The River Folk

by Margaret Dickinson

  She pulled away from him, with tears of frustration. She wanted him too, just as much, but there were tears of bitter disappointment too. ‘You’re just like they said. That’s all you want. You don’t love me. Not really, or you wouldn’t ask.’

  Her words were like a douse of cold water to him. ‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’

  She was crying openly now. ‘If I let you, you’d hate me afterwards.’

  ‘I wouldn’t. I swear I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Well, I’d hate myself and probably you too. I’m not going to give you or anyone else the chance to say that I’m just like my mother.’

  ‘Lizzie, oh Lizzie.’ She could see that his dismay was genuine as he reached out for her again, but this time only to take her gently in his arms to comfort her. ‘I’d never even think such a thing.’

  Her sobs, muffled against him now, began to subside as he stroked her hair and murmured, ‘Then we’ll be married, my darling. As soon as I can arrange something, we’ll be married.’

  She lifted her face to his. ‘Oh Lawrence. Darling Lawrence, you really do love me.’

  As he bent his head to kiss her once more, he whispered against her mouth, ‘Never doubt it for a moment, my dearest love.’

  Fifty

  Lizzie was lucky that neither her grandmother nor her father, when he returned home, asked her if she had seen Lawrence. She didn’t want to lie to them and, had they asked her outright, she would not have done so. She would have told them the truth. But, as they did not ask, she did not volunteer the information.

  Her father, often morose and distant in the years since her mother had gone, was even more silent than usual. He very rarely smiled now and requests to her aboard ship became orders. It was as if she were merely an employed mate rather than his beloved daughter.

  They made a trip to Newark where the ship was laid up for three days whilst necessary repairs and painting were carried out. Normally, her father would have suggested she stay at home, in Waterman’s Yard, but this time he insisted she went with him, and she spent a miserable three days in a small hotel in the town with nothing to do, whilst her father was busy at the boatyard. Even when he was with her, they hardly spoke to each other.

  When they set sail downriver once more, it was a relief.

  ‘We’re going straight through to the Humber,’ her father said, ‘before we go home.’ Lizzie glanced at him, but said nothing. She could hardly ever remember a time when they had passed by Elsborough without calling. Only when they were being towed in the days before they had an engine had they not stopped.

  It was all a deliberate ploy, Lizzie fumed inwardly, to keep her away from Lawrence. He would be returning to boarding school soon. His father was adamant that he should sit his higher school certificate before joining the RAF.

  ‘I’m not going back,’ Lawrence had told her, but Lizzie believed that, when the time came, he would have no more choice in the matter than she had in obeying her father.

  The trip to Hull was uneventful and on their return home, as they neared the Miller’s Wharf, Lizzie could see her grandmother standing there.

  ‘Oh, not again,’ she breathed and sighed, bracing herself for more trouble. ‘I suppose she’s heard that I went to The Hall. Better get it over with, I suppose.’

  No doubt, Lizzie thought to herself, Phyllis had heard the choice bit of gossip about this gypsy girl knocking at the back door of The Hall, demanding to see the young master. But as she jumped ashore and moved towards Bessie, Lizzie could see there was something dreadfully wrong. Something far worse had happened. Tears streamed down the old lady’s face and she suddenly looked even older than her sixty-six years.

  Lizzie stretched out her arms towards her. ‘What is it? What’s happened? Is . . . is it Grandpa?’

  Unable to speak, Bessie shook her head. She clung to Lizzie and pressed her face into the girl’s shoulder, sobs wracking her huge frame.

  ‘Oh Gran, darling Gran. What is it?’

  ‘Mam?’ Dan was beside them now.

  ‘It’s . . . it’s our Duggie. He’s gone. He’s lost at sea. His . . . his ship was torpedoed.’ Her voice rose to a wail of untold grief and desolation. ‘We’ve lost him, Dan. I’ve lost one of my boys. My baby.’

  Dan put his arms around her and the three of them stood there clinging together, trying to find mutual comfort when nothing and no one could bring any kind of consolation. Lizzie was crying too now, ‘Oh no. Not Uncle Duggie. Please say it’s not true?’

