The Narrowboat Girl

by Annie Murray

  ‘I do want – you know – to be properly married, Joel.’

  He squeezed her gently. ‘I know, love. And I’m not him, you know. I’m not your stepfather. I wouldn’t want to hurt you, ever – you know that now, don’t you?’

  She rested her head against him. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Course I do.’ She leaned round and her lips reached for his, wanting to show him, to give all her love to him and he kissed her back, his arms pulling her close.

  They stayed there snuggled close together, looking round at the bare room with its whitewashed walls and the little window behind them.

  ‘I’ve scarcely ever been in a house before,’ Joel said. ‘I mean it’s all right – a lot more space, of course. But I couldn’t live like this. Not in one place all the time. Don’t think I could breathe proper. D’you think you can live on the move all the time?’

  ‘Think so. That feels the right way to live to me. So long as you’re there.’

  ‘It’s a tough life, Maryann.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s what I want though. That life – with you. I wish Darius’d get here, don’t you?’

  ‘Well – we’ve waited this long – a few more days don’t make a lot of difference.’

  ‘Poor Darius.’ Maryann sighed. She’d told Joel about Nance and his brother. ‘There’s so much unhappiness we’re leaving behind and nothing I can do. I just wish we could go now.’

  ‘I know—’ Longingly, he pulled her closer into his arms. ‘I don’t ’alf feel like the lucky one.’

  ‘Joel! He’s coming! There’s a message from Darius – he should be up ’ere some time on Thursday!’ Maryann came panting into the house two days later to find Joel sitting talking to Nancy as she worked.

  Even in her excitement she noticed Nancy taking special care to control her expression. Maryann bit her lip. It seemed awful even to mention Darius’s name if it upset her, but he was Joel’s brother – what else could she do?

  ‘’E’s got the moty in then,’ Joel said. ‘I wonder how ’e’s managing?’

  ‘’E said it’d be easier,’ Nancy said, attempting to join in the conversation brightly.

  ‘Should be in the long run,’ Joel said. ‘But it’ll all take getting used to.’

  From then on, while they were waiting for Darius, everything changed. Joel and Maryann were full of expectation. Nancy, though, however hard she tried, became more and more glum as the time passed. By Wednesday afternoon, she was finding it impossible to remain cheerful at all. Maryann felt terribly awkward. It had been a peaceful week with Joel and Mick hitting it off well enough and Nance having company, and Maryann knew the parting was going to be hard.

  On the Wednesday night Joel and Mick went out for a farewell drink while Maryann and Nance stayed in. Maryann tried to keep her talking, but Nance stared desolately into the fire. For a time they sat in silence. The clock struck ten with its mellow chime and roused Maryann from her thoughts.

  ‘It’ll be better when we’ve gone.’ She sat forward in her chair, leaning closer to her friend. ‘It’s only making everything worse, us being here and talking about Darius – it’s rubbing salt in the wound.’

  Nance’s face in the firelight looked hard in her unhappiness. Maryann thought about her prettiness when she was with Darius on the cut.

  ‘You and Mick,’ Maryann persisted gently. ‘I mean – things seem a bit better . . .’

  Nance’s lips began to tremble as she spoke. ‘I s’pose they are. I think it’s ’aving Joel ’ere – just knowing ’e can come ’ome and . . .’ She lost control of her voice and the tears broke through. ‘. . . and not just find me ’ere . . . Oh God, Maryann, I know I married ’im in the sight of God and I know what the right thing to do is, but it’s breaking my heart, it’s so hard! I want to see Darius again more than anything else in the world, but I don’t know as I can manage to see him. I don’t think I could bear it.’ She kept wiping her eyes furiously as if it was disloyal even to weep.

  Maryann was just about to suggest that she try and keep Darius away from the house when she met him the next day, when they heard a knocking sound.

  Nance frowned. ‘Was that ours?’ She looked round at the door.

  The noise came again, and another sound of someone crying outside. Both of them got up and went cautiously to the door.

  ‘Anyone in there?’

  Nance opened the door, and in the dim light they saw a young, rather startled-looking policeman, and beside him a mane of red hair and a terrified, tear-stained face looking up at them. At the sight of Maryann she began sobbing uncontrollably.

