Water Gypsies

by Annie Murray

  She found, almost to her shame, that she was quite looking forward to the day. It was a change, after all – another day off before all the hard work began again, and a chance to see her brothers. Tony had said Billy was coming home on leave for the funeral. Perhaps she might get to know him a bit better, to feel he really was her brother.

  They had breakfast moving along. After they’d crossed town they moved onto the Worcester Canal, chugging along past Davenport’s Brewery, its bitter, hop smell filling the air. The sun began to break through and melt away the mist, and the air started to feel warm and muggy, so they laid some of the bedding out to air. They passed carriers whom they didn’t normally see, clothed-up pairs of boats from the Severn Canal Carrying Company, which transported goods out to the West Country, out through the long tunnel at Tardebigge and down to the Severn.

  ‘I haven’t been down here in a good while,’ Maryann said to Dot, as she stood out with her eating breakfast. Familiar landmarks moved past them, Sturges’s Chemical Works, the tunnel at Edgbaston, the copper works at Selly Oak. It was a stretch full of poignancy for Maryann. It was one of the greenest parts of the cut in Birmingham and today the trees were covered in fresh spring leaves. She remembered coming along here on another lovely day with Nancy and Darius when they were first falling in love and how she, seeing what was between them, had fretted and tried to prevent it: Nancy was married then to Mick Mallone. How ridiculous her worries seemed now, when Nancy had only had such a brief time of happiness with Darius. This sadness added itself to all the rest. For a moment, as they brushed through the green light of overhanging branches, she was filled with a hard, hungry ache for Joel. For him to be at her side, to feel him holding her. She felt surprised, ashamed even, at how little she had missed him in the last few weeks, how she had grown used to his absence. But it couldn’t be long now before he would be strong enough to come back. And then, she realized with another pang, she would have to say goodbye to Sylvia and Dot, and she knew how much she didn’t want to lose them either.

  They tied up at Selly Oak and walked to the gates of Lodge Hill Cemetery in time to meet the carriage bringing Flo’s body.

  ‘Well, we look a motley crew, don’t we?’ Dot said as they set off. It was the first time Maryann had ever seen Dot in a skirt, straight, tightly fitting and navy blue, and she had complained like anything when she tried to squeeze into it.

  ‘I’ve put on pounds doing this job! Good heavens, I can hardly do it up at the waist!’

  ‘Never mind – you look as healthy as a hunter,’ Sylvia told her.

  ‘Well, it’s not fair,’ Dot protested, going red in the face as she breathed in, trying to do up the zip. ‘You and Maryann stay as thin as twigs and I rush about far more than either of you!’ She had to resort to leaving the top button undone. They had all put their coats on, even though it was quite warm, in order to look a bit smarter.

  The funeral cortége was as basic as it could be because there was no money in the family. In the event, the only mourner apart from the family was a neighbour of Flo’s, a middle-aged, corpulent lady called Mrs Biggs, who waddled towards them in front of Maryann’s brothers, in her hat and coat. She had dark, thick brows and prominent cheeks, above which her deepset eyes appeared only just able to see out. She nodded with sharp disapproval at Maryann.

  ‘I were a friend of your mother’s,’ she said, adding tartly, ‘somebody had to be,’ before turning away.

  Walking beside Tony was a tall young man with fair hair, dressed smartly in Air Force blue. He was the taller of the two and, although Maryann knew it had to be Billy, it still took her a moment to recognize him.

  Her hand went to her mouth, ‘Oh, my word, look at him!’

  As he came closer, she saw that he was handsome and big-boned like their mother had been. He looks like our mom and Sal, she thought, and he must be all of twenty now. His eyes were vivid blue and he had a cropped RAF haircut.

  ‘Here’s Uncle Tony,’ she said to the children. ‘And this is Uncle Billy.’

  Billy looked round at them all and nodded, though he didn’t smile. ‘Maryann. All right?’ was all he said, and that quite abruptly. The cold expression in his eyes made Maryann sink inside and she turned away, hurt. Well, I suppose I never was much of a sister to him, she thought. Or not so’s he remembers, anyroad.

