The Narrowboat Girl (35 page)

She stepped off the tram and walked along Oak Tree Lane, hurrying anxiously to get to Joel. How would she find him today? She hoped he’d be just a bit better – better for seeing her
perhaps?

But when she said, ‘I’ve come to see Mr Joel Bartholomew,’ to the plump, red-headed sister, the woman’s expression turned very grave.

Maryann’s blood seemed to freeze with dread. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I’m afraid Mr Bartholomew took a turn for the worse in the night.’

‘Oh no . . . Is ’e—? ’E’s still . . .’ere?’ She looked wildly down the long Nightingale ward to see if she could see him.

‘He’s here,’ the woman said stiffly. ‘But perhaps not for much longer without a miracle. Are you the girl who came to see him yesterday?’

Maryann nodded, her eyes full of tears. Oh this couldn’t be true, Joel couldn’t die, not when they’d found each other again and they had so much between them! How could she
face the future again without Joel? She wanted to give so much love to him, to make up for all their lost, lonely years.

‘I really don’t think . . .’ the woman began, but seeing Maryann begin to weep in front of her she hesitated.

‘Please,’ Maryann sobbed. ‘I told the nurse yesterday – ’e ain’t got no one else.’

The sister relented. ‘You better calm down before you go to him.’

Maryann nodded, unable to speak. She wiped her face, pulled her shoulders back and walked along the ward, feeling the eyes of the other male patients on her.

Joel looked very bad. For a moment as she approached the bed she thought he wasn’t breathing and his face was sunken and pale, head turned to one side like someone trying to catch the
sunlight. Her tears started to fall again in spite of herself as she looked at him. He seemed so weak and defeated.

Kneeling in the narrow gap by the bed, she took his hand and brought it to her cheek.

‘Oh Joel,’ she whispered. ‘Stay with me. Please don’t go – don’t die. Can you ’ear me? Joel, please open your eyes – please still be
’ere.’

Watching his face, she saw, rather than heard, his shallow breathing and waited, staring intensely at him, for a flicker of movement, some sign that he was not leaving her. For a second his
lashes flickered and she thought he was going to open his eyes.

‘Joel?’

But the movement stopped and left her feeling more desolate than before. He couldn’t hear her. He was slipping away. She talked to him frantically in a low voice, begging him, talking
about all the things they’d do when he was better, saying over and over again how she loved him, clinging to his hot hand. But there was nothing. Eventually the sister came and approached the
bed.

‘I think it’s time to leave him now, dear.’ Her kindness terrified Maryann more than brusqueness would have done. It seemed to indicate that she was sure Joel was going to
die.

‘If only I could stay with ’im—’ She found it unbearable to tear herself away from his hand. ‘D’yer think – will ’e last the night?’

Her gaze not meeting Maryann’s, the sister said, ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you that.’

She stepped out of the ward as if into another world. It was late afternoon and sultry, the air full of acidic smells from the battery factory near by. She turned away from the
city and walked numbly towards Lodge Hill Cemetery, stepping in through its gates to the tranquillity of flowerbeds and trees and gravestones. She made her way to the two graves which belonged to
her, not side by side but not far apart, each with a modest headstone.

‘H
AROLD
N
ELSON
– 1892–1926’ she read, and then, ‘S
ALLY
A
NNE
G
RIFFIN
– 1913–1928’.

The sight of Sal’s gravestone brought all her rage and hurt to boiling point. Griffin! Her mom had buried Sal under that bastard’s name – the one who’d all but killed her
himself.

‘How could she have done it?’ She found herself kicking at the stone, screaming out her pain and fury. ‘How could she, how
could
she?’

Not even looking to see if anyone was about, past caring, she sank to her knees and rested her head on Sal’s grave, sobbing. ‘Oh Sal . . . oh God . . . sis . . . sis . . .’ The
memory of that night she had found Sal filled her mind, of the day her dad died, and then Joel, lying there, hardly seeming to be alive even now. Would she be visting him here too, having no one to
talk to but the graves of all the people she loved? She curled up tight by Sal’s grave, smelling the earth close to her face, and cried until she could cry no more.

Nance only had to look at Maryann’s face when she got back.

‘Oh Maryann – ’e’s not . . .?’

She came to greet her, anxiously wringing a cloth in her hands. The bruising had spread round Nance’s lip but the sight of her friend pulled her mind right away from her own troubles.
Maryann sank down at the table.

