The Narrowboat Girl (47 page)

‘I’m ever so ’appy for yer, Maryann! You look really lovely.’

‘Ta, Nance – you do an’ all.’ Maryann linked arms with Joel on one side and Nancy on the other as they all walked along to the pub where they went afterwards to celebrate. It was lovely outside but so cold that they were anxious to get into the warmth and they walked briskly, watched by a few curious passers-by in the little Oxford back street with its rows of neat terraces.

Nance looked a picture of health. In the three months since she’d been with Darius she seemed to have filled out and her eyes were alive with happiness.

‘I’ve got muscles on me like bed-knobs!’ She laughed. ‘Eh Darius – bring the bride a drink, will yer!’

They were a small wedding party, but they settled down very happily together. Old Mrs Simons became quite merry drinking glasses of ginger wine. Maryann sat between Nancy and Joel.

‘Well – there’s not many of us, but we wish you well,’ Mrs Simons said, raising her glass. ‘You’re a lovely girl and I know you’ll make our Joel very happy.’

They all drank to Joel and Maryann’s health. Nance nudged Maryann.

‘My wedding to Mick was quite a big do and look where that got me,’ she said quietly. ‘You be happy, my girl.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Maryann said. She thought to herself that if she’d had the finest wedding in the land she couldn’t be happier. She laid her hand over Joel’s under the table and he smiled and leaned close to kiss her.

Maryann and Nance had a good old chinwag about adjusting to life on the cut, catching up on the past couple of months. After a month apart, when Darius had gone off to earn some money with Fellows, Morton and Clayton and Nance had stayed on the
Esther Jane
, the two of them had got their own Barlow boat and Joel had said he felt strong enough to cope – especially now the boat had an engine.

‘I tell yer, Maryann,’ Nance said. ‘Some nights I’m so tired I’m near falling asleep standing up and I’m dreaming the engine’s still going at night even when it ain’t.’ Maryann nodded her agreement. ‘I never knew what work was till I went off with Darius. ’E’s ’ad a right go at me a few times when I get things wrong. Still, I learned a lot off Joel when I was still with you so it could be worse. And I tell yer summat, I wouldn’t swap it for the world – when yer get up in the morning and look out on the fields all white with frost and the sun coming up – never seen anything like that in my life before.’

‘You don’t miss the old life then?’ Maryann asked.

‘Sometimes, when I’m trying to do a wash and get it hung out and moving about in that cabin I curse it and wish I ’ad a house to live in. But then when I think back – when I did ’ave, I’ve never felt so miserable in all my life.’ She looked sober for a moment. ‘No. I couldn’t go back. I mean I’ll ’ave to go back
some time
soon – I’ve writ me mom, trying to explain. I know I’ve done Mick wrong and sometimes it weighs heavy on me. But we love each other, me and Darius. I ’ope Mick finds some way of getting on without me – but I wanted a life, Maryann . . .’

Her brown eyes earnestly sought Maryann’s, needing reassurance. Maryann patted her hand. ‘’Course you did.’

‘You been back to Brum?’

‘I was there only last week. Went to see if Tony and Billy could come down for the wedding but Tony daint seem to think ’e could. And I went to see Amy and her mom.’

‘Oh – how are they? What’s ’appened to
him
?’

‘
He
,’ Maryann said, ‘is still in hospital. Janet said his face and the top of him’s burnt so bad you can scarcely recognize him. She was sort of shuddering as she told me. Said ’e’s a terrible sight – it all got infected and it’s taking time to heal.’

‘Serves the bastard right.’

‘She said she daint think he’ll find any more young widows with families to charm his way into. Said they’d run away at the sight of him.’

‘What about those poor girls of ’ers?’

‘She and Amy are just living quietly together. She’s taking in some sewing – it’s very hard for ’er to get by but they’re managing. She says she don’t care what she has to do just so long as she can keep Amy safe. Amy seems awright – much more cheerful, though heaven knows – the scars run deep, Nance . . .’

‘Poor child. What about Margaret though?’

‘Well—’ Maryann’s face clouded. ‘They’ve still got ’er in the asylum. She ain’t right. God alone knows what he did to her. Her mom’s worried to death and she visits, but she’s that busy trying to make ends meet. She says they can still barely get the kid to say a word.’