  ‘Amy?’ Maryann went to her immediately and put her arm round her. She took in that the child was wearing a coat over her nightdress, her bare legs pushed into her boots. ‘Are you awright? What’s happened?’

  The policeman was parking his bike up against the wall. ‘I found ’er, wandering about – over Winson Green way. In a right state she was – all she’d say was she ’ad to get over ’ere. You know ’er then?’

  ‘Yes—’ Maryann guided Amy into the room as she gulped and trembled. ‘This is one of them,’ she said to Nance over her shoulder. ‘I wonder what in God’s name’s happened?’

  ‘Oh my word,’ Nance said, full of pity.

  ‘Wouldn’t say nowt to me,’ the constable complained from the doorway. ‘Thought the best thing to do was bring ’er here on my bike.’

  Maryann put her hands firmly on the young girl’s shoulders, trying to calm her. ‘Amy – it’s awright. You’re safe here, love. You can talk to us – no one can hurt you here . . .’ Seeing the distraught state of the girl brought Maryann close to tears herself. What had he done? What terrible harm had that cruel, self-obsessed man inflicted now?

  Amy could scarcely get the words out. ‘Sh-sh-sh . . .’

  ‘It’s awright—’ Maryann caressed her shoulders. ‘Slowly now.’

  Amy took a great gulp of air and burst out, ‘It’s Margaret – I think sh-she’s killed him.’

  Forty-Five

  That evening had, outwardly, begun like any other. Amy and Margaret came home from school, spent their few blissful hours alone at home with their mother before their stepfather arrived home. Janet had cooked mince for tea with potatoes and gravy and they had all sat to eat together. Margaret said nothing, as usual. Their stepfather asked polite, jovial questions about how school had been and about their mother’s day. The conversation was strained. Afterwards, as it grew dark, they had put on the gas lamps in the front room, and Norman lit the wick in his brass oil lamp and placed it with its glowing light on the little table in the corner. He’d sat down to read the Mail, for the duration of that dreadful pause between tea and his stretching in the chair and saying, ‘It’s time you wenches were up in bed.’

  To anyone watching it would have seemed a normal evening.

  Yet the girls were living in constant fear and dread. Since Maryann’s visit, nothing had been the same. Before, he had used them, abused them, convinced them of their subservience. But now it had become something much worse.

  The night after Maryann had been, he had come up for the usual ‘bedtime story’. Amy and Margaret got ready for bed, as ever, with feverish haste because if he was upstairs when they were still changing his hands were everywhere, pinching, poking. He stood in the doorway for a moment, smoking a cigarette, leaning on the frame with a nonchalant air, taking his time.

  ‘So,’ he said softly. ‘You thought you could get away with squealing on me, did yer?’ He gave a low laugh, then took a drag on the cigarette. Its tip flared orange for a second. ‘Did you really?’ Smoke curled from his nostrils. ‘Poor little things – that was silly. Wasn’t it? Very silly. I don’t like that. I think I need to show you how much I don’t like it.’

  He yanked the thin pillow out from under Margaret’s head and with both hands pushed it down over her face. Amy heard herself whimper and saw Margaret’s hand clawing at him, her young body fighting against suffocation. He forced it down over he
r for what seemed an age, his expression a cruel grimace. Amy felt she was going to burst. She could bear it no longer.

  ‘Get off her!’

  She sprang off her bed and flung herself at him. He was perched at an angle on the edge and her weight threw him aside. Amy dragged the pillow away from Margaret’s face and Margaret sat up, panting, frantic.

  ‘You could’ve killed her!’

  He was half sprawled across Margaret’s bed and the look he gave her chilled her to her very core. Inside him, where most people had a heart and soul, was a place of hard, emotionless cruelty. She backed away from him.

  ‘So – you’re getting uppity now an’ all, are yer?’

  He advanced on her slowly.

  ‘No!’ Amy moaned. She curled herself at the top of her bed, her knees brought up to her chest. ‘No – don’t touch me . . . don’t, please . . . I’ll do anything, but don’t . . .’

  But it was no use. It made no difference. Whatever she said or did would never make any difference, she could see that now.

