Katie Mulholland

by Catherine Cookson

  Katie slowly put her elbow on the table and supported her face on her hand before she said in a tired way, ‘She’s not going into the workhouse, Joe.’

  ‘But as I said’—he was moving towards her now—‘she won’t know; she doesn’t know where she is.’

  Katie’s face jerked from her hand and she stared at him, her tone low and harsh now. ‘Get it into your head, Joe,’ she said, ‘she does know; she’s not just a lump of puddin’. She might look like it, and act like it, but she’s not. I can tell by the look in her eyes when I go near her she’s not. After she’s been left alone for hours an’ I come back her face changes.’

  ‘You just think that.’

  ‘I don’t, I don’t, I know.’ Her voice had risen to a shout; but now she clapped her hand over her mouth and, bowing her head, finished quietly, ‘I’m not puttin’ her away, Joe.’

  ‘Well, where’s it going to end?’ Joe’s voice was rough now. ‘You could give your whole life to her; it could go on and on. It isn’t fair.’

  ‘No, no, I know it isn’t; it isn’t fair to you.’

  They were looking at each other, and he said quickly, ‘I wasn’t talkin’ about meself. I haven’t got her all day.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry about me, Joe, I’m all right. As long as you’re all right.’ There was a pause, and then she smiled, and it was a replica of the smile that he remembered was hers as a young girl, and he thought, Mr Hetherington’s right; she’s a beautiful lass…a beautiful woman.

  ‘Where did you get to this mornin’? Nothing doing?’ she said now as if to change the subject.

  ‘No, not a thing. You know’—he turned from her and walked to the fireplace again—‘you wouldn’t believe it, but they treat you like mad dogs. I mean in the docks here. You go in just to ask if there’s any chance, and it must be something about you that shows the fellows you’re after a job, ’cos they’re givin’ you the full of their mouths an’ tellin’ you to bugger off or what they’ll do to you. I…I felt like hittin’ one at the mill dam this mornin’, an Irish bloke he was. I did say to him, ”If you were back in your tatie fields there’d be more jobs for them that have a right to them.” I thought him an’ his pals was goin’ to brain me, but a ganger came up. Then I went along the pier. Coo, that’s a walk! They’re still mucking about at the end, an’ you know what one chap said to me? I’d better clear off if I didn’t want to go down with the ballast. I tell you, when there’s a strike on anywhere t’others are like tigers.’

  He now went to the window, and from there he said, ‘Charlie Roche is talkin’ of walkin’ to Seaham Harbour. He’s got a cousin there who’s set up on his own. Blacksmith shop and carpentry next door; the whole family are in it. They make chairs an’ things. He said they can always do with a hand or two, an’ they’d likely be able to stretch a point when it’s only for a short time. He wants me to go along of him. He said he wouldn’t go on his own, not walkin’ all that way; he wants company. He said one thing is certain, we’d come back with as much grub as we could carry. They’ve got pigs and things, and there’s always umpteen hams hangin’ up.’ He smiled at her. ‘Me mouth’s waterin’ already.’

  ‘How long would it take you?’ she asked.

  ‘Aw well, going at it hard we could do it in a day there and a day back, an’ if we could put in a few days’ work we’d get a few shillings; enough to pay the week’s rent. An’ I could bring enough back to feed us. It would help things along, don’t you reckin?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded.

  ‘You wouldn’t be afraid to stay here on your own?’

  She closed her eyes and smiled derisively. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said.

  ‘Do you think I should go?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. An’ there’s a chance you might strike something on your way.’ And as she looked at him she added to herself, ‘And it will take you away from here, away from her for a time.’

  She had never fully understood Joe’s antipathy towards Lizzie. Unlike herself, he had no compassion for his sister; she had only to look at the misshapen form and her heart became moved with pity. Yet there were times when she wished her dead. Yet she didn’t really want her to die, for when Lizzie went there’d be no-one to mother. Lizzie was her child now, the baby she still cried about at night.

