The Narrowboat Girl (8 page)

‘Awright!’ he called out. ‘Come on,’ he said to the animal. ‘Let’s just get ’ome now.’

Maryann was extremely glad of their presence. She knew that sooner or later something would have come along on this busy stretch of water, but the idea of walking along the path, edged by dark
warehouses and wharves was very frightening. She soon realized, as the joey continued its journey in front of her, that another boat was following not far behind. She waited for it to pass and saw
it was a horse-drawn family boat, also laden down with coal. She couldn’t read what it said on the cabin in the darkness, but it looked the same sort of boat as the
Esther Jane
and she
followed behind, holding Tiger, comforted by the leathery creak of the horse’s harness. They passed under bridges and between such a density of high buildings that even in the daytime the
canal at that point was forever in shadow, and the only thing visible was the tiny light from the oil lamps on the boats. The joey had vanished ahead, and she followed the boat to the basin where
the cargo was to be unloaded. There were other boats underway with the task, the sounds of shovels digging into the coal or scraping at the boards of an emptier vessel to gather up the last pieces
into the waiting barrows to be trundled into the boiler storehouses. Maryann could hear voices and the hard breathing of men exerting themselves, men who had already worked for sixteen or so hours
that day. The horse stopped and they found a place to tie up. There were gas lamps here, and she saw the breath unfurling from the animal’s nostrils. The lights of the basin jittered brokenly
in the black water.

Maryann stood on the edge of this activity, looking along the row of boats, her eyes searching in the dim light. Could it be – please God could it be that the
Esther Jane
was here,
and Joel? She crept along peering into the gloom. Many of the boats were joeys, with a few family boats among them. Looking down into one she saw it was nearly empty and the man shovelling up into
the barrow on the bank was having to lift each shovelful almost five feet in the air to get it into the barrow. Every time he lifted one he gave a loud grunt at the effort required. Small pieces of
coal rattled back into the boat. Noticing her watching, he straightened up, expelling air loudly from his mouth and pressing a hand to the small of his back. He rested on the shovel, wiping the
back of his arm over his forehead.

‘What’re yer after?’

‘I want to see a man called Joel Bartholomew,’ Maryann said. She was still holding tight on to Tiger and felt small and silly. She wondered if the man could see what it was she was
carrying.

‘What ’d ’er say?’ The figure who had just approached behind the barrow, waiting to empty it, spoke up and to her shock, Maryann realized it was a woman.

‘’Er’s after some bloke, Joel what was it?’

‘Bartholomew.’

The two of them were silent for a moment.

‘I dunno ’im,’ the man said. ‘’E work on the day boats, does ’e?’

‘No – ’e’s on a boat like that one—’ She pointed. ‘Called the
Esther Jane
.’

‘Oh well—’ The man bent over to start work again. ‘Sounds like one of the Number Ones. ’E could be anywhere, bab, if ’e’s a long distance . . . Needle
in a bleeding ’aystack.’

The woman stood braced by the barrow as the man started shovelling again.

‘Tell yer what,’ she shouted over the racket. ‘We’ll keep a look out for ’im, like. The
Esther Jane
did yer say?’ She called over to another man who
was passing. ‘D’yer know the
Esther Jane
? One of the Number Ones I should think.’

The man shrugged, seeming almost too exhausted to speak. ‘No. Can’t say I do.’

‘We’ll ask around for yer,’ the woman yelled across. ‘And who shall we say was asking for ’im?’

‘Maryann Nelson,’ she said, without hope. She wasn’t going to find him tonight and that was what mattered.

‘Awright then. Cheer up. Word gets about fast.’

Maryann thanked her and turned back along the towpath. There were more joey boats, pulled by plodding horses and mules towards the city’s canal loops and basins from the Black Country
coalfields, so it was not completely dark, the edges of things picked out by the glow from their lamps. The disappointment that Joel had not been there was an ache in her that cut through her
numbness. She hardly knew the man, but he was kindness and warmth; she knew instinctively that he was someone who could help her bear all the feelings that were welling up in her. Of course Joel
wasn’t just going to be there, like he had been the time before when she came down here by chance! How could she have been so stupid, as if she could just will him to appear? The horror of
that afternoon came flooding back to her. First Tiger, then Nanny Firkin. And Sal had gone all funny and wouldn’t speak to her any more . . . If only there was someone she could run to . .
.

