Water Gypsies

by Annie Murray

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, old pal.’ Her throat ached and the sobs began to rise in her. She pressed Nance’s cold hand against her cheek and its strange stiffness made her cry even more. ‘Oh, Nance – why did you go and get out of the boat? Couldn’t you’ve sat still, just for once? Why did you have to go and leave us all?’

  She drew the blanket back a little, and through her tears looked at Nance’s distended body. The poor little baby! Did he die when Nance died or after, living on inside his dead mother, not realizing she was not able to care for him any more and keep him safe? It was a terrible thought. Grief tore at her, for herself and for Darius and his motherless children. However would he manage now?

  ‘I’ll do all I can for them, Nance, you know I will. For Darrie and Sean and Rose. But oh, Nance, it’s going to be bitter hard for us all without you.’

  Nancy lay so peacefully, so uncharacteristically silent. If it were not for the bruising she looked as if she were sleeping, enjoying a sweet dream in her cosy little home. Here she lay on this bed, Maryann thought, which was hardly a bed at all, more a board with a few bits of bedding, but which had served as a happy marriage bed for what was not even a real marriage either in the eyes of respectable people. But Nance had been real all right. And what she and Darius had had made a pale shadow of a lot of other people’s marriages. The cut and its people had truly lit the fire of life in Nancy, and the cut had also taken it away.

  At last she leaned down and kissed the unbruised side of her old friend’s face, her tears falling on Nance’s pallid skin.

  ‘You rest now, my love,’ she said. ‘Sweet dreams.’ And, before covering her again, she laid the yellow jasmine and the bright berries on her breast.

  Maryann sent a telegram to Cathleen Black, Nance’s mom.

  They were to finish the journey to Birmingham later. All that week the family clung together. Maryann did everything she could for Nancy’s children. Darrie preferred to stay with his father and Rose was very young. Of all of them it was little curly-haired Sean who most wrung her heart, asking and asking where his mom had gone. He and Rose seemed to take some comfort from the presence of their auntie Maryann.

  Cathleen Black came from Birmingham for the funeral, with four of Nancy’s brothers and her two younger sisters, Lizzie and Mary. Cathleen and Nance had been close, as for many years Nancy had been the only girl among a gaggle of brothers. Cathleen’s curly hair had long turned from salt and pepper grey to a silvery white. She had on a squashed black felt hat pushed down over it and a brown tweed coat belted tightly at the waist. She wore spectacles now and her eyes, one of which had been crossed from birth, peered out rather rakishly from behind the thick lenses. Her children were all in their Sunday best, Lizzie and Mary in frocks that were too big for them. All of them were pale and strained with loss.

  They knew Nance would have wanted to be buried from the cut rather than back in Birmingham, so the funeral was to be at the church in Longford, where so many narrowboat women had been churched and their babies christened. Maryann put on her one and only best dress which she had kept from her wedding, in soft, blue wool. It felt very peculiar wearing it again.

  It was a cold day, but dry. Nancy’s coffin was lifted with great care onto the roof of the Isla and decorated with flowers. Darius took the tiller, Darrie and Sean beside him. Sean looked bewildered and sad, but Darrie, togged up in his best clothes, dark eyed and solemn, seemed older and more dignified than his seven years. Maryann travelled on the Neptune with Cathleen and Nance’s sisters, Rose and the twins. Joel brought up the rear on the Esther Jane with all the other youngsters squeezed aboard, the lads thinking it great sport to cling along the gunwales which were very low in the water as the boats were still loaded with their Birmingham steel. And behind came Ernie’s family, the Higginses, on their boat Dragonfly and a number of other families who all wanted to support the Bartholomews.

  ‘At least on the way I can talk to Cathleen and explain properly,’ Maryann said to Joel before they untied. ‘Poor thing – you can just see what this’s done to her, can’t you?’

  Cathleen seemed dazed and not at all herself. Once they’d started, Maryann handed the tiller to Lizzie, who was twelve and thrilled by the responsibility.

  ‘Just hold it steady in the middle. Shout if you’re worried.’ She went in to make more tea and see Cathleen, who was sitting in the cabin, looking round her in bewilderment.