  She said to Joe, ‘Go and tell him you’ll go along with him. And look…’ She went to the mantelpiece and taking the last of Mark Bunting’s hoard from a little box she handed it to Joe, saying, ‘Get it changed and take five shillings with you.’

  ‘No! No, I’ll do no such thing.’ He waved her hand aside.

  ‘Well, look’—her voice was harsh again—‘you’re not goin’ on the road with nothin’ in your pocket; you don’t know what happens; you might have to come straight back if there’s nothing doin’. An’ you’ll want a bite to eat. Anyway, if you don’t spend it you can bring it back…Now you’re not going unless you take it.’

  ‘Aye, well.’ He nodded briskly at her as if she was forcing him to do something mean and underhand. ‘You can take it from me, you’ll get it back whole. I’m not going on a trip.’

  She was smiling as she said now, ‘Make it a trip; you might as well be killed for a sheep as a lamb. An’ don’t worry about us. Everything at this end’ll be all right; I’ll see to that.’

  He dropped his head shyly before her. Then, going out of the room, he took his hat and coat off a nail on the wall on the tiny landing where there was just room enough to turn round between the two walls, that held two doors, and the little table, on which stood a wooden bucket and a wash bowl. Then he went down the steep dark stairs that led to a similar landing; down another flight that opened into a small dark square hall with doors at either side, and into the greasy street, where, through the steady falling rain, there loomed the river and the masts of ships lying at the buoys.

  Upstairs, Katie went into the bedroom where Lizzie was sitting propped up in a low bed, and, pulling the bedclothes aside, she took her two hands and tugged her to her feet, then wrapped the patched quilt around her. Katie herself was now five feet six inches tall with a finely shaped figure, but without the bulbous hips seen on so many women, yet compared with Lizzie’s bulk she looked a thin slip of a girl, for Lizzie’s glandular disease had made her into a living balloon. Katie guided her waddling form into the kitchen and sat her down on a broad cracket with her back against the wall near the fire—there wasn’t a chair big enough to hold her—and she patted her bulging cheek with her fingers and said, ‘All right?’ And Lizzie looked at her and blinked and moved the muscles of her face into greater contortion.

  Katie always kept Lizzie in bed when Joe was about, but she reckoned that once he got talking about the journey to Charlie Roche it would be an hour or so before he was back, and she sensed that the only pleasure her sister could experience was to be in her presence, so whenever she could she brought her into the kitchen.

  She now went to the chest of drawers and her eyes moved over a number of books lying there. She had read them all many times over—that was, all except The Stones of Venice; she had only read it once. She couldn’t get interested in painters and buildings. But Miss Theresa said you had to read such a book again and again before you could appreciate it. She knew she was very lucky to possess this book, where under the name of John Ruskin was that of Rodger Philip Rosier. Miss Theresa had given it to her after Mr Rodger had died, and she treasured it because it had belonged to Mr Rodger, but as a book she couldn’t like it. She wondered again why Mr Rodger had to die; why couldn’t it have been the other one, why couldn’t he have got smallpox? That any gentry should die of smallpox had been a surprise in itself.

  She picked up another book; it was Vanity Fayre. She liked Mr Thackeray’s books, they had a story in them.

  Going to the fireplace, she pulled her chair as close to it as possible and, in a position such that the light would fall on the paper, began to read. But she only read for a short time, and then, as she had don
e often of late, she allowed the book to drop into her lap and she turned and looked about her as if expecting to see something different, something that might surprise her about this room that had become an enclosed world to her. She knew that she should consider herself fortunate that it was decently furnished. THEY—she always thought of the Misses Chapman as THEY—had insisted that she take the entire contents of the cottage with her when she left. THEY had also wanted to pay her for the transaction of signing her daughter to them. She knew they had been amazed when she refused to take their money. But she was glad now she had brought the furniture—all except the beds—for she would never have bought the like of it round here, even if she’d had the money, for they were craftsmen’s pieces and she kept them shining. Miss Theresa always remarked on this.