Nance made a hissing sound through her teeth and was interrupted before she could say anything by Joel leaning over.

‘My dad wants to say summat.’

They all looked at old Darius Bartholomew. Slowly he got to his feet and his stooped figure loomed above them.

‘It’s a very happy day for us all today,’ he began ponderously, then stopped and cleared his throat. ‘Turns out I’ve known the lass what’s marrying our Joel since she were a nipper, and a fine young woman she’s turned out to be.’ He paused and Maryann smiled, blushing with surprise. ‘It’s a pity today couldn’t be the wedding of both my living sons. My Esther Jane, God rest ’er, would’ve taken both daughters-in-law to ’er heart, even if they was off the bank.’ It was Nancy’s turn to go red. Darius said no more about her situation. It was a difficult one, but they could all see how she and Darius were together and Nancy, who was sturdy and a good worker on the boat, had been accepted.

‘I don’t have no finery to give you both on your wedding day, ’cept my blessing. But there is things I’d like to give to you. My working days on the cut’re over now and it’s no use in thinking they ain’t. So . . .’ He indicated to his sister to pass up a cloth bag from beside the chair and dipped his hand into it. ‘This ’un’s for you, Joel.’ It was his second windlass, the one he’d had to use all the time after Maryann so shamefully lost the first.

Joel soberly nodded his thanks. Both of them knew what it meant: old Darius was handing over the
Esther Jane
after a lifetime’s work.

‘And there’s summat for you too, missy.’ From the bag he drew something black and crumpled, and as he opened it out with his twisted hands, Maryann gasped, seeing the honour that was being conferred on her. It was Esther Jane’s black bonnet.

‘Oh—’ She hesitated then, seeing Joel smiling, took it gingerly from the old man’s outstretched hand. ‘I – I don’t think I deserve this . . .’

‘Well—’ Darius sank into his seat and picked up his glass. ‘Time’ll tell. But you’re a boatwoman now. A Bartholomew. My Esther was my best mate on the cut through good days and bad. Now it’s your turn and Joel’s. You look after each other, eh – and you two an’ all—’ He nodded at Darius and Nance who had tears in her eyes.

They all raised their glasses and Joel turned to Maryann, his face full of love.

‘Best mates.’

She clinked her glass against his and kissed him. ‘Best mates.’

Joel and Maryann had said their farewells for the moment to the family. Darius and Nance were going straight back to pick up a load and get ahead. Darius said they’d be likely to work the Grand Union next.

‘Might not see yer for a bit,’ Nance said as she and Maryann hugged each other goodbye. ‘We’ll get back on the Oxford soon as we can.’

‘Try and get to Napton for Christmas!’ Joel said.

That evening they moved the
Esther Jane
out away from the town and tied up in a beautiful, isolated spot where fields stretched out all around them and the only thing filling the middle distance were the sharp outlines of winter trees against a white half-moon. They left old Jep snoozing in the cabin and stepped out on to the bank in the moonlight. The cold was so intense it seemed to come down on them like a weight, but the sky was full of stars and they wanted to enjoy the sight of it. Joel put his arm round Maryann and they stood close together in silence for a few moments, looking across the silver fields, hearing the gentle slap of the water against the bank. A bird screeched somewhere in the distance, a high, lonely sound. Maryann shivered and snuggled closer to Joel.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said. ‘Feels as if there’s no one around for miles.’

‘Probably ain’t.’

She looked up at him, the pale sheen of moonlight on his face. He was filling out gradually and beginning to look like his strong, burly self. She could hear, though, the loud wheezing of his lungs, an utterly comforting sound because it had always been one which accompanied him, but also a worrying sign of his vulnerability. She knew how close to death he had been, the risk that any illnesses meant to him in the damp atmosphere of the cut. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his face, overflowing with love and gratitude. She would treasure every day with him.

He took her in his arms. ‘So – what happened to the girl who said she would always be called Maryann Nelson?’

She laughed. ‘Fancy you remembering that!’

‘You were very strong on it at the time. Funny, scrawny little thing you were.’

‘I know – well, thanks for changing my mind. Maryann Bartholomew’ll do me well. ’S a funny thing – being married does feel different. Even though we’ve been living on here – I just feel properly married now, ’stead of “living in sin”!’

‘Can’t ’ave you living in sin, can we?’

