Water Gypsies (6 page)

‘All right, Charlie?’

‘All right,’ he panted, adding, ‘hello, little ’un,’ to Sally and patting the top of her head. ‘Just thought I’d tell you – there was this bloke come looking for you a couple of days back.’

‘That’d be my brother…’ Maryann frowned. She’d written to Tony not long ago and had a message via the toll office saying he’d be glad to see her whenever she got round to it. He was married now, Tony was, with a baby daughter. Could there be something wrong? Thin fella, dark?’

‘Oh no,’ Charlie said. ‘No – it weren’t him. This were an older man, in a big coat, like … That’s what I came to tell you. Bit of an odd bloke, I thought. Kept his hat pulled right down, wouldn’t look at you. When he turned to go, I saw he had this scar all down his neck – like a burn or summat.’ Charlie frowned.‘ Hey – you all right?’

Maryann felt him catch her arm and guide her backwards, letting her sink down onto a pile of wet sacking as her knees gave way and the wharf seemed to swim round her. She saw lights at the corners of her eyes, a wave of heat rose up in her and, knowing she was about to faint, she pushed her head down between her knees. Sally was pulling at her, saying something, and from somewhere in the hazy air above her she could hear the man asking her questions. After a few moments the sick dizziness passed and things round her became clear again.

‘Sorry.’ She gathered her wits, brushing down her coat as she tried muzzily to stand up. Charlie took her hand.

‘You awright, bab?’ While concerned for her, he couldn’t help noticing what a sweet, handsome wench she was. Bit of awright, he thought, feeling her rough little hand in his as he helped her to her feet. She made him feel soft and protective.

Maryann nodded. ‘But that bloke you said came looking – he asked for me by name?’

‘Must’ve done.’ He was taken aback by the intense way she questioned him. ‘D’you know who he is?’

‘Oh yes,’ she almost spat the words. ‘I know who he is all right.’ Her limbs still felt weak and shaky with shock. Who else could he be, a man with a burned face, a man who had decided to come looking for her? She looked round, suddenly overtaken by fear, everything out of proportion. The very wharf seemed sinister now. ‘Sally?’ she cried. ‘My little girl – Sal? Where are you?’

‘She’s here – just behind you.’ Charlie spoke gently, as if soothing an infant, for the young woman seemed like a terrified child in those moments, as she grasped her daughter’s hand and pulled her close. He resisted an impulse to put his arm round her, as if she were one of his own. ‘Look, are you sure you’ll be all right?’

‘Promise me’ – she clutched his arm – ‘that if he ever comes here again you won’t tell him anything. You’ve never seen me – we never come here. I don’t want him knowing anything – I never want to see him again. Tell the others in the office – for God’s sake don’t let him near us,
please,
Charlie.’

‘Course,’ he said, frowning. ‘I’ll tell them. Who is he, anyroad?’

‘No one,’ she snapped, her voice full of loathing. ‘He’s
no one.
And I don’t want him anywhere near me or my family.’

She walked away fiercely, holding tight to Sally’s hand, then she turned.

‘I don’t want him knowing anything – not about us, not the names of our boats…’

‘Oh, he knows them, I’m afraid,’ Charlie said. When he come in, as far as I remember he said he was looking for the Bartholomews on the
Esther Jane.’

Disturbed by the look of despair which crossed Maryann’s face, he said hastily, ‘But I won’t tell him anything if he comes again.’

She nodded, whispered, ‘Thank you,’ then turned away. He saw her draw her coat more closely round her as if a deadly chill had infected the November air.

‘What’s the matter, Mom?’

‘Sally’s eyes were wide with alarm as her mother sank down on the bed beside the twins in the
Theodore,
deathly pale and shaking.

‘Nothing.’ She struggled to compose herself. ‘I just come over a bit funny, that’s all. I’ll be all right when I’ve had a cup of tea, bab. You sit and do a bit of your drawing.’