  Miss Theresa. Katie now brought her eyes to the window and to the blue velvet curtains that hung there. Miss Theresa had brought them the last time she had called. She had apologised for them being faded at the edge but had pointed out they could be cut down. Miss Theresa was kind. She was always bringing little things, but she wished she wouldn’t; more and more she wished she wouldn’t. She couldn’t forget she was a Rosier, although she’d said openly that she hated her brother. But there was something more, somehow she didn’t like her the way she used to do; she didn’t really know why, except that she thought Miss Theresa was a bit dominating, always telling her what to do, and how to do it, yet at the same time treating her as if there was no difference between them. It was odd, disturbing.

  Joe left the house at eight o’clock the next morning. His face wearing an expression of excitement, he looked as if he were actually going on a holiday. Yet again he asked Katie if she would be all right, and in answer he received a push from her. Then self-consciously he kissed her on the cheek and, turning hastily away, ran down the stairs, the sound of his hobnailed boots reverberating through the house.

  Katie stood in the middle of the kitchen for a moment looking about her. She was going to miss Joe. No matter what she said, she was going to miss him. But there, she told herself, she must get on if she wanted to get to the market this morning.

  Her ‘getting on’ took the same pattern it did every day: getting Lizzie up, changing her, washing her, then draping her in a gigantic napkin. This done, she tackled the bed. It was always wet, and she was lucky if this was all she had to cope with. After making the bed up with rough dry pieces of twill she took the dirty pieces in the wooden bucket down the two flights of stairs to the yard and there, in the communal wash-house, she washed them, without soap, in cold water and hung them on the line. She was always thankful for a fine day when she hadn’t to try to dry them completely indoors. She next filled the bucket with cold water and humped it back upstairs. This done, she did Joe’s room, which was on the other side of the landing. It was only large enough to hold a six-foot pallet bed and a wooden box. Next, she tackled the kitchen, first of all stripping her own bed, which, just being a raised wooden platform, acted as a settee during the day; then once more she polished the furniture, after which she scooped the drips of tallow from one of the brass candlesticks, trimmed the wick of the small piece of candle left in the socket, then carefully gathering up the nodules of tallow she put them in an iron pan together with other tallow scrapings and small ends of candle to be melted down for further use.

  The room put to rights, she now got herself ready to go to the market. She took off her coarse apron and rough working skirt and put on a grey serge one. It was of fine quality and edged with a dust fringe at the bottom. This, together with her three-quarter-length coat, had also come from Miss Theresa; the coat was a plum colour and heavily braided, and if anything more was needed to bring out the beauty of her complexion it was this. Her bonnet had been given to her by her last mistress. According to the present fashion it was now out of date; the trimmings were mostly on the brim, the crown being quite plain. When she was ready she took a bass bag from the cupboard and her purse from the top drawer of the smaller chest. She opened it and after looking at the money within she decided against leaving any of it in the house. You never knew; anybody could break in. Meggie Proctor from down below had stopped her last week and told her there had been a robbery only three doors down; they had got over the roof and through the attic window.

  She now went to Lizzie, who was sitting on the cracket, and, bending her knees, she brought her face level with her sister’s and slowly she said, ‘I’m going to the market, Lizzie, for the groceries. You’ll be a good girl?’

  Lizzie’s hand came out and touched her, and from her shapeless mouth came a sound that only Katie could interpret as ‘Yes, Katie’.

  Although there was no longer any necessity to tie Lizzie up she always did this, just in case the old urge should revive itself and set her on the move; not that she would get far, but once out on the landing she might fall down the stairs. And so taking a piece of rope she put it round her waist, then tied it firm to the table leg.

  When she reached the foot of the second flight of stairs she saw the tenants from the bottom rooms standing on the step talking. One was Meggie Proctor, whom Katie always addressed as Miss Proctor, the other was a Mrs Wilson. Katie had never seen Mr Wilson, nor had anyone else. Both women were in their early thirties and looked dirty and unkempt, but they were warm-heartedly pleasant to Katie. ‘You’re out shoppin’?’ said Meggie Proctor.

