Katie Mulholland

by Catherine Cookson

  Lizzie would sit for hours without moving, and if she wasn’t taken to the water closet regularly she would do her business where she sat. Yet she couldn’t always be depended upon to sit where she was put, for there were odd times when, as if obeying a beckoning finger, she would rise suddenly and leave the house if not detained, and once outside she would walk and walk. Once she was missing for nearly a day and had been found by a carrier outside Newcastle. He had recognised her and brought her home, and she had not been scolded but welcomed as if she was a member of the family on whom they all depended. But these sudden infrequent spurts of energy made vigilance necessary where she was concerned. Her talk was such as would be expected from a child of two, and now, on the sight of her sister, her flat face stretched into a shapeless smile and she muttered, ‘Katie.’ And when Katie went and stood by her side and said, ‘Hello, Lizzie,’ Lizzie placed her big head on the slender breast. It was an action of endearment that she kept for Katie alone; she never did it to her mother, or father, grandfather, or brother.

  It was the act of Lizzie leaning on her breast that suddenly reminded Katie of what was secreted there, and, turning her head swiftly towards the open door, while she gave her hand to Lizzie and pulled her to her feet, she cried, ‘Ma! Ma! What’s come over me. You know what I forgot?…Me pay.’ She swiftly undid the two buttons of her dress, unloosed the tape that tied her bodice, then thrust her hand inside the neck of her chemise and unpinned the calico bag. Her breath was coming quickly and she gabbled now, ‘You wouldn’t believe it. That’s all I’ve thought of for days, getting me wages, and I couldn’t get home quick enough, but since I come in the door I haven’t thought a thing about it. Would you believe it?’

  She bent her slender body towards Catherine and pressed the calico bag into her hands, and Catherine slowly shook the four shillings out, looked at them, then swiftly opened her arms and drew her daughter to her, and as swiftly she pushed her away again. Unclenching her fist and holding out her palm with the money in it, she said in a voice that was cracking slightly, ‘You must have a shilling back every month.’

  ‘A shilling, Ma! No, no, I don’t want a shilling.’ Katie’s voice was high and she shook her head from side to side. ‘The threepence will do. Mrs Davis has got half a crown saved up for me, now; I don’t want a shilling.’ She pushed her mother’s hand away, and so quickly that the money spilled on to the floor, and immediately she was on her hands and knees picking it up. One of the shillings had rolled into a mud-filled crevice between two of the stones, and when she dug her finger in to get the coin she disturbed the earth and a strong obnoxious smell rose to her and filled her nostrils. The smell in the house was always worse in the summer when the water from the middens seeped under the foundations and oozed upwards. In the winter the rain dispersed it more quickly.

  When the four coins were retrieved they all laughed. Katie now opening the back door, stood under the lean-to and rinsed her fingers in the wooden tub of water that stood on a bench attached to the wall.

  She looked towards the cottage opposite, and over the yard walls she saw the head of Betty Monkton standing at her door. Betty called out to her, ‘Oh, hello, Katie,’ and she called back, ‘Hello, Betty,’ before turning indoors again.

  At one time she had played with Betty, but it was a long, long time ago, and now she felt different and far removed from Betty, for Betty worked in the rope works and her father drank and her mother was feckless. Besides, they didn’t go to chapel or church. Katie knew she was wrong in looking down on Betty Monkton, but she couldn’t help it; it was because her own family was respectable and looked up to, even with their Lizzie being wrong in the head. It made her feel different. And then, hadn’t she a fine job at the Manor?

  She had just seated herself when the clip-clop of her granda’s foot and crutch came to her from the yard and she jumped up and ran to the back door in time to see the old man hastily putting a small sack under the bench.

  ‘Aw, there you are, me bonny lass.’ With an expertness born of eleven years’ practice, he almost jumped over the step, and, pushing his crutch against the wall, he enfolded his granddaughter in his arms.

  ‘Aw, hinny; it seems years. Let me look at you.’ Balancing on one leg, he held her away from him now, his hands on her shoulders. ‘Eeh, you’re growin’; I can see it more every time you come home. But you’re not putting much fat on you.’ His voice ended on a high inflection, and he tapped his fist gently against her chin. ‘With all the grand feeding you tell us you get you’ve got little to show for it.’