Sally retreated into her favourite activity and Maryann sipped her tea, trying to steady herself. She was raw with shock. She was certain that the man who had come to the wharf was her stepfather, Norman Griffin, and the layers of security she had built round her during the years of her marriage seemed to peel back all at once, leaving her trembling under the gaze of the past. That time she thought she saw him before – it
must
have been him, though she’d tried to make herself believe she’d been mistaken, or at least, if he had been there, that it was a coincidence. He was after her. He had asked for their boats by name … But why was he looking for her? What could he possibly want from her now? Whatever his reasons, they would be warped and cruel. After these years of peace and safety his disfigured features were raising themselves to look at her again and the thought chilled her to the core. But to tell Joel meant bringing the loathsome creature into the centre of her family again. Even the sound of his name repelled her. She didn’t want to say it, not on the cut, her refuge. He had no place here.

She put her cup down and held her hands out in front of her, angry at their tremor, at the thought that he could still do this to her.

We’ll be out of here in the morning,
she thought,
and we shan’t be back in a while. I shan’t say anything to Joel. Not unless we’re given another load to come back up to Brum. Then I’ll tell him.

Six

‘Christmas at Sutton then,’ Joel said.

He had hauled the
Theodore
in alongside the
Esther Jane
and was tying them both up. It was Christmas Eve and they weren’t going to make it to Oxford after all. But their disappointment was soon dispelled.

‘Look!’ Maryann called, jumping with excitement on the counter of the
Theodore.
As Joel and Bobby were securing the boats, her eyes were searching the narrowboats already in at Sutton Stop, and immediately she spotted the
Isla,
with its butty the
Neptune
breasted up neatly beside it. Nancy and Darius were only two boats away from them, Darrie and Sean scampering towards them on the bank. ‘Joel – they’re here – look – the
Isla!
Nance! Hull-oo! You there?’

Nancy’s dark curls appeared immediately out of the
Neptune
’s cabin and she waved back madly, cleaning cloth still in her hand. She had a bright red jumper on and her cheerful grin lit up the day, despite the cold and leaden sky. Maryann beamed, full of happiness. Joel waved as well. The moment he could reach the bank, Joley was throwing himself off to join his cousins before his mom could say anything about letters and book learning. That was the last thing on Maryann’s mind, though – her best pal was tied up nearby!

Nance was across in seconds, politely calling out that she was coming across and averting her eyes in the customary way as she moved over the counters of the two boats which lay between them. She stepped nimbly onto the
Theodore.

‘Look at you!’ Maryann laughed, laying a hand on Nance’s round stomach.‘ Well out at the front, aren’t you? You look ever so well, though – don’t know how you do it, that I don’t.’ Nance’s abundant energy never ceased to amaze her.

‘I went in to see Sister Mary on the way back up,’ Nance said. Sister Mary was the nurse who lived by the Grand Union at Stoke Bruerne. She was much loved among the boat families for all the care she gave them. ‘She says everything’s going perfect. I should be coming to town with him March time.’

They saw Joel’s brother Darius coming back along the towpath and both waved. His arm came up in greeting. Joel favoured his mother’s looks, with the auburn hair and more rounded face. Darius was the image of how his father, old Darius, must have looked as a young man, with his peaty hair and sharp, chiselled features. He wore a cap and a colourful scarf knotted in the neck of his shirt. With Nance beside him, with her dark looks, bright clothes and gold earrings, they looked an exotic pair. Their children were as striking as they were, Darry and Sean both dark-haired and agile as monkeys, and Rose already sultry-eyed under her own mop of curls.

The two brothers greeted one another on the bank. Maryann and Nance watched them fondly.

‘Our two old chaps.’ Nance laughed. When they were all together they often teased their men about their age and the ‘young wenches’ they’d managed to persuade to run off with them. Joel was sixteen years older than Maryann and the gap between Nance and Darius was even greater – almost twenty-two years.

‘His age don’t mean anything,’ Maryann often said. ‘He’s just Joel – he’s always looked the same to me.’ They liked to make a joke of it, though. The two of them chattered nineteen to the dozen, before they managed to tear themselves away to get on with their mountain of chores. Maryann spent the afternoon racing to the shops, washing on the bank beside Nance and some of the other boatwomen, pounding heavy clothes in dippers and galvanized tubs, sharing a mangle and exchanging news, all the while surrounded by their children. Maryann fitted in as much cleaning as she could, getting Sally and Rose polishing the brass strips round the chimneys. She sang to herself that evening as she went about her work, full of a burst of Nance’s infectious energy. The children looked quite startled, coming upon her humming ‘The Sheikh of Araby’ and ‘I’m always chasing rainbows’.
I feel better,
she thought at last.
More myself.

