The Narrowboat Girl (7 page)

‘It’s Tiger – ’e’s gone missing.’ Maryann felt a lump come up in her throat again. ‘’E never came in last night and I dunno where ’e is. Our
Mom said to come looking over ’ere.’

‘I’ll ’elp yer,’ Nance said. She’d changed out of her school clothes and put on a grubby pair of boy’s trousers.

Maryann was pleased to have some more company for the search besides Tony who kept saying ‘Where d’yer fink ’e’s gone, Maryann?’ until she wanted to scream at him.
They asked round some of the backyards in Garrett Street, Maryann saying hello to some of their old neighbours who asked a bit sniffily how they were getting on. Flo hadn’t been back to visit
a single one of them. Then they went back to Anderson Street. As the afternoon wore on, Maryann grew more and more dispirited. No one had seen Tiger.

‘Ow can ’e just’ve disappeared into thin air?’ she said to Nance. ‘Someone must’ve seen him.’

‘Yer never know with cats, do yer?’ Nance said. She grinned, showing her wonky teeth, trying to cheer Maryann up. ‘Knowing ’im ’e’ll be back large as life.
P’raps ’e’s gone and got ’imself a lady friend!’

Maryann tried to smile. ‘I ’ope so. It’s lonely at home without ’im. Come on, Tony – we’d best go back. D’yer wanna come round ours for a
bit?’

‘Will yer dad be there?’

‘
’E ain’t my dad.
’

‘No, I know. Sorry, Maryann. I daint mean anything by it.’

They went back to the house where Flo put out a plate of broken biscuits for them. ‘Ooh!’ Nance cried, her face lighting up. This was sheer luxury by her standards. She tucked in as
hard as she could and sat at the table chatting away happily to Maryann and Tony. Then Tony went to the back door, trying to open it, clutching himself urgently at the front with his other
hand.

‘D’yer need a wee?’ Maryann opened the door as Tony nodded emphatically and ran out to the privy in the yard and pulled the door squeaking shut.

A few moments passed, the back door swinging open into the darkening afternoon, then they heard Tony shouting, ‘Maryann, Maryann! Come ’ere – ’s a nasty fing!’

He was standing at the end of the yard, his eyes wide, fascinated, beckoning urgently.

‘What’s up, Tony?’

Maryann and Nance both went out and looked along to see what he was staring at. Between the privy and the low wall at the back was a gap of almost a yard, which had a load of rubbish chucked
into it by the last occupants. It was smelly down there, the corner of the yard best avoided. But Tony’s gaze was fixed on the pile of refuse. What had caught his eye was a little patch of
white, the white of a small, furry throat.

It was Nance who went down the gap and very carefully picked up the cat’s cold, rigid body. She kept her head down as she came back, and only when she was standing right in front of her
did she look at Maryann.

‘Tiger?’ Maryann whispered. ‘No – not Tiger!’ She just stood and looked, dumb with horror. Then she shouted, ‘What’s happened to ’im? Oh,
Tiger!’

Beside herself, sobbing, she took him from Nance, who also had tears in her eyes, and hugged him to her.

‘Oh, Tiger – my poor little Tiger!’

She held him away from her, looking for signs of blood, of injury. There was nothing to see, but as she did so, his head flopped back all at the wrong angle.

‘Oh my God – look! His head’s all – oh look, Nance!’

Tony was crying as well then and Flo Nelson came out of the back door to see what the matter was with them all. As she did so, Nance said, ‘Someone’s broke ’is neck. They
must’ve throttled ’im and broke ’is neck.’

Maryann started running then, still hugging the cat’s body to her, through the house and out of the front door .

‘Maryann – where’re yer going? Wait for me!’ By the time Nance reached the front step Maryann was off down the road, disappearing into the dusk.

Her eyes were blurry with tears so that she could barely see, but she knew the way well enough. Every so often she slowed and looked down at the precious friend she was carrying in her arms. For
a second each time there was a flicker of hope. It was all a mistake. Tiger wasn’t dead. He’d look into her face and purr at her and close his eyes as she stroked the side of his head,
then he’d wriggle around because he wanted to be let down to play. But Tiger didn’t raise his head. His fur was bunched into damp points from lying out in the wet. In the half-light,
just for a second it seemed his eyes opened and she gasped. But of course it was a trick of the light and her own wishes. His eyes were two tight, pained lines and his face didn’t look like
him any more. All the cheeky, fiery life that was in him had gone. Maryann could hardly stand to look at him, with his poor, floppy neck. She ran along the street sobbing her heart out.

