Water Gypsies

by Annie Murray

  ‘You looking for someone?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Griffin.’

  Dot was surprised at how collected Maryann seemed suddenly.

  ‘He don’t come in much, afternoons. He’s not here. In fact he said he was going to a family funeral, now I think of it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Maryann said, ‘that’s it – he’s my uncle, see. We’ve just come from there. We don’t see much of Uncle Albert, but I left my daughter with him and he said he’d meet us here. You sure you haven’t seen him – with a little fair-haired girl?’

  The man shook his head. ‘No. Like I said, I’ve not seen him all day.’

  Maryann managed to look bemused. ‘I must’ve misunderstood him. P’raps he’s taken her back to his house. What was the address again?’ She turned to Dot, who managed to shrug as if she’d momentarily forgotten it.

  ‘Oh dear. I’m sorry to trouble you – would you be able to tell me his home address so’s we can catch up with him? Only, we was hoping to have tea with Uncle Albert – get to know him a bit better like.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ the man said noncommittally. ‘I’ll have to ask Doris.’ He went to the back of the workshop and vanished through a door. When he came back, he gave them an address: 33 Cameron Road, Acocks Green.

  This time they caught a tram along the Warwick Road. When they alighted in Acocks Green, Dot saw to her surprise that they were not far from Tyseley Wharf. She wished, not for the first time that afternoon, that she wasn’t dressed in this damnable skirt and court shoes, but in her usual slacks and boots so she could move freely. Maryann, in her full black skirt, was able to stride along unimpeded. She was running, still possessed by an insane energy. All Dot could do was follow, feeling her feet blister as they rushed along the row of terraced houses.

  ‘Here!’ Maryann cried.

  Dot felt her heart lurch. Whatever was she going to do?

  Maryann didn’t miss a step. She marched straight up and hammered the knocker with such force Dot thought the door must split. Maryann couldn’t stand still for a second. She was moving back and forth, one hand resting on her waist, elbow out. She chewed fiercely at her other thumb. But suddenly she snatched her hand away from her lips and started screaming.

  ‘Come out! Come on – get out here! I know you’ve got her, you evil bastard! Get out here!’

  Her cried sounded frail in the open air and the house felt silent and unoccupied. The windows reflected back the sky’s late afternoon light, but inside it was dark and there was no sign of movement.

  Maryann hammered again desperately. Again, no response.

  ‘He’s in there – I know he is!’ Her hands went to her face and she wept, distraught. Feeling helpless, Dot went to try and comfort her. But Maryann fought her off to begin her pacing again.

  ‘I’m not going till we’ve been in there! We’ve got to get in – I’m going to get in if I have to break the door down. He’s got to be here – where else can he be?’

  Dot knew that Maryann felt it was their last chance of finding Sally today. She went to the door herself and pushed on it, banging once more on the knocker. It felt like a firm, strong door. Then she heard the sound of smashing glass and turned to see Maryann bashing at the front window with a lump of wood she’d found. Having smashed the window, she was clearing away the splinters of glass to climb in.

  ‘Oi – what the bleedin’ ’ell d’you think you’re doing?’ A gaunt woman in an apron had appeared from the next-door house. ‘I’ll have the coppers on you…’

  Before Dot could turn and give a reasonable explanation for their conduct, Maryann had stormed over to the low wall and let out the loudest and most colourful string of invective Dot had ever heard. It brought the blood to her cheeks. She’d never heard Maryann so fluent and there were certain words she didn’t even recognize. It looked for a moment as if Maryann was going to punch the woman, who eventually retreated back indoors, mouthing oaths. A moment later she was peering out of her front window. Dot didn’t dare say a word. She wondered whether the woman would go for the police but, after all, what did it matter? Maryann turned on her, her face pale and taut.

  ‘You coming in with me?’ she demanded.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  They hauled themselves in over the sill, Dot wrestling with her tight skirt. She cursed, scraping the back of her leg on the way down. They climbed into the front parlour, and as their eyes adjusted to the light they saw that the room was set out in a stiff, formal fashion, the walls, floor and furniture all varying shades of brown. But there was nothing else to see and they moved quickly through the lower part of the house – back room, kitchen, all very neat and tidy. There was no sound.

