Water Gypsies (7 page)

The journey down was reckoned to take a week or so, depending on delays and calamities. They loaded up at the coalfields, spending a freezing morning sheeting up to keep the cargo dry. The side sheets, which when not in use lay folded along the gunwales, had to be pulled up, hard and crackly as they were, and knotted over the top of the planks which ran the length of the boat over the cargo. Then, their hands cracked and chaffed from the cold and from pulling and knotting the rough strings, they had to work the main tarpaulin along the boat, making their way backwards, tying it at the sides. By the end of helping to sheet the
Theodore,
Maryann’s hands were so stiff and sore she could barely move them. Joley had disappeared somewhere when she wasn’t looking and Ada and Esther were screaming to be fed. She wanted to weep, but just then Nance appeared with cups of cocoa.

‘I don’t know where Joley’s got to – have you seen him?’ Maryann was looking round anxiously.

‘Oh – ’e’s in the
Isla
with Darrie and Sean. Don’t worry, kid – he’s not run away to sea. Not yet, anyhow!’

As they chugged south, the weather grew colder. Frosts turned the ground to stone and the morning trees to sparkling works of art. For most of the time the boats managed to keep together. In the long pound from Hawkesbury to Rugby they moved smoothly on as a convoy. Once they reached flights of locks they would see each other only intermittently, Joel and Maryann, who were the second pair, having to wait for other pairs to come through and set the lock for them, or reset them in their favour before they could continue. But they would catch up later and tie up together for the night.

The burden of work was no less than usual and the temperatures harsh and cold, but for those days Maryann’s heart was lighter. She felt almost carefree. Having Nance around lifted life more into a pleasurable realm, a game almost. They bow-hauled the buttys through the double locks at Rugby, Maryann scolding all the way, telling Nance she shouldn’t be pulling at all in her condition, Nance arguing that Ernie was really doing all the work, she was only helping. At other locks they raced to canalside shops for supplies, moving bulkily in their layers of winter woollens and coats, bright scarves tied over their hair, arriving back just as the last butty was being pulled out of the lock, both of them panting and giggling, cautious on the frosty stones, their breath furling white on the air. They climbed into their respective homes with armfuls of bread, eggs and vegetables. In the mornings they waved blearily to each other, stepping out of their cabins as the dawn light reflected off the perfect mirror of water, their movements the first disturbance in the deep stillness of morning.

‘It’s nice travelling like this,’ Maryann said to Joel the first evening. ‘With Darius and Nance, I mean. Can we do it again, d’you think?’

He looked up, surprised at the enthusiasm in her voice.

‘It’ll depend on the loads,’ he said, ‘but I’m happy with it. It seems to suit you, so that’s all the better.’

At Stoke Bruerne the two of them went to see Sister Mary in her surgery by the cut. She wore a white coat and her kindly face, looking out from under a long white nurse’s veil, broke into a delighted smile at the sight of Maryann with her twin daughters, wrapped up plump as sausages, in her arms.

‘Well I never!’ Sister Mary helped Maryann lie them down so that she could examine them. ‘Goodness me, you have got your hands full now, haven’t you? But what lovely healthy babies!’ She made a fuss of Joley, Sally and Ezra as well, before turning to their cousins.

‘And you, Nancy – are you still keeping all right?’ Sister Mary had delivered Nance’s last two babies.

‘Yes, ta,’ Nancy said cheerfully.

‘You do look the picture of health,’ Sister Mary chuckled. ‘You were obviously made for this life. I don’t think there’s anything I need to do for you – except remind you not to go pulling those boats about. D’you hear?’

‘I hope she’ll listen to you better than she does to me!’ Maryann said.

‘Yes, Sister.’ Nancy grinned at her. They were all very fond of Sister Mary. She did such a lot to support the women of the cut and keep them and their children in good health.

Seven

It was a long haul down to London.

‘Blooming long journey – started in 1942 and ended in 1943!’ Nance quipped. After the New Year arrived they eventually slid between the green sides of Cassio-bury Park, then past Regent’s Park to the docks, or ‘Limehouse’ as it was known to the boaters.

Maryann and Joel had seldom worked the Grand Union route. As they travelled the last leg east, Maryann stood on the gunwales in the cold wind, looking round as Bobby steered. The cut was so wide down here that it felt quite intimidating. Along the Regent’s Canal, boats were tied up on each side, sometimes two deep, but this still left plenty of room in the middle of the channel. Travelling along this wider cut came huge river barges, which would loom in front of them suddenly, making Maryann’s pulse race with panic at the thought of a collision. The further south they had travelled, the more barges they seemed to meet.

