There was a cold black fury in Bunting as he hurried towards his home at the end of the day. He saw himself in a situation that he had been over and over again during the hours since he had met Rosier. He was saddled for life with a woman in the house, and a squawking kid—Rosier’s squawking kid. And for what? A hundred pounds. If he had stood out he would have paid him five hundred. Aye, he would, five hundred. He saw now that Rosier had that night been in the tightest corner of his life. What the real reason was for wanting her married off he didn’t know and he couldn’t guess at it. Certain, it wasn’t the fact that that little loose bitch would give him away, because if that had been her intention she could have done it afore, or she could have got money out of him to keep her family. But he’d know the ins and outs before he’d finished with her. But here he was, saddled with the pair of them. He would have to feed and clothe them for the rest of their lives. At least her he would. The thought brought the sweat pouring out of him. He didn’t take into account that she washed and cooked and cleaned for him; he had done that for himself for years and found it no hardship.
By God, he had been taken for a monkey, hadn’t he? All these months he had held his hand because he didn’t know where she stood with Rosier, but now he knew all right, and he need hold his hand no longer. No, by Christ alive, he needn’t!
He almost put his foot through the door as he entered the house, and Katie turned a startled face on him from the fireplace. He stood for a moment glaring at her, and then towards the child lying in a basket near the window which was open from the bottom. The window gave him something to start on. ‘Close that blasted window. What’s the good of having a fire on and letting the heat out, you bloody fool?’
He had never sworn at her before; and now he didn’t only swear but from him flowed a torrent of obscene abuse. As she filled the bath and poured the clean water over him every action of hers brought a vile stream from him. She was at first stunned by it; then as it continued without ceasing, through the meal and after, it came to her that something had happened, something that had released the real Mark Bunting, for the objectionable, hard, unfeeling man she had lived with since she had married was a nice person compared with this fiendish individual.
To every filthy word he threw at her she said nothing; nor did she retaliate when he almost pushed her on her back as she carried the tub from the kitchen; but when his foot came out to kick at the child’s basket she checked it with a scream that startled herself. ‘Don’t you dare do that!’
He turned round and stared at her. Then a twisted smile spread over his face as he said, ‘I’m glad you’ve got some spunk; it’ll give me all the more pleasure to knock it out of you.’
Not waiting now for him to give her the order when she could go to bed, she lifted the basket with the child in it and carried it up the stairs, and she had just taken off her things and put on her coarse calico nightdress when the door burst open.
‘Come on,’ he said.
‘Wh-at!’ She stammered on the word.
‘You heard what I said. Come on.’
When she made no move he thrust out his hand to grab her, but she crouched against the wall. Then slowly, her eyes riveted on his face, she sidled past him. On the landing she stood transfixed for a moment; then, like someone in a trance, she moved before him into his bedroom.
After banging the door behind him he advanced on her and, grabbing the collar of her nightdress, wrenched it from top to bottom with a twist of his hand and, saying ‘You won’t be needing this any more,’ tore it from her back.
And this was only the beginning of Mark Bunting showing his hand.
It was fourteen nights later. Katie thought of them as nights, for so she had totalled them up. Each evening, like a prisoner approaching the rack, she wondered if she would be able to suffer what was before her. Not the least of her feelings was humiliation. The indignities he heaped upon her crushed her spirit so low that in the agonising, wakeful stillness of the night, when she was afraid to move in case of waking him again, she would tell herself that in the morning she would take the child and go to her mother, but in the light of day she was always deterred by the thought of him following her and what would happen when her father and him came face to face. But she knew that when her ma came on one of her secret visits she would tell her; at least she would tell her that she would have to get away from here, if not all the reasons why. Then she would think that were she to go he could put the police on to her and claim the child. Perhaps it didn’t matter that it wasn’t his; he had taken on the responsibility of it, so he could claim it. There were so many things that seemed to block her way of escape. If only her ma would come. She hadn’t been for the past fortnight; afore that she had been every week.
