The River Folk

by Margaret Dickinson

  To Lizzie’s surprise, Tolly said, ‘No. It’s at the shipyard.’ His face sobered. ‘I wanted to work for Mr Bryce and he would have taken me on, if he could have afforded it. But,’ he added hastily, ‘I shall still be able to help him if he needs me.’

  Lizzie smiled at him warmly. She knew he was very fond of old Mr Bryce, who had been very kind to him. The basketmaker’s workshop had been a haven from the boy’s unhappy home life.

  As if reading her thoughts, Tolly said, ‘He’s like another dad to me.’ He coloured a little and the stutter was temporarily back as he added, ‘In fact, he’s n-nicer to me than me real dad is.’ Only to Lizzie did Tolly ever speak of his bullying, aggressive father, and she told no one, not even her own beloved daddy and uncle, although she was aware that they knew much of what went on inside the ferryman’s white-washed cottage.

  Tolly was smiling as he said, ‘I shall row up the river to work every day and Mr Bryce has already said that if the weather’s ever really bad, then I can stay with him for a night or two.’

  ‘What will you be doing there? At the shipyard, I mean?’

  ‘I’m to be an apprentice carpenter. Me dad’s signed the papers already.’

  ‘Is it what you want to do?’

  Tolly shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I can’t think of anything else.’

  She leant towards him. ‘Why don’t you leave home? Why don’t you get away from him?’

  Tolly pressed his lips together and shook his head. ‘I don’t want to leave me mam. Now I’m older, maybe I can get between them a bit more.’

  ‘Yes, and look what happens when you do. Like last week, you got the black eye.’

  ‘I’d sooner that, than me mam get hit.’

  ‘Oh Tolly,’ Lizzie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Why does he do it?’

  The boy shrugged his thin shoulders and then smiled. ‘Come on, it’ll be here soon. Let’s not think about him. Not tonight. Tonight, we’re going fishing.’

  He rowed a little further and then they sat waiting until they saw the wave coming towards them around the curve in the river.

  ‘She’s a big ’un. Hold on tight, Lizzie.’

  As the Aegir rolled towards them, Tolly positioned the rowing boat bows into the wave. They clung on as the little boat crested the foaming wave and rode on top of it before meeting the smaller waves – the whelps, as the locals called them. The wave had stirred up the mud from the river bottom, so that fish were choked and swam about in panic.

  The two youngsters waited patiently until the water began to settle and clear a little.

  ‘There! Look!’ Lizzie cried, ‘I can see one. There’s another – and another.’

  ‘They’re exhausted now,’ Tolly said, reaching for his salmon net. He dipped the round hoop into the water and drew it along, scooping up the disorientated fish.

  ‘Well, it’s certainly fish for tomorrow night’s supper,’ Lizzie laughed, as fish after fish landed in the bottom of Tolly’s boat.

  ‘Just made it.’

  Duggie was leaning down over the side of the ship to help her aboard. ‘Your dad was starting to get twitchy because you weren’t back and it’s almost dark.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but just look how many fish we caught.’

  ‘My word, that is a fine catch. We’ll be able to take some to your gran, Lizzie. She and your grandpa love a bit of fresh salmon. Here, Tolly, let me help you.’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ Lizzie asked, excitedly. ‘I want him to see how many we’ve caught.’

  ‘He’s below in the cabin. He’s in one of his moods.’

  The delight fell from Lizzie’s face. ‘Is it my fault? Because I’m late.’

  ‘Nah,’ Duggie said, lifting the fish on to the deck. ‘’Course it isn’t. Just go and make him a cuppa, lass, and put plenty of sugar in it.’ He grinned. ‘Sweeten the old grump up a bit.’

  Lizzie sighed as she went towards the companion, feeling again the burden of guilt. For five years Lizzie had secretly carried the belief that she had been to blame for that fateful night when her mother had disappeared.

  For weeks afterwards, she had cried, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Daddy.’ Her father had stroked her hair and though the sorrow never left his eyes, he had comforted her. ‘It’s not your fault, sweetheart. It’s nothing to do with you.’