  Dan was the first to recover and said quietly, ‘Come on, love. Be strong now for your gran’s sake. Take her home and I’ll come as soon as I can.’ He looked down at his mother with such tenderness on his face that it twisted Lizzie’s heart afresh. ‘Come on, Mam. Lizzie will go home with you. Where’s me dad? Does he know?’

  Her body still heaving with tearing sobs, Bessie only nodded. ‘He’s sat at home by the fire. Won’t move. Won’t say a word. And Ernie. He’s hardly said a word, either. And when he does, it’s to say summat daft, like it ought to have been him and not our Duggie. He’s just pacing up and down the yard, running his hands through his hair as if he’d like to pull it from his head.’

  Dan said nothing, sparing a moment’s thought for his taciturn brother, the one they always seemed to forget. Yet Ernie had been the first in their household to volunteer, only to be turned down by the medical board.

  ‘You’ll have to be strong, Mam. You always have been.’

  Bessie shook her head. ‘Not this time, lad. I’m done for. I’m too old to take any more. Mary Ann going fair broke me heart, but this . . .’

  Her tears were unceasing as Lizzie helped her homewards. Bessie leant so heavily on her that the girl felt as if she were almost carrying her. But she was strong physically and now she had to be strong emotionally for all their sakes, for the woman who had always been the rock in their midst, the one to whom everyone, family and neighbours alike, had always turned in their troubles, was shattered and heartbroken.

  When they entered Waterman’s Yard, Ernie was nowhere to be seen, but Minnie rushed forwards. ‘Oh Bessie, we’ve just heard. We’re so sorry.’ She dissolved into tears and covered her face with her apron.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Eccleshall,’ Lizzie said. ‘But I just want to get Gran home.’

  ‘Of course, love. But if there’s anything I can do, you’ve only to say. Oh, it’s dreadful. It really is.’ And she wailed afresh.

  But what was there she could do? Lizzie thought sadly, as she helped Bessie, stumbling, across the yard. What was there any of them could do?

  Amy Hamilton was standing by the door of Bessie’s home, her arms folded across her thin chest. ‘Well, Bessie Ruddick, now you know, don’t you? Now you know how it feels.’

  Feeling a shudder run through Bessie and hearing her groan, Lizzie braced herself as her grandmother leant even more heavily against her. Anger flooded through Lizzie and gave her a fresh spurt of strength. ‘Excuse us, Mrs Hamilton, if you please,’ she said with icy politeness. ‘I want to get Gran into the house.’

  Amy, with a strange look of surprise on her face, stared at Bessie, but she stood aside as Lizzie manoeuvred Bessie through the door and the scullery and into the kitchen.

  ‘Sit down, Gran. I’ll mash us a pot of tea.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ a voice said behind her, and Lizzie turned in surprise to see that Amy had followed them into the house.

  ‘There’s no need for you to trouble yourself, Mrs Hamilton . . .’ she began, but the woman cut her short. ‘There’s every reason, lass. Every reason, but you wouldn’t understand.’

  Surprise robbed Lizzie momentarily of speech, and she sat down suddenly beside her grandmother, staring at Amy, who was busying herself about Bessie’s kitchen and back scullery as if she were in her own house. Lizzie’s glance went then to her grandfather sitting in his chair by the range. He looked in a worse state than her grandmother did, Lizzie thought, anguished. She felt helpless in the face of such
grief. Her own sorrow was bad enough, but to see these two dear people so devastated broke Lizzie’s young heart. It would have been bad enough for one of them to lose the other, their life’s partner, but to lose one of their children went against nature. It wasn’t the right order of things.

  ‘His ship got torpedoed,’ Bessie murmured again as if, only by repeating it, could she begin to believe what had happened to her beloved boy.

  ‘It’s a waste,’ Amy said, placing a tray of teacups and saucers on the table and picking up the teapot. ‘A tragic, senseless waste. That’s what it is.’ There was anger in her tone and even when she said, ‘Here, Bessie girl, drink this,’ it was said brusquely. She held out a cup of tea, but Bessie appeared not to have heard. Lizzie took it and gently patted her grandmother’s arm.

  ‘Mrs Hamilton’s made you some nice tea, Gran. Come on, try and drink it.’

  ‘Here you are, Bert.’ Amy was standing over him, issuing an order she would not allow him to disobey. ‘Drink this.’