‘We’re going to have a nice Christmas,’ she told Joley and Sally as she tucked them into bed on the
Esther Jane
and kissed them both. ‘Sleep tight.’

One of the best things about Christmas was that it was a rest and a change, a chance to celebrate and socialize in what was otherwise a life of almost non-stop work. The family of Ernie Higgins, who worked with Nancy and Darius, were tied up at Sutton too and he and Bobby went to them for the day, leaving all the Bartholomews together. They congregated instinctively in the family’s old boat, the
Esther Jane,
somehow squeezing everyone in out of the cold. Maryann cleared the bedding off the back bed and stowed it in the
Theodore
so that the younger children could perch on the bed while they all ate chicken and plenty of spuds and cabbage, with a good jug of ale to wash it down and Tizer for the children. It got so hot inside that they slid the hatch open, until an icy rain began to fall and they had to close it again. And all the while they talked, about recent journeys, of bad bends and hold-ups and engine trouble, wharves and lock keepers and news gathered in passing from acquaintances met on their journeys. They reminisced about how things had once been on the cut and about the time when they had all met. Their favourite story, one they never tired of retelling, was of the morning Nance had finally escaped from her old life and her miserable marriage to Mick Mallone to join them on the cut, dashing after the boat at dawn as they pulled away from the basin at Gas Street.

‘Happiest day of my life, that was,’ Darius said. He sat back, content to be on his old boat, well fed, a cup of ale in his hand. Maryann watched him fondly, the dark, wavy hair round his face, his powerful, almost eagle-like features. He was, like his father, a man of few words, but his eyes, when he looked at Nance, conveyed everything that needed to be said in the way of affection and regard.

Maryann felt Joel take her hand under the table and their eyes met for a moment. Seeing the way he looked at her, she was startled by a rush of desire for him, an inner throb as if their bodies were connected by something even more powerful than touch, and she was filled with relief. She could still feel for him – it was not lost! In the early days of their marriage, trusting and loving him as she did, she had let him caress and wake her body to the discovery of shared pleasure, of excitement, to lovemaking instead of the forced pain and revulsion which was all she had experienced before. It took time. Often she could not enjoy it; sometimes, when she could feel very little, and could not seem to concentrate, she knew it was his pleasure she was enjoying, not her own. But that was all right. It was not
bad,
not terrible as it had been before and she was grateful for that. She still liked the closeness, the comforting warmth of him. She longed for children then and they had soon arrived. She had no idea how quickly lovemaking would become fraught with fear of its consequences, a bittersweet intimacy of desire and dread. How she would find herself doing anything to avoid it – pretending to be asleep, saying she was too tired … And now, though her gaze as she looked back at him held love and gratitude, her mind raced ahead …
Oh Lord, he’s going to want it tonight. Will he remember what I asked? Oh, please let him just fall asleep straight away!

‘Maryann?’

Even in her heavily pregnant condition, Nance seemed to land in the hatches of the
Theodore
as if she’d flown there. Her laughing features appeared between the doors.

‘Still feeding them gutsy little so-and-sos are you?’

Maryann was pinned to the bed by the twins.

‘You can laugh,’ Maryann retorted.‘It’ll be your turn soon. What makes you think you haven’t got two in there, eh?’

‘Oh Jaysus, no!’ Nance rolled her eyes. ‘Listen – Mr Barlow’s sending us down London again, but he’s asked Joel if you’ll do a long haul and come down with us?’

‘What – the Grand Union?’

‘Yep – he’s even giving you the choice, you having your hands full and that. Anyroad, as I was coming back, I told Joel I’d check with his missis! If we got ourselves sorted out right we could all go down there together.’

Maryann brightened. Today was Boxing Day and after yesterday’s celebrations it felt very flat. Now all that faced them was work and more work. The thought of being able to do it alongside Nance cheered her no end. Though they had good relations with most of the other boatwomen, they were always a bit conscious of being ‘the Brummies from off the bank’ and they shared the same sense of humour. Maryann sometimes found she would crack a joke to another of the boatwomen, only to be met by a solemn, slightly mystifed stare. On the other hand a gaggle of them might be splitting their sides about something which she couldn’t see the funny side of. With Nance she could really share a joke. And the children, who enjoyed switching families and travelling on another boat for a change, would be delighted with the idea.