Then came the beautiful June evening. If she had stood at the door she would have heard the birds singing, she would have seen the rabbits scampering on the moors and a hare sitting in startled surprise at finding himself only a few yards from the gate; but she was busy preparing the meal, and making it as tasty as possible so as to give him no loophole to find fault.
He came in as he had done over the last fortnight, his brows meeting, his mouth tight. Then followed the usual procedure. He tore off his clothes, he got into the bath, he washed his front and she washed his back.
Came the moment when she was about to get the water to rinse him. He had been spitting obscenities at her, just single words, and it was at the precise second when she had filled the bucket half full of boiling water from the kail pot that the child began to cry. It let out a sharp wail, a hungry wail. Katie turned from the stove, the bucket in her hand, to hear Bunting curse and to see him scooping up a ladle full of black-scummed water with the evident intent of throwing it on the child who lay in the corner only a couple of arms-lengths from him; and as she had stopped him from using his foot on the basket with a scream, now she screamed again, ‘Don’t! Don’t do that!’ At the same time, without pausing to think, she threw the water over him.
His scream ascended high above hers; it rent the house. She was knocked flying backwards, and, the settle breaking her fall, she cowered trembling in the corner of it, utterly petrified at what she had done, and done unintentionally.
She watched him dancing like a mad dervish, screaming all the while. Then to the screams were added deep groans, while the fingers of his hands, like those of a blind man, hovered over his neck and shoulders. After a time his screaming stopped and there was only his moaning filling the strange silence. He turned towards her, staring at her; his face looked inhuman, twisted, like a stone gargoyle. The next minute the silence was broken by his loud screaming curses. She was still crouched on the settle and her breathing almost stopped as she watched him scattering his clothes and riving his leather belt from out of the loops of his trousers. Before the buckled end of the belt came down on her she screamed, and she continued to scream as he flayed her round the room. Her own warm sticky blood ran from her fingers, and she thrust them into her wide open mouth as she screamed. When she felt the clothes being torn from her back she clung on to the end of the settle, and when he dragged her forward the settle came with her. And then he was belabouring her again, but she wasn’t screaming so hard now. She had almost stopped screaming when the hammering came on the door. Before she fainted she imagined she saw Joe and heard his voice shouting.
When she slowly came to her senses she actually saw Joe’s face above hers; it was streaming with tears and he was moaning as if he, too, had been almost beaten to death. She tried to speak but found she couldn’t. Her body seemed to be torn in all directions with pain, and then she thought of the child and pushed at Joe and rolled on her side, looking towards the basket. When, after a moment, she pointed, Joe whispered, ‘It’s all right; it’s all right.’ He now helped her to prop herself up against the overturned settle; and there she sat, her eyes glazed and her breath coming in painful jerks.
Slowly her wits returned to her, and now she muttered faintly, ‘Where…whe
re’s he?’
Joe pointed upwards, then whispered, ‘His back is all scalded. He said you did it.’
‘Joe.’
‘Aye, Katie.’
‘Get…get me cloak. It’s on the door…in the scullery.’ She lifted one trembling red hand and pointed.
When Joe returned with her cloak she was on her hands and knees pulling herself upwards. Her clothes were hanging in blood-soaked ribbons from her back, and when she stood on her feet the room swam about her and she had to clutch at Joe to steady herself. Her vision clearing, she now whispered urgently, ‘Can…can you carry her?’
He nodded; and quickly gathering the child up and supporting it on one arm only, he put the other around her waist and led her through the open door.
The main bedroom window faced east and their road from the house lay westwards. As they stumbled on they heard no voice behind them, but before they approached the village Katie could go no farther and she dropped down by the side of the road, and it was only Joe saying ‘Come on, Katie, try and carry on a bit farther; he could catch us up yet’ that got her to her feet again.
When they came in sight of the village there were the men playing quoits, and one turned and looked at the young boy carrying a baby and leading the stumbling girl, and when he made an exclamation in a loud voice the men, almost as one, hurried towards them.
