Water Gypsies

by Annie Murray

  Maryann looked down to hide her emotion. ‘Yes – he is.’

  There was a silence while Janet still held her hand.

  ‘You’ll come with me?’

  ‘I said I would.’

  ‘Bolt the door tonight, won’t you?’ she said to Joel. He nodded. Joel had been surprisingly patient about her request to go and see Margaret the next day. For a while that evening she thought things might be getting better, that they could be easier together. But at bedtime he had almost ordered her and the girls out of the Esther Jane’s cabin. It felt as if he was afraid to be near her.

  She settled the girls in the Theodore. Before locking up, she pushed the hatch open and stood on the step, breathing in the night air and gazing round the wharf. With an ache she looked back at the Esther Jane and pictured Joel inside with the boys. If only he could just hold her, give her comfort instead of always wanting more when he touched her…

  The shadows round the wharf seemed to mock her and her flesh came up in goose pimples. Fear grew in her. Was someone standing in those deep pools of darkness? He was out there somewhere. The sense of being constantly watched overtook her and she hurried back into the cabin, feverishly pulling the hatch closed and fastening the bolt.

  It was never going to get better, she thought, lying down on her bed. Not while he was still out there. The great darkness outside seemed to be pressing in on the boat and she curled up, frightened, her arm round Sally, trying with her body to protect her from all harm.

  Forty-Two

  They stood at the asylum gates on a grey, rainy afternoon. Maryann had helped Janet on and off the tram, and the physical exertions of the journey, of struggling with walking sticks on her bad leg, had only added to Janet’s emotional distress.

  Maryann walked beside her on her painfully slow progress up the drive. Their coats were silvered with rain. As they reached the entrance, Janet faltered. For a moment she stared at the wet ground, then turned to look at Maryann. She didn’t speak, but her anguished expression said, I can’t bear it. Maryann took her arm.

  ‘You’re still her mom. She’s your daughter. It’s not your fault she’s here, Janet.’

  Janet shook her head, a desolate expression on her face. ‘I think that I’ve come to terms with it until I come back here. She’ll never be my Margaret again. Not after all this time.’ She squeezed her eyes tightly closed. Maryann saw tiny, convulsive movements in her jaw muscles as she fought to remain in control of herself. ‘It is my fault. For bringing him into the family…’

  ‘No!’ Maryann gripped Janet’s arm fiercely. ‘It’s his fault. All his fault! Don’t ever say it’s your fault.’

  Janet took a deep breath and looked up again. ‘Oh Lord.’ She sighed desperately. And after fighting for composure, she said, ‘It’s all right. Let’s get in out of the wet.’

  Immediately inside the entrance they were in another world. The sound of the big doors closing behind them made Maryann shudder. Outside they had left the wet air, full of factory smells and smoke, wind-shaken trees and buses and trams passing on the distant road. Now there were other smells, alien and institutional: whiffs of floor polish and disinfectant, stale cooking and another sweet, sickening smell which Maryann couldn’t identify. Here they were in a world of high ceilings, of grey, distempered walls, of footsteps echoing in long, gloomy corridors, of locked doors, odd sounds. It felt sealed off and utterly separate from life outside.

  The orderly who met them was a bald, middle-aged man who walked with a limp. As he led them to the visitor’s room, Maryann saw the silhouette of a male figure moving away along the corridor in the distance, sliding close to the wall, with an odd, slouching walk. It was impossible to guess his age, but the brief glimpse made her feel profoundly unsettled. She shivered, cold even though she had her coat on still. She had a horror of places like this and if it hadn’t been for Janet she would have obeyed the impulse to turn and run, to escape from the oppressive atmosphere.

  There were three other people waiting in the visitors’ room, who sat in silence looking subdued and anxious. A plump lady in a brown pork-pie hat stared at them as they came in, but the others looked away.

  ‘She’ll be brought to you at half-past two,’ the orderly said, before backing out as if they might all turn on him and shutting the door. Perhaps it was just habit, working here, Maryann thought. There were only a few minutes to go, according to a clock on the wall, but the minute hand seemed to take an eternity to creep round from the five to the six. Everyone waited, not speaking. Maryann and Janet both sat in their coats: although it was June, the room held no warmth. The windows were long but high, letting in cobweb-coloured light. Other than the wooden chairs round the walls the only furniture was a table, pushed up against the wall in one corner, with an empty vase standing on it.

