Water Gypsies

by Annie Murray

  ‘What’s up, Ada?’ she said, despairingly. ‘I can’t see if she’s got burnt or summat. She just won’t stop blarting.’

  ‘Bring her into our cabin,’ a woman next to her offered. ‘And the others. I’ll find a drop of milk for them.’

  She was a middle-aged woman with the prematurely aged, weather-worn face of so many of the boatwomen and large, kindly blue eyes. She ushered them all into her cabin. Most of her children had grown up and gone, she told Maryann. There was only one son left, working their pair with them. She signalled to Maryann to put Ada down on the table. It was immediately obvious what the problem was.

  ‘Oh, Ada!’ Maryann cried.

  ‘Ooh – that’s a nasty ’un,’ the woman said as they both leaned over the long, angry burn on Ada’s leg. ‘My word, you’re lucky it didn’t set her clothes afire!’

  ‘I don’t know what to put on it,’ Maryann said.

  ‘Here – we’ll put a shaking of flour over it,’ the woman said. That’ll help dry it up.’ She produced a rusty tin and scooped out a couple of spoonfuls of flour, dusting it over Ada’s leg, which made her scream even more. Maryann watched helplessly, though she was glad of the older woman’s confidence in what she was doing.

  ‘Let’s give them all a nice drop of milk,’ the woman said. I’ve just got some in, lucky for you.’

  Charlie could hear Norman Griffin’s rasping breaths along the path in front of him. You’re struggling, mate, Charlie thought, triumphantly. Not so young, are you? Bet you’re not used to running. Charlie felt like a superior, strong animal closing in on its prey. He was gaining on him fast, that inky, lumbering patch of movement. As he drew closer, he could just see Norman Griffin’s coat tails flapping behind him like slipped wings.

  Charlie felt a further surge of energy as he closed in. He stretched out his arm, straining to reach him, clawing at Norman Griffin’s shoulder.

  ‘I’ll have you!’ he roared and with a final effort threw himself forward onto the man, hurtling into his back and flinging him face down onto the ground. Norman Griffin went down with a loud grunt and Charlie fell sprawling on top of him.

  ‘Got you!’ Charlie roared, scrambling up, but remaining bent over the prone figure. ‘You needn’t think you’re going anywhere now, you bastard.’

  There was no immediate reaction. He saw Norman Griffin’s head lift and jerk from side to side, then there came a long, groaning inhalation as he tried to fill his winded lungs. He pushed desperately to sit up, to be able to breathe after his severe winding.

  ‘Get up,’ Charlie said. He watched over him with a feeling of power mingled with revulsion. What a foul wretch he was!

  Norman braced himself, panting hard, struggling to stand and slowly lurched to his feet, but remained bent over, crumpled.

  ‘They’ll put you away for a long time,’ Charlie said contemptuously. ‘You’re disgusting.’ The man was a mess, hanging over like that, limp at the waist as if he couldn’t straighten. He’d have to get him back to the wharf. Get the police – see if they could manage to keep their hands on him this time.

  The few seconds it took Norman Griffin to rally took Charlie completely by surprise. Righting himself in an instant, he ran at Charlie, who had no time to brace himself. Propelled by a great shove from Norman Griffin, he skittered backwards and over the bank, hitting the black, moonstruck water, which closed over him, cold and filthy, filling his ears, eyes, mouth. For a second all was darkness and confusion in the muffled underwater world, but the cut was shallow. Charlie pushed himself furiously to his feet, above the water, spitting out the oily brew. He coughed, and cursed with rage. Norman Griffin was once again in flight along the path.

  ‘I’ll get you – you needn’t think you’ll get away!’

  Clothes streaming, he hauled himself up onto the path, weighed down by his sodden garments. He could hear Norman Griffin’s footsteps receding in the distance and, boots squelching, Charlie hurled himself along the path after him.

  He soon caught up again, just as Norman Griffin turned off the path and began to scramble up through the nettles on the bank. No wonder they’d never seen him come and go on the wharf: he had this other way down!