‘Even if Nance is.’

‘Ah well – what else can they do, eh?’

‘And they’re happy,’ she said.

‘And you?’

She hesitated. ‘Happier than you know . . . Joel?’

‘Umm?’

‘I think, in fact I’m sure – I’m expecting.’

‘A baby – a little ’un?’

She could hear his excitement and she nodded solemnly.

‘Oh,’ he said, awed. ‘My Maryann. That’s lovely, that is.’ Suddenly, laughing, he lifted her off the ground. ‘Oh love – a little ’un!’

They held each other close.

‘Come the summer,’ Joel said, kissing her nose, ‘we could lie out in the fields of a night . . . no one about.’

‘By summer,’ she laughed, ‘I’ll have a belly on me like a barrel!’

‘Well – tonight . . .’

‘Not tonight, no,’ Maryann said firmly, pulling on his hand. ‘I’m turning rigid with cold already. Come on – let’s go in.’

They took one last look at the star-flecked sky, the friendly land spreading out around them, then, still holding hands, they stepped back into the cosy little cabin.

‘If it’s a girl,’ Maryann was saying, ‘let’s call her Ada.’

‘Or Sally,’ Joel said. ‘After your sister.’

‘We’d better have two girls then.’ Maryann laughed.

She and Joel were walking out along the road away from Banbury towards Charnwood House, on a boiling August afternoon, ripe wheat stretching away on either side of them, swaying and rustling in the languorous breeze. On Joel’s shoulders, his legs jutting forward each side of his father’s face was their little son Joel, who had had his first birthday the month before. Maryann, who was four months into another pregnancy, was still looking trim.

‘Margaret’s a nice name,’ she mused. ‘Only it feels unlucky – poor little Margaret.’

‘And Margaret’s – well, she’s not dead like our Ada and your Sally, is she?’ Joel said carefully.

‘Might just as well be, where she is.’ Her voice was so hard and bitter, Joel reached out and touched her shoulder and little Joel gave a squeak of panic as his father loosed one of his legs.

Margaret, like Sal, was someone Maryann tried hard never to think about. Such thoughts had great power to make her feel sick with rage and sorrow and as there was nothing she could do, she pushed them away.

There had been plenty else to think about over the past couple of years. Most of her first year on the cut had been spent pregnant and she found it completely exhausting, with the added worry that if she was able to do less Joel would be forced to work even harder and could fall sick again, so however tired or heavy she was feeling she pushed herself on. Little Joel was born slightly early, on the
Esther Jane
with a nurse present, and Maryann had then been faced with the challenge of bringing up a child in the confined space of the boat. It was all right when he was a tiny baby, but as he grew and began to move about she worried constantly for his safety. More and more she heard stories about infants losing their lives on the cut through accidents or sickness and she became acutely protective of him. But he was a steady, sensible little fellow, even as a young toddler, and he had come well through his first year. She longed now for a daughter who would be a companion for him as he grew up.

Every so often they saw Nancy and Darius. Blackie Black had died of a seizure back in the winter of 1935 and Nance had gone home to visit. While she was there she was afraid she’d have to face Mick. Cathleen told her that a few months after Nancy went, Mick had left too, taken off and no one knew where. Cathleen, in her usual placid way, had not made an issue of her daughter’s actions and was more concerned that they remain on good terms.

Nance and Darius had had a baby son, who in the family tradition they had called Darius and who must, Maryann calculated, have been conceived on about the first night the two of them were together, a fact which gave Nance enormous satisfaction after the agonies of living with Mick.

Every time they passed through Banbury, Maryann had thought fondly of Charnwood and she said to Joel she’d like to go back and visit. She often remembered them all, especially Mrs Letcombe, and she wondered whether Roland Musson had found the courage to leave and make a life for himself, and whether Miss Pamela was married now. She even wondered about Evan. Up until now though, they’d always been passing through or too busy or tired to make the effort. Today, however, it was the
Esther Jane
’s turn to revisit Tooley’s Yard, and the beautiful, sultry day seemed to be calling them out across the fields.

When they turned in at the gate of Charnwood she said, ‘Oh – this does feel peculiar. It all looks just the same as it did – only the trees’ve come on a bit more.’

As they neared the house Joel said, ‘My goodness – this is a smart place. Can’t think why you ever wanted to leave!’