The River Folk (33 page)

She flew at Dan and pummelled his chest shrieking at him. ‘I hate you. You don’t want me to be happy. You want to keep me a prisoner on this blasted boat.’

Dan tried to catch hold of her, but she struggled free, crying hysterically. He raised his hand and slapped her face, not in fury, but to bring her to reason.

She fell back against the rail and at that moment the Aegir, moving majestically upriver, lifted the ship at its moorings.

Mary Ann, caught off balance, felt herself falling backwards over the side. Her arms flailed helplessly and her mouth opened in a terrified scream as she splashed into the black, swift flowing water.

She rose to the surface and heard, just once, the desperation in Dan’s voice as he called her name.

‘Mary Ann.
Maaary Aaan!
’

Then the dark waters closed over her head.

1939

The rowing boat bumped gently against the side of the ship and Lizzie heard Tolly’s voice calling, his face upturned as her father leant over the side. ‘Mr Ruddick? Can Lizzie come fishing with me?’

‘Where are you going, lad?’

Stifling her giggles, Lizzie watched as her uncle, Duggie, joined his brother to peer down at the boy, too. For a moment, Tolly seemed fazed by the two stern, weather-beaten faces staring down at him and his stammer became suddenly more pronounced. ‘N-not far. Just – just to the bend in the river.’

‘The Aegir’s due soon and it’ll be a big one,’ Duggie warned.

‘I know. That’s why it’s a good time. C-can Lizzie come, Mr Ruddick?’

The two men exchanged a glance. Lizzie, at fifteen, was a child of the river. Born and bred on the water, it had never held any fears for her. And now Dan, although still protective of his pretty daughter, was obliged to accept that, with her knowledge of the river and all its moods and her innate common sense, he should allow her a greater freedom.

‘As long as you promise to be extra careful,’ he said. ‘Then, all right.’

Lizzie, already dressed for the expedition for she had known Tolly would come, climbed the last few steps of the ladder from the cabin and stepped on to the deck. The two men turned at the sound and Duggie laughed out loud. ‘You little minx,’ he said, holding out his arm and drawing her to him to hug her. ‘You’ve arranged all this, haven’t you? What if your dad had said, “No”?’

Lizzie, so like her mother in many ways, with dark unruly curls and dancing dark eyes, laughed, ‘I’d have gone anyway,’ she teased, although they all knew she would have done no such thing. Already, the girl seemed older than her years, far more mature than most girls of her age, and it seemed as if she had been blessed with the best traits of character from each of her parents. She had her mother’s looks and her sunny nature and impish ways, but from Dan she got her honesty and, although this was probably a throwback to her grandmother, Bessie, she was forthright and afraid of no one.

‘I’ve fried you a piece of steak each and there are potatoes, swede and carrots in the boiling pan.’

‘Now, don’t be late,’ her father frowned. ‘I want you home before dark.’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Lizzie called gaily as she swung herself over the side and down the rope ladder towards Tolly’s boat. ‘I’ll bring you back a salmon.’

She sat in the bows of the small boat, whilst Tolly rowed strongly away from the ship and, reaching the middle of the river, rested a moment on the oars, allowing the boat to drift with the current. Lizzie gave a contented sigh, leaning back in the boat and allowing her hand to trail in the water. It was a balmy evening, a quiet time, when everyone seemed to be waiting for the swell of the Aegir surging up the river. The willow trees planted along the riverbank to strengthen it, the ducks swimming in convoy, the ships and the smaller boats, moored at the wharves or at the landings all seemed to be waiting for the great wave.

‘I’ve got a job,’ Tolly told her. Now that they were alone, all sign of his stammer had vanished.

Lizzie sat up and clapped her hands. ‘That’s wonderful. Is it with Mr Bryce, the basketmaker?’

On the Nottinghamshire side of the river, near the shipyard, were the workshops of Harry Bryce. Harry had served in the Great War and had been blinded, but he now ran a small cottage industry, weaving willow baskets with intricate skill. It was the root of the willow that strengthened the bank, the tree itself only serving as nature’s ornament. So, with the permission of the authorities, Harry Bryce harvested the willow he needed from along the side of the Trent. Because of his blindness he was unable to do that work himself and so an army of schoolboys worked for him in their spare time, and to some, like Tolly, he had taught the rudiments of his trade.

