The Narrowboat Girl Page 2

  God bless our soldiers

  Guard them each day

  Make them victorious

  All the way.

  In the great conflict

  May they endure,

  And God bless our soldiers

  And make victory sure.

  In the early months after he came home, he would ask for the song, and when they sang it he would sit on their bed, his shoulders beginning to shake until he was weeping uncontrollably. It had frightened them at first, but he was such a kind, gentle man that they used to sit beside him and put their arms around him. Flo had become resigned to his suffering and fractionally more understanding. They had had the two boys, who filled Harry with joy. It had taken years, but now, with the passing of time and the help of his family, in particular his children, Harry Nelson knew that the emotional wounds of the war were slowly healing.

  Now he no longer wept when they sang to him. He sat quietly listening, then stood up as they finished.

  ‘Nice voices, you wenches. Sleep tight.’

  Maryann listened to him going slowly down the stairs to see the boys, the familiar creaks of each tread. She closed her eyes. She felt safe and warm and loved. Later, looking back at those cosy nights, she would wonder how she could have taken them for granted, when they were all too soon snatched away.

  Two

  It happened two months later, quickly, horribly, all in an afternoon.

  Maryann was with her friend Nance. Nancy Black had been Maryann’s best pal ever since they’d started school together. Maryann loved going to the Blacks’ because there was always something going on. Even when Nance’s dad came home tanked up he never took any notice of her – he and Mrs Black had a right lot of shouting matches, but he’d never done her any harm. As often as not when he arrived, Maryann and Nance’d shoot across the road to Maryann’s house to keep out of the way until the trouble died down.

  The Black family consisted almost entirely of boys: Nancy was sandwiched between three older and four younger brothers. Her dad, Joe Black, known as Blackie in the district, scratched what might have been a reasonable living as a cooper, going round the yards mending the maiding tubs, if he hadn’t parked his barrow and drunk his earnings away most afternoons. Nancy’s mom, Cathleen Black, had a head of salt and pepper curls, one crossed eye and a moany voice. Maryann’s mom said Cathleen Black was a Catholic and ‘not up to much’ and having one eye crossed like that ‘served her right’. Nancy said her mom was born like that so Maryann never understood how it could serve her right. Did God do things like that? Didn’t he like Catholics? And was that why she had to take in washing and cart other people’s bundles off down the pawn shop on a Monday morning to make ends meet?

  ‘Well, it’s no good relying on that drunken bastard,’ Cathleen said, placidly, of her husband. ‘Or we’d all’ve starved to death by now.’ But then, with a distant look in her eyes, she’d add, ‘’E was never like that before the war.’

  Cathleen Black seemed to overlook the fact that Nancy was a girl most of the time and except for school, Nance wore her brothers’ cast-off shorts and shoes, and her hair, black and curly as her mom’s, was cropped short. Nance strutted about with her elbows stuck out and you didn’t cross her. She was tough. Flo Nelson said it was a shame, her never looking like a proper girl, but she was damned if she was passing down her girls’ clothes to people like that.

  It was chilly that November afternoon, threatening rain, the air damp and rank with factory smells from all around and the stink of the yard privies. Both Maryann and Nancy had been ordered to keep an eye on their baby brothers, and Billy Nelson and Horace Black were at one end of the long, narrow yard, playing with a collection of marbles.

  ‘Don’t you go putting ’em in yer mouth, Horace,’ Nancy shouted to him. ‘They ain’t rocks for sucking.’

  Billy’s fair head and Horace’s dark one were close together and they kept picking up the marbles, throwing them at the wall, watching them bounce off and roaring with laughter.

  ‘They’re awright,’ Nancy said, long-sufferingly. ‘Let’s leave ’em be.’

  She strode over in her patched, baggy shorts to where two of her older brothers, Jim, thirteen and Percy, ten, were trying to cobble together their own cart out of a wooden meat-crate they’d bought for tuppence – the proceeds of selling empty jam jars – and some old pram wheels.

  ‘Get lost!’ Perce scowled at her as he did something important with a piece of wire. ‘You’ll only muck it up.’

  ‘Let’s play hopscotch,’ Maryann suggested. ‘I gotta bit of chalk.’