  Five years later the haunted look was still there in his eyes. He never spoke about Mary Ann and no one had ever told Lizzie what had happened to her mother. Perhaps they didn’t know, she thought, for all anyone would say was, ‘She’s gone away, love.’

  Night after night, Lizzie would dream that she heard her mother’s voice and would wake with the name on her lips, ‘Mam?’

  A girl at school – one who had never liked Lizzie, thinking her not the type who should attend a select private school – had said, ‘They might hang your father. One day they’ll find your mother’s body floating in the river, all bloated and ugly, and then they’ll hang your father for killing her. Just like they did your grandfather.’

  Lizzie had run, crying, to Miss Marsh. Edwina had held her and comforted her, but even she had offered no explanation. Afterwards, the rest of her class had refused to include Lizzie in their games and, worse still, had ignored her completely, refusing to speak to her.

  ‘She’s a tell-tale-tit,’ they mocked. ‘Run and tell teacher, why don’t you, Cry Baby?’

  Lizzie had run home to the safe arms of her gran in Waterman’s Yard. She had had nightmares for weeks, waking screaming in the night until Bessie had said one morning, ‘You’re not going to that school any more.’

  So she had gone to the town’s school, and there, Tolly had become her friend. Though the nightmares had lessened, Lizzie, deep within her, still believed herself to blame for the quarrel between her parents that night. And worse still, now, was implanted the terrifying thought that perhaps her mother had drowned in the river and that her father had been to blame. But Lizzie dared not ask, dared not put such a terrible thought into words. So she remained in ignorance. Outwardly, she was the sunny-natured, pretty girl she had always been, but deep in her heart she carried a leaden weight of sorrow. And what frightened her the most was that when she looked into her father’s eyes, she saw that same fear mirrored there.

  So Lizzie kept quiet and asked no questions lest she should bring more shame and sorrow upon her family.

  She could not even talk to Tolly about it.

  Forty-Two

  From leaving school in 1938, Lizzie lived permanently aboard the Maid Mary Ann. She had always helped to look after her father and her uncle ever since her mother had gone, but, as she got older, she had taken on more and more of the domestic chores. Now, the only time she spent ashore was at the weekends when they all stayed with her grandparents in Waterman’s Yard.

  ‘There’s going to be a war, you know.’ If he said it once during the early part of 1939, Duggie said it a hundred times. But there were no clouds, war or otherwise, in the skies for Lizzie and Tolly that summer. Besides fishing for salmon and blobbing for eels, Lizzie would scull to meet him early in the morning before he went to work and together they would pick wild mushrooms, returning to the ship with a basketful. She made a rich, tasty pink sauce and served them hot to her father and uncle.

  In early summer the two youngsters sought out the nests of plovers and moorhens, taking one or two eggs for their breakfasts.

  ‘As long as you leave at least one egg in a moorhen’s nest,’ Tolly told her, ‘she’ll lay more. Just like a hen does.’

  ‘I don’t feel so bad about taking them, in that case,’ said the tender-hearted Lizzie, who hated to think of the poor mothers robbed of their eggs.

  On Sundays, after attending morning service in the parish church with her family, Lizzie would often find Tolly waiting in Waterman’s Yard.

  ‘Are you c-coming blackberrying, Lizzie? I’ve f-found loads near Bourton.’

  ‘As long as you don’t go near Raven’s Wood,’ Dan would say and his
frown would deepen. ‘I don’t want you going there.’

  ‘All right, Dad,’ Lizzie would agree cheerfully and off they would go for the afternoon, returning with their mouths and fingers stained with blackberry juice and refusing Sunday tea.

  ‘Little scallywags, not eating that trifle I’ve spent hours making.’ Bessie would pretend to be offended.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mam,’ Duggie would say, winking at Lizzie. ‘There’s all the more for me.’

  Then Bessie would gratefully accept the basketful of blackberries they had brought her. ‘These’ll make lovely jam and I’ll have some apple and blackberry pasties ready for you next week to take back to the ship, Lizzie.’

  ‘You enjoy yourselves,’ Duggie said each time Lizzie went off with Tolly and, helping her climb down into Tolly’s rowing boat, added, ‘while you can.’

