The Narrowboat Girl

by Annie Murray

  He took her in his arms. ‘So – what happened to the girl who said she would always be called Maryann Nelson?’

  She laughed. ‘Fancy you remembering that!’

  ‘You were very strong on it at the time. Funny, scrawny little thing you were.’

  ‘I know – well, thanks for changing my mind. Maryann Bartholomew’ll do me well. ’S a funny thing – being married does feel different. Even though we’ve been living on here – I just feel properly married now, ’stead of “living in sin”!’

  ‘Can’t ’ave you living in sin, can we?’

  ‘Even if Nance is.’

  ‘Ah well – what else can they do, eh?’

  ‘And they’re happy,’ she said.

  ‘And you?’

  She hesitated. ‘Happier than you know . . . Joel?’

  ‘Umm?’

  ‘I think, in fact I’m sure – I’m expecting.’

  ‘A baby – a little ’un?’

  She could hear his excitement and she nodded solemnly.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, awed. ‘My Maryann. That’s lovely, that is.’ Suddenly, laughing, he lifted her off the ground. ‘Oh love – a little ’un!’

  They held each other close.

  ‘Come the summer,’ Joel said, kissing her nose, ‘we could lie out in the fields of a night . . . no one about.’

  ‘By summer,’ she laughed, ‘I’ll have a belly on me like a barrel!’

  ‘Well – tonight . . .’

  ‘Not tonight, no,’ Maryann said firmly, pulling on his hand. ‘I’m turning rigid with cold already. Come on – let’s go in.’

  They took one last look at the star-flecked sky, the friendly land spreading out around them, then, still holding hands, they stepped back into the cosy little cabin.

  Epilogue

  August 1936

  ‘If it’s a girl,’ Maryann was saying, ‘let’s call her Ada.’

  ‘Or Sally,’ Joel said. ‘After your sister.’

  ‘We’d better have two girls then.’ Maryann laughed.

  She and Joel were walking out along the road away from Banbury towards Charnwood House, on a boiling August afternoon, ripe wheat stretching away on either side of them, swaying and rustling in the languorous breeze. On Joel’s shoulders, his legs jutting forward each side of his father’s face was their little son Joel, who had had his first birthday the month before. Maryann, who was four months into another pregnancy, was still looking trim.

  ‘Margaret’s a nice name,’ she mused. ‘Only it feels unlucky – poor little Margaret.’

  ‘And Margaret’s – well, she’s not dead like our Ada and your Sally, is she?’ Joel said carefully.

  ‘Might just as well be, where she is.’ Her voice was so hard and bitter, Joel reached out and touched her shoulder and little Joel gave a squeak of panic as his father loosed one of his legs.

  Margaret, like Sal, was someone Maryann tried hard never to think about. Such thoughts had great power to make her feel sick with rage and sorrow and as there was nothing she could do, she pushed them away.

  There had been plenty else to think about over the past couple of years. Most of her first year on the cut had been spent pregnant and she found it completely exhausting, with the added worry that if she was able to do less Joel would be forced to work even harder and could fall sick again, so however tired or heavy she was feeling she pushed herself on. Little Joel was born slightly early, on the Esther Jane with a nurse present, and Maryann had then been faced with the challenge of bringing up a child in the confined space of the boat. It was all right when he was a tiny baby, but as he grew and began to move about she worried constantly for his safety. More and more she heard stories about infants losing their lives on the cut through accidents or sickness and she became acutely protective of him. But he was a steady, sensible little fellow, even as a young toddler, and he had come well through his first year. She longed now for a daughter who would be a companion for him as he grew up.

  Every so often they saw Nancy and Darius. Blackie Black had died of a seizure back in the winter of 1935 and Nance had gone home to visit. While she was there she was afraid she’d have to face Mick. Cathleen told her that a few months after Nancy went, Mick had left too, taken off and no one knew where. Cathleen, in her usual placid way, had not made an issue of her daughter’s actions and was more concerned that they remain on good terms.

  Nance and Darius had had a baby son, who in the family tradition they had called Darius and who must, Maryann calculated, have been conceived on about the first night the two of them were together, a fact which gave Nance enormous satisfaction after the agonies of living with Mick.

  Every time they passed through Banbury, Maryann had thought fondly of Charnwood and she said to Joel she’d like to go back and visit. She often remembered them all, especially Mrs Letcombe, and she wondered whether Roland Musson had found the courage to leave and make a life for himself, and whether Miss Pamela was married now. She even wondered about Evan. Up until now though, they’d always been passing through or too busy or tired to make the effort. Today, however, it was the Esther Jane’s turn to revisit Tooley’s Yard, and the beautiful, sultry day seemed to be calling them out across the fields.

  When they turned in at the gate of Charnwood she said, ‘Oh – this does feel peculiar. It all looks just the same as it did – only the trees’ve come on a bit more.’

  As they neared the house Joel said, ‘My goodness – this is a smart place. Can’t think why you ever wanted to leave!’

  ‘I daint, for a long time. But I met Darius, remember? And he told me that someone was very poorly in hospital . . .’

  ‘Ah yes.’ Joel laughed.

  ‘We’ll have to go in the servants’ entrance,’ Maryann said. They went round the back of the house, with the wistaria sprawling across the back. As she glanced across the garden, Maryann’s eye was caught by a figure sitting in a sunny spot near the wall of the rose garden. There was a new bench that had not been there before, and on it sat a figure dressed completely in black.

  ‘That looks like Mrs Musson,’ Maryann whispered, frowning. ‘The lady of the house. She looks to be in mourning, wouldn’t you say? That hat’s got net on and everything. I wonder – it could be the anniversary of John’s death. That was her oldest son, killed in the war. Or I wonder if Mr Musson . . .’

