by Annie Murray
‘It’s one of the awkwardest bloomin’ loads we ever carry,’ Joel said, taking off his wet jacket. ‘We’ve to load each bit by hand, or it won’t fit in. You can help.’
Maryann soon found out what he meant. Darius, with his lifetime’s experience of settling a load into a boat just the right way, stood in the hull as Joel, another worker and Maryann passed him down each plank, piece by piece. Darius said which bit he wanted next and laid them all in, fitting them like a patchwork quilt. The wood was very rough and splintery, not planed smooth. Some of the pieces were so heavy that Maryann couldn’t lift them, but she worked hard taking over whatever she could. She wore a thick, hessian apron over her dress. Sometimes she squatted, resting a plank across her knees for Darius to take it from her. The rough wood burned her hands, splinters jabbing into her like needles, and she was soaking wet. The men never seemed to stop and rest: the boat and load always came first. By mid-morning, when the load was almost on board and the rain was still falling, she was close to tears she was so wet and tired, and her hands were bleeding and swollen. But she was determined not to show Darius how close she was to getting up and running off. She gritted her teeth and passed him another plank, wishing he’d at least notice how difficult she was finding it. But after they had secured the last pieces and the Esther Jane was now riding low in the water, Darius patted her shoulder briefly as he passed her.
‘That were a good job,’ he said.
Maryann beamed back at him, elated yet with a lump in her throat. She had truly done something right and won his approval! She skipped along to help Joel harness Bessie, who was quite frisky after her extra half-day’s rest. Once she was harnessed up, tolls paid, coal and water aboard, they were off.
Maryann was thrilled to be on the move again. The cut stretched out ahead of them as they slid slowly out of Oxford, the spires and towers receded into the distance and they were in the country again.
‘This is the proper life,’ she said.
Joel grinned at her. ‘If you say so, missy.’
They only travelled as far as Thrupp that day and the sun never broke through. The second morning, they woke to rain and the wind was getting up. Their clothes from the day before were still not dry even though they’d hung them in the warm cabin while they were in bed, but it was obvious that if they put their spare set on they would soon be soaked through as well. Once Joel and Darius had gone out she pulled her damp dress over her head with a shudder. It was slightly warm from being close to the stove, but it soon cooled on her and she was shivering before she had even gone outside. For the first time she started to have misgivings about this life. If this was what it could be like in the middle of summer, what must it be like living here in the freezing winter wind and rain?
They warmed themselves with a cup of tea as they went along. But the day started out as a hard, maddening one. The wind was the real enemy on the cut, pushing even a well-loaded boat about like a plywood toy from side to side. Joel stood at the tiller working it with all his strength to keep it from being blown into the bank, and the shallows where often there were reeds, and other plants with big leaves that looked like rhubarb. Maryann annoyed him by asking, before she realized, ‘Will you teach me to steer today, Joel?’ and he snapped back, ‘Not today – can’t yer see what it’s like?’
As the wind got up further, Darius took to the bank to help keep Bessie steady. Every so often the boat was caught by a gust and blown into the side. The water was the colour of milky cocoa. Joel abruptly ordered Maryann off to help pull them off. The first time, the stern of the boat was forced right into the side. Joel yelled at her, telling her how he wanted her to pull. She hauled on the rope with all her strength, the rope yanking away and burning through her agonized hands until she couldn’t help crying with the pain. They’d no sooner get straightened up again than another gust would send the Esther Jane off at some other angle. As well as keeping the boat on course, round Banbury there were all the lift bridges over the cut to be raised and lowered again as they passed. The morning seemed endless; cold and hard and wet. Maryann was already near to exhaustion and everyone was tense and bad-tempered. Darius kept yelling at her to pull harder, Joel was cursing on board the boat. Maryann almost wished she was at home. She had a sudden longing to see Tony and Billy – someone younger who looked up to her and loved her and didn’t order her about.
But the worst was to come on the afternoon. Worse than Maryann could ever have imagined. They’d passed Banbury and reached Slat Mill Lock. As they struggled into the lower pound – Joel striving to keep the boat straight, another boat following close behind, which added to the pressure on them – he shouted to Maryann, ‘D’you think you can do it?’