  ‘Yes, Miss Proctor. Goin’ to the market.’

  ‘Aw, lass, I wish you wouldn’t call me Miss Proctor.’ Meggie’s mouth stretched wide and she laughed. ‘You’re the only one that does; it makes me feel funny…She’s always called me Miss Proctor since she come here.’ Meggie addressed her neighbour, and Jinny Wilson, laughing too, said, ‘Aye, weel, she was brought up proper; you get that way o’ talkin’ when you’re in good service. Me mother was in good service for years.’

  ‘By, she looks grand, doesn’t she?’ Meggie stood back and surveyed Katie. ‘I wish I could go out shoppin’ in clothes like them. You’re lucky to have a friend like that Mrs Noble.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I am.’ Katie squeezed between them. You could keep nothing hidden living in a house like this, living in a district like this; everybody knew everything about you. They all knew, for instance, that she had been married to a keeker, and her father had murdered him and got himself hanged for it, that it had turned her mother’s brain, and also that her sister was barmy.

  Perhaps it was this knowledge, together with Katie’s own reserved manner, that set her apart from her neighbours. Then there was her looks, those big, misty, sad-looking eyes. Meggie had once said to her, ‘If I had your peepers they wouldn’t look sad on me, an’ I’d be livin’ in clover.’

  She knew the two women were watching her as she went down the street. And not only them; there were others at their doors. There was a high wind blowing and she had to hold on to her bonnet as she turned into Thames Street and cut up by Comical Corner, and she paused for a moment by the steps leading down to the river. There was a sculler boat tied to a ring in the wall and some small children were jumping from the bottom slime-covered step on to one of its two plank seats. She wondered that they didn’t slip and drown themselves. But then they were used to the water; they lived as close to it as the rats that infested the houses round about. She went on past the Cut, or the Mill Dam as it was now known, then on down the hill into the market place. The market place was a large open square, grassy in parts, with the town hall, supported on its arched columns, dominating it. It wasn’t full market day and there weren’t many people about—some women sitting by their high skips of taties, some pedlars with tapes and ribbons and such, and at the far side a number of stalls. It was towards these she made her way.

  She knew exactly what she was going to buy: a quarter-stone of potatoes, some pot stuff to make broth, a scrag end of mutton, a quarter-stone of oatmeal, a half-stone of flour and some yeast, some pigs’ fat, two ounces of tea, some bacon ends, half a pound of black treacle if it was still
tuppence, and a quarter-stone of salt, also at tuppence if they wouldn’t split it and let her have a pennorth. She could get everything but the flour and yeast in the market, and these she would collect from Tennants on her way home.

  To save her arms she got the lightest things first. The tea was the cheapest brand and the two ounces cost her sixpence, but the stall hawker was yelling its merits. She opened her purse and handed him a shilling, and when he had given her the tea and a sixpence change she placed it in her purse and put it back in the bass bag. She next went to the bacon stall, and, her searching eyes coming to rest on some scraps, she pointed to them and asked for a pound.

  ‘That lot throopence ha’penny, lass,’ the man said.

  ‘Thank you.’ She nodded and put her hand into the bag for her purse. Then, her two hands tearing the bag open, she let out a yell that made the stallholder jump and those nearby turn and gape at her.

  ‘Me purse! Me purse! It’s gone. Oh, my God, it’s gone!’ She looked wildly around her, her arm outstretched, the bass bag dangling from her hand. ‘It’s all I’ve got, every penny,’ she appealed to two women and a man who were standing staring at her.

  ‘You should have kept it in your hand.’ The stallholder came round to her. ‘A daft place to leave a purse, in your bag.’

  ‘It’s all I’ve got.’ She stared at him, her eyes stretched wide; her voice was still high but it held a choking sound now. She brought her clenched fist to her mouth, and one of the men said, ‘How much was in it, lass?’