The River Folk

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘You’ll not always be able to take the lass with you, Dan,’ his employer had warned. ‘We shall more than likely get asked to go on some very odd missions, so just be prepared. By the way, I’m going to have the ship fitted out with a small diesel engine. You can still make use of the sails whenever possible, but it’ll cut out wasted time waiting for a tow. Things are going to change, Dan,’ Lizzie heard Mr Sudbury say to her father. ‘And if we’re to survive, we’ll have to change with them.’

  Dan bemoaned the fitting of a noisy, smelly engine to his beloved keel, but Lizzie loved its rhythmic phut-phut-phut. ‘Wouldn’t Uncle Duggie have liked it, Dad? I know just what he’d say. “Should have had one years ago.” ’

  Dan’s only reply was a baleful glance. ‘I don’t know why Mr Sudbury’s bothered to have one fitted. Trade’s dropped off that much, we look like being laid up for weeks. Everything’s coming in by the ports on the west coast now. Besides, we’re not allowed to move in the hours of darkness, so where’s the point? The only cargo I’ve got this week is fifty tons of cement for building air-raid shelters.’

  ‘It’ll pick up again, Dad. It’s bound to.’

  A cold spell during the early months of 1940 kept the Maid Mary Ann moored at Elsborough and though Lizzie could find plenty to do ashore, Dan chafed at the enforced idleness. But when warmer weather came, with it returned some of the trade to the east coast ports.

  Towards the end of May, Dan said, ‘You can’t come with me tomorrow, Lizzie.’

  ‘Why not? Where are you going?’

  Her father seemed tense and anxious and his answer was evasive. ‘Oh, just into the Humber, but Mr Sudbury said you were not to go. He’s sending one of his men down to go with me.’

  The following morning, Lizzie helped her grandmother pack a basket of food for Dan.

  ‘I think we’d better pack him a bit extra, love,’ Bessie murmured. ‘I reckon he’s going to be gone a few days.’

  ‘A few days?’ Lizzie stared at her. ‘Where’s he going and why can’t I go? And who’s this man going in my place? Do you know more than he’s told me?’

  ‘Calm down, calm down,’ Bessie smiled, but Lizzie noticed that the anxiety in her eyes was still there. ‘All I know is that Mr Sudbury told ya dad it’s something to do with the government or the War Office, or somebody.’

  ‘What? Some sort of job for them, you mean?’

  Bessie shrugged. ‘I don’t know and I don’t even think your dad does. Mebbe this bloke who’s joining him will know more. Now,’ she added briskly, closing the lid and putting the peg through the fastening, ‘can you carry this, love, ’cos I’ve packed enough to feed an army?’

  ‘I know, I’ll borrow Mr Eccleshall’s pram wheels.’ Lizzie darted out and across the yard to knock on Minnie’s door. When their children had outgrown their old pram, Stan Eccleshall had removed the body and had fitted a sturdy wooden box on to the wheels. Through the years, it had seen good service for all his neighbours in Waterman’s Yard.

  At Miller’s Wharf her father came down the gangway to help her lift the heavy basket aboard.

  ‘I ought to be coming with you,’ Lizzie grumbled. ‘Who’s going to look after you?’

  ‘I wish you could come, Lizzie. I’ll miss you, but he seems like a nice chap who’s come. He’s lost three fingers off his right hand so he didn’t pass his medical for service, but it doesn’t seem to stop him being able to handle a ship.’

  ‘You . . . you will be careful, won’t you, Dad?’

  ‘Of course, now give us a hug and off you go back home to your gran.’

  Lizzie watched him board and then cast off for him, waving to both him and the stranger on the deck of the Maid Mary Ann.

  ‘Lizzie.’ A familiar voice spoke behind her and she turned to smile at Tolly as he came to stand beside her. ‘You not going on this trip, then?’

  Lizzie shook her head. ‘They won’t let me.’

  Tolly was gazing thoughtfully after the ship as it moved out into the middle of the river and began to sail downriver. Lizzie’s gaze was still on her father’s vessel, but Tolly glanced back upriver and then suddenly, he gripped her arm. ‘Look. Just look!’

  Lizzie turned to see several more of Mr Sudbury’s ships coming down the river, following the Maid Mary Ann.