  Just after half-past two they heard footsteps in the corridor and three women were brought in: the first a suety, middle-aged woman, her frizzy black hair caught up in a bun, followed by a scrawny girl whose age was hard to guess. There was a pause, and then they heard a man’s voice in the corridor saying impatiently, ‘No, it’s not – it’s two women. You going in or not?’

  Margaret appeared then, but she clung to the door handle, peering fearfully across at them until she was sure who it was before she came towards them. She was a slight figure, her bright auburn hair tied back into a greasy-looking bunch, grey eyes squinting as she peered across the room, looking, Maryann thought, like a frightened hound. She was wearing a brown pinafore dress several sizes too big which hung on her, the waistband too low and the skirt falling well below her knees. Under it was a fawn blouse. Her face was still freckled, and very pale, not pretty – the eyes were too narrow, her expression dull and vacant. For a moment she stood in front of them staring at her feet on the wooden floor.

  ‘Won’t you sit down, Margaret?’ Janet suggested. She hadn’t got up to greet her. When Margaret was perched, ill at ease, on a chair, Janet went on, ‘I haven’t been in a while, love. Sorry. I haven’t been all that well.’

  Margaret accepted this without comment. Her hands, in her lap, were never still, and Maryann’s eyes kept being drawn back to their restless movements. Her fingers were thin and red raw, as if she had them constantly in and out of water. Her nails were bitten down to the quicks and there were sores where she chewed and picked compulsively at them, as she was doing now.

  And neither was Janet at ease. Her walking sticks were resting at an angle against her legs, and she held the handle of one, her fingers twitching nervously. Janet’s discomfort, her remorse, was something you could almost smell in the room, over the whiff of floor polish. Maryann saw, with pity, that she was afraid of her daughter and barely knew what to say to her. From her own instincts as a mother she knew Janet ought to be able to say, I want you with me, child. Let me take you away, take you home. But they both knew Margaret was not going home. She had come here when she was exceptionally young, ten years ago, because of the seriousness of what she had done. Looking at her, Maryann could see she was not fit for life in the normal world out there. She was docile enough, but her mind had been badly scarred as a child, and now she had been here too long. No one was going to plead for her release. The rest of her life would be behind the asylum walls.

  ‘You all right, love?’ Janet asked, a tremor in her voice. Margaret was not looking at them, but staring distractedly round the room as if only half aware they were there. ‘You remember Maryann, don’t you?’

  Margaret’s gaze returned to them and she looked at Maryann blankly then gave a faint nod. Maryann wasn’t sure if she really remembered. It was impossible to tell. She found herself hoping that Margaret didn’t remember her.

  ‘Hello, Margaret,’ she attempted gently. ‘You keeping all right?’

  Margaret nodded tersely, then looked accusingly at her mother.

  ‘They’re giving us that stuff to eat again – gruel like. It’s horrible. I don’t like it,’ she said petulantly. Her voice was thick,
clumsy, as if her tongue was unpractised in speech, and her gaze didn’t fix for long on the person she was talking to, but shifted about.

  ‘Well,’ Janet said, ‘I suppose with the shortages and everything–’

  ‘It’s nasty.’ Margaret cut in across her. ‘We had porridge before. I like porridge. I don’t like gruel.’ She spoke loudly like a sulky child, almost shouting, so that the woman in the pork-pie hat glanced round at them. Margaret couldn’t seem to fit her talking properly round the rhythm of anyone else speaking. Conversation with her felt like a jigsaw puzzle in which none of the pieces slotted together properly.

  ‘When’s our Amy coming? She hasn’t been in ages. Tell her to come.’

  Maryann saw Janet’s jaw tighten. ‘Oh, she’ll be along in a few days I expect. She’s been very busy. Started a new job, and she–’

  ‘But she hasn’t been! She always comes and she hasn’t been!’

  Maryann sat horrified, watching the two of them. All this time and Margaret didn’t know Amy was dead? Whenever was Janet planning to tell her? Janet carefully avoided her gaze. Margaret was chewing her left thumb like a starved person.

  ‘She’s my sister!’ she cried.

  Maryann was disturbed by the look in her eyes at that moment: something fixed and cold, animal, not quite human, or that was how it seemed to her. Margaret pulled her hair forward over her shoulder and tugged at the ends of it, moving her body agitatedly.