  ‘God, Maryann, how d’you manage to live on here? I thought our house was cramped! I can’t see Nance keeping one of these spick and span! My poor girl…’ Her eyes filled again. Maryann handed her a cup of tea with a sizable portion of their sugar ration in it.

  ‘She did, though. Loved it. She was always full of beans, Nance was. Better at keeping up with it all than me.’

  Cathleen almost managed a smile. ‘Well, she didn’t get that from me.’

  Nancy’s little Rose who was now three, came and pawed shyly at Maryann’s arm.

  ‘Hello, bab.’ Maryann put her arm round her, cut by the lost look in the child’s eyes.

  ‘God love her.’ Cathleen looked round for somewhere to put her tea down. ‘Come here, darlin’ – come and see your nanna.’

  Rose looked fearfully at the strange lady peering at her from behind thick spectacles, then back at Maryann.

  ‘It’s all right, pet – that’s your nanna – your mom’s mom. Don’t you remember Nanny Cathleen? Go to her for a love.’

  Eventually Rose consented to be cuddled. Tears came into Cathleen’s eyes. ‘She’s the image of our Nancy, she is. What’ll become of the children, Maryann? Whatever’s he going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Maryann said wanly. She had been so numb, this week of grieving, that just getting through each day had been hard enough. ‘I don’t know how Darius is going to get along, Cathleen. I’ve never seen a man look more lost.’

  ‘I know.’ Cathleen paused, then looked across at Maryann. ‘Our Nancy really loved him – she did, didn’t she? I know it really – it’s just that if she’d stayed with her husband, with Mick Mallone, none of this would have happened…’

  Maryann leaned across to her. ‘Cathleen, Nancy had more happiness with Darius these few years than she could have had in a lifetime with Mick.’

  Cathleen gave a heavy, sorrow-laden sigh. ‘I know.’ She kissed the top of Rose’s curls, holding the child close. ‘I know that really. You only had to look at her.’

  Nancy’s coffin was carried into church with great ceremony, borne on the shoulders of Darius, Joel, Ernie Higgins and three of her brothers, Charlie, Jim and Percy. The rest of them processed behind with the other mourners. Nance had won a great deal of respect and liking among the boating people, for her skill and cheerfulness and her well-scrubbed family; now they had come to support the Bartholomew brothers and see Nancy off in style. Maryann had been surprised and grateful at their reaction to Nance. This community of people were, in the main, sticklers for convention. Because they were different, not readily understood by outsiders, they fought off the insults that they were dirty ‘water gypsies’ by strict adherence to social codes. Boaters were married and buried in style, and woe betide a boatwoman who associated too much with another woman’s husband unless his wife was within earshot as well! But though Darius and Nance had never married, their situation was understood and accepted. Darius was respected and his ‘best mate’ was respected too.

  Maryann walked with Cathleen, whose nose was pink with cold.

  ‘I’ve never set foot in a Protestant church before,’ she whispered, holding Rose’s plump hand and gazing fearfully up at the benign facade of Longford parish church.

  ‘It’ll be all right.’ Maryann squeezed her arm. ‘It’s nice. Nance liked it.’

  ‘Did she?’ Cathleen sounded surprised, then determined. ‘Anyway – Father Ryan’s not here to see me, is he?’

  In their pews in the musty old church, the boaters and Nance’s family sang and prayed Nanc
y to rest. Out of habit, Cathleen took her string of white rosary beads from her pocket and told them throughout. As they sang ‘Abide with Me’, Maryann felt the desolate, unjust sorrow of it all overwhelm her and she wept with her arms round Rose and Sally, who cried too at the sight of her. After, while the vicar was reciting the service, other words came back to her, spoken to her during her time in service in Banbury by Roland Musson, one of the sons of the family. Roland had survived the Great War in body, if not entirely in mind, and lived as a recluse at home. That morning he had told her about a young lad in his unit who had completed a successful raid in No Man’s Land one night, but was killed first thing the next day. For a moment Maryann was back standing in the sun-filled room at Charnwood House, with Roland Musson saying, ‘… chap stood up for a few seconds and bang – killed by a sniper. So what was it all about? Man grows up, becomes himself overnight, then –’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Like a bloody butterfly.’

