Water Gypsies

by Annie Murray

  Maryann didn’t need to think what to do. She flung herself onto her knees beside Dot, rain running down her face, the wet soaking through her nightdress, melting inside with pity for the girl’s distress.

  ‘Come here…’ She embraced Dot’s lunging, weeping form in her arms and held her, managing to still her a little, tender, motherly words falling from her lips.

  ‘It’s all right, Dot, you’re all right, have a good cry, that’s it – you let some of it out, my love.’ She rocked Dot back and forth like a child, feeling her shaking and sobbing.

  Broken words and groans of pain were snatched from Dot’s lips by the wind. ‘My Stevie … my lovely Stevie…’ There was a long moan of pain, before she cried, ‘Oh God, he was all I had!’ Then her sobs would empty her of breath and she quivered, gulping until she managed a great, gasping breath.

  Maryann’s own tears came then and Sylvia came up and hugged Dot from behind. ‘Poor darling,’ she kept saying. ‘Oh, poor love.’

  Holding each other, crying, the three of them were soon soaked. Maryann lost track of how much time they crouched there. Then Dot’s crying quietened to shaking and gulping and she seemed to come to, as if from a trance.

  ‘Sorry.’ She struggled to her feet, regaining some of her gruff self-control. ‘We must all go in. This is ridiculous of me … only I… ’ She lowered her head and began to weep helplessly, but more softly than before.

  ‘Come on.’ Sylvia took her hand and, sodden and shivering, the three of them all went to the Theodore.

  For a moment, in the light of the cabin, they were at a loss what to do. Water ran from them, forming puddles at their feet.

  ‘We’d better take these wet clothes off,’ Sylvia said, suddenly brisk, as if the emotions released just now should be swept away now that they were back in the light again. Dot perched numbly on the side bench, as if exhausted. Maryann sat beside her and unbuttoned her coat for her. Dot didn’t resist. She suddenly looked very young and beaten, her chopped fringe slicked to her forehead, her cheeks wet and eyes red.

  ‘Let’s have a cup of cocoa,’ Sylvia said. ‘Dot – you going to have some?’

  Dot looked up slowly and nodded, her eyes filling. ‘I’m sorry – I can’t seem to stop now I’ve started,’ she said. ‘Oh, Steven…’

  Maryann put her arms round Dot’s shoulders and held her close.

  ‘What’re you saying sorry for, you silly so-and-so?’

  Twenty-Five

  Easter was drawing near. Daffodils rippled bright in the spring breezes in gardens backing onto the cut. Soon it would be time for Sylvia to join her children for their school holidays.

  During that time Dot allowed herself to begin to grieve. In fact grief took hold of her and would not let her hold it at bay any more.

  ‘I don’t know what’s come over me,’ she would say, finding tears running down her cheeks at unexpected moments. ‘This just isn’t like me at all.’

  ‘Dot,’ Sylvia would say, ‘you’ve lost your brother, who you loved more than anyone in the world and you don’t know what’s come over you!’ Their sympathy made Dot cry all the more. Maryann and Sylvia, both so much older, had developed a big-sisterly affection and protectiveness towards Dot in her unhappiness. It had changed everything.

  On those chill, lamplit evenings they sat in the Theodore, and Dot began to talk about herself and her family in a way that she never had before. Things just seemed to come pouring out. One evening, to Maryann’s astonishment, she told them that her mother had died in her forties of a diseased liver and alcohol poisoning. When she came out with this in her strange, abruptly matter-of-fact, Dot-ish way, Maryann saw shock register on Sylvia’s face too and their eyes met for a horrified second.

  ‘It took Stevie and me years to work out what was the matter with her. That she was a tippler.’ Dot kept her eyes on her knitting. Her hair was loose over her plump shoulders and Maryann suddenly thought how young she looked. She could imagine her as a little girl of seven or eight, with her big eyes, rosy cheeks and sudden vulnerability.

  ‘How terrible!’ Sylvia murmured. Dot glanced up and Maryann could see she found sympathy hard to accept, even now. She had been so accustomed to burying her feelings.

