Water Gypsies

by Annie Murray

  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.

  ‘There go the beer boats,’ she murmured to Joel. The Guinness boats worked fly – they had a larger crew, which meant they could keep going day and night chugging on along the black cut. ‘Glad we’re not working them.’

  Joel, almost lost to sleep, just managed to grunt in agreement.

  The morning was bitterly cold, the grass crackling with frost, and a thin film of ice covered the cut. The bright blue sky of the day before had been replaced by an unyielding grey, which seemed to fit like a lid over the fields. Climbing out through the hatches at dawn, they felt the air sting their noses and their breath left them in clouds of white.

  Joel drank from his steaming teacup and looked round.

  ‘If this keeps up, they’ll have to get the icebreakers out.’

  But the ice was thin enough for the boats to nose through quite easily, cracking it into thin, glasslike sheets. The cold and stillness did not lift all day and the ducks, which usually appeared round the boats looking for food, stayed tucked in the undergrowth and reeds. Only a solitary heron braved the cold and flapped languidly ahead of them, landing at intervals on the bank until the motor grew nearer and drove it onwards again.

  Soon they were approaching the junction at Braun-ston, where they would turn onto the Oxford Canal. As they came through the tunnel at Braunston, enveloped in damp darkness, Maryann thought, Nancy and Darius’ll be about at Warwick or Leamington by now. Would they see them on the way back? She was disappointed and uneasy. She had wanted the reassurance of Darius and Nance tied up near them when they reached Tyseley Wharf.

  She only became gradually aware of the shouting ahead because she was in the cabin. They’d made the turn and Bobby was at the helm. She could hear something, but then Bobby’s voice came to her: ‘Maryann – you’d best come out!’

  He pointed as she came and stood outside. They’d tied the butty on a shorter strap to go through Braun-ston, so she was not far behind Joel on the Esther Jane. The first thing she saw was a small crowd ahead on the bank, who were waving and shouting at them, while a tan and white dog ran back and forth about their legs, barking in agitation. It took only seconds to see that something was seriously wrong. Maryann took in the scene in small glimpses of understanding, as if the corner of a large picture was being gradually revealed to her. A space had been reserved for them along the bank and several of the women were beckoning them urgently to pull in. As they drew close, she made out that the boats the gaggle of people had gathered by were the Isla and the Neptune. Her mind struggled with this: why were they here instead of much further ahead? Then Joel turned and signalled to them that they were pulling in and Bobby was saying, ‘Oh my – what’s amiss here?’ and at that moment, from the cabin of the Neptune, Maryann saw Darius appear and step off the boat. There was a stiffness in the way he moved and his face was like that of a statue carved from the hardest granite.

  ‘Oh, Bobby.’ Maryann went cold all over at the sight of him. ‘Summat terrible’s happened, I can tell. Where’s Nance?’

  Helping hands seized the straps and secured them as they jumped onto the bank, Maryann taking Sally’s hand. Everyone stood back and became quiet as Joel went to his brother. Maryann walked behind, suddenly acutely conscious of following Joel’s footsteps, the brown corduroy of his trousers above his boots, of turning to reach out to Sally again as she ran up beside her, of stopping as Joel put his hand on Darius’s shoulder. The older brother crumpled, lowering his head, a hand going up to cover his face.

  No! Maryann was screaming inside herself. Not one of the children, not Nance, not any of them, O God, please, no!

  Darius looked up again, face twisted with grief. ‘Her’s drownded.’ His voice cracked. ‘My little mate. My Nancy.’

  Maryann heard the sound of a woman weeping behind her. Darius, sobbing openly now, led them into the cabin away from the watching eyes. He went and sat on the edge of the back bed. The first thing Maryann was aware of was the three children, squashed like peas in a pod along the side bench, all crying heartbrokenly. It was the most miserable sight she could imagine. She and Joel squeezed inside the cabin. Nancy lay on the back bed, covered with a blanket, its curving line tracing the shape of her heavy pregnancy. As Darius leaned back to allow them closer, Maryann saw that her friend’s face was a bluish white, the features lifeless, somehow impersonal. Nancy, yet not Nancy: the power, the spark of life extinguished in her. Maryann stared, unable fully to take in the sight. The children continued to cry behind her.

