. She was quivering slightly. Then she looked up.

‘So – that’s my family. A right jolly old crew. Stevie joined the Navy as soon as they’d have him. I know he felt frightful about leaving me, but I was about to go to London anyway. I was delighted for him. It was far worse at home for him than me. Daddy expected so much more of him.’

Maryann was surprised at how much she was beginning to dread the three of them being separated. Of course Sylvia would be back, and in the meantime Dot would stay and they’d have to rearrange things so that Bobby could come back and crew with them. She wasn’t worried about shifting the loads, but they’d got into a routine of hard work and support for each other, of sharing laughter and beginning to share some of their lives during their cosy evenings together, although Maryann knew she couldn’t share much of her past. Even the thought of talking about it was too big, too frightening. She felt much easier with Dot, now she had shown her softer, more vulnerable side. Of Sylvia, Maryann felt she knew less, but she thought perhaps there was less to know. She was a sweet girl, settled in marriage, and she was a helpful presence and a good worker. When they reached Coventry, Sylvia would get on her train back to London, to her cosy, suburban life, to her house with a bath, her children and her lawn and roses. Maryann liked to think of that – that somewhere people had lives like that in which there was no squalor and unhappiness, no one like Norman Griffin to cast a foul shadow over them.

She began to wish she could slow down their journey to Oxford, that it might not end yet, so that she didn’t have to face any more changes. But time seemed to gallop past.

In Oxford she found Joel still slowly and painfully on the mend. He was able to sit downstairs now and move about just a little. Maryann and the children stayed with him for as long as they could manage, sitting in Alice’s little parlour. Maryann sat on a stool beside him, holding his hand (which she teased him was getting soft) and telling him about all the ups and downs of their journeys and snippets of news from other boatpeople.