  Someone must have opened the front door as she spoke because there was a sudden frenzied barking and Freddie the fox terrier tore round towards them, followed at a waddling pace by Lily Langtree, the spaniel who had been quite fat when Maryann was working there and had now expanded into a dog of truly corpulent proportions. Little Joel laughed and pointed at them, but other than sniffing at the visitors’ legs and barking loudly the dogs did nothing else except run back round the end of the house.

  ‘Well, they ain’t changed.’

  Inside, they found that not a huge amount had changed among the servants either. She found Mrs Letcombe, looking exactly the same, seated in her little room, dozing over her knitting in the warm afternoon.

  ‘My dear, it’s very nice to see you,’ she said, kissing Maryann and greeting both Joels warmly. She loved small children, and took little Joel on to her lap immediately. ‘Oh – and this little fellow must have a piece of Cook’s best seed cake. Come on now – we’ll all have a nice cup of tea. Oh, I am glad things have turned out well for you, Maryann. You left in such a hurry, I was rather afraid that Evan drove you away – he was always more forward than he ought to be.’

  They filled in the news of the past two years. Evan and Alice had got married, but were still living and working at Charnwood. Sid the gardener had died unexpectedly – ‘His heart, they think,’ Mrs Letcombe said as they all sat at the kitchen table with the tea and cake and little Joel tottering around practising his new walking skills. ‘Otherwise down here, things are really much the same. It’s a settled sort of house. But upstairs—’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh dear me.’

  ‘What’s happe
ned?’ Maryann said. ‘I saw Mrs Musson – all in black.’

  ‘Terrible. Only last month. It was Master Roland. Went off to that war in Spain. Upped and went. Said war was the only thing he knew and if he couldn’t make a life here he might as well go back to that. So he went and fought for Franco. He lasted just three weeks.’ She shook her head sorrowfully. ‘That poor, poor boy.’

  ‘No!’ Maryann let the news sink in. She wanted to weep. The image of him roaring through the quiet countryside on his motorcycle came to her, as if nothing of stillness or quietness could satisfy his troubled mind. ‘How terrible,’ she said. ‘Poor Mrs Musson.’

  ‘Nothing’ll console her. Two sons gone – there’s only Master Hugh left and somehow she doesn’t seem to have the same affinity with him. Miss Pamela’s married now of course. To a farmer chappie, over near Thame and she seems happy enough.’ She turned to Joel. ‘And what is it you do for a living?’

  When he told her, Mrs Letcombe seemed quite taken aback at first, then she laughed. ‘I thought you were looking very brown and sturdy,’ she said to Maryann. ‘Well – I’d never’ve put you down as doing that but you look as if it’s suiting you.’

  ‘Oh – it is.’ She laughed. ‘Most days, any’ow!’

  They spent a very friendly hour in the kitchen and she kissed Maryann again when they left. ‘Come and see us again, won’t you? With all your lovely children as they arrive.’ She chucked little Joel’s cheek as Maryann held him. ‘Sorry you didn’t see anyone else.’

  But Maryann was glad. She hadn’t wanted to see Evan or the others especially. As they left she looked down the garden and saw that the bench where Mrs Musson had been sitting was empty, and she was filled with a great sense of poignancy. Handing Joel their son to lift back on to his shoulders she slipped her arm through his. Among so many sad things, so much pain and unhappiness, her own joy seemed miraculous: a hard-won, precariously existing miracle.

  ‘I’m glad I came to see them,’ she said as they set off along the road. ‘But I don’t think I’ll want to come again.’ She felt oddly lost now, out in the country, without that sinuous line of water to guide her, to show her where she belonged.

  ‘Today is today,’ she said to Joel suddenly. He looked down at her, not quite sure what she meant. ‘No one can take today away, whatever else happens.’

  He did understand. ‘No. Let’s try and make a good tomorrow too.’

  ‘Come on.’ She squeezed his arm affectionately. ‘Let’s get back to the cut. Let’s go home.’

  The Narrowboat Girl

  ANNIE MURRAY was born in 1961 in Berkshire, and graduated from St John’s College, Oxford. In 1991 she won a SHE-Granada short story competetion and was taken on by a literary agent. Her first novel, Birmingham Rose was published in 1995. This has been followed by several other bestselling Birmingham sagas including, most recently, Chocolate Girls and Water Gypsies. She lives in Reading with her husband and four children.

  Also by Annie Murray

  Birmingham Rose

  Birmingham Friends

  Birmingham Blitz

  Orphan on Angel Street

  Poppy Day

  The Narrowboat Girl

  Chocolate Girls

  Water Gypsies

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks are due in large measure to David Hearmon, owner of Raven for so generously sharing his time and expertise, and for his e-mail friendship; to my sister and brother-in-law Julia and Timothy Woodall for their hospitality and help, to Stoke Bruerne Canal Museum and to the staff of Banbury Museum.

  I also owe a debt to canal enthusiasts Ray Shill, Wendy Freer and the Birmingham Canal Navigations Society for their publications. Above all, thank you to Sheila Stewart for her wonderful book about life on the cut – Ramlin Rose.

  For my daughter, Katie

  First published 2001 by Macmillan

  and in paperback 2001 by Pan Books

  This edition published 2005 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-52791-0 PDF

  ISBN 978-0-330-52790-3 EPUB

  Copyright © Annie Murray 2001

  The right of Annie Murray to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title page

  Author biography

  Dedication page

  Acknowledgements

  Contents

  PART ONE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  PART TWO

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Copyright page