  ‘No you don’t!’ All he could do was throw himself on the man’s legs, gripping on to his left ankle with all his strength. Norman Griffin kicked viciously, trying to shake him off, but Charlie gripped on, trying to pull himself up the man’s body as if climbing a pole.

  ‘Get off me – don’t touch me!’ Norman Griffin’s shrill words came to Charlie, the voice almost a squeal. He was struggling like a pig at the slaughterhouse, and Charlie was astonished by his strength. As he got a grip further up the man’s legs. Norman Griffin began to punch him, blows cracking into his cheek, smashing open his lip. Enraged by the pain, Charlie hauled himself up and lay on top of the older man, pinning him down.

  ‘You fucking bastard!’ he screamed into Norman Griffin’s face. He could feel blood running down his chin. ‘I’m going to make sure they lock you up and throw away the key!’

  He barely got the words out as the hands locked around his throat. Charlie didn’t even manage to inhale first and within seconds he was in trouble, chest straining, body crying out for air. His throat was held in an agonizing vice and he knew that if he didn’t save himself that instant he was going to die.

  Drawing on all his strength, he managed to fling his weight forward and clamp his hands on each side of Norman Griffin’s head, which he lifted, then smashed down again onto the ground as hard as he could. For a second there was no reaction. He couldn’t see the expression on the man’s face in the gloom, but the grip on his throat slackened and Norman Griffin’s arms, as if controlled by a separate life of their own, flopped to the ground. Charlie sobbed in gulps of air, gagging from the injury to his throat. He staggered to his feet, hands at his neck to try and ease the pain and landed a vicious kick at Norman Griffin’s ribs. ‘You fucker, you nearly bloody killed me!’ he rasped.

  As his first crisis of needing to breathe calmed, he began to sense the silence in the other man. Kneeling down in sudden panic, he peered at him. He found he was starting to get the shakes.

  ‘Here, come on – wake up!’ he croaked. He’d only wanted to get him off – had to, didn’t he? To save himself. Close up, he could see that Norman Griffin’s one good eye was closed. He was out cold.

  ‘Oh Jesus – God Almighty.’ It was an agony to speak. He was in a real panic now though. ‘Come on.’ He slapped at Norman’s face. ‘Get yourself up, will you!’ Stopping, he listened for the man’s breathing, but could make out nothing. His heart? He groped for what he thought was the right spot under the man’s heavy coat. Again, he couldn’t feel anything. Wasn’t there supposed to be a spot where you could feel a pulse? Fumbling around Norman’s wrist, he had no more success. He stood up, filled with panic.

  ‘Don’t let him be dead!’ he breathed. He knew suddenly how cold he was in his soaking clothes. His teeth were chattering.

  Backing away from Norman Griffin, he turned, his triumph shrivelled now to fear, and ran stumblingly back towards the wharf.

  Ada had drifted into a light, whimpering sleep. The woman settled all the drowsy children on her bed.

  ‘I must go and see what’s happening,’ Maryann said. ‘The boat – my husband.’

  The shock seemed to have snipped her mind into tiny fragments so she couldn’t hold a thought together. She was beginning to feel smarting pain from the burns on her hand and neck, but she tried to ignore it. In the cabin she could hear the muffled voices of the men along the bank.

  When she stepped outside, a terrible sight met her. Though there were no longer flames pouring out of the Theodore, the cabin and all their meagre possessions had virtually disappeared; the fire had only been stopped when it had burned some way along the hold. Smoke was still rising into the darkness.

  The men were still working hard, filling bucket after bucket of water from the cut. But she saw Joel, no longer even
attempting to carry on, a little distance away, bent over with his hands clenched to his knees as if in defeat, overtaken by bouts of coughing, the smoke too much for his already damaged lungs.

  Thank heaven above it’s not the Esther Jane, Maryann thought, though this was bad enough. The sight of her husband suffering, his defeated stance, filled her with a tenderness she had not been able to feel for a long while. Cautiously, shyly, she walked along to him.

  ‘Joel – love?’

  He straightened up and stood looking at her.

  For the first time in weeks, she moved towards him and put her arms round him.

  Moments later, while they were standing, numbly looking at the smoking wreck of the Theodore, they heard running footsteps.