  This evening he had come up, his plume of loathsome blue smoke trailing after him. Once again he stood, as he liked to do, in the doorway, like a man looking down a menu, choosing, relishing. He strolled over to Margaret and sat down. With the cigarette jutting at the corner of his mouth he whipped back her bedclothes. Amy jumped violently. She saw him yank Margaret over on to her back and pull up her nightdress. Then, clamping his left hand over her mouth, he took the cigarette out of his mouth and stubbed it hard into her stomach. Amy’s hands went over her own mouth. Margaret’s body lifted off the bed, writhing. A thin, terrible noise was coming from her. He held his hand there until Margaret quietened, then removed it.

  ‘Now—’ He wagged his finger at her. ‘Don’t do it again.’

  Do what? Amy thought wildly, biting on her fist to stop herself shouting out. What had she done?

  ‘I’ve put my mark on you, wench. You show anyone and there’ll be worse. I can do much worse than that.’

  Margaret was gasping, crying in agony. Amy slid down the bed and blocked her ears. She knew he wouldn’t have finished, that cruelty always led to something else, it excited him. She closed her eyes, pressed her hands over her ears while he raped her sister. Then he buttoned himself up tidily and went downstairs. Margaret lay, absolutely silent.

  Amy went over to her. ‘D’you want me to put summat on it for you?’

  She stroked her sister’s shoulder but Margaret was quite still, eyes closed, like a dead person. She must’ve have been in great pain but she made not a sound. Not knowing what else to do, Amy waited for a long time until she thought Margaret must really be asleep. At last, she crept back to bed.

  It was almost an hour later when she heard Margaret moving about. She got up and just stood for a moment as if she was in a trance.

  Amy turned over. ‘Margaret?’

  She waited a moment longer, like a little ghost in her bare feet, then went out of the room. Amy sat up, wondering if Margaret was sleepwalking. She heard her going down the stairs and through the open door, the faint sound of her mother clinking cups in the kitchen. Uneasily, Amy got out of bed and stood shivering at the top of the stairs, waiting to hear her mother’s voice ordering Margaret back to bed. Was she going to show her the burn? It must hurt so badly. Amy trembled at the thought. He’d said she mustn’t! What if she did – what would he do then?

  She heard nothing and crept further downstairs. Her mother was still in the kitchen. Where had Margaret gone? Amy stood on the bottom step. And it was then she heard the crash, the sound of glass breaking from the front room, a shout from her stepfather, ‘What’ve yer done, yer little vixen?’ then high, agonized screaming which grew louder and more panic-stricken. Amy knew it was not Margaret who was screaming.

  ‘Arthur?’ Janet hobbled from the kitchen. ‘Amy, whatever’s going on?’

  Amy reached the front room first. For a split second she thought the room was on fire but saw an instant later that the blaze was confined to her stepfather. Flames were leaping all over the top half of him, shooting out from his hair, his clothing, and he was leaping a wild jig around the room, shrieking in agony as the fire took hold of his hair and clothes. As she came to the room he flung himself down on the floor, rolling back and forth trying to douse the flames but they refused to be put out and leaped back into life in the places where his body left the floor and met the air again. Not far away, Margaret stood with her arms folded, her expression blank. Near him on the floor lay his brass lamp, its glass shattered. His head must have been doused with paraffin.

  ‘Oh—’ Janet Lambert gasped. ‘Margaret – oh Margaret, what’ve you done? Help him, one of you – get the rug round him!’ She pulled herself frantically across the room on her sticks. ‘Help him I said!’ she cried. ‘Don’t just stand there.’

  But her daughters offered no help at all. Margaret stood quite still as if she hadn’t heard. Amy slipped upstairs, running as if possessed, and fetched her boots. Throwing her coat over her nightdress she slid past the front parlour, past the sobbing screams, past her mother beating helplessly at the flames and out into the night, running, running to the one person who she knew would help and understand.

  The story she managed, in her distress, to sob out to Maryann and the policeman was a brief, disjointed summary of this.

  ‘What’ll happen to her? She must’ve smashed the lamp right over ’is head. What if Margaret’s killed him? Will she go to prison? They mustn’t put her in prison, it ain’t right – it was him, he drove her to it! He burned her with his cigarette.’