‘Yes!’ she called back proudly. ‘’Course.’ Darius was already out on the bank too. ‘You take the ’orse,’ he said.
‘No, please,’ she said. ‘I can do it. I know how.’ With obvious reluctance he handed her his windlass, which he carried tucked in his belt, and stayed holding Bessie. Maryann fitted the windlass on to the lock mechanism and started turning. One of the men from the boat behind pushed on the gate beam to swing it open and Maryann stood out of the way, feeling pleased with herself. Joel had spelled out many times the danger of standing in the wrong place and getting swept into the cut. None of them could swim and even if they had been able to, the men especially would have been weighed down by their heavy trousers, boots and overcoats. Maryann stood with her hands behind her back, the windlass clutched between them as the two boats moved into the lock chamber and the men closed the lower gates, trying to look as if she had lived on the cut all her life and knew just what she was doing. But she noticed that on the boat behind there was a boy with only one leg, and it was a sobering sight. People with missing limbs were not uncommon on the cut. What accident had befallen him in this dangerous life?
When the lower gates were closed and the boats were secured, waiting for the water to rise, she struggled along, leaning into the wind, to the upper gates, hearing Joel shout something to her as she went. The wind whisked his words away.
‘S’awright!’ she called back. ‘I can do it!’
She started turning. Though she’d done it a number of times with Joel, it was hard by herself but she was determined to manage. The muscles on her arms strained and eventually it was so difficult that she was leaning her whole weight on the windlass to turn it and haul it back round at the bottom. The paddles were opening and the water started to gush in with a great roar.
And then it all went wrong. She was leaning back, bringing it round, when she lost her balance. Her hands slipped off the windlass and it snapped back the other way, flying round and round, and Maryann fell over backwards. Frantic and mortified, she scrambled to her feet just as the windlass flew off the spindle. There was a metallic clink, then a splosh. She stood there, paralysed. No – it couldn’t have done! Darius’s precious, favourite windlass, the one Esther Jane had given to him, his wife, his best mate, had disappeared down into the cut.
Everyone was shouting: Joel, Darius, the other men in the boat. Tears welled up in her eyes. She didn’t know what to do.
Darius was suddenly beside her. ‘Take care of th ’orse,’ he shouted at her.
She saw him go to the shaft where the windlass should have been. He looked round on the ground, then down into the water. He went to Joel, shouting to him for his spare windlass. Maryann slunk back to Bessie with the most leaden heart she had ever had. She was sick with shame. She wanted to hide her face in the horse’s hot, wet neck and give in to crying, but she knew this would put her in even more disgrace.
‘Your windlass taken a look in the cut, eh?’ one of the men on the wharf called out to her. ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’
The teasing was not unkind, but it made her feel even worse; young and stupid and incompetent. Worst of all, it made her feel an outsider again, just as she thought she was beginning to get the hang of it. Waiting to finish getting through that lock felt the longest few minutes
she could ever remember. When they were through, she went to Darius, looking down at her muddy shoes, unable to face him.
‘I’m ever so sorry, Mr Bartholomew.’ The tears ran down her burning cheeks. ‘I never meant to lose your windlass. I wish I could go down and get it. I feel ever so bad.’
Darius Bartholomew could not seem to speak. Maryann looked up to see him trying to gather himself. He was breathing deeply and she could see he was furious, but seemingly unable to find the words to yell at her as she knew she deserved. He looked at her for a moment, then strode past. Once they were through the lock Maryann climbed back into the boat, wishing she could just disappear.
‘The windlass – I lost Mr Bartholomew’s favourite windlass. I don’t know what to do, Joel – he’s so angry with me.’
‘Well, of course ’e is!’ She had never heard Joel raise his voice to her in anger before. ‘I told you to wait for ’im. You have to do what you’re told, not just mess about! What d’you expect him to do? He’d had that windlass more’n half his life.’