  ‘Maryann!’ They heard him before they could see him and Maryann peered into the murk. Was that strained, gravelly voice Charlie’s?

  ‘I’m over here!’ she called, and a moment later he was in front of her, panting, obviously in a state.

  ‘He’s along there – Griffin. On the towpath. I think I’ve … I don’t know …’ He gulped, struggling for breath. ‘There was a fight. I think I might’ve done him in.’

  Forty-Six

  Everyone followed: it would have been no good telling them not to. The helpers from the surrounding boats had been drawn into the Bartholomews’ drama and could not be expected to miss the next stage of it.

  Charlie was already out of sight ahead of them, tearing along. They hurried after him down the narrow path, their only light the half moon. The other boaters followed and she could hear their boots on the path, their voices muffled yet excited. Maryann and Joel were together at first, but Joel was soon overcome by a fit of coughing and had to drop back.

  Maryann ran under the bridge, felt for a second its deeper, echoing darkness, and came out the other side, straining to see Charlie ahead of her.

  What’s happened? What’s he done? The questions hammered in her mind. He hadn’t stopped long enough to explain. Something terrible had taken place and he thought Norman Griffin was dead. Her mind could not take this in, or the thought of what might happen to Charlie if this were true. Could he be dead? Over and over, tolling like a bell. Could he? Norman Griffin dead, after all this time?

  ‘Charlie!’ she shouted, sensing him ahead of her.

  ‘Up here – come on!’ she heard and ran on nimbly ahead of everyone else, soon catching Charlie up as he stopped abruptly, looking round.

  ‘This was where … It was, I’m sure!’ Charlie ran back and forth, frantic, stamping at the nettles as if they might yield an answer. ‘He was lain down there, I’d swear he was! He’s moved himself … that means he can’t be dead. I haven’t killed him!’ Charlie was almost sobbing with relief. ‘I thought I was going to prison!’ he croaked.‘Thought I’d finished him off!’

  ‘Charlie – ’ Maryann gripped his arm, trying to bring him back to his senses – ‘if he’s not here, we’ve got to find him.’

  ‘You sure this was it?’ Joel and the others came up from behind.

  ‘He was trying to get up there when I pulled him down.’ Charlie pointed up the low bank. At the top was the end of a wall enclosing a line of factories and a tree next to it, then a fence. Between the wall and the tree was a gap. Joel and the other four men immediately sprang up the bank and started pushing their way through.

  ‘There’s a path here! We can get along,’ one of them called. One by one they disappeared. Maryann watched, without hope. It was so dark and Norman Griffin had had so much time to get away. He knew the lie of the land and they’d lost him once again. He was like the strongman they used to see in the Bull Ring, she thought. He’d be tied with chains in a sack, so it looked impossible even to move, but he’d always manage to escape.

  Charlie couldn’t seem to stop talking, even though he was clearly in pain, his voice rasping. He was explaining what had happened that evening at the house, seeing the young girl and how Norman Griffin had escaped them there and now again here.

  ‘Twice we had him, Maryann, and he still got away. I feel such a blithering idiot.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said flatly. ‘You did your best for us.’ In the distance she could hear the others moving away between the factory walls to the road. They’d never find him now, she knew. He’d be long gone, a malignant shadow slipping through the streets to some new hiding place. It seemed he was always destined to be out there somewhere beyond their reach, untouchable. Victorious.

  Once Charlie’s torrent of speech had rasped to a halt they stood listening. They could not hear Joel and the other men any more and the night was quiet. Something moved on the water close to them, a little flurry and a splash. Maryann became aware of other sounds, a mechanical throbbing from a factory somewhere, a train, its chugging passage building then receding, and, as the quiet descended again, a low, odd noise which didn’t fit the usual sounds of night. She listened, alert. Seconds later it came again.

  ‘Charlie – what’s that?’

  ‘What? I can’t hear anything.’

  They strained to hear, but no sound came.

  ‘Come with me.’ They began to walk along the path, further away from the wharf. Only a short distance away they found him, his prone figure like a dark stain on the path. Maryann gasped.

