Water Gypsies (3 page)

When they tied up that afternoon at Tyseley Wharf, she left the babies and Ezra with Joel and took Joley and Sally with her to pick up groceries, the ration books pushed into her pocket. As they crossed the wharf, she caught sight of a gangling young man in dark clothes which appeared too large for him passing in through the gates. Tucked under his arm was a thick, black book.

Sally tugged on her arm. ‘Who’s that?’

Maryann barely glanced at him. ‘Dunno. Some holy Joe I s’pose. Come on – let’s get going.’

They shopped as fast as the queues and length of young children’s legs would allow. Sally solemnly carried the bread. Joley staggered along, insisting he could manage the vegetables. At seven years old, he was already very strong.

‘Now then,’ Maryann said, ‘shall we go and see Mr Osborne?’

Joley and Sally perked up.

‘Will he have summat for us?’ Joley asked.

‘You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?’ She grinned at them. ‘I think Mr Osborne must have filled his cellar with sweeties before the war like a squirrel, don’t you?’

Mr Osborne owned a butcher’s shop in one of the streets near the wharf. Maryann had switched to buying her meat from him over the past few months as she found him so cheerful and kind that she always looked forward to seeing him. He made a point of remembering their names, invariably had a treat to offer the children and tried to stretch the ration for her as far as possible, unlike some other shopkeepers, who would scrimp on it. He seemed to have taken a shine to her, so that now Joel teased her whenever they reached Tyseley. ‘Off to see your fancy man then?’ and she’d protest, ‘He’s old enough to be my father, you daft thing!’

Osborne’s shop had an entry along one side and Joley and Sally always liked to run up and down it. Houses, with their warrens of entries and back yards, were an exciting novelty for them, coming off the cut.

‘Come on,’ Maryann scolded. ‘I want to get home today!’

The shop window was bare, denuded of its peacetime array of joints and chops. It was hard to get hold of anything but essentials these days. As the door opened with a ‘ping’, they walked into the smell of meat and sawdust and saw that Mr Osborne still had a decorative pig’s head on the counter with an apple in its mouth, something that always fascinated the children.

‘Ah, hello there!’ Mr Osborne cried. He was a short, comforting looking man in his white overall, balding crown lapped by soft white hair. Despite his friendliness he had a hesitant, shy way with him, barely meeting Maryann’s eyes, but he was always very attentive towards the children.

‘Down at the wharf again then? Seems a long time since you were last here. Now, you youngsters, before your mother and I get down to business, how about a chocolate lime each?’

Joley and Sally nodded with delighted smiles.

‘Thought you must be sold out as there’s no queue,’ Maryann said as he handed out the pale green sweets.

‘Oh – never you fear.’ Mr Osborne went briskly back behind the counter, while Joley and Sally drew patterns in sawdust with their feet across the black and white tiles.

‘There, just a bit extra,’ he said, eyeing the scales as he weighed her mince and began parcelling it up. ‘Everyone well on board?’

‘Yes – thanks.’ She told him about the twins and Mr Osborne went quite soppy, marvelling at the thought. ‘No wonder you look tired. I thought there was something – dark rings under the eyes. Well, well. Bring them in and let me see them next time, won’t you? Nothing like new, young life.’

Maryann asked after Mrs Osborne. The couple lived a few streets away rather than over the shop.

‘It’s the smell, you see,’ Mr Osborne had explained once. ‘It’s a silly thing, really, but the wife’s almost a vegetables-only sort of eater. We’re a bit like Jack Sprat and his wife! She can’t tolerate the smell, you see, not living here … So I rent out the upstairs, off and on.’

‘Anyway.’ He smiled now. ‘I’m glad all’s well. What’re the names of your boats again?’

‘The
Esther Jane
and the
Theodore,’
Joley and Sally piped up.

‘Of course, of course,’ he laughed. ‘Now –’ he held up one finger like a magician about to perform his most demanding act – ‘I’ve got something special for you. A little treat – no charge.’

Disappearing out the back for a moment he returned with a male pheasant, fully feathered.

‘Here we go – no questions asked. Have that to be going on with.’

It was the season, of course. Out in the country they kept hearing the sharp squawk of the birds across the fields. If they’d had a dog they could have nipped one in the bag more often, but they only had cats now. Jep the old dog had died years back. And all food was welcome.