  Even though Dot and Sylvia were there, she felt terribly alone as they walked behind the carriage taking her mother’s body into the cemetery. Mrs Biggs’s hostility and the coldness of Billy’s greeting sunk deep into her. Oh, Sal, you ought to be here with me now, she thought, not lying six foot under already, with our mom coming to join you. We should be doing this together.

  They reached the plot that had been reserved beside Sal’s and their father’s graves. Maryann saw Sylvia and Dot discreetly reading the words on the headstones. Sylvia’s eyes lingered on SALLY ANNE GRIFFIN, 1913–28, and Maryann saw her wondering how Sal had died when she was only fifteen. How could she begin to explain?

  She barely noticed the undertakers bringing her mother’s coffin to the graveside. Standing by Sal’s grave again she felt desperate to see her, to be able to pour out all her troubles. Sal was the one person who would have understood.

  He’s back, Sal, she told her in her head. And I’m so scared. He’s worse than before. He’s killed Amy, murdered her, and he’s always there. He always seems to know where we are. I can’t sleep, I can’t think properly … I wish there was someone could help me. Had she been alone she might have broken down and wept then, but Sylvia was nudging her. The burial was about to begin.

  ‘D’you think we’d better pick these two up?’ Sylvia nodded down at the twins.

  Maryann lifted Esther up and Sylvia took Ada. No good having them running off in the middle of it. The other four children stood solemnly in a line in front of them.

  ‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ the vicar was saying. Maryann felt some comfort from the old, formal words and from her daughter’s warm, plump body in her arms.

  As the body of her mother was lowered into the grave, she glanced across at her brothers, who stood on the other side. Tony had his head lowered, cap in his hand. She saw him wipe his eyes as the earth rattled onto the coffin and felt sorry for him. Poor Tony – he was always the soft lad. He was also the only one who’d been really close to Mom. Billy, however, stood very upright, in a military stance, hands behind his back. His cool blue eyes gazed beyond them all at the trees behind. Little Billy, the round toddler she used to bath and sit on her knee, while he chuckled and bounced. She wanted him to know that, to reach out to him.

  When it was over, they walked slowly away from the family graves through the peaceful cemetery. The children, released at last, began to run and jump ahead of them, loving the open space and the trees to dodge round to let off steam.

  Dot and Sylvia walked together, each leading a twin by the hand, discreetly allowing the family to be together. Mrs Biggs collared Tony and Maryann went to walk beside Billy. He seemed even taller than she’d realized, with a long, muscular stride.

  ‘How you keeping?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘All right. Going back tomorrow.’ She knew he was in Coastal Command. She asked questions, but he wouldn’t be drawn about it and they lapsed into silence. Maryann looked down, watching her old boots with their scuffed toecaps moving over the dry ground. She heard Joley and Ezra shouting to each other in the distance, knew she ought to tell them to quieten down, but she didn’t want to move away.

  ‘Billy –’ she looked up at him, but he didn’t turn his head – ‘I know I haven’t been much of a sister to you – not being here and that. Only it seems a shame not to try and see more of each other like, now Mom’s gone … You know, family – keeping in touch.’

  Billy shrugged, and in that movement of his shoulders was complete indifference. But what cut her to the heart was the look in his eyes when he turned to face her. She saw that her blond, handsome brother was like a hard-faced stra
nger beside her, staring down at her with contempt.

  ‘You’re not really from round here any more, though, are you?’

  And she saw her clothes, her ragamuffin children, her life, through his eyes and how he despised her – for not being there as he grew up, for what she had become.

  ‘No,’ she conceded miserably. ‘I s’pose I’m not.’

  He turned away and went to join Tony and Mrs Biggs. Maryann waited for Dot and Sylvia, forcing a smile to her lips to hide how much Billy’s words had cut her. She wrenched her hurt round into a tough, defiant anger. Yes, she’d moved on from here and this was who she was. She was Maryann Bartholomew, a skilled boatwoman, and her family were boater’s children and proud! So sod you, Billy Nelson – you may be my brother, but you’re a cold bastard and stuck up with it!

  ‘You all right?’ Sylvia put her arm round Maryann’s shoulders.

  ‘Yes. Ta.’ Maryann shrugged her off. She couldn’t manage sympathy or closeness. Not at the moment.

  ‘The vicar handled it all all right, didn’t he?’ Dot said.

