‘Fifteen shillings. No, fourteen and six. I’ve just bought the tea.’ She held out the small package in her hand.
‘Let’s see if you’ve dropped it on the way. Walk back to the tea stall,’ said one of them.
Like somebody drunk, and accompanied by the two women and the man, Katie walked back to the tea stall, searching the litter-strewn grass as they went. But there was no sign of the black purse. Back at the bacon stall once more, Katie looked at the man. Her bacon pieces were all wrapped and lying on a board, and he looked at them and said, ‘I’m sorry, lass, but you should’ve been on the lookout for your money; it’s happenin’ every day. Transport the buggers, that’s what I say, not just send them along the line. Transport them when they’re copped…Here!’ He pushed the package of scraps towards her, and she took it and muttered, ‘Ta. Thank you.’
The two women and the man moved away muttering; people were going about their business, the little incident was over; there were many such in a day. The stallholder said, ‘You go and tell the police, hinny. They might catch him some time later and he might have yours on him. On the other hand, it could be a woman who snipped it. Some of the bitches’ fingers work like greased lightnin’.’
Like someone in a deep trance Katie slowly moved away. She knew there was a policeman standing outside the town hall but she didn’t go towards him; she was afraid of policemen, the pollis always meant trouble. She was still walking slowly when she reached the house.
Meggie opened her door as she was passing and said, ‘I brought your sheets in, Katie; it was startin’ to drizzle.’ Then, bending forward, she said, ‘You taken bad?’
Katie shook her head. ‘Me purse was stolen in the market.’
‘God Almighty! Much in it?’
‘All I had, and the rent.’
‘Christ! The buggers want crucifyin’. Why don’t they go up Westoe and do their pickin’ there? It’s like the other night. One of my…’ She blinked. ‘A friend of mine, he was fleeced, pulled up an alley near the Anchor and every ha’penny cleared off him; an’ got a bashin’ in the bargain. Oh, if I could only lay me hands on the sods at it…But I’m sorry, lass…You stranded?’
Katie moved her head slowly downwards, then said, ‘I’ll have to go out and get some work. You won’t mind if she cries?’ She jerked her head upwards, and Meggie said, ‘Not me. She could scream the hoose doon for all I care, and the same goes for Jinny. But Ma Robson up above she’ll open her mouth. But don’t you worry, lass.’ She pushed Katie gently. ‘If she opens it too far I’ll stick me foot in it for you.’ Katie made no reply to this, but turning blindly away she went up the stairs.
Lizzie’s eyes were waiting for her as she opened the door, but on this occasion she took no notice of her. Letting the bass bag fall to the floor, she pulled off her bonnet and, sitting down at the table, dropped her head on to her arms and gave way to a paroxysm of weeping.
Three days later Katie had reached the end of her tether and was in a state of panic. Between them Meggie Proctor and Jinny Wilson had lent her half a crown with which to meet the rent, and yesterday Meggie Proctor had lent her another shilling, out of which she had got a quarter-stone of flour and yeast, and a bucket of coal to bake the bread. But now the fire was dead and they had just eaten the last of the bread—at least Lizzie had. Lizzie’s appetite was insatiable, and when she was hungry she cried. She was crying now. All she herself had had to eat over the past three days was a third of the bacon scraps and a small amount of bread and weak tea. She looked at Lizzie looking at her, the tears lying in puddles on her puffed cheeks. Joe was right; she should have let her go to the guardians. At least she would have been fed, and warm. But if she were to go now to the guardians and ask for them both to be taken in, even temporarily, they would come and take the furniture, and then there’d be no home any more, for Joe or any of them.
If only Joe would come. But it wasn’t likely he’d be back; a day each way and two or three days there, was what he said, and this was only the fourth day. If only Mrs Robson hadn’t complained about Lizzie’s crying and threatened to bring the pollis she could have got a job. Lizzie would just have had to put up with being left all day; there were worse things that could happen to her that she didn’t know about. She wondered if she knew what was happening to her now, except that she was hungry. Joe was likely right in all he said.
She could have got set on in four different places today, but not part-time. Two of the places were cookhouses, and each wanted her there at six in the morning till six at night. She would have got six shillings a week and her food. Either would have been splendid if only she could have taken it. But she was terrified at coming back home and finding that Mrs Robson had carried out her threat and brought the authorities in. The next step from this would be they’d contact the landlord, and then she and Lizzie would find themselves in the street, with the furniture around them. She had seen so many people in the street sitting helplessly amid their furniture that she had a horror of it happening to them.
There came a tap at the door and when she opened it there stood Meggie Proctor. She was dressed ready for outdoors; she looked different to what she did in the mornings. She had on a bright skirt and blouse, and a blue woollen shawl over her head. She said to Katie, ‘I don’t know if it’d be up your street, but the Anchor’s wantin’ help in the evenin’. I was talkin’ to a…a friend of mine, and he said the barmaid’s gone down with the fever and Jimmy Wild is looking for help. He’ll set you on in the evenin’ ‘cos that’s when they’re busiest. That…that’s if you fancy it.’