‘Oh, Tiger, my little Tiger!’ She didn’t care who saw her. And mixed with her grief she could hear Nance’s words in her head, ‘someone’s broke ’is neck
. . . throttled ’im and broke ’is neck’ and the terrible knowledge, as she ran along, that she knew who that someone was. Someone who kicked Tiger out of the way with his shiny
boot every time the cat crossed his path, the someone who liked to have clean hands and clean nails, who had sat making them play cards with him when all the time he knew where Tiger was because
he
must have put him there. She thought she might burst with her rage and hatred of Norman Griffin.

She ran down Ledsam Street and tore across the yard to her Nan’s cottage, pushing in urgently through the door.

‘Nan, oh Nanny – look what that bastard’s done to Tiger!’

But Nanny Firkin was not in the kitchen and the place was as cold as ice, no fire in the range. Maryann had been in such a state she hadn’t noticed the unusual darkness of the windows.
There was a rank smell of cat urine and as Maryann burst in the three cats all rushed at her, tails up, miaowing for food, their fur appearing to be standing on end in the gloom. Walt the parrot
shifted silently on his perch. There was a dish on the table containing the dried-up remains of porridge.

‘Nan?’ Maryann wiped her eyes with the back of one hand, the eerie feel of the place breaking through her grief over Tiger. The other cats were rubbing against her legs.
‘Nanny, where are yer?’ It was unheard of for her Nan not to be in her kitchen. Then she remembered Nanny Firkin was ill, that she’d had a cough and her chest was bad.
Hadn’t her mother been in that day? The cats were acting as if they hadn’t eaten for a week.

Maryann went to the stairs. ‘Nanny? It’s Maryann.’

But there was no reply. She laid Tiger on the floor and climbed up, somehow feeling she needed to tip-toe. Maybe Nanny Firkin was asleep.

The old lady was lying in her bed. Maryann saw the little bump where her little feet were sticking up under the cover. The room smelt stale. When Maryann went over to her she saw in the dimming
light from the window that her grandmother’s hair was down out of the pins and straggly round her face and her cheeks looked hollowed out. She was on her back with her eyes and mouth half
open and she looked like a wizened doll. There was no movement from her, not a flicker.

‘Nan?’ Maryann whispered. She knew there would be no reply, that whatever it was that really made Nanny Firkin her Nan, was gone, but she couldn’t take it in. Nanny Firkin was
always there like the sky, she was supposed to live for ever. This wasn’t really her any more, this body lying here. Maryann suddenly felt a prickle of terror pass through her, her whole body
shuddered and she backed away, and ran back down the stairs. She left Tiger and ran all the way home again.

‘Mom! Mom!’

The lamplighters were round lighting up as they all ran back to Ledsam Street, Flo still in her apron, with Maryann, Tony and Billy. Flo told the boys to stay out and play in
‘Nanny’s yard’ and snapped at Tony when he tried to come into the house. A Mrs Price, one of Nanny Firkin’s neighbours, on hearing what had happened, asked if the boys would
like to come into her house. She said she was sorry she hadn’t been in to see old Mrs Firkin, hadn’t had any idea how ill she was.

At that, Flo poured out her own guilt.

‘I never realized myself,’ she said to the woman. ‘She weren’t so bad yesterday – just a bit of a cough like. I’d’ve come earlier, only with it being
washday and that I’ve ’ardly ’ad a moment to spare.’ Maryann watched her mom as she spoke. She was full of grim, pounding emotion. Was it true what her mom was saying? How
could Nanny Firkin have not seemed ill if she was poorly enough to die?

She followed Flo back into the dark house. Flo lit a candle, her fingers trembling so much that she had difficulties handling the match, then, carrying the flickering light in front of them,
they went up to Nanny Firkin’s bedroom.

‘Oh—’ Flo’s hand went up close to her mouth as she looked down at her mother. ‘Oh my word – fancy ’er going like that. ’Er heart must’ve
given out. I’d never’ve thought . . .’ She looked across into Maryann’s reproachful eyes. ‘I ain’t stopped all day! I can’t be everywhere at once, yer
know. I never knew she were this bad – anything like. She just ’ad a bit of a chest on ’er. I was only ’ere yesterday afternoon. You can’t say I neglected her –
my own mother!’

‘I ain’t said a word,’ Maryann said stonily. ‘Did yer feed the cats yesterday, when yer come over?’