  ‘I thought he was rather nice,’ Sylvia agreed, and Maryann could tell they were just talking for something to say and she was grateful to them.

  ‘Do you want to go back with your brothers – spend the evening with them?’ Sylvia asked.

  ‘No.’ Maryann just managed to keep the bitterness from her voice. ‘All I want is to get back home. Get going again.’ Away from here, she thought.

  They reached the cemetery gates. Billy and Mrs Biggs had already gone. Tony waited, though.

  ‘Bye, sis,’ he said. ‘Come and look us up, won’t you?’

  ‘Course I will,’ Maryann said. She knew she would, every so often. But she also realized that probably, she’d never see Billy again, and with a pang, she knew that it no longer mattered.

  The twins ran to catch up, skipping along the path. Joley and Ezra were chasing each other in and out of the gate, while Rose was picking up bits and pieces off the ground. Seeing Sylvia coming, she ran to her and took her hand.

  ‘Right – all shipshape everyone?’ Dot said.

  ‘Where’s Sally?’ Sylvia said, headcounting the children.

  ‘Good job someone’s looking after them,’ Maryann said. Shows what a daze I’m in! Where’s she got to?’

  They called back along the path, but it seemed wrong to be shouting in a cemetery.

  ‘Knowing her, she’ll’ve gone off in a dream somewhere,’ Maryann said. She frowned. ‘I thought she was in front of us.’

  ‘Well, she was at one stage,’ Sylvia said. ‘But they were all dodging about so much. She’s probably got herself lost in there.’

  They spent the next half-hour searching the big cemetery, calling and looking, walking right down to the far side.

  ‘It’s not like her to hide and be naughty, is it?’ Dot said.

  Maryann was bewildered. Sally could be dreamy at times, it was true, but she’d never done anything like this before. And she wouldn’t run off into the unknown streets of Birmingham without the rest of them. None of the other children knew where she’d gone and Maryann could see from their faces that they weren’t having her on. She became more and more uneasy.

  ‘It feels as if she’s fallen down a hole or something,’ she said. ‘What the hell’s happened to her?’

  On the far side of the cemetery, in a newer part where there were few graves, they saw a middle-aged man kneeling, mending the fence.

  ‘I say!’ Dot called to him. He turned, startled.

  ‘We’re looking for a little girl – she seems to have lost her way in here. Have you seen her? She’s – how old is she, Maryann? Seven?’

  Maryann nodded miserably. A coldness was beginning to creep over her. Sally had been missing for too long now to be playing up or have just wandered off. Realization was just beginning to dawn in her.

  The man frowned. ‘I’ve only seen one girl this afternoon. About half an hour ago. Blonde. Pretty little thing.’

  ‘Long blonde hair?’ Sylvia asked, excitedly. ‘What – wandering about here?’

  ‘Well, no. She was with someone – walking along the path over there – a bloke.’

  ‘How odd,’ Dot said. ‘What did he look like?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Not young. Quite a big feller. Sort of wide-chested. Trilby pulled well down – couldn’t say what his face looked like.’

  The sound which came from Maryann made them all look round: a sharp exhalation as if she had been punched. She couldn’t hide the fact that was trembling all over, everything round her was reeling. For a moment she thought was she going to pass out.

  ‘Maryann?’ Sylvia and Dot hurried over to her at once, asking questions, but she managed to stay upright and ran to the gardener.

  ‘Where did they go? Which way?’

  She tore off in the direction in which he pointed because it was all she could do, knowing that it was too late, too long ago, that when she reached the gate the road would be empty, but she could only run with desperate prayers streaming from her lips that he hadn’t got her, hadn’t really got away with her little girl…

  There was no one on the road. A lone car passed in the quiet afternoon.

  Dot, Sylvia and the others caught up with her and it was Dot who ran to Maryann and seized her by the shoulders.

  ‘Who is he? Who’s got her? For God’s sake, Maryann, you’ve got to tell us what’s going on.’

  Thirty-Six

  She couldn’t be still.