  For all her boyish ways, Nancy loved having another girl to play with. Blowing on their cold hands, they ran up the yard and started marking out a hopscotch grid. Nance started the game, throwing a pebble along the ground and jump-hopping back and forth. Mrs Black came out of the house with a scarf over her head and a cigarette jammed in one corner of her mouth and started hanging out a line of washing. She took the fag out and turned to them. ‘Yer’d better not muck this lot up or I’ll belt the pair of yer.’

  The girls ignored her. One or other of their moms said this to them several times a week every week and had done ever since they could remember. It had the same effect as ‘Don’t get dirty’, which also went straight in one ear and out the other.

  ‘Is yer dad in yet?’ Maryann whispered to Nancy as she took her turn on the hopscotch.

  Nancy pulled her mouth down and shook her head. Not many minutes later though, they heard his voice in the entry, mumbling furiously to himself as he staggered along. He was a red-eyed, barrel-chested man, with such skinny legs to support his rotund girth that they looked as if they’d been pinched off someone else’s body. He came lurching into the yard, cap in hand and swearing fit to blister paint.

  ‘Oh, ’ere we go,’ Cathleen Black said, vanishing inside her house to clear away the breakables.

  Blackie stormed into the middle of the yard and bawled, ‘Someone’s nicked me fuckin’ barrer!’

  Nancy and Maryann looked at each other. Nancy’s big brown eyes rolled expressively skywards.

  Jim and Percy straightened up at the end of the yard. Other neighbours round the yard barely turned to look, this was such a usual occurrence. Blackie’s favourite watering hole was the Beehive Inn in the next street. He’d bring his barrow, loaded with iron strips for mending the maiding tubs in which everyone did their washing, and leave it out at the front of the pub. By the time he came out it had almost invariably gone – moved for a lark by local lads who then watched Blackie’s alcohol-befuddled indignation at its disappearance. Week after week he never seemed to remember that if he left the barrow outside the pub, the same thing would happen. That, Flo Nelson said, was because he was ‘so bloody thick yer could stand a spoon up in ’im’.

  ‘You sure, Dad?’ Jim said, cautiously.

  Blackie attempted to stride masterfully towards them, but ended up struggling to keep his balance.

  ‘’Course I’m bleedin’ shewer! What d’yer take me . . .’

  ‘It’ll turn up, Dad,’ Percy said. ‘It always does, don’t it?’

  He and Jim weren’t going to volunteer to go and get it and face the jeering ridicule of the lads in the next street.

  ‘Someone’s nicked my . . .’ Blackie was just beginning all over again, when Sal came rushing up the entry, her face white as a china doll’s.

  ‘Maryann – oh Maryann!’ she cried, then burst into hysterical sobbing. At the sight of her sister’s emotion, a sick, cold feeling came over Maryann. For a moment they all stood numbly, waiting.

  ‘Our dad’s been in an accident,’ Sal blurted out at last. ‘A terrible accident.’

  Cathleen Black left her sozzled husband to his own devices, picked up grime-streaked little Horace and marshalled all the children across the road to the Nelsons’ house. Maryann immediately caught hold of Tiger and hugged him to her. Her chest felt tight, as if it was going to tear open. Nancy watched her with wide, concerned eyes.
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  ‘Our mom’s up the h-hospital.’ Sal sat down, still crying, at the table. ‘This copper come and said our dad’d been hit by a c-car and ’e couldn’t come home and Mom had to go with him. M-Mom told me to come over and get Maryann and stay ’ere with Tony and Billy till ’er gets ’ome.’

  ‘Did the copper say ’ow yer dad is?’ Cathleen stood over her. She couldn’t stand Flo Nelson, always looking down her nose as if from a great height, but she was fond of the Nelson children, and she couldn’t just leave the kids in a state like this.

  Sal shook her head. Maryann started crying then. They’d taken her dad away and she’d never been inside a hospital and didn’t know what it was like, only they looked big, frightening places, and he was hurt and she just wanted him home and everything to be back to normal. Her tears started Tony and Billy off crying too, and Horace looked at them all and began bawling as well.

  The evening passed like a terrible, blurred dream. They tried to eat the mash and mushy cabbage Mrs Black cooked for them, but Maryann felt as if her throat had closed up and she could hardly swallow. The older ones went out into the yard after tea, but all Maryann wanted to do was play with Tiger and hold him tight.