It was Jimmie Morgan, the husband of the midwife, who reached them first, and softly he said, ‘Why lass, what’s happened thee?’ Yet he had no need to ask. Her face and hair were blood-spattered, her neck was bare and a gash along her shoulder-blade was oozing blood still. Through her open cloak they could see her torn, blood-stained clothes.
‘Come, lass,’ said Jimmie Morgan, ‘the wife’ll attend thee,’ and with the help of another man he carried her the rest of the distance.
It was Jimmy Morgan himself who went into Jarrow and brought Rodney. Catherine couldn’t leave William who was dying, and there was Lizzie to see to. It was the message that William wanted to see Katie before he went that had brought Joe to the house.
It was close on nine o’clock when Rodney entered the room. When, in the light of the tallow candle, Katie saw the tall, commanding figure of her da she wanted to throw out her arms to him, but she could move neither hand nor foot. Rodney, kneeling down by the bed and touching her cheek gently, said pityingly, ‘Lass,’ and she whimpered, ‘Oh, Da.’ He did not ask her any questions; he just continued to stare at her, his eyes moving over her face. It was nearly eight months since he had seen her, and she had changed almost beyond recognition. Her eyes were still the same shape, still the same colour, but they were no longer his Katie’s eyes. Her mouth was still the same shape, but it was a trembling, pathetic mouth he was looking at; and the cheeks that had been round were now hollow.
He was aroused from his scrutiny by Mrs Morgan saying, ‘Take a look.’ With this, she pulled down the single blanket, and Rodney, leaning over, saw the distorted mess of open wounds, weals, and discoloured, darkening flesh.
Mrs Morgan’s voice now came to him as if from the far end of a pit drive, saying, ‘I’ve done the best I can, but she should see a doctor.’
‘Aye.’ He got to his feet, his eyes still held by the sight of his daughter’s back, and he said, ‘I’ll get her there. In a little while I’ll get her there.’ Then, turning abruptly, he left the room. And his departure brought Katie to life, and against the pain that racked her she forced out her arms towards him, crying, ‘Da! Da, don’t. Take me home, Da…Da!’
Through the open door she heard Mr Morgan say, ‘I’ll come along of you,’ and her da replying, ‘No, no. I’ll do this on me own. Thanks, Jimmie, but I’ll do this on me own.’ His voice dropped on the last words and they seemed like weights pressing her back on to the bed.
Mrs Morgan pushed the damp hair from her face, saying soothingly, ‘There lass, don’t fret yourself; it’s got to be done. He wouldn’t be your da if he let this pass, an’ if he didn’t do it there’s others who would. The place is up in arms. They’ve been waitin’ for something like this for a long time.’
Although it was impossible for her to think clearly, there was in the back of her mind a deep sense of futility for all she had done over the past months to avoid this moment when her da and Bunting should meet. It wouldn’t, she felt now, have been half as bad as if he had met…the other one, because he wasn’t hated like Bunting was.
It was an hour later when Rodney returned. Katie heard his voice in the other room and she pulled herself up on her elbow and waited for the door to open. When he came in her eyes searched him for evidence of what he had done, but his clothes looked tidy. It wasn’t until her eyes dropped to his hands, with the knuckles broken and running blood, that she whimpered, ‘Oh, Da! Da!’
‘There now.’ He did not touch her but dropped on to his hunkers before her and repeated, ‘There now. Everything’s all right. Don’t worry any more. You’re going home.’
Mr Morgan’s voice came from the doorway, saying, ‘We’ll rig up a sling and the lads will give a hand.’
Rodney turned and looked at Jimmie Morgan, then moved his hand in acceptance, and looking at Katie again, he said, ‘Don’t worry any more. I’m telling you, you’ll never go back. Don’t worry any more.’