  Without speaking, they ran up the dark stairs with their runner of brown carpet. Although there was no point in trying to be quiet, Dot found herself wanting to tiptoe. She didn’t like the musty smell of the place, its drabness, and most of all her growing dread of who might be here, what they might find.

  There were three bedrooms off the landing. The smallest back room was completely empty, without even a covering on the floorboards. Having poked their heads inside they moved on to the middle one. A single bedstead was pushed up against the wall, with no bedclothes on it, only an old mattress, the ticking cover unpleasantly stained.

  They exchanged glances and moved to the main bedroom at the front. Again the colouring of the room was brown, and it looked dark and uninviting in the strained light filtering through the nets. In silence they stood looking at the single bed with its coppery brown eiderdown, the bedside chair, chest of drawers and wardrobe, the long mirror on its door reflecting light from the window. The wallpaper was a deep coffee colour, marked with a thin, swirling pattern in black. There was no other decoration except for long moss-green curtains and, on the wall by the bed, a photograph in a frame.

  Dot moved over to look and Maryann followed. A woman in her middle years looked out from the picture. Her hair was caught up and piled on her head, topped by a white bonnet with a flower at the side. She had a wide, handsome face with dark, emphatic brows. At the bottom edge of the picture could just be seen the frill of a white, high-necked blouse. She stared steadily out at them, rather solemn, neither smiling nor severe. Dot peered closely, leaning across the bed. The eyes, close up, seemed penetrating, hard, and she stepped back, somehow disconcerted.

  ‘His mother,’ Maryann said. The picture had wrung a distant memory from her. He had had it in the room he shared with her mother in Ladywood, but propped somewhere in the room, not on the wall. She only dimly remembered, having hardly been in there after her father died.

  With loathing, she added. ‘Oh, he’d’ve done anything for Mother, all right. She was the only person who ever mattered.’

  She went to the wardrobe and opened it. Two suits of clothes hung there, smelling of camphor. Maryann was about to shut it again when Dot saw her reach down and pick something up from the floor of it. She turned, her face set grim.

  It was a square of cloth, pale blue with a pattern of tiny diamonds in a darker blue. It was clearly torn from a small blouse because one side was part of the fastening edge with two buttonholes.

  Dot couldn’t make sense of this. A piece of rag?

  ‘This’ll be something,’ she heard Maryann say, almost to herself. She looked at Dot. ‘He always has a reason for everything. He’s like a machine.’

  She pushed the clothes out of the way and bent over once more. The only other thing, lying coiled in the corner of the cupboard, was a length of rope. Dot felt her stomach turn with dread as Maryann brought it out. Before she could say anything, Maryann ran back out of the room, taking both the rag and rope with her. ‘ Cellar – there’ll be a cellar.’

  Dot followed the sound of her rushing boots down the stairs. Maryann was searching frantically, in the understairs cupboard, along the hall, anywhere where there might be a door to an underground room, and Dot helped, increasingly bewildered but filled with a sense of horrified misgiving. But they coul
d find nothing and no one. The house was empty.

  Eventually, once the possibilities all seemed exhausted, Maryann sank to her knees in the hall, gripping the skein of rope in her hands. She slumped forward, letting out a helpless, anguished howl.

  ‘Where are you, you evil bastard? For God’s sake, where’s my baby? Give her back to me – just let me have her back!’

  Thirty-Seven

  Sylvia and Dot did everything for Maryann that night. She was in no state to manage. Dot had to lead her back to catch the tram from Acocks Green. All the energy, the fight, seemed to go out of her and she stumbled along helplessly on Dot’s arm like someone barely alive.

  Between them, Dot and Sylvia took the Esther Jane back to Tyseley Wharf. All evening Maryann was in shock, unable to eat, to move or do anything, and the other two women saw to the boats, the food, the children, as she sat, numb, unable to concentrate on anything that was happening. Dot and Sylvia had to try and explain to the children what had happened, to give comfort. Time swam past and when Sylvia came to Maryann, offering a generous tot of whisky in a cup, she found she was sitting on the edge of her bed in the cabin, the family already bedded down.