‘Oh Tiger!’ She held him to her and brushed her cheek against his fur but it was wet and nasty and pent-up sobs began to shake her. She felt her way to the side of the path and laid
Tiger in the undergrowth, covering his body as well as she could with grass and cold leaves, then she wiped her hands down the front of her coat.

‘Goodbye, Tiger,’ she sobbed. ‘I loved yer, that I did.’

She walked back, still crying, beside the black water, towards home. Where else could she go? The cold sliced through her now, and under the bottomless winter sky she felt more alone and lost
than ever in her life before.

May 1928

‘Where’re yer going? Oi come on – wait for me!’ Nance trotted imploringly along beside Maryann.

‘Down the cut.’

‘Can I come with yer?’

‘No.’

‘Well,
sod
yer.’ Nance stopped, hands clasped to her waist as Maryann strode off between the rows of terraced houses without even a glance back in her direction. Bloody
charmed, I’m sure, Nance thought. What a pal she’d turned out to be. There was no getting near Maryann these days. Nance turned back towards home. She’d come out specially to see
her friend after school. Now she’d be stuck playing with all her brothers again, if they’d have her.

‘Still – better than that mardy little cow any’ow.’ But she was hurt. She missed Maryann and the days when they’d been able to tell each other anything. Best pals
they’d been, ever since they were knee high. But nowadays Maryann was just closed in on herself and they saw rather more of Sal at the house, hanging about, making eyes at Charlie.
She’d never much taken to Sal though. She was older than Nance and she’d never been such a laugh as Maryann.

Nance stopped for a moment, almost changing her mind and following Maryann down to the cut. She’d had a few things to tell her about Charlie and Sal and what they were getting up to. But
her pride got the better of her again. She’d keep it to herself. She wasn’t going where she wasn’t wanted. Maryann could stew if that was the mood she was in.

Kicking an old Woodbine packet irritably into the gutter, Nancy slouched back towards Garrett Street.

Maryann climbed through the fence and down through the scrubby trees at the edge of the cut. The leaves were bright green, crumpled and newborn-looking and even with all the
various pongs in the air from the factories – metallic, chemical, getting in your throat – down here just in this scrubby little patch you saw some green and got a whiff of spring,
which lifted her spirits. She spent all the time she could down here now, drawn to the back-to-front magic of the canal, the way it felt like another world when you were down there, closed in from
the rest of the city, somewhere where, for her, the normal troubles of life no longer existed. You saw everything from the other way round down here: the rear ends of buildings, the low level of
the path making you look up at things, the watery veins of the canals flowing round and through and under the heart of Birmingham like its secret circulation. It smelled of the murky, bitter water
and of the trees, it smelled of a root to the country and of freedom.

‘Did you know, children,’ Maryann’s teacher once told them, ‘that Birmingham has more canals running through it than Venice? By length that is, I assume.’ She had
smiled. ‘That’s quite something, isn’t it, when you consider that Venice is built only on canals instead of roads.’

‘What’s Venice, miss?’ one of them asked.

‘Well, I was hoping you’d ask . . .’ She had grainy pictures of black and white poles edging canals in front of grey and black houses, gondolas tilting across expanses of dark
water towards churches.

‘Venice,’ she said. ‘
Venezia
.’

‘Bet our canals are a darn sight muckier,’ one of the boys said and the others laughed.

‘Well, perhaps. But they’re very dirty in Venice too, when you consider that
everything
gets tipped into them.’

Everyone sniggered and made revolted noises. Venice didn’t really sound like a real place. Real life was contained in these streets of Ladywood, collecting pails of horse muck and jam jars
to sell for pennies. Maryann found herself smiling as she reached the path. Only two years ago that had been. Happy days. At school, and her dad and Nanny and Tiger all still alive. The smile fell
from her lips and her face took on the scowl it wore habitually now. People had commented for a while: teachers, Cathleen Black – ‘well,
she
don’t look any too ’appy
nowadays’ – even her own mom. Now they’d just got used to it.

‘I don’t know what’s come over you two girls,’ Flo complained to them. ‘There’s Sal with a face like a wet Sunday and now you’re even worse. And your
behaviour to Norman, Maryann – I didn’t know where to put myself.’