  ‘When you’re young you accept things the way they are, don’t you? Stevie and I just knew that at times – in fact much of the time – our mother had to be left alone, or that she seemed to spend such a lot of time asleep. Passed out was nearer the truth. Then, other days she’d turn on us like a hyena. Poor Stevie – it was far worse for him. He was such a shy little boy. Clingy. Cowed, really. He needed a nice, soft, attentive mother.’ Dot gave a harsh laugh. ‘I suppose I got by by being his protector, poor little chap.

  ‘Of course, as we got older, we began to put two and two together. There was that smell our mother had about her: Scotch was her poison. Other things would do if there was none going, but that’s the smell I remember.’ Dot grimaced. ‘When she smelt like that, you left her alone. She gave up trying to hide it long before she died. We had housekeepers and they didn’t smell like that … And, of course, we’d hear them talking. One of them, I heard her say to one of the maids, “Mrs Higgs-Deveraux – proper dipsomaniac she is, if you ask me.” I went and looked it up.’ Dot sighed and stopped knitting, hands in her lap. D’you know, I can still see the dictionary. It was a big, heavy thing, the edges of the pages all brown. I sat with it in my lap, in the parlour. I was about eleven. And I just sat there reading the word over and over again. Dipsomaniac. It was almost like discovering you’ve got a brother or sister you’ve never been told about, but somehow you always knew was there – things suddenly making sense. Stevie and I had always kept out of her way – if we weren’t at school we were out somewhere. And soon after that, I remember, was one of the times we hid for hours under the big bed in the spare room when Mummy was in one of her states. We both lay there on the floorboards, on our backs, looking up at the springs, and the sheets tucked under the mattress and it was all dusty and smelt of mothballs, and we could hear our mother and father. He was so cold and cruel to her. Stevie and I started singing little songs, very quietly. “Here we go gathering nuts in May – ” Things like that. We didn’t want to hear what they were saying. Or what Daddy was doing to her…’ Dot’s voice faltered.

  ‘Is that why she drank – to get away from him?’ Sylvia asked gently.

  ‘I don’t know. Partly.’ Dot was silent for a moment. ‘No – I think she was frustrated. She married young when she really had wanted to have a life of her own, and there was just nothing for her in the country, where we lived. And she was married to a man who was as cold as the grave. A narcissist. Couldn’t see anything from anyone else’s point of view. He never gave her an inch. He always, always had to be centre stage. If we had visitors, everything revolved around him. He’s a completely self-obsessed man. D’you know …?’

  Maryann tensed inside, almost panicky, as if she wanted to shout, Stop! Stop – don’t tell me any more! Let me believe that you had a happy, charmed childhood, not one like mine, full of cruelty. Please let something, somewhere, be innocent and loving! Sylvia was silent as well. They could hear her little alarm clock ticking in the background.

  ‘When Stevie was fifteen, he—’ Again she ground to a halt, taking deep, distressed breaths.

  ‘Don’t.’ Sylvia had tears in her eyes. ‘Not if it’s too much for you, darling.’

  But Dot couldn’t seem to stop now. The words poured out.

  ‘He took a rope into the stables. Tied it over the beam. And a chair. Only the chair wasn’t really high enough – he left the rope too long. Norris – the man who worked in the garden – found him hanging, just off the ground. It’d only been a matter of seconds, I think. But he’d meant it – to take his own life. Stevie would never do something like that without meaning it. Afterwards he couldn’t speak properly for days, he’d bruised his throat so badly. It was a Saturday and my father was in his study, preparing papers for some case o
r other. My mother ran to him to tell him what had happened, and he refused to come down before he’d finished the piece of work he was doing. It was nearly an hour before he came and my mother and I had put Steven to bed and called the doctor. He was in shock, of course: his neck was red and burnt from the rope. And my father came, finally. He stood in the doorway – he’s very tall and thin – and stared at Stevie with such contempt and anger. He said, “You bloody little fool.”’

  Dot stared at the table with the empty cocoa cups on it. She was quivering slightly. Then she looked up.

  ‘So – that’s my family. A right jolly old crew. Stevie joined the Navy as soon as they’d have him. I know he felt frightful about leaving me, but I was about to go to London anyway. I was delighted for him. It was far worse at home for him than me. Daddy expected so much more of him.’