And London itself came as a shock. She had seen some of the effects of the bombing in Birmingham, and the skyline of Coventry was drastically changed. At one period it had seemed diminished every time they came back to it. But, as Nance told them, London had ‘taken it’ for weeks on end and she and Darius had been down a couple of nights after the great fire storm raged almost up to St Paul’s cathedral. The further east they went the more devastation they saw, whole neighbourhoods lying smashed apart.

When they got to the last lock, the lock keeper examined their loading orders and told them which wharf to go to. The gates swung open and Maryann looked round, awed at the great vista unfolding in front of them. Their boats seemed dwarfed and humble in this vast steely-coloured pool, flanked by wharves where lighters, barges and narrowboats were loading and unloading, cranes spiking up into the sky.

The boat was emptied that night and they were due to be loaded with a new cargo in the morning. After their tea of stew, the Bartholomew brothers and Bobby went to find the pubs outside the dock gates while Maryann and Nancy settled the children for the night. Then Nance came over to the
Theodore.

They brewed tea and Maryann sat on the back bed with Esther and Ada, and Nance lay along the side bed with her feet up. Occasionally they heard voices as people passed outside.

‘I shouldn’t want to live down here,’ Maryann said.

‘No – me neither.’ Nance reached over and poured from the old brown teapot. ‘Dunno why, but I’ve always been glad to head home again. Specially when the bombs were coming down. Weeks of it, they had – how their nerves stood it I’ll never know. A couple of nights of that almost finished me off, I can tell you. We went into one of them shelters one night. Never again. It was like a bleeding madhouse in there – and the pong! You’d rather die in your own bed, honest you would. Here –’ She handed Maryann her tea.

‘Ta. I could get used to being waited on!’

‘Best not – not if you’re staying on in this life!’

They sipped the hot tea, laughing and joking.
Why do
I get so down in myself?
Maryann wondered. When Nance was there she cheered up and everything seemed all right.

‘This is nice,’ Nance said, settling back. Her earrings shone in the lamplight. ‘Won’t last long, though – I can’t get comfy anywhere when I’m this far on.’ She soon had to shift her position again, giving a comical grunt and laying a hand on her swollen belly. ‘This one’s on the go like mad tonight – kicking and thumping about. Must be another lad.’

Maryann smiled. ‘I’m pleased for you, Nance. Can’t say I’m envious though.’

But Nance looked contented. Comfortable in mind, if not body.

‘Ah – nothing like it. New life – kiddies. I know it’s all hard work, like, but I wouldn’t change it, not for nothing.’ She looked across at Maryann’s pale face in the shadows of the bed hole. ‘I mean, what if I’d stayed with Mick? If I hadn’t run down to the cut that morning? If I’d done the right thing and stayed with the man I married? ’Cept it
wasn’t
the right thing, staying with him. I know our mom says I could go to their new priest, Father Ryan – get an annulment. But I don’t even know where Mick is. They think he went up Liverpool, but no one knows for sure. And the Church takes no end of time over it. We’d all be dead by the time they got round to it. None of that seems to matter out here, anyway. We’re a family, Darius and me. That’s the important thing.’

A blush rising in her cheeks, Maryann asked, ‘But Nance – are you just going to go on and on having babbies?’

Nance sat forward, easing her back. ‘I’ve not really thought. I s’pose so. Darius always wanted a big family and he’s not a young man any more. Who knows what might happen. And I like giving him babbies, Maryann. His face when he sees a new life. As many as God gives. Seems what’s natural to me.’

Maryann fell silent. Natural. The natural thing. That was what she kept hearing. Was she not natural then, feeling that she couldn’t just go on bearing more and more children until it killed her?

‘You been over Ladywood recently?’ Nance was saying. ‘Seen Tony – or your mom?’

Esther was beginning to wake, snuffling, and Maryann took her on her lap.

‘I saw Tony a few weeks back. The babby Joanie’s a nice little thing. I don’t know as they’re getting on all that well, though. Dolly gets mithered about the smallest thing – goes on at Tony no end. Don’t know how he stands it. And no – I’ve not seen our mom. To tell you the truth I don’t even know if her house is still standing. I’m not going to see her, Nance. I’ve been bitten that way before and I’m not going back for more. She’s made it very clear where she stands. As a matter of fact …’ She gasped. ‘God, Nance – I’ve just thought …’ She stopped, a new suspicion forcing into her mind.