  Nancy tried to get her involved in a game, but Maryann just shook her head. Her dad, was all she could think of. She ached for him to come home, to pick up Tiger in his big hands and say, ‘How’s our little moggy then?’ But the evening dragged on and still he didn’t come, and neither did their mother. Everything felt strange and horrible.

  It was after eleven when Flo Nelson finally walked in. Cathleen had got Tony and Billy to bed. Tony had cried and screamed and Maryann went up and sat with him, stroking his head until his eyes closed, his distraught little face relaxing finally into sleep. Sal and Maryann had been adamant that they would not go up until their mom came back. They sat silently at the table, Nancy with them, draped wearily over its surface, too tired to do anything and too worried to sleep. The younger Black boys had dozed off on the floor and Horace was fast asleep on his mother’s lap with his thumb in his mouth. His nose was bunged up and his breathing was the loudest sound in the room.

  Despite the fact that Cathleen Black barely ever set foot in her house normally, Flo Nelson showed no surprise at them all being there. As she came in through the door, Maryann knew immediately that everything was different. Her mother’s eyes wore the glazed, exhausted look they had had in the days after she had given birth to Billy, only then she had been cheerful, had carried him proudly about. Now her pained, defeated body looked as if she had been punched so hard she would never stand straight again. She closed the door and turned, seeming unable to raise her head and look at them all.

  ‘How is ’e?’ Cathleen said, softly. She struggled to her feet, still holding her sleeping son.

  Flo Nelson shook her head. She couldn’t speak. After a moment she put her hands over her face.

  ‘’E’s not . . .?’ Cathleen was deeply shocked. She hadn’t thought it would be the very worst. Not this. ‘Flo, ’e’s not . . .?’

  Flo nodded, hands still over her face. Slowly she pulled them away, staring at the table, not looking directly at anyone. ‘Ten o’clock. ’E never came round – never knew what happened. ’E was in Icknield Port Road – it was a motor car knocked ’im down – his head . . .’ She put a hand to her own head. At last she looked directly at her neighbour, eyes wide with shock and bewilderment.

  ‘He was on the Somme, Cathleen. He came all through the Somme.’

  Maryann and Sal lay clinging to one another in the cold darkness.

  ‘We’ll never see ’im again,’ Sal sobbed.

  The word ‘never’ stabbed through Maryann like a sharp sword. Never. Ever. No – it couldn’t be true. Wasn’t real. Tomorrow he would come back, she’d wait for him outside the pub, take Tiger for him to stroke with his long, rough fingers. Sundays they’d go down the cut or go over to Edgbaston reservoir with a fishing line and a jam jar. She’d hear him slowly, wearily climb the stairs to say goodnight, the same rhythm of his tread night after night . . . Never. Never again. She pressed her face against Sal and felt sobs jerk out from the very depths of her body. Everything felt frightening, and cold and utterly lonely.

  Three

  During the time between Harry’s death and the funeral, his children stayed away from school. Flo couldn’t cope with any of it and the girls had to take over their brothers completely. Sal minded Billy, while Maryann looked after Tony, helping him get dressed, trying to keep him occupied and out of Flo’s way. For two days their mom scarcely moved from her bed, lying there with her pale hair matted round her head, face swollen with crying, and it was Nanny Firkin who came to take charge. She was not one for kisses or cuddles but she kept them fed and her busy presence in her rustling black dress was a great source of comfort. As she had all through the war, Flo leaned on her mother for help. Nanny Firkin came and cooked for them and stayed with the children while Flo hauled herself out of bed to go to the undertaker’s on Monument Road, to make arrangements.

  ‘Where’s my dad?’ Tony kept asking. He was five, and he didn’t understand death. His dark-eyed little face was so solemn, so hurt, that Maryann could hardly stand looking at him.

  ‘’E’s not coming ’ome again, Tony,’ she said, gently at first.

  ‘Why? Where’s our dad gone?’

  ‘’E’s – ’e’s had an accident, Tony, and ’e ain’t coming back.’ She sat him on her lap, cuddling him, stroking his soft, squashy legs.