  Maryann was surprised at how much she was beginning to dread the three of them being separated. Of course Sylvia would be back, and in the meantime Dot would stay and they’d have to rearrange things so that Bobby could come back and crew with them. She wasn’t worried about shifting the loads, but they’d got into a routine of hard work and support for each other, of sharing laughter and beginning to share some of their lives during their cosy evenings together, although Maryann knew she couldn’t share much of her past. Even the thought of talking about it was too big, too frightening. She felt much easier with Dot, now she had shown her softer, more vulnerable side. Of Sylvia, Maryann felt she knew less, but she thought perhaps there was less to know. She was a sweet girl, settled in marriage, and she was a helpful presence and a good worker. When they reached Coventry, Sylvia would get on her train back to London, to her cosy, suburban life, to her house with a bath, her children and her lawn and roses. Maryann liked to think of that – that somewhere people had lives like that in which there was no squalor and unhappiness, no one like Norman Griffin to cast a foul shadow over them.

  She began to wish she could slow down their journey to Oxford, that it might not end yet, so that she didn’t have to face any more changes. But time seemed to gallop past.

  In Oxford she found Joel still slowly and painfully on the mend. He was able to sit downstairs now and move about just a little. Maryann and the children stayed with him for as long as they could manage, sitting in Alice’s little parlour. Maryann sat on a stool beside him, holding his hand (which she teased him was getting soft) and telling him about all the ups and downs of their journeys and snippets of news from other boatpeople.

  ‘You sound as if you’re getting along perfectly all right without me,’ Joel said, as Maryann laughingly told him stories of Dot’s and Sylvia’s antics.

  Hearing his wistful tone, Maryann reached up and kissed him. ‘Not perfectly, no – nothing like! But we’re getting by, keeping ahead all right. You’ve made a boatwoman of me, see? And you’ll be back soon, won’t you?’

  ‘Doctor says two to three months yet,’ Alice Simons said, eyeing Joel sternly. ‘Don’t you go getting any ideas about taking off, spoiling all that resting up you’ve done.’

  Sylvia was lock-wheeling that morning as they headed north away from Banbury. She ran ahead along the towpath, full of frisky energy, and waited on the bridge beyond, her slim, feminine figure silhouetted against the pale sky. She signalled them to slow down: the lock was busy. Maryann slowed the engine.

  ‘We’re out of bread – and milk!’ she shouted up to Sylvia over the throaty chug of the engine and saw her nod in reply.

  Once they were through Cropredy lock, they tied up for a few moments beyond the bridge while Dot hared off with Joley and Sally for supplies. Once she’d seen them climbing back onto the Theodore, Maryann and Ezra cast off the Esther Jane.

  That evening, after tea, Dot said to her, ‘Oh – I picked this up as well when we stopped. Course they were going to use it for wrapping, but I pleaded the cause of us poor, deprived souls.’ She held out a copy of the Birmingham Post. ‘I thought you might like a look.’

  Maryann thanked her and put the paper aside until she was in bed that night. Sleepily, she reached for it, only half wanting to bother. Sally was pressed up against her in bed, and she feared the crackly paper might wake her. But otherwise there’d be no chance until the next night.

  I’ll just look at the first couple of pages, she thought, yawning, and glancing over the first page. Gingerly she opened the paper, watching Sally as she did so. A moment later she read something which banished her drowsiness completely. She jerked upright, pulse galloping.

  MURDERED WOMAN IDENTIFIED the headline said. The details were bad enough: the young woman, now known to be aged twenty-two, with auburn hair and a pale complexion, had been found beaten and strangled on a piece of waste ground. She had been reported missing by her mother two days previously. But it was the names of the woman and her mother, who had identified her, which almost seemed to shudder on the page in front of Maryann’s eyes. The dead woman’s name was Amy Lambert. Her mother was a Mrs Janet Lambert.

  In her guts she knew immediately. It couldn’t be anyone else. In those terrible seconds she knew that this Amy Lambert was the same Amy, the sister of Margaret, who had been locked away all those years in the asylum. Amy, the strong one, the older girl, who had tried to protect her sister, who had looked to Maryann for help and friendship as a frightened twelve-year-old.

