The River

The River

Mary watched the murky brown water speed out of sight beneath her feet,
through the middle arch of the bridge, and away to the sea ten miles
away. She wanted to go with it, to be swept to another world but her
feet were heavy on the ground. She rested a hand on the swell of her
stomach and felt a kick inside.

Her feet were rooted here as solidly as the foundations of the bridge.
She'd grown up here and got with child here. Tomorrow she would become
an adult here. Tomorrow Mary Struthers would marry Johnnie Dart.
Tomorrow their parents would force them to right the wrong of one
night's fumbling and prodding in a dusty corner of the churchyard.
Tonight was the last day of her childhood.

The bells rang for evening service at the church where she would be
married in the morning. Mary smoothed the fabric of her skirt stretched
tight against her bursting belly. Some days she loved its curve, she
loved the way it made her feel. Other days, she hated it. When the
button on the waistband refused to fit through the loop, when she was
breathless, when her dinner of brown Brussel sprout tops and watery
stew gathered at the back of her throat and made her gag. Mary was
grateful for the vegetables, picked off the floor of the workshop where
she packed carrots and cabbages and turnips into crates bound for
market at Wanstable, a half day's drive by cart.

Her mother had hit her. Mary had expected that from her father, but the
animal screams that emitted from her tiny mother were sexless in their
anger.

"Bitch. Slut. Trollop."

Mary had stood there, four months pregnant, and taken it in
silence.

"Layin' with that boy. Well you'll pay, young lady, for liftin' your
skirts."

And Mary knew her mother was right. She knew she'd failed as her mother
had failed when she was 16. And now the sin of her mother was being
reproduced in Mary's belly.
Johnnie didn't help her. He'd had a hiding from his father and nursed
his wounds.

"Johnnie, what'll we do?"

"No choice. We muss'en do nuthin' but what they say." He turned away
from Mary when she wanted to rub soothing ointment into his bruised
face, he flinched from her touch and she flinched at his
withdrawal.

Why couldn't he behave like a man, like a grown up, she thought. Why
didn't he take charge as the father of a child should? Instead he poked
fun at Mary's shape and ran away when he saw her coming down the
street. And at a loss for a way to change him, she accepted his
coldness as her due.

For nine months Mary had stood on the bridge every night in the dark
and watched the water run away. But she was trapped. She couldn't run
away. And as her swell grew bigger, Mary left the house only at night
when the voices were silent.

"Look, that's Struther's young 'un. She's in bother and no's the
wonderin'."

"Keep walkin', chil'run. Keep walkin'. Dun' look at that wrong
'un."

Only at night did she feel safe. There were no sideways glances or tuts
or whispers or twitching curtains in the windows of the terraced houses
all around. There were no mothers to bid their children to hurry from
her presence. By day Mary hid from the tutters and the whisperers and
avoided Johnnie who said little and never touched her.

Every night she watched the river flow past the churchyard and past her
house. Every night she breathed in its damp smell of inconceivable
things - of life and death, copulation and battle, of bloated animals
upstream and emptied chamber pots. But despite this, Mary knew the
river was alive. The old villagers said the river was 20 feet deep in
places. A tramp dressed in cow feed bags tied up with bailing twine had
told her once that the river held trout just waiting to be caught but
Mary knew he was spinning a yarn, he couldn't afford the squire's
fishing license. Nor could she. But she knew he was right. When her
father felt lucky he sneaked a dead fish into the house and her mother
would cook it with the windows closed to hide the illegal smell from
the constable.

Mary looked at the river, fascinated by the other world hidden beneath
a surface that looked solid enough to walk upon, like Jesus had walked
on the lake. A hidden world of comings and goings, of trout and eels
and frogs. Of currents and eddies. Of reeds and weeds. Of things being
born and rotting, side by side. Of water always on the move, escaping
down stream away from Barsteeple Bridge.

As the sun climbed into the sky and the morning bile rose to her
throat, Mary would turn for home.

She'd only parted her legs for Johnnie the once. He'd told her every
girl did it, she was the only one who was afraid, she was the only girl
in the village not to have done it. So she'd let him do what he had to
do. She might have enjoyed it if he'd kissed her or stroked her, but
he'd pushed her to the ground and she'd turned her head away as he
pushed again.