To Lizzie’s surprise, Tolly said, ‘No. It’s at the shipyard.’ His face sobered. ‘I wanted to work for Mr Bryce and he would have taken me on, if he could have afforded it. But,’ he added hastily, ‘I shall still be able to help him if he needs me.’

Lizzie smiled at him warmly. She knew he was very fond of old Mr Bryce, who had been very kind to him. The basketmaker’s workshop had been a haven from the boy’s unhappy home life.

As if reading her thoughts, Tolly said, ‘He’s like another dad to me.’ He coloured a little and the stutter was temporarily back as he added, ‘In fact, he’s n-nicer to me than me real dad is.’ Only to Lizzie did Tolly ever speak of his bullying, aggressive father, and she told no one, not even her own beloved daddy and uncle, although she was aware that they knew much of what went on inside the ferryman’s white-washed cottage.

Tolly was smiling as he said, ‘I shall row up the river to work every day and Mr Bryce has already said that if the weather’s ever really bad, then I can stay with him for a night or two.’

‘What will you be doing there? At the shipyard, I mean?’

‘I’m to be an apprentice carpenter. Me dad’s signed the papers already.’

‘Is it what you want to do?’

Tolly shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I can’t think of anything else.’

She leant towards him. ‘Why don’t you leave home? Why don’t you get away from him?’

Tolly pressed his lips together and shook his head. ‘I don’t want to leave me mam. Now I’m older, maybe I can get between them a bit more.’

‘Yes, and look what happens when you do. Like last week, you got the black eye.’

‘I’d sooner that, than me mam get hit.’

‘Oh Tolly,’ Lizzie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Why does he do it?’

The boy shrugged his thin shoulders and then smiled. ‘Come on, it’ll be here soon. Let’s not think about him. Not tonight. Tonight, we’re going fishing.’

He rowed a little further and then they sat waiting until they saw the wave coming towards them around the curve in the river.

‘She’s a big ’un. Hold on tight, Lizzie.’

As the Aegir rolled towards them, Tolly positioned the rowing boat bows into the wave. They clung on as the little boat crested the foaming wave and rode on top of it before meeting the smaller waves – the whelps, as the locals called them. The wave had stirred up the mud from the river bottom, so that fish were choked and swam about in panic.

The two youngsters waited patiently until the water began to settle and clear a little.

‘There! Look!’ Lizzie cried, ‘I can see one. There’s another – and another.’

‘They’re exhausted now,’ Tolly said, reaching for his salmon net. He dipped the round hoop into the water and drew it along, scooping up the disorientated fish.

‘Well, it’s certainly fish for tomorrow night’s supper,’ Lizzie laughed, as fish after fish landed in the bottom of Tolly’s boat.

‘Just made it.’

Duggie was leaning down over the side of the ship to help her aboard. ‘Your dad was starting to get twitchy because you weren’t back and it’s almost dark.’

‘I’m sorry, but just look how many fish we caught.’

‘My word, that is a fine catch. We’ll be able to take some to your gran, Lizzie. She and your grandpa love a bit of fresh salmon. Here, Tolly, let me help you.’

‘Where’s Dad?’ Lizzie asked, excitedly. ‘I want him to see how many we’ve caught.’

‘He’s below in the cabin. He’s in one of his moods.’

The delight fell from Lizzie’s face. ‘Is it my fault? Because I’m late.’

‘Nah,’ Duggie said, lifting the fish on to the deck. ‘’Course it isn’t. Just go and make him a cuppa, lass, and put plenty of sugar in it.’ He grinned. ‘Sweeten the old grump up a bit.’

Lizzie sighed as she went towards the companion, feeling again the burden of guilt. For five years Lizzie had secretly carried the belief that she had been to blame for that fateful night when her mother had disappeared.

For weeks afterwards, she had cried, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Daddy.’ Her father had stroked her hair and though the sorrow never left his eyes, he had comforted her. ‘It’s not your fault, sweetheart. It’s nothing to do with you.’

Five years later the haunted look was still there in his eyes. He never spoke about Mary Ann and no one had ever told Lizzie what had happened to her mother. Perhaps they didn’t know, she thought, for all anyone would say was, ‘She’s gone away, love.’

Night after night, Lizzie would dream that she heard her mother’s voice and would wake with the name on her lips, ‘Mam?’

A girl at school – one who had never liked Lizzie, thinking her not the type who should attend a select private school – had said, ‘They might hang your father. One day they’ll find your mother’s body floating in the river, all bloated and ugly, and then they’ll hang your father for killing her. Just like they did your grandfather.’