  Suddenly, Lizzie remembered and understood. This was the woman who had lost her husband and only son in the Great War. Lizzie felt her resentment towards Amy drain away. This woman, brusque though she seemed at this moment, was probably the only one of them around here who truly understood how Bessie must be feeling.

  ‘Am I going to have to feed you, Bert Ruddick? Come on, rouse yasen.’

  Tears running unashamedly down his face, Bert looked across at Bessie, who was lying back in the chair, her eyes red in a face pale with exhaustion. He closed his eyes and groaned.

  Lizzie watched as Amy bent down towards him. ‘Come on, Bert. You’ve got to be strong for Bessie.’

  He shook his head. ‘She . . .’ he began haltingly as if even speaking was an effort. ‘She’s the strong one.’

  Quietly, Amy said, ‘Not this time, Bert. Poor Bessie’s going to need you to be strong for her this time.’

  Bert looked up at Amy and then slowly he reached out to take the cup of tea she held out to him. Though his hand shook and the cup rattled in the saucer, he picked it up and gulped the strong, hot liquid like a man thirsting in the desert.

  Satisfied, Amy turned her attention to Bessie. ‘Now then, let’s be ’aving you an’ all.’ She smiled at Lizzie and her tone became gentle as she said, ‘You go into the scullery, lass, and get a bit of dinner ready. I’ll stay with them.’

  At the sink in the scullery, as she peeled potatoes and washed vegetables, her own tears falling into the bowl of water, Lizzie could hear the low murmur of Amy’s voice, although she could not hear what was being said. A little while later, Dan arrived and Amy came out into the scullery.

  ‘I’m going now, lass, but I’ll be back.’

  Lizzie turned and opened her mouth to express her thanks, but Amy held up her hand. ‘Don’t say anything, lass, ’cos I might not like what you’re be going to say.’

  ‘I wasn’t—’ Lizzie began, but Amy interrupted.

  ‘I lost me husband and son in the last lot and it was your gran who pulled me through. I’d have done for mesen for sure, if it hadn’t been for her. I might sound a bit hard, a bit unfeeling, but I’m only giving her a taste of her own medicine.’

  Lizzie gasped, astonished to think that the woman could be so vindictive after all these years. But once more, Lizzie had to admit that she was wrong as Amy explained. ‘It’s medicine that’s hard to dish out and it’s bitter to take, lass, but it works. It worked on me. I thought Bessie Ruddick was the hardest, most callous bitch around, but she knew what to do. Oh, she knew how to shake me out of me self-pity. I’m still alive today only because of her, Lizzie. And I’ll never forget it. So, now I’m going to be here for her when she needs help.’

  Lizzie’s voice was unsteady as she said, ‘Thanks. Thank you, Mrs Hamilton.’

  If it hadn’t been for Amy Hamilton, Lizzie thought later, the Ruddick family might well have lost Bessie and probably Bert too.

  For days and weeks, Bessie hardly ate. The weight dropped from her and loose skin sagged beneath her jaw. Bert tried his best. He cajoled and pleaded with her, but to no avail. Even the taciturn Ernie was heard to plead, ‘Come on, our Mam, try to eat something.’

  Bessie retreated into a world of her own. Sitting beside the range, staring into the fire, she stirred only to answer the call of nature. She didn’t even undress at night or go upstairs to bed, and soon her unwashed grey hair was lank and greasy, her clothes stained and crumpled.

  It was Amy who finally broke through the wall of misery. Once more she stood over Bessie. ‘Are you going to sit there, Bessie Ruddick, till you rot? You’re beginning to smell now.’

  For the first time since they had received the dreadful news, Lizzie felt herself wanting to laugh. And yet she wanted to cry at the same time. Holding her breath, she watched as, slowly, Bessie raised her face to look at Amy. Suddenly, there was a spark of anger in her grandmother’s eyes. ‘What right have you to tell me what to do, Amy Hamilton, I’d like to know?’

  ‘Oh you would, would you? Well, I’ll tell you what right I’ve got.’ She leant down so that her eyes were on a level with Bessie’s. ‘Same right as you had to save my miserable life all them years ago. Remember?’