  ‘Now just where,’ Lizzie murmured, ‘are they all going?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tolly said, his gaze on the unusual sight. ‘But it must be for something very important.’

  Forty-Three

  ‘You’re like a cat on hot bricks, Lizzie,’ Bessie grumbled. ‘For heaven’s sake find yourself something useful to do.’

  ‘I’m just worried where Dad’s gone, Gran. He’s been gone three days.’

  ‘Well, you’re often away longer than that. How do you think I feel when I don’t hear from you for days on end?’ Bessie’s needles continued to click as she sat beside the range, knitting a pair of socks.

  ‘That’s different. You know I’m with him then. You know I’ll look after him.’ She caught her grandmother’s comical expression and laughed too. ‘Oh, you know what I mean. We look after each other.’

  Bessie chuckled softly, ‘Aye, I know what you mean. You’re a good girl, Lizzie.’ There was a slight pause as she appeared to be thinking. ‘I tell you what, love. You can go up to Miss Edwina’s school for me. I’m running short of wool. She’s become one of the mainstays of the local branch of the WVS and she’s organizing all this war work that us housewives can do at home and still feel we’re “doing our bit”, as they say.’

  Bessie, at sixty-five, now found it difficult to get about and rarely left the confines of the yard. She still struggled to the river now and then to watch the ships and she managed to get into the town once a week to do her shopping. But the effort exhausted her and her legs and feet pained her constantly.

  Lizzie, despite her youth, realized that her grandmother still needed to busy herself to blot out the worry over Duggie. She jumped up, relieved to have something to do herself, something that might take her own mind off worrying about her father for a little while. She was missing, not only him, but the river too. She longed for the open air, the breeze in her face and the sounds and smells of the river. In Waterman’s Yard, she felt stifled.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ll go now.’

  At the school, the door was opened by a tall, young man of a similar age to herself, who was vaguely familiar. Lizzie stared at him and he stared back. His fair hair was smoothed back and he was smartly dressed in a suit, white shirt and tie. But it was his bright, blue eyes that made her remember him.

  ‘Hello, Lawrence,’ she said at the same moment that his face broke into a grin, creasing the lines around his eyes, and he said, ‘Lizzie!’

  He pulled the door wider, inviting her in. ‘I presume you’ve come to see Aunt Edwina?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ she conceded, but, greeting his smile with impish mischief, she added, ‘But, of course, if I’d known you were going to be here . . .’

  They laughed together.

  ‘You’ve grown,’ he said, as he led the way upstairs.

  ‘So have you,’ she countered and teased. ‘However tall are you?’

  ‘Six two in my stockinged feet.’

  Tolly was tall, too, she thought, taller than she was, but Lawrence dwarfed even him.

  He was opening the door into his aunt’s study and ushering her in. ‘You have a visitor, Aunt Edwina.’

  Edwina rose from behind her desk and took off her spectacles. She came round the desk and held out her hands. ‘Lizzie. My dear girl. How lovely to see you. I hear about you, of course, from Bessie. But it’s ages since I saw you. Let me look at you.’ Still holding her hands, she stood back and looked Lizzie up and down. For a moment there was a strange look in her eyes as if the sight of the pretty, dark-haired girl, with the sparkling brown eyes and cheeks that dimpled so easily with her ready smile, reminded her so poignantly of someone else.

  Lizzi
e held her breath. She knew, without being told, that she reminded Edwina of her mother, Mary Ann. She remembered the closeness that had once existed between them, though the memories themselves were hazy now, mere fleeting childhood images that had left an impression rather than solid knowledge.

  ‘I was just telling her that she’s grown since I last saw her.’

  Edwina looked startled as she glanced at her nephew and then back to Lizzie again. ‘You – you know each other?’

  Now it was the young ones who looked embarrassed. They glanced at each other and then swiftly away again. Lawrence cleared his throat. ‘We met once or twice as children.’ His voice dropped to a murmur. ‘A long time ago now.’

  Edwina let go of Lizzie’s hands and turned away. ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she said absently and then, gathering her wits, said briskly, ‘Now, my dear. You’ve come to collect some wool for your gran, have you?’

  She led the way across the room to a pile of boxes in one corner. Picking one up she handed it to Lizzie. ‘There are two more. Bessie said that Mrs Eccleshall and Mrs Merryweather have offered to help too.’