‘I daint hear you. I promise I daint, Joel!’ Maryann was really sobbing now. It was no good thinking she could come here and be one of them and start a new life. She was hopeless, even at the first test and now Joel was fed up with her as well. She wanted to get off the boat, get away from them and from feeling so small and ashamed.
‘Oh, there’s no need for all that,’ Joel said crossly.
Maryann stood looking out, wiping her eyes as Joel wrestled with the tiller, struggling to keep the boat moving straight. He took some time to gain control again. After what seemed a cold, miserable age, he turned to her.
‘Eh – cheer up. You weren’t the first and you won’t be the last.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘We’ll make a boatwoman of you – don’t you worry.’
But to her it still seemed a huge and awful thing she had done and she didn’t know how she was going to face the rest of the journey with Joel’s father.
Later she apologized again to Darius Bartholomew and he said gruffly, ‘These things happen. It taught you, I hope.’
Maryann felt almost forgiven by the men, but she was finding it very hard indeed to forgive herself.
For the rest of the journey she was quiet and subdued. She listened with great care to what she was asked to do and did it with all her concentration, trying as hard as she could to make amends. Darius treated her much as he had before, but he did not reach out to her with any words of reassurance and she couldn’t feel forgiven, even though Joel tried to jolly her along.
The last night, when the men were asleep, she gave into her feelings and lay sobbing, trying to be as quiet as she could. After a time, though, she heard the cross bed creaking as Joel sat up, then came over to her.
‘What’s up, chatterchops? You ent been yourself these last days. Eh – come on now, you don’t want to worry so much. There ent nothing wrong.’
He sat down beside her and took her hand in his.
‘Oh Joel!’ She pressed his hand against her cheek. ‘I feel so bad about eveything – I can’t stay ’ere ’cause I’m no good to yer, but I don’t want to go ’ome. I just can’t go back there!’
‘Now, now—’ She became aware that he was stroking her hair with his other hand and it gave her such a warm, reassuring feeling. ‘Don’t go saying you’re no good to us. You’ve been a good little boatwoman. Everyone loses a windlass some time – that’s life on the cut.’
‘But Mr Bartholomew’s best mate’s windlass!’
‘Well, that were a pity, but what’s done’s done. In the past now. You want to forget about it.’
But Maryann’s heart was so heavy she couldn’t feel consoled yet. She couldn’t stop crying.
‘What is it, eh?’
‘Can I stay with yer, Joel? Just come and live ’ere?’ she pleaded again.
‘We said all this already.’ His voice was gentle but firm. ‘You must go back and tell ’em where you’ve bin. It’s no good. If they’re happy about it . . .’ His voice trailed off.
‘What? Tell me, Joel!’
‘Truth is, I can’t say I won’t miss you. I’ve got used to you, sort of thing.’
‘Oh please—’ Maryann sat up eagerly. ‘Say I can stay!’
He took her in his arms and rocked her, and she clung to him. In wonder, she felt him kiss the top of her head.
‘You go ’ome and sort things out. Then we’ll see. ’Ow about that, eh?’
Birmingham grew up around them, dark and rank with factory smells and the grim stenches of slum living. Buildings blocked out the light.
‘I never knew ’ow much it stank ’ere till I got out of it,’ Maryann said, standing on the steering platform. Darius was on the bank with Bessie. ‘It’s so dirty and dismal, ain’t it?’
Joel laughed. ‘Don’t say that about your ’ome!’
As they moved further into the town, the noise increased: the cut busy with laden joey boats, the boatmen in a rush and shouting and swearing at each other to get ahead, trains clattering overhead dropping smuts, the air laden with factory smoke. Maryann’s spirits dropped again. She had to get out of here. The narrow streets, the meanness of everything – and worse, much worse than that, Mr Griffin . . . Winter on the cut, however cold and hard, could not be worse than this.
When they pulled into the wharf under the labyrinths of factories to offload the wood, Joel said to her, ‘You’d best get off now, ’adn’t yer – be getting back to your own people.’
‘I’ll be back,’ she said. ‘I will, Joel – I’ll leave word for yer!’