  ‘He came. He came to see me.’ She was rocking back and forwards now.

  Janet cast Maryann a worried, sceptical look.

  ‘Who came?’ she asked with exaggerated patience.

  ‘Him. My stepfather.’ This last was said in a mocking, sing-song tone.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Janet’s voice rose with panic. ‘You haven’t got a stepfather! What on earth’re you talking about?’

  ‘I have! Him. Your husband – you haven’t forgot him, have you? He came in here visiting – with that face. Trying to hide – under his hat.’ She giggled suddenly, a harsh snicker. ‘I did that to him all by myself!’

  Janet was on the edge of her chair, grabbing at Margaret’s hands.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Janet implored her. ‘What’re you saying – he came here? Margaret, is this true or are you making up a story?’

  ‘He told them he was my stepfather – well, he was once, wasn’t he?’ Margaret sneered.

  ‘When? When was he here?’

  ‘I dunno.’ Margaret looked sullenly down at the floor. ‘Since Amy came. Long time ago. Dunno now.’

  ‘Well, what did he want? What did he say?’

  Margaret shrugged. Maryann felt a sudden urge to shake the words out of her.

  ‘Talked about his mother. Said he was sorry. I wasn’t listening.’

  The two of them sat in stunned silence at the preposterousness of this. Rain blew against the window behind them. It was coming down more heavily now, the sky even darker.

  ‘Margaret, did this really happen?’ Maryann asked, though she already sensed that Margaret was telling the truth. She wouldn’t have the ability to invent such a story.

  ‘He came. I told you. You could ask that lady.’ She jerked her head towards the woman in the pork-pie hat. ‘ She was here then, an’ all. Kept staring at him.’

  ‘But what did he want?’ Maryann could hear a note of hysteria in Janet’s voice and felt something similar rising in herself.

  ‘Dunno. He asked me about the family – where everyone is. I dunno where they are. Asked me about Auntie Maureen and if she was still in Alvechurch. She was the only one I could remember. We went out there, daint we? She had them kittens.’

  ‘What else?’ Janet demanded.

  Margaret shrugged. ‘Dunno.’ Her mind seemed to slide away and she looked about the room again, chewing savagely at the end of her finger.

  For the rest of the visit, however hard they tried to press her, she would say no more. Conversation flagged. After all, what life did Margaret have to tell them about? Only that she was still apparently doing sewing. Mending clothes.

  At last they had to say goodbye. As Janet kissed her, Margaret stood passively and asked if she could bring some sweets next time. She didn’t seem to understand about rationing, even now.

  The two of them were ushered out and the doors slammed behind them, leaving them to face the rain.

  ‘It’s easing off a bit, I think,’ Maryann said, trying to sound cheerful. In fact it was still raining just as hard, but it was a relief to get out of the dim, enclosed world of the hospital. She longed to get back to the cut, to get untied and away from Birmingham.

  Janet closed her eyes for a second and let out a long, shuddering sigh. ‘ I find it hard to believe she’s mine any more.’ She opened her eyes and looked at Maryann. ‘My little Margaret.’

  Maryann couldn’t stand any more emotion. She took Janet’s arm.

  ‘Come on. Let’s get home.’

  But Janet was staring ahead of her at the steady fall of rain. In a despairing voice, he said, ’What does he want? What more can he want from us?’

  Maryann was in the fringes between waking and sleep that night when the knocking forced her awake again, knuckles wrapping insistently on the door. Her body tensed in a rigor which left her for several seconds incapable of movement.

  ‘ Maryann?’ she heard. ‘ Don’t worry, it’s only me – Charlie.’

  Whatever did he want? She liked Charlie, but felt apprehensive, remembering what she had seen in his eyes sometimes when he looked at her. His attraction to her was not something she found comfortable. And why would he be coming to see her at this time of night?

  She opened up the back, pulling her coat tightly round her. The rain had stopped and the night was clear. Charlie must have retreated when he heard her unbolting the door, as he was now standing on the bank. With him was a woman. In the poor light Maryann made out a sweet face and curly hair falling round her cheeks. Was that his wife? she wondered, bewildered.