  ‘Aw, Granda.’ She smiled widely at him. ‘How you keepin’?’

  ‘Fine, fine. Never felt fitter in me life. Come on, let’s sit down and hear your crack.’ He pulled his crutch to him and moved into the room, and his daughter brought a wooden, high-backed chair from against the wall and placed it in the circle at the other side of Katie.

  Now Katie looked from one to the other. Then, resting her eyes on her mother, she asked, ‘I won’t wait for me da then.’

  Before Catherine could reply William Finley put in, ‘I wouldn’t count on him for the next hour.’ He looked over Katie’s head towards his daughter. ‘There’s blokes makin’ for the chapel, some comin’ over the hills. There’ll likely be a lot of talk afore the Sunday school starts.’

  Catherine looked away from her father for a moment. She wished they hadn’t to use the chapel. Yet if they were seen talking outside, especially to Mr Ramshaw and Fogerty, they’d be suspected of starting trouble. She always had a fear on her of them up top starting the evictions again. They had threatened to pull down the chapel next time; and it wouldn’t take much pulling down, being little more than a lean-to against the end of the far block of cottages. The men had had to fight to be allowed to erect it and use it. It was awful; they had to fight for everything. Yet they didn’t want to fight, they wanted to discuss and negotiate, but the masters weren’t for that. They wanted to keep the men under, stamp them as troublemakers and blame the unions for agitating them…But enough of worry; Katie was here, her wonderful little lass, and she was going to hear her news.

  ‘Well,’ Katie began, casting her soft gaze from one to the other, ‘the house is all upside down; you never saw anything like it. They’ve cleaned right from the top to the bottom, and all new satin curtains in the drawing room and dining room and gallery windows.’

  ‘What colour?’ Catherine put in, leaning towards her.

  At this Katie blinked. She had never been in the drawing room or dining room, and only glimpsed the curtains as a distant gleam of colour through the half-open green-baize door when she took the water up to Mary Ann Hopkins. But after a moment’s hesitation she said, ‘Blue—a bird blue, you know, bright. And they’re thick and padded. And they’ve washed the stair carpet. It was out on the lawn, yards and yards and yards of it. And they’ve cleaned the hall from top to bottom. And on Friday they moved the furniture out, ’cos that’s where they’ll dance—you know, to the band.’ She now nodded her head to Joe, and Joe, his thin face full of interest, nodded back to her.

  ‘And you should see the food. All kinds. Oh, you should see what’s in the storeroom already. And Mrs Davis starts the morrow mornin’ making the fancies. She’s marvellous at the trifles and fancies. She makes meringues…O-o-h!’ Katie now worked her jaws and smacked her lips. ‘Talk about meltin’ in your mouth, Ma, they’re wonderful. An’ she’s arranging all the flowers in between the dishes. She’s got a wonderful hand with decorations.’ She moved her head slowly to emphasise this statement, and her grandfather asked, ‘You seen the tables set afore, Katie?’ She stared back at him. If she were to admit she hadn’t actually seen a table set the telling of this tale would lose some of its magic. So she told a little lie. She nodded it first, then she added, ‘Just a peep…once.’

  Following this, she went on to give a long description of the cook and her culinary prowess, omitting her pettiness and carping ways. Then she spoke in glowing terms of her mistress
—whom she could go months without even glimpsing, her mistress who had been to London to buy a dress for the ball. And she described the dress. It was green and made of taffeta and could stand by itself. Oh, it was beautiful. And it had rosettes and leaves sewn all over it in lovely patterns. Katie’s description of the dress was pretty accurate, seeing that it had come through Jane Stockwell discussing it with Mrs Davis, overheard by Daisy Studd, who passed it on to the clientele of the kitchen.