She’d come back from the canal that night, leaving Tiger’s body with the cold companionship of the undergrowth and canal rats. They were all back by the time she got in. She had no
idea how long she’d wandered in the cold but it must have been longer than she realized. She expected Flo to scream at her – the usual ‘where’ve
you
been?’
– but they barely seemed to notice when she walked in. They seemed only just to have got in themselves: Flo cooking, Norman Griffin sitting by the fire, feet up on the fender, his presence
seeming to fill the room. Maryann slipped past and upstairs, where Sal was settling Tony and Billy. Tony was crying and without a word to each other the two sisters sat and tried to comfort
him.

‘It’s awright, Tony,’ Maryann told him, starting to cry again herself. ‘Nanna’s going to heaven to see God and Jesus and all the angels – and our dad
an’ all.’

‘Bu-b-b- . . . I wanna . . . I wanna see ’er!’ He was so bewildered, upset and tired.

‘I’ll see to ’im,’ Maryann whispered, and Sal nodded and got up, sniffing. Maryann could see from her expression that she’d been crying too. The children had all
been very fond of their Nanny Firkin. She’d always been good to them. Maryann expected Sal to go downstairs, but instead she went across and lay on their bed, the springs creaking as she sank
down on it and put her hands over her face.

‘And ’e took all Nanna’s cats away, and Walt, and I dunno where ’e took ’em!’

‘What’re you saying?’ Maryann turned to Sal.

Sal raised her stricken face. ‘Norman took them outside and . . .’ She made a wringing movement with her hands. Maryann went cold.

‘Not Walt? Not
all
of them?’

Sal nodded, glancing anxiously at Tony.

Choking back her feelings, Maryann managed to sing a lullaby through her tears, stroking Tony’s head until his breathing changed and she could tell he was drifting off to sleep. Sal lay on
the bed, buried her head in her arms and shook with sobs. The smells of cooking floated upstairs: liver, potatoes, cabbage. The boys had had slops and if it had just been the family there
they’d have had the same, but Norman Griffin had to have his meat and two veg whatever the time of night. Maryann got up and went over to Sal, tapping her gently on the shoulder. It was like
after their dad died when they’d cried together up here and Maryann expected her to sit up so they could put their arms round each other. But instead Sal seemed to shrink from her.

‘Get off me!’ Her voice came out muffled but the venom in it was unmistakable. ‘Just don’t bloody well touch me.’

‘Please yerself,’ Maryann said, feeling more tears well in her eyes. Why was Sal being like this? And today, of all days, when they’d lost their nan? The two of them had always
been different and they’d always fallen out a lot, but in the end they had been close. But these last few months Sal seemed to have changed so much Maryann couldn’t get near her, and
tonight those changes felt unbearable. She was going to move away, but she looked back at Sal. She was curled on her side now, her hands over her face as if she couldn’t bear to see anything.
Now she was looking carefully at her sister she noticed the boniness of her fingers – Sal, bony! She’d always been the plump one. Maryann felt a sudden physical shock go through her.
She knew her sister had been strange, moody lately. You couldn’t miss the fact. But people said that was wenches for you when they began to get a bit older: she was just going through it,
growing up. But now Maryann saw it was more than that.

In a soft, hesitant voice, she said, ‘You don’t look well. What’s up with yer?’

Sal sat up with an abrupt movement and Maryann flinched, thinking for a second Sal was going to slap her. Her blonde hair was wild round her face and she spoke through clenched teeth. ‘Why
should there be anything up with me – eh? Just bloody well leave me be, stupid!’

Maryann stood up and backed away, leaving Sal glaring at her in the candlelight.

‘I dunno what’s ’appened to yer’ – a sob caught in Maryann’s throat – ‘but you ain’t like my sister any more. Yer ’orrible, I
’ate yer . . .’

‘Oh who cares.’ Sal lay down, indifferent. ‘Just sod off, will yer?’

Maryann got halfway down the stairs and then sank on to one of the steps in the dark, hugging her knees, utterly miserable. She sat rocking for a moment, everything flashing through her mind,
all the horrible things that had happened. Norman had done away not just with Tiger but all Nanny Firkin’s animals! The swelling, explosive feeling built and built inside her until she could
hardly breathe, she was so full of hatred and grief. At last she got up, not giving herself more time to think, and ran down to the front room where Norman Griffin was reading the
Mail.
She
snatched the paper out of his hands, screwed it up and threw it into the grate before he had even taken in what was happening. The fire leapt into a great yellow blaze.