  ‘Look, darling, get this inside you,’ Sylvia instructed. ‘You can’t go on like this. Dot’s going to sleep in here tonight. You come over and bunk up with me.’

  Maryann put the cup to her lips, and sipped the pungent liquor. It trickled hot down inside her and within seconds she could feel its effects. Her head went swimmy and she felt as if she was swaying from side to side. Things became even more muddled and unreal. She allowed herself to be led, head reeling.

  ‘I’ll never sleep,’ she said to Sylvia when they were aboard the Theodore. She began to weep again. ‘What can I do? I can’t stand it.’ She tore at her hair, trying to find an outlet for her pain. ‘ I want my Sally back, my baby – I can’t stand to think of what he’ll do to her!’

  ‘We’ll find her, we will! You’ve just got to hold on till tomorrow.’ Sylvia pulled her into her arms. She was crying too and the two of them wept together, Sylvia rocking Maryann as if she were the baby. Maryann closed her eyes, wanting to surrender to this comfort, but instead, her guard weakened by the alcohol, she found that she was suddenly unable to stop herself sliding, sinking into dark, deeply remembered places inside herself, haunts of pain and revulsion so acute that suddenly she was gagging. She had to pull herself up shakily, hand over her mouth and struggle out of the cabin to retch into the cut again and again until she felt wrung out and exhausted. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Head spinning, she rested wretchedly against the cabin, wanting to bang her head against the roof so hard that she lost consciousness, escaped from the pain filling her every pore.

  ‘Come on – I’ve brewed the tea.’ Sylvia’s pale head appeared beside her in the darkness. She spoke as if to a child. ‘Come back in, lovey.’

  The tea steadied the reeling in Maryann’s head a little. Eyes swollen from weeping, she looked round at Sylvia.

  ‘How can I sit here drinking tea? I should be walking the streets. I ought to know where to go and find her.’

  ‘We’ll do everything we can when morning comes,’ Sylvia said. ‘What can we do tonight? We’ve told the police.’

  ‘I can’t … I can’t …’ Maryann started to lose herself again.

  Sylvia grasped her hand. ‘Tell me,’ she said gently. ‘You’ve never said – about your stepfather.’

  Maryann stared blearily across the cabin, seeming so distant that Sylvia thought for a moment she hadn’t heard. But then she said, ‘He killed my sister. D’you know that? And he’s killed Amy. And now he’s got our Sally … and I’ve got to find her – I can’t sit here like this.’

  She stood up and struggled to get out, stumbling up the steps.

  ‘No, Maryann – ’ Sylvia caught her by the waist and held on, speaking softly, but firmly – ‘you can’t, not like this. Where’re you going to go? Look, the police’ll be looking for her – they will.’ She steered her back to her seat and Maryann sank down.

  ‘Come on – let’s get you to bed.’ Sylvia carefully shifted Rose from the main bed onto the side and helped Maryann to lie down. Neither of them undressed for the night. In her muzzy state Maryann was just aware of Sylvia easing herself onto the bed beside her. She didn’t top and tail as was more normal on the narrow bed, but came in beside her.

  ‘Come here, you poor love,’ Sylvia whispered.

  Maryann felt the comfort of arms round her, pulling her close, trying to console her.

  ‘What’s the address where your husband’s staying in Oxford?’ Dot asked the next morning.

  Without question, Maryann trotted out the Adelaide Street address and a moment later Dot was off across the wharf in the morning sun.

  The night had been terrible, almost sleepless, but the brief periods when she lost consciousness were full of fractured, terrifying dreams. Daylight arrived like a reproach. How could she have slept? She was in a fever to be off again, searching, pursuing.

  She shrugged off Sylvia’s offer of breakfast. Still in her black skirt, an old blue cardigan pulled round her, she hurried over to the toll office. Before she reached it, amid the morning hubbub a voice reached her.

  ‘Maryann – here, Maryann!’