  ‘Sorry–’ Charlie began. Though he was speaking in a low voice, it communicated urgency. ‘Only, Liza and me – this is Liza, by the way – ’ Maryann gave the young woman a faint smile – ‘we was out near Osborne’s – by Mulligan’s ironmonger’s. That’s Liza’s dad’s shop, see – and we was up the entry –’ Maryann saw Liza look at the ground and sensed rather than being able to see her blushes. No, not his wife then. Her estimation of Charlie sank a little.

  ‘Anyroad – this motor car came and stopped in the road and these blokes got out. We just heard voices and that. We wouldn’t’ve taken any notice, would we, Lize? Only then there was this noise, like – how would you describe it?’

  ‘It was a kiddie crying out,’ Liza said.

  ‘Not just crying – howling,’ Charlie said sombrely. ‘As if it was in pain. Like a little rabbit. And I said, ey-up, summat amiss here. Didn’t I, Lize?’

  Liza nodded shyly.

  ‘I looked out the end of the entry, Maryann, and I didn’t hear anything else. But I got the shock of my life, ’cause that’s when I saw him, just going up the entry to Osborne’s!’

  ‘Him?’ Maryann’s throat tightened. ‘Mr Griffin?’ Charlie had seen him before, of course, but could he be so sure in the dark street?

  ‘Oh, it was him all right. Hat pulled down like he wears it to hide that fizz-hog of his. There was three of them – another big bloke went in behind him and the other one drove off again after.’

  ‘Osborne’s?’ Maryann was completely bewildered. Charlie must be mistaken. Whatever could Norman Griffin want with kind Mr Osborne? ‘ Maybe it was the place on the other side he was going to?’

  ‘Nope. It’s Osborne’s all right. Heard the door go. And Liza’s room’s across the road from them and she says she reckons there’s someone else living above the shop in the attic.’

  ‘They suddenly put blackouts up a few weeks back,’ Liza said. ‘There was nothing before. It was all empty. And I’ve seen someone moving about once or twice
in the day. I’ve never seen anyone come in or out, though.’

  The hatch of the Esther Jane slid open and Joel came out, pulling on his jacket. Maryann explained what had happened.

  ‘You think they’re still up there, then?’ Joel said.

  Charlie nodded. ‘We came straight here.’

  ‘Come on, then.’ Joel was all set to go and roust them out himself. ‘Let’s go and see.’

  ‘But the coppers,’ Charlie protested, they’re s’posed to be looking for him. Shouldn’t we get them?’

  This was an idea foreign to Joel’s self-sufficient ways. He hesitated.

  ‘Well, all right then. But if they don’t get on with it we might just as well do it ourselves.’

  Forty-Three

  Joel and Charlie waited for the police to arrive, standing along the street from Mr Osborne’s shop. Maryann had stayed with the boats, the children. She wasn’t leaving them alone, for Sally to wake and find her gone.

  ‘Take their flaming time, don’t they?’ Charlie ground the stub of a cigarette against the cobbles with his heel, then immediately reached into his pocket for his packet of Woodbines and offered it to Joel.

  ‘No ta.’ Joel knocked his fist against his chest.‘Can’t.’

  ‘Sorry, pal – forgot.’ Charlie lit one up for himself. He was too young to have fought in the Great War. ‘Great War. ‘Gas, was it?’

  Joel nodded. His back was giving him a lot of pain too – it hurt far more than he would admit to Maryann. Beside Charlie he felt old, done in.

  Charlie peered along the dark street. ‘Better watch in case they sneak out again without us seeing,’ he said through his cigarette. He took it from his mouth and spat on the ground. ‘Filthy bastards.’

  Joel said nothing. He was not much of a one for words in any case, and he could not have expressed what he felt towards Norman Griffin. Since his return to the boats from Oxford, his daughter had been taken away, his wife had withdrawn from him, and he knew that the mute misery he could see in Maryann was somehow rooted in what she too had experienced at the hands of her stepfather. Joel had never known exactly what went on while Norman Griffin was with Maryann’s family. She’d never said and he couldn’t bear to ask, had no idea what to do to make it better. He longed to take her to him in bed, to love and caress her sorrow away, but he knew he couldn’t. Since he had been back she had been closed off to him. If he touched her she fought him off or turned away, rigid, weeping. Better in some ways that they sleep on different boats. Then at least the warm shape of her beside him was not a temptation. But it was a sad, lonely state of affairs which he found hard to bear. His fists clenched with fury at the thought of Norman Griffin. He wanted to storm into the house and do him violence, never mind waiting for these duffers, the police.