‘Thanks ever so much,’ she said, taking the dead weight of the bird from him across the counter. ‘Are you sure you don’t want anything for it?’

‘No, no. Growing family you’ve got…’ He seemed almost bashful. ‘Will you be coming up this way again soon?’

‘Oh – you never know.’ She gave the children a look that indicated it was time to go. ‘Pick up your bags,’ she told them. ‘We can never be sure where we’ll be off to next.’

‘See you again, then,’ he said.

They pinged their way out, Maryann saying, ‘Ta for the bird,’ once more.

‘I think he must like us,’ she said to the children as they headed back to the wharf. ‘Not sure why, though.’

‘I think he likes
us,
not you,’ Sally said smugly. ‘He gives us sweets, not you.’

‘Huh!’ Maryann said indignantly. ‘He gave me a pheasant, didn’t he?’

‘He says there was a bloke round looking for you!’

The lad ran out of the toll office the next morning, urgent with a message which he had remembered at the last minute. He pursued the butty, shouting to Maryann.

‘Me?’ Maryann squinted across at him, with Esther held in one arm and the tiller under the other. ‘Oh – ta. That’ll be my brother. If he comes again, tell him I’ve had twin girls. I’ll drop him a line when I get a minute!’

The boat slid away faster, her words unfurling behind it. She attempted a weary smile, as Bobby, who had been checking the snubber, climbed back towards her over the sheeted-up planks and took the tiller. Her younger brother Tony was the one person in her family she had any contact with now. She didn’t know if the message would get through, but it was nice to think of him coming to look. It gave her a feeling of ties, however slim. Joel’s family, the surviving members of the Bartholomews who had not been taken by war or sickness or the dangers of the cut, shared strong bonds. Being with them made her feel safe and protected.

Maryann stood in the hatches for a few moments cradling Esther, while Bobby steered the butty. Joel, as normal nowadays, had their sons aboard the
Esther Jane
with him. Sally was on the roof of the
Theodore
next to the chimney, smudging her fingers in the dust and murmuring to herself. The cut was busy with joeys and other working pairs, and the sounds of traffic clattering over bridges, a train, a screech of metal from a nearby works, filled the air. It was a beautiful, early autumn morning, and even the weary, soot-choked walls, the glamourless industrial buildings cramped shoulder to shoulder, took on a pleasing mellowness in the rich light. A feeling of sudden, swelling contentment rose in her and after the past weeks of feeling so drained and tired she felt more optimistic. The night had not been so bad – she had only been up once with the girls – and with more sleep and in the freshness of morning she looked at her old home with fondness and a touch of regret.

It’ll be all right,
she thought.
At least today. I can manage today
… She didn’t want to count her chickens too soon, but it was a moment of lightness after so many exhausting weeks. She saw Joel ahead of her and watched him tenderly, doing so expertly what he had always done. What he was born for.
Nothing like this life,
she thought, suddenly full of optimism.
Maybe I can manage. I can get by, so long as
…

The worry was there, always, the deep pang of dread. So long as she didn’t fall with another child. Not yet. Preferably not ever. But please God – she repeated the prayer she’d made in the church at Longford – no more babbies for a long time yet.

Three

The trip down to Oxford was always Maryann’s favourite. The cut followed a beautiful, winding route along the toes of hillsides, past Braunston and round the curves south of Napton, where the sails of the ruined mill on the hill appeared then disappeared with each bend, only to appear again unexpectedly a few wiggles later. They were blessed with glowing autumn days, early morning mists over the water, berries clustered red in the hedgerows and early frosts.

This route was the first Maryann had ever travelled with Joel and his father, many years ago now, it seemed to her, when as a desperately unhappy child she’d run away from home and asked to stay on the boat with him. There were always ghosts of her former self along the way. There were also, along the route at Claydon, Cropredy, Fenny Compton, the familiar faces of lock-keepers and lengthsmen and their families, other boat families and smiles and hellos from behind the counters of pubs, tiny grocer’s shops, and bakeries, greetings of ‘Nice to see you down this way again!’ and exclamations at the sight of the twins. Sometimes the cut and its people felt like an extended family, one in which Maryann had always done her utmost to try and belong and be accepted.

