Read Online The Narrowboat Girl by Annie Murray - Free Book Online Page B

With a terrible jolt she remembered the earlier
events of the day. Tiger was lying there in Nanny’s house, at the bottom of the stairs! And soon Mrs Leadbetter would come, and Norman would come – she would be sent to fetch him. No
– she couldn’t stand any more.
    The front door was ajar as she went quietly into the house. There was no sign of the cats, but the fusty, urine-soaked atmosphere in there persisted. Maryann picked up Tiger’s body,
cradling him in her arms once more.
    ‘Mom,’ she called up to Flo. ‘There’s a Mrs Leadbetter coming. She said she’d be about ’alf an hour.’
    ‘Oh thank God yer back,’ Flo called down the stairs. Maryann heard her coming closer and she shrank back. ‘Now listen to me, wench – there’s a few jobs I need yer
to do.’
    ‘What’s them, Mom?’ Maryann was creeping back through the downstairs room. As her mom descended the stairs, her feet loud on the boards, Maryann pushed the door open and
slipped out. She was away and across the yard in seconds.
    She was running as if her life depended on it, as if by doing so she could escape the terrible events of that day. She still had the feeling of being in a dream.
    It’s not true, she thought. None of it. Please let it not be true.
    Clutching Tiger against her chest was making it hard to breathe and she stopped for a moment when she’d turned out of Ledsam Street and stood panting under a lamp. For the first time she
tried to think where she might go. If she went home Norman would be there. Before, she’d have run to Sal to pour out everything that had happened, but Sal was so odd and shut off from her
nowadays. And she could go to Nance’s. They’d be kind to her, but she couldn’t face being there tonight. The house was always so smelly and chaotic and you never knew what state
Blackie might be in.
    Running on, she climbed through the gap in the fence and down into the cut, near to the bridge where the road passed over the canal. Down on the path, she was suddenly forced to stop. It was so
dark! It felt as if a blanket had been thrown over her head and she couldn’t see where to take her next step on the muddy path. From under the bridge she could hear, magnified, the drip of
water and behind her, in the distance, the clink of a horse’s harness. Thank God, someone was coming along – she wasn’t alone down here!
    She waited a few moments as it came closer, seeing the dim light from the oil lamp on the boat growing stronger, and the shadowy movement of the horse along the bank. She pressed back to let it
pass, not wanting to attract attention to herself, then followed on behind. The boat was a joey, a long open cargo boat with a tiny cabin at the back, and a man was standing up at the back,
steering it in towards the bank. The carrying area was filled with a dark, gleaming cargo of coal on its way to fuel a factory boiler-house in Birmingham. The horse was walking slowly, wearily, but
at a steady pace. As the prow of the boat slid alongside the bank, another man, who Maryann hadn’t even noticed, jumped across on to the bank in front of her and reached for the horse’s
harness.
    ‘Awright!’ he called out. ‘Come on,’ he said to the animal. ‘Let’s just get ’ome now.’
    Maryann was extremely glad of their presence. She knew that sooner or later something would have come along on this busy stretch of water, but the idea of walking along the path, edged by dark
warehouses and wharves was very frightening. She soon realized, as the joey continued its journey in front of her, that another boat was following not far behind. She waited for it to pass and saw
it was a horse-drawn family boat, also laden down with coal. She couldn’t read what it said on the cabin in the darkness, but it looked the same sort of boat as the Esther Jane and she
followed behind, holding Tiger, comforted by the leathery creak of the horse’s harness. They passed under bridges and between such a density of