  ‘Oh shut up, Duggie,’ Dan said at last irritably. ‘Anybody’d think you wanted a war the way you keep going on about it.’

  Duggie only laughed and said, ‘Well, it’s the navy for me if it does happen.’

  Lizzie stared at him. ‘You wouldn’t join up, Uncle Duggie, would you? Not really. What’d we do without you?’

  Duggie put his hands across his heart. ‘Ah, at least there’ll be one pretty girl pining for me.’

  Duggie had never married. Although he had come dangerously close once or twice he had always escaped ‘the net’, as he called it. He had never been without a girlfriend for very long, but as soon as rings and wedding bells were mentioned, he tactfully disentangled himself. It was to his credit that he had never left a girl pregnant, nor even particularly heartbroken. He was, at heart, a kind man and with his never failing good humour, he was genuinely liked by everyone as much as they loved him. The girls he jilted could never bring themselves to hate him and, in fact, he remained on good terms with most of them.

  ‘I’ll not be the only one,’ Lizzie teased him. ‘What about Janice?’

  Duggie feigned ignorance. ‘Janice? Who’s Janice?’

  Lizzie, joining in the fun, pretended to sigh. ‘I see. Behind the times again, am I? Who’s the latest then?’

  ‘Well, there’s this very nice girl who works in the jewellers’ on the corner of Pottergate. Sheila, I think her name is. I was thinking of asking her out on Saturday night.’

  ‘You want to be careful, Uncle Duggie. If she works in a jewellers’, she might be able to buy things cheaper. She could have a ring on her finger before you know it.’

  Duggie laughed loudly. ‘She might well, Lizzie, my love, but it won’t be me buying it for her.’

  ‘Aren’t you getting a bit old for all these young girls?’ Dan said.

  ‘I’m only thirty-four. They like an older, more mature man.’

  ‘Older, yes,’ Dan said. ‘Mature – never!’

  ‘You’re just . . .’ Duggie began, but then Lizzie saw him catch his lip. She guessed he had, in his teasing way, been going to say, ‘You’re just jealous,’ but even Duggie stopped short of such a barb.

  Dan walked away down the deck, a lonely figure, his shoulders hunched. Lizzie stared after him and felt the familiar lump in her throat. Poor Dad, she thought, her love for him swelling in her breast. Whatever had happened that night, he was not to blame. She had to believe he was not to blame.

  Now she murmured to Duggie, ‘Will Dad have to go to war, Uncle Duggie?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so, love. For a start he might be too old and even if he isn’t, there are what they call “reserved occupations”. He does a very useful job moving supplies about on the water. You never know, business for ships like ours might even pick up. Strange old world,’ he mused more to himself than to the girl at his side. ‘A catastrophe like a war can even be the making of people.’

  ‘In business, you mean?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘Aye, that and in a personal way too.’ He grinned at her. ‘Very character-building, is a war, young Lizzie.’

  Soberly, Lizzie looked at him. The wind ruffled his dark hair, blowing it on to his forehead. For once his eyes had a serious, faraway look, as if already he was imagining himself sailing the high seas in a smart naval uniform.

  Lizzie shuddered and reached out to touch his arm. ‘If – if you do go, Uncle Duggie, you will be all right, won’t you?’

  The smile was back on his face as he patted her hand and looked down at her. ‘’Course I will, little Lizzie. It’ll all be over by Christmas anyway. I’ll be back before you’ve even missed me. You’ll see.’

  Everywhere the talk was of the war, but towards the end of August the annual regatta still took place. It was held, as always, on the stretch of river between Westlands and Eastlands, near where Ted Oliver ran his ferry.

  ‘I’ve built a sea horse.’ Proudly, Tolly showed Lizzie the barrel with the wooden horse’s head he had made attached to one end. ‘Are you entering the cog boat race, Lizzie?’

  She nodded and her eyes twinkled with mischief. ‘The blindfold race.’

  ‘You’re not!’

  ‘I am.’ She laughed. ‘The worst thing that can happen is that I end up rowing down the middle of the river and have to be towed back by a motor boat.’

  ‘No, no, you won’t. I reckon you know this river as well as any of the men.’