  It was Charlie Dean, grinning all over his face.

  ‘Well, you’re miles away this morning, aren’t you? Must be in love or summat!’

  Her expression as she turned to him wiped the smile off his face.

  ‘Oh, have I gone and put my foot in it?’ Contritely he took his cap off. ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘It’s my daughter.’ As she spoke it felt as if words could not begin to convey the horror of the situation. ‘She’s been taken – by a man. A bad man …’ She couldn’t go on and ended by shaking her head.

  ‘Oh.’ Charlie looked nonplussed.

  Urgently she moved closer to him. ‘ Charlie – there was a man before. You said you’d seen him on the wharf, looking for me – ages back. D’you remember? With a scarred face?’

  Charlie nodded. ‘You wouldn’t forget his mug in a hurry I can tell you. Terrible. I’ve seen him about a couple of times. Not often.’

  ‘When?’ Maryann was so urgent to know that for a moment Charlie thought she was going to grab him by the throat. She looked a little deranged. ‘Where? Where’ve you seen him?’

  ‘Well, you know – about the place. In the road, like. I haven’t seen him on the wharf again. Just walking about. Oh – except once. The last time I saw the bloke he was up the shops – in the butcher’s, I think. But other than that …’

  ‘The butcher’s? What – Osborne’s?’

  ‘That’d be it, yes. Can’t think of anywhere else. Don’t s’pose that’s much help.’

  Once Maryann had hurried on she realized it probably wasn’t much help. He went to the butcher’s once – well, so what? Mr Osborne would have been his polite, jolly self and have pretended he hadn’t noticed the dreadful state of Norman Griffin’s face and that would have been all there was to it. She asked a couple of other people round the toll office, but although they thought they’d seen him once they didn’t have any more to say. But she couldn’t keep still. Someone had to be able to help. That preacher was the one to go to. He might know something.

  She found Pastor Owen saying goodbye to a small knot of people dispersing after a prayer meeting and launched herself at him.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re pleased with yourself!’ she burst out, sending the remnant of the congregation scattering. She was too overwrought to care who heard her.

  ‘Mrs Bartholomew!’ He looked very startled. And just as malnourished and dishevelled as ever in his black clothes. She had wondered if he would remember her. Oh, he remembered all right.

  ‘He’s got my daughter now. Snatched her away while we were burying my mother in the cemetery and God alone knows what he’s doing to her!’ To her immense frustration she found herself weeping again. She wa
nted to hurt him, to make someone else feel the agony she was in, but something in her still responded to his innate sympathy and her anger melted into distress.

  ‘What’s this?’ Pastor Owen’s large eyes widened in consternation. He hovered before her, hands dithering in the air. ‘What are you telling me? Can you say it more calmly?’

  But she couldn’t, could only sob, distraught. Pastor Owen stood before her looking agonized, as if he simply did not know what to do.

  ‘I haven’t seen our Mr Griffin in months,’ he told her. ‘Not since soon after you came that time. I’m very sorry. I’ve always meant to see you – down at the wharf, but the Lord has had other pastures for me lately.’

  Gulping and trying to control herself, Maryann didn’t reply.

  ‘You must believe me.’ The young man wrung his hands as he talked. ‘ When he first came to me, he did show genuine signs of contrition. He had a burdened soul. Yes, a burdened soul. He laid his troubles over his mother before me, and –’

  ‘Burdened soul!’ Maryann found she was screaming, hysterical. ‘He’s got a burdened soul all right! He’s a murderer, he’s filthy … oh, I can’t even tell you.’

  Sobbing, she ran from the church. Pastor Owen was no help to her. She had to go, to run and find Sally before it was too late. Why did she think anyone could ever be any help?

  All day they searched. Another boater family looked after the children and Maryann, Dot and Sylvia moved between the police, the factory in Highgate and Norman Griffin’s house in Acocks Green. He did not, as they had been assured he would, turn up at the factory that day. The house was empty and did not look as if he had returned to it. The window was still smashed and nothing had been moved inside. Round and round they went, as if on an awful circuit which yielded nothing.