  ‘Oh, Nance,’ she whispered. Leaning over, she reached under the blanket for her old friend’s hand and grasped the cold fingers. ‘Come on, Nance,’ she said, squeezing them. ‘Oh, Nance, what’ve you done? What’s happened to you?’ She recoiled, a howl of horror and protest trapped in her chest. ‘What’s happened?’ she demanded of Darius. How could he have let this happen to her friend, to Nancy, who was brimming with energy, with joy, her body leaping with the life of another child? She felt Joel’s hand on her shoulder and turned to him, his arms clasping her tight. All of them were weeping. Maryann pulled away and put her arms briefly round Darius, then went and knelt in front of Darrie, Sean and little Rose, trying to draw them all to her at once.

  Eight

  It was some time before they were calm enough to hear from Darius what had happened. They climbed out and stood in a gaggle, the crowd on the bank tactfully retreating.

  The previous evening Darius and Nancy had gone on, getting ahead right into the dusk, aiming to get to Braunston for the night. Darkness seemed to fall even more quickly than usual and they were still on the move, persevering on through the gloom with their blacked-out headlamp. They’d get through the last few locks on the Grand Union, they agreed, tie up at Braunston and get a good start in the morning. It was already punishingly cold, ice forming on the ground, making the towpath and lock sides treacherously slippery. Nancy had been inside the Neptune, bedding the children down, and Ernie was at the tiller. At the bridge-hole before the locks, though, Nancy had completed her chores and picked up the windlass.

  ‘I’ll go out for a bit. I could do with stretching my legs,’ she said to Ernie. ‘You stay here.’

  Before he could argue she’d stepped off. Darius hadn’t known that she’d got off instead of Ernie until he looked back, wondering why Ernie hadn’t already passed the motor boat, running ahead to make sure the lock was ready. Instead, he saw Nancy puffing and panting along.

  ‘I was a bit put out with her,’ Darius said. ‘We was trying to get on and she couldn’t move as fast as she can – could – normal like, her being so big. I thought, what did Nance want to go getting off for? But it were too late by then.

  ‘We got through two and Nance was managing all right, she were strong, you know. And nippy, even when she was expecting … We was breasted up and Nance’d shut the gates behind us.’ He shook his head, still disbelieving of what had happened. ‘She’d gone and got the first paddle up. I dunno how she
came to fall. She knew she always had to hold on. It was second nature. She was crossing the gate to get the other one and … I wasn’t even looking. I’d gone into the cabin for summat. She come off the gates, fell right down.’ His distress mounted as he talked. ‘I don’t know if she hit her head on the gate or on the Isla … But I looked up – the water was only coming in from one side so it was pushing us about and I thought why ent she got the other paddle open? And she weren’t there.’ His face crumpled again. ‘She just weren’t there any more.’

  It was a silent, grief-stricken cortège which made its desolate way back to Sutton Stop, outside Coventry. Other boaters who called greetings, ignorant of the tragedy, were met by the frozen, unresponsive faces of people lost in their own thoughts and emotions and the one-sided ‘How d’you do’s?’ faded unanswered on the air. Darius stood straight and still at the tiller of the Isla as the boats bore the love of his life back to be buried among the people and villages they knew so well.

  For Maryann, every chug of the engine seemed to hammer home the pain inside her. Even here, at the heart of her family, she felt very alone without Nancy. Nance had been her oldest friend, and each had linked the other with the past, with their childhood. Now Nance was gone. It was so difficult to believe and hard not to wait expectantly for Nance to pop up through the Neptune’s hatches in her bright clothes and shine the brass bands on her chimney with her usual vigour, or wave and make daft faces at them as they followed behind. All the times she would not see Nance now, all the chats and shared chores and confidences poured into her mind, bombarding her with a future of sad loneliness.

  She had managed to find a quiet moment before they left. She asked Darius if she could go aboard the Neptune alone to say goodbye and had taken with her a few sprigs of winter jasmine and some pretty red berries which, in their colourful flamboyance, reminded her of Nance. She sat beside her old friend’s body. Nance’s face was very bruised on the left side, her clothes were still damp and her coldness made Maryann recoil – it seemed so foreign to the warm, vibrant friend she had known. But she took Nance’s hand and held it. If she didn’t hold her now, soon it would be too late.