  Then she came to Miss Theresa. She described her unobtrusive arrival, saying that nobody would have known she was in the house if Mr Kennard hadn’t mentioned it. She described her plain way of dressing, which was even plainer than before she married; and turning to her mother now, she ended, ‘She doesn’t look happy, Ma, she looks sad like, the way she walks and hangs her head. Afore she was married, when Miss Ainsley was there, I’ve seen her running and laughin’. They used to go along by the wall a lot up on to the hill, but she’s sad now. I like Miss Theresa, Ma.’

  ‘I know you do, Katie,’ said Catherine, and she didn’t wonder why the seventeen-year-old girl looked sad, married to a man old enough to be her grandfather.

  And now Katie came to the incident in the courtyard. She was adept at turning a joke against herself, and when she finished they were all laughing uproariously, even Lizzie, although she didn’t know what she was laughing at.

  Now Joe asked, ‘Was his clothes all messed?’

  ‘Yes, they were splashed round his gaiters.’

  ‘Did you get wrong?’ Joe asked.

  ‘No. Nobody saw, thank goodness, only Mr Rodger. He was with him. He picked me up.’ She turned her head now and looked at her mother. ‘Mr Rodger’s nice, Ma. He’s like Miss Theresa; kind like, you know.’ Catherine nodded, and Katie went on, ‘He laughed…Eeh! I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t been there. Mr Bernard would likely have raised the yard an’ had Cook out, and then…oh, dear me.’ She drooped her head to one side and closed her eyes for a moment before finishing. ‘She would have hung me up on the spit and left me there all night; I’m sure she would.’ Again they all laughed.

  And so it went on until Rodney Mulholland returned, and then the atmosphere took on a more serious note.

  Rodney now sat beside his daughter, as he did every other Sunday, and heard her read passages from the Bible, and during this Grandfather Finley sat nearer to the fire although the day was hot, and Lizzie continued to stare at her sister, and Joe slept.

  When his father had come in Joe had given up his cracket and gone to the dim corner of the room where stood his parents’ bed, a similar erection to the smaller ones in the other room, and sat on the edge of it; and after a while he had dropped sideways and fallen fast asleep. And his father had not awakened him today and reprimanded him and bid him join in the lesson, but had gently lifted his feet up on to the bed, after placing an old rag between them and the patchwork cover.

  Katie’s reading was slow and she stumbled on the big words and her father made her repeat them, as when she came to ‘atonement’.

  ‘Who shall offer it before the Lord, and make an…’

  ‘Split it into three, a-tone-ment, atonement.’

  Katie nodded and repeated ‘A-tone-ment’; then read, ‘Make an a-tone-ment for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath borne a male or a female. And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two…’

  ‘Tur-tles.’

  ‘Tur-tles, or two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make an a-tone-ment for her, and she shall be clean.’

  Katie didn’t understand a word of what she was reading, but it was nice to read.

  She was ready to go. She had, after some protest, allowed her mother to put six pennies into her calico bag; she had stoutly refused to take a shilling, although with a shilling she would have been much nearer to getting the lace collar and the white cotton gloves that she craved for from the pedlar on his next visit to the back door of the house.

  The procedure was as always. She kissed Lizzie on the cheek and stood still for a moment while her sister rested her head against her, then she patted her and said, ‘Be a good girl, Lizzie; I’ll see you in a fortnight’s time.’ And Lizzie stared at her, and the colour of her eyes changed, indicating that somewhere beyond the dim regions of the stunted brain there was an awareness that understood loss.

  Next Katie stood in front of Joe. She put out her hand and touched his shoulder, and he did the same to her. ‘Try to get more sleep,’ she said.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘Ta-ra, Katie.’

  ‘Ta-ra, Joe,’ she said. Then lifting her arms she put them round her father’s neck and kissed him on the cheek, and he held her tightly for a moment. Then it was her mother’s turn. Her mother did not embrace her until she was actually at the door, and then she, too, held her tightly; after which she traced her fingers gently around her face, straightened her hat, then said, ‘Be a good lass, and please Mrs Davis.’

  ‘I will, Ma. Yes, I will. Ta-ra.’

  ‘Ta-ra,’ they all said, all except her granda, for he always accompanied her on the first mile of her return journey.

  At the end of the row of cottages she turned and waved, and they waved back, and when she and her granda were on the moor making for the road, just before they dropped from sight, she turned again and waved vigorously; then she and her granda were alone.