  ‘ I’ve got to go – got to find them.’ She pulled away from Dot and started running blindly along the road, unable to do anything else but move in the direction her child had gone. But of course she didn’t know the direction. They were gone, they could be anywhere by now. When Dot reached her again and caught her arm, dragging her to a standstill. She felt herself cave in. Everything seemed to whirl round her, overwhelming her as if she was drowning. Her nightmares had merged into the reality of day and there was screaming and crying somewhere in the distance and she could not catch her breath …

  ‘Maryann – MARYANN!’ Sylvia was there now, shouting in her face. Why was she yelling like that? Maryann – I don’t want to slap you, but I’m going to have to if you don’t calm down!’

  She felt herself being shaken hard by the shoulders and at last the world steadied a little.

  ‘That’s better.’ Sylvia gripped her arms. ‘Now tell us – who is Sally with?’

  ‘With … with my stepfather – he used to be. I know it’s him – I know he’s taken her and we’ve got to get her. You don’t know what he might do …’ Her hands went convulsively to her cheeks and she was sobbing, shaking so hard that she could barely stand.

  Supporting her on each side, they asked her over and over if she was sure, if it could be a mistake. No, no – all she could do was shake her head.

  ‘ Look,’ Dot said, ‘we must go and tell the police.’

  ‘No!’ Maryann cried. ‘I know where we need to go. He’s got a factory in Cheapside. We’ll go there –I bet he’s taken her there!’

  Sylvia’s eyes were full of doubt at how they were going to manage this when she barely knew the geography of Birmingham’s great sprawl, didn’t understand anything of what was going on.

  ‘Look,’ she decided, ‘I’ll go home with the children. You and Dot go.’

  On the tram, the two of them sat side by side in silence, Maryann filled by a numb sense of inevitability that now they could only do small things, one at a time to get Sally back, when her nerves were screaming that she had to find her now, now, and have her back safely in her arms. She tried to close her mind to everything but the next step. The tram crawled along the Bristol Road. There was too much to say for them to begin talking now so they reserved speech only for practical things.

  They went to the police station in town, where Maryann talked to them with a sense of hopelessness. Yes, her daughter had been taken away and it was by the same man, she impressed upon them, who had m
urdered the red-headed woman Amy Lambert. She told them the name of ‘Albert Griffin’s’ factory. And they had to look for Sally now because otherwise he would harm her. He was evil, capable of the most terrible things. And Maryann wept helplessly in front of the policeman as she described her pale-haired little Sally.

  When they left, Maryann stormed at Dot, ‘It’s no good. They keep saying they’re doing their best, but they’re no ruddy good to us. They never do anything.’ So many of the police had gone away to war that only a skeleton service was operating. ‘We’ll have to do it ourselves.’

  ‘Maryann,’ Dot panted, trotting to keep up as Maryann tore along the street, ‘what were you saying to him? About that woman, a red-haired woman, you said. You said murdered … ? What in heaven’s name were you talking about?’

  ‘He murdered her, I know he did.’ Maryann didn’t stop for a second, firing out disjointed scraps of thoughts. ‘Amy – and Sal. And Margaret might just as well be dead. It’s all him, all of it. And they won’t believe me – and we’ll have to do it. No one else has ever – no one believes me except Janet because she knows. She’s seen … she’s the only one who knows.’

  Maryann couldn’t see the expression of appalled sorrow in Dot’s eyes, couldn’t see her own distraught, pitiful state. Dot knew that this had not come out of the blue. She had lain beside Maryann, known the terrors that haunted her sleep. What on earth did this poor, sweet-natured woman have in her past to cause all this? What had she suffered? Dot was filled with sorrow and tenderness, but she was out of her depth, inhibited by her own youth and lack of experience. Maryann’s life was another world to her. All she could do was follow, look for Sally, and try to gather what was happening.

  Maryann led her to Highgate, half running along Bradford Street and across to Cheapside, until they stood outside Albert Griffin, Toolmakers & Machinists, both of them panting hard. Maryann went straight to the open door. Inside, the long, dark factory extended back from the road. Dot saw a row of women seated at lathes, and a long table surrounded by a mess of packing cases. There was a subdued roaring from the far end of the workshop, over which they could hear the sound of music from a wireless on a smaller table to their left. A man was singing somewhere. The women nearest the door turned and stared at them but didn’t stop work. After a moment the singing stopped and a man appeared, wearing a dirty overall.