‘No. But I don’t think—’ She looked up at Nance, her eyes filling again even though she thought she’d cried all the tears she was capable of. ‘They
don’t think ’e’ll last the week – maybe not even the night. ’E hardly seems to be breathing. I can’t bear it, Nance . . .’

‘Oh Maryann, no!’

Nance pulled the other chair round and perched on it beside her, clasping Maryann’s hands in her rough ones as her friend poured out her feelings.

‘I was hoping ’e’d be better today, but he couldn’t even open his eyes and look at me. It almost seemed he was dead already. Oh and ’e’s got no one with
’im – I wish they’d’ve let me stay with ’im!’

‘What about ’is family? Ain’t there anyone round about for ’im?’

‘No – there’s only Darius, his brother and ’e’s—’ She got abruptly to her feet. ‘Darius! I must let ’im know ’ow bad things are. I
don’t know if ’e can make it but I’ll ’ave to give ’im the chance to try. Have you got a bit of paper I could write ’im a note on?’

Nancy managed to find a scrap of paper and left Maryann with it at the table while she went out to see if she could beg an envelope off one of the neighbours. She soon came back with one and
Maryann addressed it to Tooley’s Yard in Banbury and ran out to post it. Someone would have to read it to Darius – if he was still there. She told him in the note that she’d leave
her address for him at the toll office at Farmer’s Bridge. She slipped it into the box, praying Joel would hang on. The thought made her cry all over again.

She went to the hospital the next day, sick with dread. But she found Joel in much the same state as he had been in the day before. She sat beside him, willing him with all her
strength and love to hold on to life.

‘I’ll be here, Joel, waiting for you, praying for you. Just don’t leave me – I love you.’

She could hardly bear to let go of his hand and go away, she was so afraid that she might not see him alive again. She was living from moment to moment. Thinking about the future was impossible.
She couldn’t face it now without Joel.

That evening she went to find Tony, waiting at the end of Sheepcote Lane, hoping she could intercept him before he reached home. She stood watching both ends of the street, afraid she would not
be able to recognize him and full of misgiving that if she did see him he would reject her just as angrily as her mother had.

At last when he appeared she knew immediately who he was. He turned into the road, walking briskly, whistling, a small canvas bag slung over one shoulder, his jacket slung back over the other.
His boots and clothes were pale with dust and smears of cement, his cap was pushed far back on his head, showing a dark-eyed face which was also covered in muck. He was much bigger, just about her
own height, quite grown up into a wiry, muscular lad. When he drew nearer and caught sight of her, he stopped in mid-whistle.

‘’Ello, Tony.’

He came nearer. She couldn’t read his expression, except that it didn’t hold surprise. Her mom must have told him she’d been back. ‘Maryann?’

She was full of emotion, remembering the little boy she had left sleeping the night she ran away. ‘I s’pose you thought I was never coming back.’

‘Well – I dunno. I mean it’s been—’ He shrugged, looking down at the ground, awkward, and embarrassed by her emotion. ‘Mom said you’d been to see
’er.’

‘It’s a wonder she could bring ’erself to mention my name,’ Maryann said bitterly. ‘What did ’er say?’

‘Not much. Said yer wouldn’t be coming again.’

Maryann wiped her eyes and looked into his face. ‘What about you, Tony? You angry with me too?’

She saw a flicker of hostility, then sorrow in his dark eyes. She could sense his confused loyalties. ‘Dunno. No. Not really.’

‘And
he
left then? Norman?’

Tony nodded, raising his head. ‘Mom said it were your fault.’ He sounded angry, despite his denial. ‘We had to come back down ’ere—’ He jerked his head to
indicate the lane. ‘Why did yer do it, Maryann? I know ’e weren’t our dad but ’e weren’t all that bad. What did yer ’ave to go and ruin everyfing for?’

It was Maryann’s turn to look away, shame rising in her, the blood rushing to her cheeks. Her tears started to fall. How could she tell Tony what Norman Griffin had done to her and Sal
– above all to Sal? How could she speak like that to her little brother? Little Tony who spoke in a gruff man-boy voice, who still couldn’t say his ‘th’s properly?