  ‘Are you going in for the greasy pole? My dad’s having it on his ship this year.’

  Every year one of the keel ships had a fifty-foot pole fixed in the bows pointing out over the water with a flag attached to the end of it. The pole was well greased, or soaped, and the person who walked along it and retrieved the flag won a prize and, later, it was also used for a pillow-fighting contest.

  The day was bright and breezy and everybody seemed determined to enjoy themselves. Lizzie lined up in her cog boat with six other contestants. Tolly was not one of them as he had promised to try to shout instructions to her. Duggie would do the same from the opposite bank.

  Solemnly, the brown paper bags were given out to each participant to put over their heads and the starter fired a pistol. Lizzie began to scull her boat away from the bank, but above the noise made by all the watchers, she could not distinguish Tolly’s voice. For a moment she stopped sculling and let the boat drift, catching the feel of the current. Then, beneath the paper bag, Lizzie smiled and began to scull strongly in the direction she believed the opposite bank to be. It seemed to be taking her a long time and, for a moment, Lizzie thought she had miscalculated and that she was blithely sculling downstream to the amusement of all the onlookers. Then, quite clearly, she heard Duggie’s voice.

  ‘Come on, Lizzie. You’re winning, lass. Just another two yards. Come on.’

  A few more strokes and Lizzie felt the boat jolt against the bank and a huge cheer went up from the crowd. She removed the bag and turned to look back at her competitors. Three were tangled up with each other in the middle of the river, shouting and swearing, to the vast enjoyment of the watchers. One was rowing vigorously upstream against the current and another was sculling, supremely unaware, downstream. The last one hadn’t even got away from the opposite bank and seemed to be going round in circles. Then, on the far bank she saw Tolly jumping up and down with excitement and waving his congratulations at her win.

  Later, Duggie won the greasy pole competition and Tolly won the barrel race and everyone enjoyed the ale and sandwiches aboard a barge anchored in the middle of the river.

  Although no one knew it at the time, it was to be the last time the regatta was held, for on Sunday 3 September war became a reality. The news was greeted by a lot of people with a sense of relief. At least the dreadful waiting was over.

  ‘Well, now we know. Now we can get at ’em.’ Duggie rubbed his hands gleefully as his father turned off the wireless and sat down in his chair. The whole family was squashed into Bessie’s kitchen to hear the Prime Minister’s broadcast.

  ‘We’ll just be left with young boys and old men to run the country,’ Dan grumbled, ‘whilst all the able-bodied men are away playing soldie
rs.’

  There was silence until Bert’s quiet voice said, ‘It’ll not be a game, son.’

  Usually, it amused Lizzie to hear her daddy addressed as ‘son’ by his own father, but this morning, she was not smiling. Her face was serious, her eyes wide with anxiety as she listened intently to the conversation around her.

  ‘Women did all sorts of things in the last lot,’ Bessie murmured. ‘Drove ambulances, worked in factories, even went to the Front as nurses. ’Spect they will again.’ Lizzie felt her grandmother’s gaze upon her. ‘Even Lizzie here. She’ll have to do her bit.’

  ‘She’s far too young,’ Dan said quickly. ‘Besides, I need her, ’specially if Duggie’s going.’ A strange bitterness crept into his tone as he added, ‘At least she’s capable of being a good “mate”, even though she is a woman. She won’t sit in the cabin all day doing her embroidery.’

  Lizzie didn’t understand his words or the look that passed between him and Bessie.

  ‘Of course I’ll stay with you, Dad,’ she said, leaning against Dan’s shoulder and smiling up at him.

  Dan returned her smile and for a brief moment the haunted look went from his eyes. ‘Aye, you’ll never leave your old dad, will you, love?’ he murmured softly.

  ‘If it lasts as long as the last lot,’ Bessie still insisted, ‘she’ll have to do as she’s told in another three or four years’ time and it won’t be you doing the telling, our Dan. Not this time.’

  When Duggie volunteered and was accepted into the Merchant Navy, Lizzie became her father’s official mate aboard Mr Sudbury’s ship, which he had skippered for the last sixteen years.