  The young policeman appeared rather out of his depth. ‘Look – I don’t s’pose it’s as bad as you think,’ he said.

  ‘Of course it’s as bad as she thinks,’ Maryann stormed at him. ‘Ain’t you heard what she just said? The man’s an evil bloody maniac!’

  ‘I see,’ the policeman said uneasily. ‘Look – you keep ’er here for tonight and look after her. I’ll get over there now and see what’s happening and tell her mother where she is. The address is . . .?’

  ‘Blimey – that’s a good distance away, that is . . .’ He was just writing it down laboriously in his notebook when Joel and Mick rolled in from the pub.

  ‘What’s all this then?’ Mick started aggressively. Joel looked at Maryann, her arm round Amy’s shoulders and guessed who the girl was.

  ‘Now, Mick—’ Nance stepped in. ‘Don’t you go getting on yer ’igh ’orse. The wench is in trouble and ’er’ll be stopping ’ere tonight. You just keep quiet.’

  Amy looked fearfully at Mick’s red, rough-looking face.

  ‘It’s awright,’ Maryann whispered to her. ‘He won’t hurt you. This is Joel – the man I’m going to marry—’

  ‘’Ow do.’ Joel smiled kindly at her. ‘You’ll be all right here. We’ll look after you.’

  They saw the policeman out.

  ‘You can sleep down here with me,’ Maryann reassured Amy.

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ Joel said. ‘You’re having the bed, you two, and no arguments.’

  It took Amy a long time to calm down enough to fall asleep. Even after she had gone off, her body twitched in a disturbed way. Maryann lay with her arm wrapped round the child, making soothing noises, trying to comfort her. But her own mind was spinning round. She would have to take her back the next day to her mother. What sort of reaction was she going to get? And what would happen to Margaret? Was Norman really dead as Amy feared? It was a long time before she got any sleep herself.

  The next morning Maryann, Nance and Amy went straight to Handsworth.

  ‘I’m glad you’re with me,’ Maryann said to Nance on the tram. She felt horribly nervous at the thought of facing Amy’s mother.

  The house had a very quiet feel about it when they got there and Maryann wondered if anyone was in. But after she knocked on the door, they heard Janet Lambert pulling herself along the hall to open it. Maryann gripped Amy’s hand as the door swung open.

&nb
sp; All her remorse and worry was evident in Janet Lambert’s sleepless, tear-stained face. ‘Oh – Amy!’ she cried and Amy, also crying, ran into her arms. ‘Oh love – are you awright?’ Janet sobbed. ‘I’m sorry – I’m so, so sorry, Amy . . . Oh my God, as long as you’re awright . . .’

  Maryann and Nance watched as the two of them cried in each other’s arms.

  ‘Oh my girls – how could he’ve done it – all this time?’

  Maryann felt her own overwrought emotions surfacing and it was all she could do to stop herself crying as well. To see Amy was at last believed by her mother and accepted back tore at her heart.

  Janet looked over Amy’s head at her, her eyes full of shame. ‘Come in,’ she said.

  Once more they sat in the little parlour room, Amy on the arm of her mother’s chair, leaning close to her.

  ‘This is Nancy – my friend,’ Maryann said. ‘I’m living with her at the moment so it’s her house Amy stayed at last night.’

  ‘Good of yer,’ Janet said absent-mindedly. Nance nodded, sympathetically.

  ‘Where’s Margaret?’ Amy asked.

  ‘They took her away.’ The woman was distraught, tears running down her face as she spoke. ‘The ambulance came for him. He was burnt terrible. They took her as well. I don’t know what I’m going to do . . .’

  ‘Did she show you?’ Amy whispered.

  They all knew she meant the burn that Norman Griffin had inflicted on her, the bruises.

  Janet lowered her head, nodding. ‘They want to make that better – only they think there’s other things the matter with ’er – her mind. Oh . . . my little girl. What’ve I done? Why couldn’t I see it? He was always so kind, such a gentleman with me! I just couldn’t believe he could ever . . . I mean he was never even demanding that way, you know, with me . . .’