  ‘Oh Lor’ – ’ She felt Charlie put his arm protectively round her shoulders. She was terrified. Unable to see Norman Griffin’s face, she felt he was staring up at her through the darkness, waiting to seize hold of her if she leaned over him.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Charlie released her and very cautiously they bent down. Norman Griffin did not stir. He was lying face down, as if he had crawled here, and as Charlie touched him a groan came from him. Maryann saw Charlie feel round the back of the man’s head. He stood up, wiping his hand on his trousers.

  ‘He’s bleeding. Banged his head. He won’t be going nowhere. I’m going for the coppers.’

  ‘No!’ Maryann panicked. ‘We can’t leave him here! He might still get up and run off. You can’t trust him an inch. And I’m not staying here on my own with him. Wait till the others get back, Charlie.’

  ‘All right. Don’t s’pose there’s any hurry now,’ he said, adding tremulously, ‘oh, thank Christ for that.’

  Hands shaking, Maryann slowly knelt down, her body tensed, heart hammering, ready to jump away at any sign of movement.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Her mouth was so dry, the words would barely come out and she had to try again. ‘Mr Griffin. I hope you can hear me. It’s Maryann.’

  She stopped, unable for a moment to think what to say. But there were things she wanted to say. He had to know she was here, present at the moment when they finally had him, helpless in front of her, wiped out. Defeated. Breathing deeply, she looked up for a moment at the white glow of the moon. What words could ever encompass all the years of fear and shame and pain? But she had to say something. Just something. For herself and Sal, for Janet Lambert and Amy and Margaret.

  ‘It’s Maryann,’ she said again. ‘I hate you for what you did to me and to everyone else. You’re an evil, twisted man and you’re never going to hurt anyone again. You’ve destroyed people. You’ve wrecked and broken them. But you’re finished now.’ She took a long, shuddering breath and stood up. ‘And you haven’t got me.’

  *

  Pastor Owen sat on the front pew in the little church, his eyes red from weeping. He was slumped in his large clothes, like a crumpled bird. The pews looked even more outsized in the room than Maryann remembered. The place was empty except for the two of them. Sunlight slanted in through the windows onto the cross and a bird was singing out on the roof. A place of peace, it should have been. But there was no peace. Maryann had been standing, but she sank down beside him on the pew.

  ‘You had no idea, did you?’

  Pastor Owen hung his head. He shook it, utterly desolate. Maryann almost put her arm round him, but she held back. She kept her hands in her lap, the right one bandaged
and sore.

  It was the afternoon after Norman Griffin had been driven away by the police. When Joel and the other men returned to the cut the night before, they had all helped carry Norman Griffin back to Tyseley Wharf, as he gave off faint, semi-conscious groans.

  ‘He’s not going to die, is he?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Don’t sound like it,’ Joel said. ‘Take more than a bang on the head to finish that ’un off.’

  The police came. This time it was Joel who had his arm round Maryann’s shoulders as they carried Norman Griffin into the back of the vehicle.

  ‘That’s him gone,’ was all Joel said.

  Maryann nodded numbly. She could find no words.

  More shock was to follow. The police had taken the two men from the house and had them in the cells. One was the butcher, Mr Osborne, something Maryann was still almost unable to take in. The third, round-faced man was Pastor Joyce.

  ‘He’s been like a father to me.’ Pastor Owen’s shoulders began to shake. ‘We’ve lived in the same house, done the Lord’s work together. And all this time – what have I been living with?’

  His bony hands clutched to his face, he began to weep. ‘They say he took a young girl’s life.’

  Maryann could think of no words of comfort. She truly felt for him in his shock, for this terrible shame upon his friend, his church. She knew now his genuine goodness. He was an innocent, caught up in a horror he could barely understand. After a moment she laid her bandaged hand gently on his back.

  ‘You couldn’t have known,’ she tried to reassure him. ‘The other one, Mr Osborne, he was always nice as pie to me. Reminded me of my dad. I bought all my meat off him. How could anyone ever guess something like that?’

  Pastor Owen lifted his head, cheeks running with tears, face twisting with emotion. He looked so young! So pinched and battered.