Lizzie had run, crying, to Miss Marsh. Edwina had held her and comforted her, but even she had offered no explanation. Afterwards, the rest of her class had refused to include Lizzie in their games and, worse still, had ignored her completely, refusing to speak to her.

‘She’s a tell-tale-tit,’ they mocked. ‘Run and tell teacher, why don’t you, Cry Baby?’

Lizzie had run home to the safe arms of her gran in Waterman’s Yard. She had had nightmares for weeks, waking screaming in the night until Bessie had said one morning, ‘You’re not going to that school any more.’

So she had gone to the town’s school, and there, Tolly had become her friend. Though the nightmares had lessened, Lizzie, deep within her, still believed herself to blame for the quarrel between her parents that night. And worse still, now, was implanted the terrifying thought that perhaps her mother had drowned in the river and that her father had been to blame. But Lizzie dared not ask, dared not put such a terrible thought into words. So she remained in ignorance. Outwardly, she was the sunny-natured, pretty girl she had always been, but deep in her heart she carried a leaden weight of sorrow. And what frightened her the most was that when she looked into her father’s eyes, she saw that same fear mirrored there.

So Lizzie kept quiet and asked no questions lest she should bring more shame and sorrow upon her family.

She could not even talk to Tolly about it.

From leaving school in 1938, Lizzie lived permanently aboard the
Maid Mary Ann
. She had always helped to look after her father and her uncle ever since her mother had gone, but, as she got older, she had taken on more and more of the domestic chores. Now, the only time she spent ashore was at the weekends when they all stayed with her grandparents in Waterman’s Yard.

‘There’s going to be a war, you know.’ If he said it once during the early part of 1939, Duggie said it a hundred times. But there were no clouds, war or otherwise, in the skies for Lizzie and Tolly that summer. Besides fishing for salmon and blobbing for eels, Lizzie would scull to meet him early in the morning before he went to work and together they would pick wild mushrooms, returning to the ship with a basketful. She made a rich, tasty pink sauce and served them hot to her father and uncle.

In early summer the two youngsters sought out the nests of plovers and moorhens, taking one or two eggs for their breakfasts.

‘As long as you leave at least one egg in a moorhen’s nest,’ Tolly told her, ‘she’ll lay more. Just like a hen does.’

‘I don’t feel so bad about taking them, in that case,’ said the tender-hearted Lizzie, who hated to think of the poor mothers robbed of their eggs.

On Sundays, after attending morning service in the parish church with her family, Lizzie would often find Tolly waiting in Waterman’s Yard.

‘Are you c-coming blackberrying, Lizzie? I’ve f-found loads near Bourton.’

‘As long as you don’t go near Raven’s Wood,’ Dan would say and his frown would deepen. ‘I don’t want you going there.’

‘All right, Dad,’ Lizzie would agree cheerfully and off they would go for the afternoon, returning with their mouths and fingers stained with blackberry juice and refusing Sunday tea.

‘Little scallywags, not eating that trifle I’ve spent hours making.’ Bessie would pretend to be offended.

‘Don’t worry, Mam,’ Duggie would say, winking at Lizzie. ‘There’s all the more for me.’

Then Bessie would gratefully accept the basketful of blackberries they had brought her. ‘These’ll make lovely jam and I’ll have some apple and blackberry pasties ready for you next week to take back to the ship, Lizzie.’

‘You enjoy yourselves,’ Duggie said each time Lizzie went off with Tolly and, helping her climb down into Tolly’s rowing boat, added, ‘while you can.’

‘Oh shut up, Duggie,’ Dan said at last irritably. ‘Anybody’d think you wanted a war the way you keep going on about it.’

Duggie only laughed and said, ‘Well, it’s the navy for me if it does happen.’

Lizzie stared at him. ‘You wouldn’t join up, Uncle Duggie, would you? Not really. What’d we do without you?’

Duggie put his hands across his heart. ‘Ah, at least there’ll be one pretty girl pining for me.’

Duggie had never married. Although he had come dangerously close once or twice he had always escaped ‘the net’, as he called it. He had never been without a girlfriend for very long, but as soon as rings and wedding bells were mentioned, he tactfully disentangled himself. It was to his credit that he had never left a girl pregnant, nor even particularly heartbroken. He was, at heart, a kind man and with his never failing good humour, he was genuinely liked by everyone as much as they loved him. The girls he jilted could never bring themselves to hate him and, in fact, he remained on good terms with most of them.