  And what was it all about? Maryann thought bitterly, when they watched Nance’s coffin being lowered into the ground. God takes the best young, some people said. This enraged her. Why bother with God if he was like that? Why tangle with God at all of he wasn’t the sort who’d be there crying beside her because Nance’s life had been cut short?

  The sun broke through and shone bravely against the cold as they stood there, Joel beside his grief-stricken brother, who broke down over the grave.

  ‘My Nancy,’ he groaned, ‘my lovely Nancy …’

  ‘Oh, the poor man,’ murmured Cathleen Black. ‘Holy Jesus, why did this have to happen?’

  Before the family left again for Birmingham, Cathleen asked Darius whether he wanted her to take any of the children to look after.

  ‘They’ll all be too much for you on your own, won’t they, God love them?’

  Darius, already distraught, could not contemplate the idea of losing any more of his family that day, even as a temporary measure. He thanked her a little brusquely, but said he wanted to keep his family together. Cathleen suddenly put her arms round him and pulled him close with affection.

  ‘We’ve all lost a jewel in our Nancy,’ she said, ‘but I want to thank you for giving her these few truly happy years. I’ve never seen her bonnier or more full of life than when she was with you, Darius.’

  Finding it hard to speak, Darius managed to thank her for her daughter and shyly embrace her.

  ‘Come and see us whenever you can,’ Cathleen said, trying to be brave. ‘I don’t want to miss my grandchildren growing up.’

  After they had waved the Blacks off to catch their evening train, Maryann helped Darius to settle the children, all together in the big bed for comfort. They were tearful and exhausted and soon fell asleep, while Maryann and Darius sat on the side bench. Sean was still snuffling pitifully even after sleep overtook him. Darius looked across at his sleeping children, an anguish beyond words in his eyes.

  ‘Well,’ he sighed. ‘We’ll just have to keep on, somehow.’

  Maryann nodded, tearful again, and touched his arm. She loved Darius like a brother. ‘I know,’ she said, and for them these simple words were enough to acknowledge the chasm of emptiness left by Nance’s passing.

  ‘I want you to have these now.’ Darius slid a hand into his jacket pocket and laid on Maryann’s hand two gold hoops: Nance’s earrings, which had belonged to Esther, Darius and Joel’s mother. She knew this was an honour, as if to say, you’re the only one left in line now.

  She nodded again, understanding. ‘I’ll always wear them.’

  *

  It had been a gruelling day and her own children were asleep when she got back to the Theodore. Joel poured each of them a generous tot of whisky, which they drank gratefully, along with their tea, and sat on at the table, somehow reluctant to go to bed.

  Once lying side by side, they seemed unable to sleep, as if loss of consciousness was a denial of life, and after this day of death and heavy sorrow they needed to seize life and hold on to it. Maryann lay with her head on Joel’s chest, his arm round her, hearing the whisper of his lungs.

  ‘You sound chesty tonight.’

  ‘I can feel it coming on a bit.’ He wheezed, and gave a cough to clear it. ‘Bitter today, wasn’t it?’

  There was a pause, then Maryann raised her head to look at him. ‘How’s Darius going to manage? He won’t be able to, will he? Not with the three of them and no Nance?’

  Joel shook his head. ‘I don’t know what’s going to be best. Can’t think. But we couldn’t say much about it today could us? I reckon we’ll need to help him out.’

  ‘Take the children you mean?’

  Joel’s nod meant ‘maybe’, Maryann saw with some dismay. But she knew she had to do anything she could to see Nance’s children were taken care of. She peeped over at their twins’ sleeping faces.

  ‘I couldn’t bear it if it was you.’ She looked down at Joel. ‘I don’t think I could go on. Not without you.’

  Smiling, his vivid eyes looking deep into hers, Joel reached up and stroked her cheek. ‘My lovely,’ he said, ‘my little mate. We’re here now though, ent we? Now is what we’ve got.’

  ‘Oh, Joel –’ A shudder went through her. ‘Nancy was so cold! I don’t want to die.’