  The two women stared at each other, a lifetime of memories between them. ‘And think about it, Bessie. You have got other family. There’s poor Bert here, and your other lads, to say nothing of this poor lass who’s bewildered and lost by it all. They’re all hurting, Bessie. I had no one left, no one to live for, and yet you still wouldn’t let me go, so I’m damned if I’m going to let you shrivel away and bring more grief to your family. You hear me, Bessie Ruddick. By heck, if you weren’t so big and fat, I’d shake some sense into that stupid head of yours.’

  Amy straightened up and turned to Lizzie and Bert, who were standing by listening, first shocked and then amused by Amy’s antics.

  ‘Lizzie, see if Mrs Eccleshall’s at home. Tell her I need her help across here, but tell her to leave her tears at home. I don’t want her coming in here weeping and wailing and making matters worse. And you, Bert, get the tin bath, bring it in here and fill it with water. It’s time me and Min gave Mrs Smelly here a good bath. I’m just going to my house to fetch her some clean clothes.’

  It had been the turning point and whilst the whole family still grieved, once Bessie started to recover, they all began to come to terms with their loss.

  ‘I miss Uncle Duggie so much,’ Lizzie told Tolly, who, their previous quarrel forgotten in the wake of such a tragedy, had been one of the first to arrive on the doorstep to offer his sympathy. ‘He was always so happy and cheerful.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘I even miss him teasing me.’

  They were sitting on the riverbank, watching the fish, but today neither of them had the heart to try to catch any.

  ‘I expect there’s a lot of people who miss him. Your uncle was what they call a lovable rogue. A bit of a lad with the women, but everybody liked him.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, they did.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose that should be a comfort, but it isn’t.’

  ‘No.’ Tolly reached out and took her hand. ‘Nothing’s a comfort really, because nothing can bring him back.’

  ‘We’re not the only ones to have lost someone, though, are we?’

  ‘No,’ Tolly agreed again. ‘But that doesn’t make it any easier either.’

  She leant her forehead against his shoulder. ‘Oh Tolly, thank goodness you’re too young to be called up. Let’s hope it’s all over before you reach eighteen.’

  He did not answer her and she could not tell him everything that was in her heart. Much as she loved Tolly – he was like the brother she had never had – she could not tell even him that with each passing day her fear grew that, before long, Lawrence would have to go to war.

  Fifty-One

  ‘Lizzie, I want to go to church this morning. Will you come with me?’

  Bessie was standing in the kitchen, dressed in her best black hat and coat.

  �
�Of course, Gran. I’ll get my coat.’

  ‘And find a hat,’ her grandmother murmured. ‘Doesn’t do to go into church without a hat.’

  The church was packed – every seat seemed to be taken.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Lizzie whispered. ‘I’ve never seen the church as full as this for a normal morning service.’

  ‘It isn’t a normal service,’ Bessie said. ‘It’s a special service for all those families who’ve lost someone. That’s why I wanted to come.’ She nodded towards the congregation in front of them as they squeezed into a pew near the back of the church. ‘Just look at all these poor folks who’ve lost loved ones. I’m not the only one and it’s time I realized it.’

  ‘Oh Gran,’ was all Lizzie could say as tears threatened to choke her. She put her hand through her grandmother’s arm and kept it there throughout the service. By the time it was over and the people were filing out, Lizzie wasn’t sure whether coming had been such a good idea. Throughout the prayers and the hymn singing there had been the sound of people crying. Even Bessie, usually loath to let strangers witness her emotions, had dabbed at her eyes and blown her nose vigorously.

  ‘Come on, Gran, time to go,’ Lizzie urged, when Bessie made no move to leave.

  ‘Hang on a minute, love,’ Bessie said. ‘There’s something I want to see when everyone’s gone.’

  ‘What?’ Lizzie asked, sitting down again.

  ‘Amy reckons someone’s embroidered a banner of some sort. It’s on the wall near that little chapel at the side there. She says it’s got Duggie’s name on it.’

  ‘Really?’ Lizzie said, intrigued too, now.

  When everyone except the verger, who was still busy, had left, Bessie and Lizzie walked to the front.

  ‘There it is,’ Lizzie said, pointing to the wall at one side. They moved closer and saw, embroidered in silks and gold thread upon satin, the emblems of the Merchant Navy and the words ‘In loving memory of Douglas Ruddick, who gave his life in the service of his country, September 1941’.