She saw her mother’s brows pucker in the candlelight. ‘No – I never thought. I mean, she were in bed, but I thought she’d been up and about . . .’

Clearly Nanny Firkin had been putting a brave face on things when Flo was there.

‘Anyroad – I’ve got more to worry about than sodding cats. Maryann – go and get the range lit and ask Mrs Price who’s nearest to lay ’er out . . . And
Norman’ll ’ave to come . . .’

Maryann found another candle downstairs. There was a small amount of coal and slack in the coal bucket and she stoked the range, as she had seen her mom and dad do on so many occasions, standing
over it to check it was burning. Then she went across to Mrs Price’s house. She felt numb and strange, suddenly, as if she were moving through a dream.

‘Oh, it’s Eve Leadbetter you need,’ Mrs Price told her. She gave Maryann the address, directing her to another house further along Ledsam Street.

Mrs Leadbetter was a strong, jolly-looking woman.

‘A death in the family, is it? Well, ’er won’t be going nowhere – give me an ’alf-hour and I’ll be over. Ask yer mom to ’ave some water ready.’
She looked down into Maryann’s solemn little face. ‘Yer nan is it, bab? I’m sorry for yer, that I am. Tell yer mom I’ll be over.’

As Maryann walked back across the old, familiar yard, she saw the shape of the house she’d known as her nan’s all her life. Maryann stopped, the biting cold and smokiness of the air
hurting inside her nose. The moon was rising, half full, casting a white sheen on the slates. There was still a candle burning in the upstairs window, and another where she had left it on the table
downstairs. It looked as if Nanny Firkin was in, going about her normal evening’s jobs. But she wasn’t in. Nanny wasn’t there, despite the frail old body lying stiffly in the bed
upstairs. She would never be there any more to go to for comfort, to tell her about school, about Tiger and his antics as he was growing up . . . With a terrible jolt she remembered the earlier
events of the day. Tiger was lying there in Nanny’s house, at the bottom of the stairs! And soon Mrs Leadbetter would come, and Norman would come – she would be sent to fetch him. No
– she couldn’t stand any more.

The front door was ajar as she went quietly into the house. There was no sign of the cats, but the fusty, urine-soaked atmosphere in there persisted. Maryann picked up Tiger’s body,
cradling him in her arms once more.

‘Mom,’ she called up to Flo. ‘There’s a Mrs Leadbetter coming. She said she’d be about ’alf an hour.’

‘Oh thank God yer back,’ Flo called down the stairs. Maryann heard her coming closer and she shrank back. ‘Now listen to me, wench – there’s a few jobs I need yer
to do.’

‘What’s them, Mom?’ Maryann was creeping back through the downstairs room. As her mom descended the stairs, her feet loud on the boards, Maryann pushed the door open and
slipped out. She was away and across the yard in seconds.

She was running as if her life depended on it, as if by doing so she could escape the terrible events of that day. She still had the feeling of being in a dream.

It’s not true, she thought. None of it. Please let it not be true.

Clutching Tiger against her chest was making it hard to breathe and she stopped for a moment when she’d turned out of Ledsam Street and stood panting under a lamp. For the first time she
tried to think where she might go. If she went home Norman would be there. Before, she’d have run to Sal to pour out everything that had happened, but Sal was so odd and shut off from her
nowadays. And she could go to Nance’s. They’d be kind to her, but she couldn’t face being there tonight. The house was always so smelly and chaotic and you never knew what state
Blackie might be in.

Running on, she climbed through the gap in the fence and down into the cut, near to the bridge where the road passed over the canal. Down on the path, she was suddenly forced to stop. It was so
dark! It felt as if a blanket had been thrown over her head and she couldn’t see where to take her next step on the muddy path. From under the bridge she could hear, magnified, the drip of
water and behind her, in the distance, the clink of a horse’s harness. Thank God, someone was coming along – she wasn’t alone down here!

She waited a few moments as it came closer, seeing the dim light from the oil lamp on the boat growing stronger, and the shadowy movement of the horse along the bank. She pressed back to let it
pass, not wanting to attract attention to herself, then followed on behind. The boat was a joey, a long open cargo boat with a tiny cabin at the back, and a man was standing up at the back,
steering it in towards the bank. The carrying area was filled with a dark, gleaming cargo of coal on its way to fuel a factory boiler-house in Birmingham. The horse was walking slowly, wearily, but
at a steady pace. As the prow of the boat slid alongside the bank, another man, who Maryann hadn’t even noticed, jumped across on to the bank in front of her and reached for the horse’s
harness.