Half an hour later they lifted Katie into the canvas sling, a replica of those they used to get injured men from the pit bottom, and, Rodney and Mr Morgan at the front and Mr Morgan’s two sons at the back, they carried her into Jarrow. And they broke their journey to take her to a doctor in the town, because doctors didn’t come out in the night for people who lived in places like No. 3, The Row, and when he had seen to her and asked a number of questions they took her home.
It was about five o’clock the following day that the police came to the house. There were three of them, two dressed in uniform and a man in a black cloth coat and hard hat. Catherine opened the door to them, and her heart almost stopped at the sight of the uniformed men. ‘Is your husband in?’ the man in the ordinary clothes asked.
‘No, he’s at work.’
The police knew that Rodney was at work, but they had no intention of arresting him among a crowd of workmen. They didn’t look for trouble—not the kind of trouble the Jarrow shipyard men could stir up; they experienced enough of that during the strikes. ‘We’ll come in and wait,’ the man said, and the three of them walked into the room.
Katie raised herself on the pallet which was lying near the fireplace. She pressed her joined hands into her breast and stared at the men, her mouth wide open. And she looked from them to her mother as Catherine, her voice trembling, said, ‘What do you want him for?’
There was a long pause before the man in the ordinary clothes said, ‘He’s wanted for the murder of the keeker at the Rosier pit, a man called Bunting. He was found in the ditch this morning with his head split open. He’d also been beaten up and scalded. Nice sight,’ he said bitterly.
‘What! What!’ Catherine held her face between her two hands. ‘My…my husband never did that, not him. He hit him, yes; he hit him because…look.’ She flung her arm wide in the direction of Katie. ‘If you saw what he did to my lass—she’s his wife—any father would do the same. But kill him? No! No!’
‘Well, he’ll have the chance to prove that he didn’t do it. But nevertheless the man is dead.’
‘But who said my man did it? There are others who want rid of him, and my man would never use an implement to anybody. His hands, aye, but nothing else. There’s the whole village lives near to him; it could have been any one of them.’
‘But as things stand the evidence points to your man, missis. You see, the doctor who attended to your girl last night took her name down as Mrs Bunting, and it so happened that he’s the colliery doctor an’ all, and it didn’t take much to put two and two together when he saw the body this mornin’.’
At this point Katie gave a moan and lost consciousness and she didn’t regain it until she heard her father’s voice ra
ised high, crying, ‘I didn’t kill the man. I wanted to but I didn’t. Look, I hit him with me fists—look at me knuckles; but I used no bar on him, an’ I left him glaring at me. He was alive, more alive when I left him than he left my lass. I didn’t kill him, I tell you.’
And then he went out with the men and there was no sound in the kitchen until Catherine let out a shuddering cry, and, flinging herself on the floor, beat the bricks with her fists.
Chapter Ten
It was a week later and Rodney was awaiting trial in Durham Prison. Bunting had been buried. A clerk from the mine had come and asked Katie if she had any wishes concerning the funeral, and when she had turned her head to one side he had apologised and said he had been sent; it was a matter of form. Then another man had come, a Mr Brown, and asked her if she had any money to pay the funeral expenses, and she had rounded on him and cried, ‘No, no. Where would I get money?’ He had then said that it was known that her husband hadn’t been without money; he had been a careful man. Did she know where he kept his money? Again she had said no, except that he carried it around with him. ‘You can get into trouble for withholding it,’ he had said darkly, ‘for although you are his widow I doubt whether you would be entitled to it under the circumstances.
It was following this man’s visit that Katie’s mind was forced to move along practical lines. As she said to herself, somebody would have to do something, and soon, because her mother was so overwrought at what had come upon her that she seemed incapable of thinking for herself, let alone for the family. There she had sat, as she was doing now, day after day and far into the night, staring at the wall, rousing herself only when a strange voice was heard at the door. Her mother couldn’t cope any more.
Joe was earning six shillings a week, but that only paid the rent and bought firing; there was nothing left to live on. She herself was in no fit state as yet to look for work, and even if she had been her mother was quite incapable at the moment of seeing to her granda, who was still lingering on, and the child, and Lizzie.
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