Joel knew this section of the cut so intimately that a newly felled tree, a section of the path more or less overgrown than usual or a silted bend in need of dredging where the propeller struggled and threatened to go aground – all these details he noticed at once. And it was this cut, the Oxford, which Maryann knew gave him the most poignant reminders of what had been lost. Though he seldom spoke of it, she knew it cut Joel to the heart that the old ways were slipping into the past: that he was no longer a Number One like his father had been, with his own boat, a king of the cut, gliding along silently, accompanied not by the relentless grinding of the engine, but pulled by a horse, its hooves and the chink of the harness or flick of a rope the only sounds, except for those of animals and birds and the swish of water. There were certainly compensations for working for an agent like Samuel Barlow, one of which was not having to chase loads. Essy sorted those out, as well as maintaining the boats and paying tolls and insurance. For Maryann these seemed adequate compensation. They still had the
Esther Jane,
after all. But for Joel being
owned,
having S.E. Barlow painted across the panel of the
Esther Jane
amid her roses and castles instead of the name Bartholomew and No. 1 – no, she knew there wasn’t a day that passed without him still thinking of this painfully.

It wasn’t just ownership. The demise of horse-pulled boats meant that a way of life which had previously supported all sorts of other tradesmen – stable hands, saddlers, blacksmiths – was also disappearing. A number of them had gone off to war. Even some of the lock-keepers were now in the ARP. Though the cut was now busier than it had been for years, friendly faces were gone. And Joel had plenty of time to brood on the fact as he steered the monkey boat up front, still with the proud, upright stance of a Number One, but feeling aggrieved, diminished inside.

When the boats were empty they travelled with the butty tied up close behind the motor, which meant that the butty needed little steering. This was usually not for long, between dropping off one load and collecting another, and Maryann made the most of her hands being free to get ahead with cleaning or cooking and feeding the twins. The
Theodore
was their family butty now since, not having a motor on board, the cabin was a little bigger. So when she wasn’t steering she could duck inside and put the kettle on or see to the babies’ napkins.

Once there was a load on, however, the butty was towed further behind, the snubber or towing rope extended seventy feet between the two, and it was necessary to steer almost all the time to prevent the butty veering from side to side, out of control. On a long pound with no locks Bobby came back and steered, jumping off the
Esther Jane
under a bridge-hole where the cut narrowed right down, then leaping easily onto the
Theodore
as it came past.

Without Bobby life would have been impossible. Even before Ada and Esther were born, Maryann found the days a long succession of strains and stresses. There never seemed to be a moment when she could relax. As well as keeping the boats moving and steering, there were constant thoughts of
Oh, I must make a cup of tea
or
I must get the dinner
on, or
the stove and floor need cleaning, or Sally and Ezra are bored and roaring on the cabin roof.
Not to mention all the washing, mending and shopping she had to to catch up with when they stopped to unload. She had forced herself to develop the other boatwomen’s ability to perform several tasks all at once. Everyone did it – there was no choice. You’d tuck the helm, or ‘elum’ as the boaters called it, under one arm, and with the dipper full of water and potatoes on the roof, stand and peel them as you went along. Or you’d sew or splice ropes – whatever was needed. There was one woman she saw sometimes with a sewing machine in action on the cabin roof while she steered her butty boat.

This particular trip they had a ‘good road’. There were so many possible calamities and delays on the cut – clogged propellers, other boats stuck in locks or bridge-holes when the water was low, locks all set against you, not to mention foul weather – that they had developed a patient fatalism which overlay the general need to get a load on and keep moving.

They reached Juxon Street Wharf in Oxford a bit later than hoped, after a delay on the second day with a snarled propeller south of Duke’s cut. As the men began unloading, Maryann set off, a twin under each arm and Sally and Joley beside her, to go and ‘find Granddad’. The chores could wait a few minutes while she went to the little terraced house in Adelaide Street nearby to tell old Darius Bartholomew that they’d tied up at the wharf. The old man never missed possible moment on his old home, the
Esther Jane.
The door was opened by his sister, Mrs Simons, a rosy-cheeked, sweet-natured woman, who still had a look of the boatwoman she once was, her stout body dressed in a dark blue skirt, topped by a rusty red woolly. Her feet were pushed into baggy old slippers to ease her bunions.