‘I’m sorry, Tony . . .’ She couldn’t help crying however hard she tried, and she stood in front of him weeping there in the street. ‘I’m sorry – I had
to go.
I had to do it
. . . I can’t explain it to yer.’

‘Why not? Don’t yer think I’m grown up enough to be told what’s going on, eh? I feel like a right bloody mug I do. I’m old enough to keep food on the table but I
ain’t old enough to be told anyfing. ’Ow about letting me in on a few fings, eh?’

‘Ssh – oh Tony, please be quiet!’ Maryann seized his arm. ‘Don’t – not in the street. I don’t want people staring and gossiping. Look – come for a
walk with me, away from ’ere.’

‘I’ll come,’ Tony said, on his dignity. ‘But you’d better be straight with me, Maryann. So far as Mom’s concerned you were the ruin of the family. It
ain’t how I remember yer or think of you, but you’d better ’ave summat to say to me.’ Suddenly he seemed near tears himself. She wanted to put her arms round him as she had
done when he was little, but knew she mustn’t.

‘Oh Tony – I will tell you. Only you have to promise me you’ll believe what I say. Mom never would – that’s why I had to go in the end. I couldn’t stand
telling you if you start saying I’m a liar.’

She led him, as if automatically, to the place where they could squeeze through down to the cut, and they walked side by side away from town, breathing in the murky smell of the canal,
reflections shifting on the water’s surface. She found it very difficult to talk. What had happened in the past had been buried in her for so long that at first she skirted round and round
what she needed to say and at last she blurted it out clumsily, knowing she owed Tony the truth.

‘You daint know – you were too little. I know Mr Griffin took us to the pictures and we always had enough and didn’t go short, but there was another side to him, Tony. A
filthy, wicked side. And it was Sal had the worst of it. He was . . . he was . . .’ Oh God, how could she say it?

She forced herself to glance round at her brother. He was watching his feet, a slight frown on his face. Maryann took in a huge, ragged breath and forced herself to go on, telling him,
explaining, indirectly at first, then, uncertain if he knew what she meant, in more detail. The memories came back, raw and sickening. She stopped walking and sobbed out to him how she’d
found Sal that day.

‘He destroyed her. Week by week. He killed her from inside, Tony. That’s what happened to your sister. She took her own life because she couldn’t stand living no more after him
and what it did to her. She thought she was expecting a babby as well, Tony – you won’t’ve known that. And I . . . d’you know, that night I went down there I daint
’ave a plan. I knew I was going to do summat, I was so full of grief and anger for Sal but I daint know what. And then when I saw what I saw down there – I went mad. I was ready to do
him in – destroy him and everything that was his. That was when I started the fire, and then I had to go—’ Tears on her cheeks, she begged her brother, ‘Don’t say you
don’t believe me, Tony. Please don’t. It’s the truth – I swear to you on my life!’

She could see just how much she’d got through to him. Tony’s thin face looked stunned. Eventually he said, ‘Did Mom know?’

‘I told ’er. I kept trying to say, but she daint want to ’ear it. All she wanted to see was the respectable side of him. I s’pose she shut it out of her mind. She was
scared to frighten him off. In the end I did it for ’er.’

They stood in the dusk on the canal bank. Maryann found she could not look into his eyes. She felt dreadful after what she had had to tell him. Tony was silent for a time and she ached to know
what he was thinking. At least he hadn’t rejected her story straight away and told her she was a filthy liar. She sensed he was thinking hard.

‘I fink I remember,’ he said eventually. ‘Yes – I do.’

‘What?’

‘Him – Griffin – coming in – of a night. When you and Sal was in the bed. It feels like a dream – but I know ’e was in there sometimes – on your bed. I
remember the creaking and his voice in there.’

‘Oh Tony! D’you really – you remember that?’

‘I remember the bed squeaking – and ’im breathing and saying fings to yer.’

‘Oh thank God!’ Maryann cried. It was then, at last, she went and put her arms round him. ‘Someone who knows I’m not making it up – oh Tony . . . I’m so happy
to see you again. I’ve missed you so much – you and Billy, but especially you. I’ve been so lonely without you.’

He was awkward in her embrace at first. But then he dropped his jacket and bag on to the dry ground and his arms came round her as she cried.

‘Did you get my letters?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the little cat I left on yer pillow?’

‘Yes—’ He sounded embarrassed. He was crying too.

‘’Ve you still got it somewhere?’