  Night-time was the hardest, when he didn’t come back from work. They couldn’t hear his voice through the floorboards from downstairs, his loud yawn as he came up to see them. The house felt so quiet and empty. Their mom’s sobbing was the only thing they heard, sometimes with Nanny Firkin’s voice trying to comfort her.

  ‘What ’m I going to do?’ she kept saying over and over again. Every time she said it Maryann froze inside. Her mom was afraid they’d all starve! ‘Four children and no ’usband! ’Ow’re we going to get by? It were bad enough in the war, but then you ’ad to put your own troubles aside when they were over there fighting. But now there’s four instead of two, and there’ll be no end to it all . . .’

  ‘You’ll ’ave yer widow’s pension,’ Nanny Firkin said.

  ‘But that’s next to nowt! ’Ow’m I going to keep ’em fed and clothed?’ She was tearful again. ‘Life’s cruel – so cruel. After all these years, these bloody ’ard, struggling years, Harry gets ’imself a decent job and then this ’as to go and ’appen!’ She sank into a chair by the table and broke down. ‘We’ll not ’ave a stick of furniture – I’ll ’ave to sell it all. Oh, I can’t go through all that again – I want a bit of rest and comfort in my life, not scratching and scraping for every farthing till the end of my days!’

  Nanny Firkin pursed her lips. It grieved her more than she could ever express that Harry had been killed. She’d loved the man like a son and her own heart was leaden with it and even more at the sight of her grandchildren’s faces, especially little Maryann, so like him in looks and his favourite. The child was heartbroken, clinging to that kitten. They should have had a better life, Harry and Flo. Married at eighteen, then Sally had come along. Harry had an apprenticeship then and they looked set for a fair passage. He was going to work his way up to being a skilled worker, then emigrate with his family. There’d been big advertisements before the war, asking for people to go to Australia. That was Harry’s dream, to start a fine new life away from the stink of Birmingham factories and the shabby, vermin-ridden houses of old Ladywood.

  ‘I’ve got the energy of two men,’ he used to say. ‘You’ll see, Mother Firkin. This family’s going up in the world, up and out of ’ere and right the other side of the world. Flo and me’ll live like kings – and we’ll see to it you do as well. You can come and join us when we’re all set up.’

  And then the war came, and instead they faced the shadow of a man whom the fighting had spat out and sent home to them: used, then d
iscarded, abandoned to eke out a future on ruined health and confidence, on shattered nerves. Whatever rays had broken through from that bright, possible future had faded and gone out and now all was darkness for Flo.

  But Nanny Firkin had never been one to get carried away by dreams. You could dream, oh yes, dreams were what kept you going, kept you living one day after another. But stepping right into them and thinking life would pull itself round just to suit you – that was something else. Moonshine, that was. She watched her daughter’s grief, day after day, and she saw things very clearly as they were.

  ‘Well, Flo,’ she said in her cracked little voice. ‘You know I’ll give yer all the help I can. It’s no hardship to me spending time with my grandchildren – when I’m allowed,’ she added rather tartly. Flo looked up at her, her tear-stained face desperate. ‘But as for you, you’re gunna have to get yerself a job, one that pays enough to keep this family together. I can’t do that for yer, Flo, I’m past all that. If I ’ad anything to give yer, yer could ’ave the teeth out of my head, but I ain’t even got them now. You’d best get yerself into a factory on the best wages yer can find.’

  In Loving Memory of

  Harold Nelson

  Who entered into rest 16th Nov 1926

  Aged 33 years

  Interred at Lodge Hill Cemetery

  Funeral furnished by N. Griffin & Son, Monument Road

  Harry’s funeral was held at St Mark’s Church, next to St Mark’s School, where Maryann and the others attended. Maryann sat next to Tony in the immense gloom of the church while grand words from the Book of Common Prayer whirled round her head. Her dad’s coffin was draped with a Union Jack, the reward of respect given to a serviceman of the war.

  At the cemetery they stood round in watery sunshine and a cold wind. Flo was distraught. She seemed to have no comfort to give to her family. She stood across the grave from them, being consoled by her younger brother Danny and his wife Margie. It was Nanny Firkin who stayed close to the children, arms stretched out, trying to spread her tiny frame behind them like a fan. Tony clung to Maryann. As they lowered the coffin into the grave, Tony turned and buried his face against her.