  ‘And Mrs Hamilton,’ Lizzie said. ‘She was the first to knock on Gran’s door and offer.’

  ‘Was she indeed?’ For a moment, Edwina was lost in her own memories of the last war that gave her an empathy with the woman in Waterman’s Yard. ‘Well, every little helps,’ she murmured.

  ‘Lizzie can’t carry all that lot on her own. Look, I’ll walk home with her.’

  ‘Oh Lawrence, I don’t know . . .’ Edwina began, but already he was picking up the other two boxes, resting his chin on the topmost one and smiling over the top of them at Lizzie, refusing to take no for an answer.

  They walked the length of River Road laughing and talking just as if the intervening years since they had chased each other in the woods had never happened.

  ‘Remember the den we built in the woods?’ he asked. ‘I wonder if it’s still there?’

  Lizzie laughed. ‘We might need it, if we get invaded.’

  ‘Oh, that’ll not happen.’ Lawrence was full of confidence. ‘At least, not once we’ve got ourselves organized. I just wish I was a bit older and could do my bit too.’

  ‘Here we are,’ Lizzie said and led the way down the narrow alleyway between the houses and into Waterman’s Yard, calling out as she pushed open the door of Bessie’s home, ‘I’m back, Gran.’ She turned to Lawrence. ‘I’ll just put this down and come back for those two,’ but Lawrence shook his head and followed her into the house.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring them in for you.’

  Placing the boxes on the table in the kitchen, Lizzie watched as he went towards Bessie sitting in her chair by the range.

  ‘Good day, Mrs Ruddick. I’m pleased to meet you.’

  Bessie gaped up at him and then made as if to heave herself to her swollen feet.

  ‘Please – don’t get up. I don’t wish to disturb you. I’ve only walked along with Lizzie to carry the boxes.’ He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling. ‘It looks as if they’ve set you a lot of work.’

  Bessie, recovering her senses, said, ‘Oh, I can still manage a bit of knitting, young man. It’s just a pity I can’t get about like I could.’

  Without invitation, Lawrence sat down opposite her and leant forwards to talk to her, resting his elbows on his knees and linking his fingers. ‘It must be very difficult for you.’

  Lizzie watched in amazement as he sat there in her grandfather’s chair, talking so easily and so naturally to her grandmother.

  ‘Make this young feller a cup of tea, love,’ Bessie said, her knitting needles never faltering.

  As Lizzie busied herself, she listened to their conversation.

  ‘It’s sad that Holland and Belgium have surrendered, isn’t it?’ Lawrence began.

  ‘Aye, and the papers are now saying that our lads are being driven back in France.’

  ‘Right to the coast. They say the enemy has almost got them surrounded.’

  At least, Lizzie thought, as she carried in the tea tray, there’s no one belonging to us trapped on the French beaches and facing German guns and war planes. Uncle Duggie won’t be there. For once, he was better off being out at sea.

  ‘What a nice young man,’ Bessie said, when Lawrence had taken his leave. ‘Such nice manners and genuinely charming. Who is he, Lizzie?’

  Lizzie gaped at her in surprise. ‘Don’t you know, Gran? He’s Miss Edwina’s nephew. Lawrence Marsh.’

  Now Bessie did drop her knitting and struggled to her feet. She stood in front of Lizzie and, panting from the effort, wagged her finger in her face. ‘And if I’d known that, girl, he wouldn’t have been allowed across me doorstep. You’re to have nowt more to do with him. Do you hear me, Mary Ann?’

  Lizzie stared at her grandmother, but seeing how agitated the old lady had become, she said quietly, ‘I hear you, Gran. I hear you.’

  Bessie sank back into her chair with a sigh of relief, though whether from being able to rest her huge body once more or because her granddaughter had, as she believed, given her word, Lizzie couldn’t tell.

  She stared down at the grey head now bending over the box on her knee as she sorted through the wool.

  Mary Ann, Lizzie was thinking. She called me Mary Ann.

  Forty-Four

  They were walking through the woods together. He had found her that morning at the wash-house just beyond Eastlands’ Ferry, almost two weeks after he had met her again.

  ‘I didn’t know if you still came here.’ Lawrence said, standing uncertainly in the doorway.