‘What?’

‘The other week when we was tied up at Tyseley, one of the wharf men come to me and said someone was asking for me.’ She related to Nance Charlie Dean’s report of the visitor to the wharf.

Nance sat up straighter, her face turning deadly serious.

‘He was asking for me by name, knew the name of our boats and everything …’

‘You don’t think it’s – not
him?’

‘Well, who on earth else could it be, looking like that? But how would he know where I was? Someone must’ve told him and now – I’ve just thought – what if he went back to see our mom?’

‘She
wouldn’t?’
Nance’s eyes were wide with horror at the thought.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t put it past her,’ Maryann said bitterly. ‘She blames everything that’s happened on me.’

‘But after all this time? What would he want?’

‘I don’t know.’ With a shudder, Maryann cuddled Esther more tightly to her. The tiny lighted cabin of the boat now felt like an island of safety surrounded by threatening, icy darkness.

‘Well, he won’t be looking you up to take you dancing, will he? Have you told Joel?’

Maryann shook her head. ‘Joel doesn’t know the half of it. I don’t want him to know – I don’t want him near us, even the thought of him!’ She was getting worked up now, panic rising in her. ‘He’s like poison – he eats away at you until there’s nothing left. Oh, Nance – what d’you think he wants?’

They left before midday next day, after craneloads of long, rusty steel billets for Tyseley were swung from the wharf and came crashing down into the boats. Even that late in the day a freezing mist hung over the cut like a ghostly grey blanket. Maryann made sure she kept the kettle constantly on the hob. Bobby was feeling the worse for wear from the night before.

‘How much did you let him drink?’ she scolded Joel teasingly. ‘Look at the state of him – he’ll have to go in and sleep it off, looking like that! Never mind, Bobby – only a hundred and sixty-six locks to go!’

Bobby, groaning, was allowed to recover until the flight at Marsworth, when he was turned out onto the bank to recover by doing some vigorous lock-wheeling.

Maryann was very uneasy when she heard that they’d been detailed to go to Birmingham again. But they couldn’t turn a load down because of her fears, could they? Fears of a grim phantom from her past life? How would they explain that to Essy Barlow? She said nothing to Joel.

The journey back was going well until they got to the lovely green stretch at Tring summit. It was a brighter day than the one on which they’d started off, one of sunlit, dazzling cold. The
Isla
and
Neptune
had steamed on ahead of them after their descent down the locks the other side of the summit. When they were breasted up to go down, Joel called across.

‘There’s summat not right with her!’ He pointed to the engine hole and the chimney, which was issuing blacker, angrier looking smoke than usual. There was a sinister knocking sound.

‘She sounds bad!’ Maryann yelled back.

‘We’ll try and make it to the bottom and then I’ll see to her,’ Joel shouted.

As Bobby shoved the last lock open, the
Esther Jane’s
motor was making ever more bronchial sounds and Joel pulled over and tied up. Darius and Nancy’s boats were already well out of sight, and by the time Joel had spent two frustrating hours leaning and squatting in the engine hole over the ailing Bolinder engine, the other pair were irretrievably lost to them. The cats, Spots and Jenny, strolled along the gunwales of the
Theodore
as if bemused by the delay. Bobby kept the children entertained on the bank, letting Ezra jump and climb all over him. Maryann was thankful for the umpteenth time for his kindly nature. Ezra was a real handful to keep an eye on and Bobby often helped out. Eventually Joel said,
‘Ah!’
Hands black, oil on his face he started up the engine again and after a couple of coughs, it shuddered into life.

Maryann kissed his oil-smeared beard. ‘Clever clogs.’

Joel grinned. ‘Not letting that blooming moty beat me.’

A mile further along the sound of the motor became clogged and dragging. Joel signalled back to her. He pulled in again and spent a further hour in the bilges, patiently removing thick shreds of rope and what looked like the remains of a wool sweater which were caught in tortuous twists round the propeller. By the time he had done all this they couldn’t go much further before the cold and darkness descended and they had to tie up for the night. Maryann was despondent. They were so far behind now that they’d never catch up, and she missed having the
Isla
and
Neptune
tied along the bank just ahead of them. Instead, they were alone in the freezing country silence, under the stars. But as they was falling asleep Maryann heard an engine puttering past outside.