When her bleeding had stopped and her waist had thickened, Mary hid her
changing shape as long as she could. Then one morning, five months ago,
her mother recognised herself in her daughter.

"Bitch. Slut. Trollop."

She had held Mary tightly by the roots of her hair and twisted her
until she felt like a rabbit caught in one of her father's traps. She'd
cried at each blow and cried again in the evening when her father
expressed his displeasure. She turned her head from his pungent ale-old
breath, but no-one came. The neighbours closed their ears to the noise
as the Struthers turned a deaf ear to the nightly wife beating behind
closed doors.

Next morning they nodded at Mary as she left for work.

"Mornin' now Mary."

And though she folded her hands in front of her, their eyes had drifted
to her swell like metal filings to a magnet.

Bert Crest, the grocer, had seen Mary that night walking away from the
churchyard at dusk with Fred Dart's youngest son and Bert understood
what had happened. He'd been 16 once and he'd taken Fred Dart's sister
to the churchyard. Four months later as her condition had shown itself
he'd married her without smiling, without hymns or wedding tea, just a
marriage certificate to prove the child wasn't a bastard.

It was the way of Barsteeple. Mary had stood many times by the church
gate and watched the hasty weddings of older girls who put right the
wrong of their fornication with marriage vows. Only afterwards were the
girls, now officially women, accepted again by the village. Everyone
got on with their lives until 16 years later the pattern repeated as
sons and daughters followed the example of mothers and fathers. And for
Mary and her family, the Darts and the Crests, this intermingling of
blood, co-joining of genes, and grafting of roots was part of the
natural process of the village which most accepted. Those that didn't
like it left. Sam Dart, Johnnie's eldest brother had run away to sea
rather than marry his conquest and Johnnie's nephew ran around the
village ignored by the Dart family. Those that couldn't run had to
stay.

On the Sunday night before her wedding, Mary stood on the bridge and
tried to picture what the sea looked like. She imagined a river so wide
she couldn't see the other side and wondered if this was how the sea
was. She'd seen a map book in the schoolroom once that showed the earth
covered by sea, much more blue sea than brown land.
The river was Mary's friend. In the summer she dived in and felt its
water slap her white body like a cold fish. In the winter she walked by
its side, crooned to it, talked to it, entrusted her secrets to it. And
then her secret had escaped, as she feared it would. She'd seen Bert
Crest hiding behind the stone wall outside the churchyard that night it
happened. So she'd held her head high and walked behind Johnnie who'd
ran down the hill to his supper without a glance back for her.

It had been bitter cold the morning that it had all come out five
months ago. She'd dressed as well as she could under the bed clothes
and tried not to let the cold spill under the covers to chill the warm
musky air of her sleep. She'd tied the errant button and loop with a
piece of string and pulled her blouse loosely over her budding waist
and breasts. Downstairs, thankful that her father was on early shift at
the mine, she'd spooned oatmeal into a pot and added a spoon of salt.
She heard her mother talking outside. When she saw Bert Crest nod
towards the kitchen and then up the hill towards the churchyard, she
abandoned her bowl. But she was too tardy.

"Bitch. Slut. Trollop."

Her mother had caught her at the bottom of the stair.

Mary hadn't gone to work that day. She'd run to the river and walked
until she was miles from anyone's sight, her head dizzy and her legs
wobbly, a foot-shaped bump stuck out of her belly. She daren't touch it
in case it moved. She sat by the water all day and nursed her bruises,
watching purple flushes the colour of ripe plums rise to the surface of
her skin: tattoos of her mother's anger.

She turned for home as the sun fell and found Johnnie standing by the
kitchen table, his cap in hand. She thought he looked like a boy sent
by his father to do a man's job.

They had no ring, there were to be no flowers in the church tomorrow or
new dress for Mary. She would gain two dependants: a child-like husband
and a baby in a few days time. Its head was turned in the right
direction, dropping low. Tomorrow, said Johnnie, she must stand before
the altar with her knees pressed together. More's the pity she didn't
do that nine months ago, was her mother's reply.

Now, on her last night of childhood, Mary alone stood on Barsteeple
Bridge, away from the bickering, and watched the river flow away,
constant, steady, and reliable. Then she dived in.