  Lizzie straightened up from bending over the rinsing tub and pushed the damp hair from her face, shiny with sweat.

  ‘Hello.’ She smiled at him and then laughed. ‘Yes. Modern inventions like washing machines haven’t reached us aboard ship yet.’

  He stepped into the steamy atmosphere. ‘Have you time for a little walk? I thought we might take a trip down memory lane.’

  ‘How have you got here? On horseback?’

  ‘No. Bicycle.’

  ‘A steed of sorts,’ she teased, then added, ‘I’ll be finished in a couple of minutes when I’ve mangled these sheets.’

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘You could turn the handle if you like.’

  He stepped over the puddles on the brick floor and grasped the handle of the mangle. ‘Tell me when.’

  Lizzie fed in the folded wet sheets as he turned, the water flooding back into the rinsing tub.

  ‘Thanks.’ She laid the sheets on top of the other wet washing in the basket that Tolly had made for her in Mr Bryce’s workshop and then she stepped outside into the sunshine. Although it was a warm day, Lizzie still shivered coming out from the steamy heat of the wash-house.

  At once Lawrence removed his own jacket and slipped it around her shoulders.

  ‘I heard about your father. I’m glad he got back safely.’

  Lizzie beamed with pride. ‘Yes, wasn’t it a wonderful thing to do? All those little boats going across the Channel to rescue all those men off the Dunkirk beaches. And to think my father was there.’ She shuddered again, but this time not from the cold. ‘And there I was thinking he was perfectly safe somewhere on the Humber or on one of the rivers.’

  Dan and his ship had taken part in the humiliating, and yet at the same time, glorious evacuation of Dunkirk. The British troops and their allies had taken their retreat badly, their pride wounded. Yet the way in which the country had rallied to bring thousands home had been a triumph of grit and determination. When the call had gone out for Operation Dynamo, Mr Sudbury, along with many boat owners, had responded with every seaworthy vessel he owned.

  ‘However did he get down to Sheerness?’ Lawrence asked. ‘I didn’t think keels went out to sea.’

  ‘He was towed down there, I think.’ She wrinkled her brow and added slowly, ‘From what I can make out – though he won’t say much about it – not many ships went from as far nor
th as this, but Mr Sudbury and my dad were determined not to be left out.’

  ‘Well, I can sympathize with that. I know how they feel,’ Lawrence agreed. ‘You must be very proud of your father.’

  ‘Oh, I am.’ Then she added jokingly, ‘But I’m never going to trust him again when he says he’s just going away for a couple of days without me.’

  They walked on in silence for a while and when they came to the edge of the wood, she asked him, ‘You know when we were younger and used to play here?’

  ‘Mm,’ Lawrence said. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well . . .’ She hesitated, knowing she might be treading on dangerous ground. Dangerous not only for him, but for her too. ‘What were our parents doing?’

  He glanced at her and for a moment he looked much older than his fifteen years, much older than she was, even though they were almost the same age. Whilst she did not think herself stupid or ignorant, she could see that he understood the ways of the world far better than she did.

  He took hold of her hand and, instead of answering her question at once, he said, ‘Let’s sit down against this log, shall we? It’ll be cooler still in the woods, but it’s nice and warm here in the sun.’

  As they sat down, side by side, still he did not let go of her hand. His touch was warm and dry and gentle.

  ‘I expect they just sat and talked,’ he began hesitantly, but now he was not meeting her eyes.

  ‘Why?’ Lizzie was every bit as direct as her grandmother. ‘Why would a man like your father – a man in his position – want to spend his time with someone like my mother?’

  Now Lawrence smiled. ‘Same reason I came to find you today. Because I like you. Because I enjoy being with you and I want to get to know you better.’

  ‘But – but they were both married.’

  ‘That’s never troubled my father,’ Lawrence said wryly. ‘My parents are barely civil to each other now. He’s hardly ever at home and when he is, they quarrel. Oh, it’s terribly civilized. No raised voices, no shouting. Just icy politeness, sitting at either end of the dinner table with me in between them. Sometimes, the only way they will communicate with each other is through me. You know, “Lawrence, will you ask your father to pass the salt,” and “Tell your mother I shall be away on business for the coming week.” That sort of thing.’ He paused and then, his tone gentle and concerned now, asked, ‘What about yours? Do they get on?’