  Maryann’s hand went to her throat, rereading the report. Amy was dead. And she knew with sudden, terrifying instinct who had brought about her end. Her stepfather, Norman Griffin, had also been Amy and Margaret’s stepfather; he had conned his way into Janet Lambert’s family and wreaked his brutal havoc on them. After little Margaret attacked him he had been so badly disfigured that he was barely decent to be seen in the light of day. He’d gone to ground then, festering in obscurity like some foul disease. But now he had crawled out of his hiding place, more twisted than ever before. His was the face she had looked into that night in Pastor James’s church. What he had done in the meantime, why he was pursuing them now, she had no idea. But she knew it was him. And that he was waiting.

  Twenty-Six

  ‘Dot, I need to go to Birmingham.’

  Maryann had not said a word to Sylvia and Dot of the turmoil and horror she was feeling. She had been barely able to eat or sleep since seeing the newspaper, but she had held all her feelings inside her during the last leg of the journey. How could she even begin to explain to anyone?

  Dot looked nonplussed for a moment. They were back at Sutton Stop and were expecting to spend the day cleaning the boats.

  ‘Family business,’ Maryann said. She could see Dot thinking, How on earth has this come about suddenly, with no letters, and barely any contact with anyone else? But Maryann couldn’t and wouldn’t explain.

  ‘Just for the day. I’ll go when Sylv goes tomorrow and be back by the night. Sorry, but I’ve got to. We’ll rest up tomorrow and Mr Veater says Bobby should be back in here tomorrow or the next day.’

  ‘Right-oh,’ Dot said cheerfully, and Maryann was immediately comforted by the sense that she would cope with everything. ‘I’ll get cleaned up tomorrow then. Are you leaving me the children?’

  ‘If you can manage. I’ll take one of the twins – Ada. She’s the fidget.’

  ‘We’ll get along famously,’ Dot said. ‘It’ll be a challenge.’

  That night, as Sylvia was about to leave, they had a little party. They were tied up at ‘home’ at Sutton Stop again. It helped take Maryann’s mind off things a fraction. Sylvia baked a cake and they fetched the children’s sweet rations and made a nice little high tea, Ada and Esther drooling as they sucked on their highly coloured jelly babies. When Maryann explained to the family that Sylvia had to go away for a while, they were full of questions. Maryann managed a smile, as she listened to them trying to understand that Sylvia’s children lived in a big school with a lot of other children. But little Rose, who was tucked in beside Sylvia as usual, started crying.

  ‘Oh, darling!’ Sylvia put her arm
round her and kissed the top of her head. Maryann was surprised at the pain she saw in her eyes as she did so. ‘I’m not going away for long – just a few weeks and then I’ll be back with you. I’ll bring you a present back, sweetheart, all right? And the rest of you!’ With an effort to look cheerful she smiled round the table.

  Later they spent their last night together chatting in the Theodore. Sylvia had bought a bottle of whisky.

  ‘Sorry, Dot – I like my little tipple – I know you don’t go for it.’

  ‘For rather obvious reasons,’ Dot said, screwing her face up in disgust at the smell. She unlaced her boots and tugged them off, wiggling her toes in their woolly socks and sighing with relief.

  ‘Well, I like a drink,’ Sylvia said defiantly, giving some to Maryann and pouring herself a generous tot. Maryann watched surprised. She saw an edge of tension, of aggression in Sylvia that was not evident in her normally placid personality. ‘Sometimes it’s the only way to get through, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ Dot insisted. ‘It’s the one thing to avoid getting stuck on, I’d say.’

  ‘Here – you’re going back to a nice comfy house and a bath!’ Maryann laughed. ‘What’ve you got to get through?’

  Sipping her drink, Sylvia stared at her over the rim of her cup, as if considering something. She put the cup down. ‘Oh – nothing,’ she said brightly. ‘Don’t be silly, it was just a figure of speech.’

  But as the evening wore on and they sat reminiscing about their trips together so far, Sylvia went quiet suddenly and they saw she was fighting back tears. Maryann and Dot immediately tried to comfort her.

  ‘I know I’m being a soppy old thing,’ Sylvia wept into her hanky. Through all the rush and chaos and often grimy squalor of life on the boat, Sylvia always seemed to have a cotton hanky on her somewhere at the ready. Nasally, she said, ‘I just can’t tell you how much I’ve loved being here – this time on the cut has been the best time of my life! I’m longing to see Kay and Dickie, of course, but it’s so hard to leave you all. I wish I could just bring them back here.’