  For William Finley this was the peak of his granddaughter’s visit, when, side by side, they walked together over the fells. Rain, snow, or shine he had set her on her journey every other Sunday since she had been at the house. Down the shallow valley he hobbled, and up the other side to the high ground, where she would leave him and from where he could watch her progress for almost a mile.

  William was not a God-fearing man like his son-in-law; he did not hold with chapel, or church, but there was scarcely a day went by that he didn’t thank God for giving him his granddaughter; he thanked Him for the light and joy she had brought into the fast-fleeing years of his life, years that would have been corroded with bitterness, because of his infirmity, had she not been there to prove to him that God tempered the wind to the shorn lamb. He had lost his leg in an accident at the Hebburn pit. It was just after they had started to use the Davy safety lamp. Instead of an asset to their work the men of the pit had viewed this new and much-praised acquisition with the same feeling they viewed the men who had introduced it into their working life, for the owners looked upon the safety lamp as if it was Aladdin’s very own, and after its inception they took even less safety precautions in the mine than they had done before.

  The very necessary ventilation shafts were not sunk; why go to such expense when they had this wonderful lamp? And so the danger of bad air that was ever present, the increasing invasions of water, resulted in explosions. Thirty-one men had died in the accident where William had lost his leg. And from that time he had suffered from nightmares, nightmares in which he was suffocating among mangled bodies and blood. He never saw the mangled bodies or blood, he only felt them, for the nightmare always placed him in total and absolute blackness…But in the daytime there had always been the child, his only daughter’s laughing, gay, talkative, lovely child.

  They were now approaching the top of the hill, where she would leave her granda. He was puffing a bit and she said to him, ‘You shouldn’t come this far.’

  ‘You get me a pair of eyes that can see through the hill and I won’t.’ He jerked his head at her.

  ‘But it’s all right now, not like in the winter in the dark.’ She always ran like a hare the last mile or so of her journey in the winter.

  On top of the hill the old man lowered himself down on to the grass, and she sat down beside him, then she undid the front of her bodice, took out her bag again, and, taking three pennies from it, she pushed them in his hand, only to have him say, ‘No, no, I’ll not. I’ll not.’

 
; ‘Go on, Granda; get some baccy.’

  ‘No, lass, no.’ He thrust her hand away. ‘Workin’ for a month for threepence.’

  ‘I don’t, I don’t.’ Her voice was high and indignant. ‘I get four shillings.’

  ‘Aye.’ Now his face looked stern. ‘You get four shillings and it goes to support me.’

  Her eyes stretched, her mouth fell open; then her lips came together and she swallowed as if in indignation and said loudly, ‘Don’t be a silly billy, Granda. What put that into your head? I’d always given me ma me money.’

  ‘Aye, aye.’ His head was moving slowly now. ‘I suppose so.’ Then, turning towards her, he ended, ‘But I’m not takin’ it.’

  ‘You are so. There it is.’ She put the coppers on the ground. ‘And if you don’t pick them up they’ll stay there till they take root.’ She was smiling gently at him and he was looking at her from under his eyebrows. It was at this point they both became aware of the approach of footsteps. They turned simultaneously and looked down the hill, staring for a moment into the distance, where a man was approaching. Then William, screwing his body around, looked directly ahead and said under his breath, ‘It’s Buntin’.’

  Katie looking ahead now said, ‘I’ll get off, Granda.’

  ‘No, sit tight till he’s passed; let him get his distance.’

  Mark Bunting, the master weighman for the owners, or the keeker as he was called by the men, was the man who checked the corves of coal hewed by the miners; he was the man who had the power to cut a man’s wages by as much as half if the seven-hundredweight basket the miner sent up from the black bowels of the earth should show a deficiency of two or three pounds. Often when this happened all the coal in that basket was made free to the owner.

  The same procedure was followed when there was a small quantity of stone among the coal. No account was taken for the men having to get the coal out, even by the light of a candle. The keekers worked on a commission basis; the more corves they found faulty and could pass as free to the owners the more money they themselves made.