  He stroked her back, making loving, soothing noises, and in a moment they were kissing, pressing close together, fierce with desire for each other, for life. As they loved one another it did not even cross Maryann’s mind to stop him, to ask him to pull away at the last minute. The heat of their bodies, the joy and healing comfort of it was all, life and its celebration was what mattered. She pulled him close, her arms clenched to hold him tight, and after their lovemaking they slept, curled tightly together in the freezing night.

  Nine

  ‘You poorly again, Mom?’

  Maryann just managed to grab the dipper in time and leant over it, retching. Though she was secluded in the privacy of the cabin, she was being watched by a row of curious children, Ezra, Sally and Rose, as her morning tea gushed out into the bottom of the wide container.

  Maryann wiped her lips and watering eyes, grimacing at the acid taste in her mouth. She nodded absentmindedly at Sally’s question, not having the strength to reply. She knew this sickness all too well. After drinking down a cup of water she went out, amid the shouts and rattling of chains of the wharf, to empty the dipper. The contents met the surface with a glutinous ‘plop’ and the milk curled in the dark water for a moment before disappearing. They were at Tyseley again, their cargo being unloaded. Exhausted before the day had even begun, she rested for a moment against the cabin, looking out across the piles of deep orange steel, the scrappy wharf refuse of wire, nails, bits of wood and greasy rags scattered over the cindery ground. She’d been too caught up in her present woes to be afraid of coming back here. All she’d been able to think of on the wet trip up from Limehouse was keeping going, trying to get through the day and not show that she felt sick or weak or faint.

  It was two months since Nancy’s death and the harsh freeze of that winter had given way to March winds and rain. Starting work again after the funeral, they’d all had to make decisions about how things were going to be managed. Should Darius give up his Barlow boats and come back aboard the Esther Jane? But Mr Barlow was desperate to keep all his boats and crews working. The war created an almost bottomless demand for coal, steel and other materials. Let Darius keep the Isla and Neptune, he said. He could work them with Ernie and he’d find him an extra crewman. The man who filled Nance’s place – in no other respect except that he was a lifelong boater – was a middle-aged man called Joe Toms. Joe had also been a Number One and had kept on with his own horse until recently, when his wife had died ‘of the bronchitus’. Darius already knew Joe quite well and thought they’d be able to work together. He also said that he could manage aboard with Darrie and Sean, but was grateful when Joel said he and Maryann would look after Rose. Sally was delighted with this arrangement as she was two years older than Rose; it p
rovided both another female playmate and a subject to be bossed about. She immediately started teaching Rose her letters. For Maryann she was another child to be fed and protected from all the dangers of the cut, but she was also a link with Nancy and she did her best for the little girl. But during those months of freezing wind and rain Maryann’s spirits had been very low, and when she started to be sick she was filled with despair.

  They were mostly working the old routes, the Coventry and Oxford cuts, with occasional trips to London and Birmingham. Maryann had said nothing to Joel about her fears that her stepfather, Norman Griffin, was looking for her. This was only their second trip to Tyseley in the past two months and nothing had happened so far that was out of the ordinary. She was beginning to relax again. After all, why on earth should Norman Griffin want to have anything to do with her after all these years? If anyone was capable of leaving one life and starting off again in another, with a new name and identity, it was him. Why would he want to come back, disturbing old memories?

  Leaning over the side, she rinsed the dipper out. A dead bird floated, stiff-legged, close to the bank, rotating slowly on a twisting current. Jenny, the tortoiseshell cat, watched it mesmerized, head twitching back and forth.

  ‘Can’t we get off yet?’ Ezra demanded behind her.

  ‘No!’ Maryann snapped, standing up. ‘How many times’ve I told you, you can’t be out there running about when we’re unloading. See them chains swinging about? They could have your head off.’ She softened a little, looking into his eager, if filthy face. ‘They’ve nearly finished, pet. Just stay on a bit more. A wash wouldn’t hurt you, would it?’

  Back in the cabin she managed to force a slice of dry bread down her throat and feed the children. It would be a relief when the unloading was completed and the cooped-up children could escape onto the bank, scampering over to find Joel and Joley in the offices.