She saw his slow smile. ‘Well – we’ll see, won’t we. We’ll try and stay on the h’Oxford. I know my dad’s happier going down that way.’ He leaned over and rumpled her hair. ‘Cheerio for now, young nipper.’
She politely said goodbye to Darius Batholomew. He said, ‘G’bye, lass,’ in a kindly way and his leathery face creased into a smile, even though they were in a rush to get unloaded, and that made her feel better. Waving at Joel, she left with her little bundle of clothes and set off towards Ladywood.
Twenty
‘Well.’ Flo’s face was distorted with anger and her arms tightly folded across her chest. ‘What’ve yer got to say for yerself then?’
Maryann had made sure she didn’t arrive until after Norman Griffin had left, and when she got in only Flo was at home with Billy, who ran through from the kitchen calling, ‘Maryann!’
‘’Allo, Billy love.’ She put down her bundle and squatted down to cuddle him.
‘Norman’s been going mad!’
Maryann’s expression darkened. She scowled at Flo over Billy’s blond head. ‘Ain’t that typical, eh? I go away for a week and all yer can say is “Norman’s been going mad!”’ She mimicked her mother’s tone. ‘That’s all you cowing well care about, ain’t it?’
Flo stood glaring at her, then suddenly kneeled down so her face was level with Maryann’s.
‘That’s always the way with you, ain’t it? Never a thought for no one else. Do you know why I married Norman? Do yer?’
‘’Cause yer wanted his money.’
‘Yes – ’cause I wanted his money! And d’yer know why I wanted ’is money? So I could feed my family and keep it together. So you could ’ave the clothes you’re wearing on yer back, Maryann. So’s I daint ’ave to hand over Tony and Billy to Barnado’s when I couldn’t afford to keep them!’
‘No, Mom, that’s the excuse you’ve always had but I don’t believe yer. We wouldn’t’ve starved the way you’d like us to believe. You ’ad a job – in a couple of years Sal was out at work – then I’d’ve been. Other people do it – look at Mrs Winters.’ Mrs Winters was a widow with five children who they’d known in the Garrett Street days.
‘Huh,’ Flo said contemptuously. ‘Yer needn’t think taking in washing was the only way that one was making ends meet! She had men in and out of there like rats in a nest. And look at the state of ’er – ’er looks sixty if ’er looks a day and she ain’t no o
lder than I am. I weren’t living like that – I struggled and scrimped all through the war, and then with yer dad coming home in the state ’e was—’ She leaned closer, spitting the words into Maryann’s face. ‘You was too young to know what it was like. You don’t feel it all when yer a babby, all the worrying and going without – you just ’ave the bread put in your mouth and that’s all you know. It’s the mother feels it. I’d ’ad enough, Maryann. Norman ain’t yer dad – course I know that. I loved my Harry, that I did, even when ’e come home half the man ’e’d been. But when ’e’d gone I couldn’t face no more. You needn’t think it’s easy for me. You don’t know what it’s like to lie every night next to a man yer’ve no feeling for.’
An expression of revulsion came over Maryann’s face. ‘Don’t I? And Sal – don’t she?’
‘Don’t start on them lies again.’ Flo turned away in disgust. ‘I don’t want to hear ’em.’
‘No – you don’t, do yer?’ There was great bitterness in Maryann’s voice. ‘That’s the one way I can rely on you – not to want to hear the things that don’t suit yer.’
‘Norman’s given us a good home and a good life – and you girls just can’t see it. We could get on awright but you go running off – you’re nothing but trouble. First Sal, and then you . . .’
To Maryann’s vexation, her mother put her hands over her face and burst into tears.
‘That’s it – go on and cry then.’ She walked away across the room. ‘Twist everything round so everyone has to feel sorry for you. That’s always your way, Mom, ain’t it? You never want to hear what anyone else’s got to say.’
She stamped her way upstairs, full of bitterness. The bedroom felt damp, and very cold and empty. After a moment she heard her mom following her up. Flo came and stood at the door with Billy who was watching them both, wide-eyed with alarm.