‘It doesn’t matter what I fancy, Meggie,’ said Katie frankly. ‘I’ll take anything. I’m at me wits’ end.’
‘I wish I could help you more, lass.’
‘You’ve done all you can and I’m grateful. Believe me, I don’t know where I’d have been if it hadn’t been for you and Mrs Wilson.’
Now Meggie leaned forward and, peering closely into Katie’s face and her voice very low, she said, ‘I’m surprised you haven’t got a friend.’
‘A friend?’ Katie narrowed her eyes as she repeated the word.
‘Aye.’ Meggie pushed her now in the breast with her forefinger. ‘With your looks it would be as easy as slippin’ off the docks. Lass, I’d never have an empty belly if I had your face.’
Katie felt her stomach puffing itself tight, as if away from physical contact, but she showed no offence and said simply, ‘I couldn’t, Meggie.’
‘Aw well, you know your own know best, lass, but hunger’s a long whip. Anyway, you go along to Bullard. He’ll likely snap you up, ’cos you’ll thicken his custom if anything will. I must be off now. Ta-ra.’
‘Ta-ra, Meggie. And thanks.’
Katie stood with her back to the closed door. The Anchor was only a few streets away. It was a notorious public house, notorious for many things. One of its activities had gained it the name of the ‘whore market’.
If only Joe was here. But he wasn’t here, and there wasn’t a bite or sup in the house, and no warmth, and she was down to her last half-candle. She came from the door as if released by a spring, pulled Lizzie to her feet, guided her into the room and got her into bed, and again she tied her by the waist, this time attaching the end of the rope to the leg of the bed. Then, going back into the kitchen, she took the iron shelf out of the oven—it still retained some heat—and taking it into the bedroom she pushed it under the clothes beneath Lizzie’s feet, hoping that the warmth would send her to sleep and ease her crying. She could hardly see her face in the dim light of the room, but, bending close to her, she said, ‘I won’t be long, Lizzie. Be a good girl.’ For a minute longer she stood and stroked the lank hair back from the bulging brow; then, going into the kitchen, she rapidly donned her outdoor things and went out of the house.
She hated to be out on the streets after dark. Although some streets were lit by the new gas lamps there were alleys and dark corners where things were known to happen.
The no
ise from the Anchor greeted her long before she reached it, and she paused outside the double doors before pushing one open and half stepping inside. And then she could go no further. Through the light of the oil lamps she saw a seething mass of people, mostly men, and mostly sailors. Two faces turned towards her with lifting eyebrows and drooling lips, and when two pair of arms came out to her she sprang back, pulling the door with her, and, dashing to the end of the building, she hid round the corner. Here she stood panting. She couldn’t go in there…Yet, perhaps her duties might keep her behind the counter. She could ask him. She’d have to ask him.
She moved along the wall to where there was a side door, and from behind this, too, there issued the sound of men’s laughter. This was still the bar, likely the best end. She must find a door to the house. But there was no light farther on. She was about to grope her way along the wall beyond the door when it opened and a huge figure stepped into the yard. The next moment a hand was placed on her shoulder and she was swung round, and in the light from the doorway she looked up into an enormous bearded face. The eyes looking out of it were moving over her, the expression in them like that of the two men in the bar. She watched the red lips in the fair beard part, and a deep voice, which she knew immediately was not English, said, ‘Ah-haa!’
She stammered, ‘Please…I…I want to see the barman. I’m after a job…Please.’ She tried to pull herself away from the man, but his hold on her tightened and, bringing his face down to hers, he said in precise clipped English, ‘A job is it? Oh, min skjoun, I could give you a job. Ah yes.’ His head went back and he laughed.
‘Look, give over, you. Let me go.’
Still peering at her, he said, ‘Stop trembling. You frightened? Why do you come here if you’re frightened?’
‘Please, I…I just want to go. I want to go home.’
‘You want to go home?’ He was laughing at her again, his face seeming to expand to twice its size. ‘All right, min skjoun, we will go home. Ah yes, how pleased I’ll be to go home with you.’
‘No, no!’
‘Aha! Yes. Yes.’
At this moment the door was pulled wide open and another man appeared. He, too, was a sailor and spoke in a foreign tongue, and the bearded man answered in the same tongue, and when the second man emerged into the yard Katie found herself pulled from the wall and pushed forward. And now the bearded man called over his shoulder to the other man, who shouted back apparently in reply. Then they were in the street.
‘Which way?’ He still had his arm about her, gripping her firmly and forcing her to walk, but when they reached the flare lights outside the pie and pea shop he stopped and peered at her again, saying now, ‘Why do you tremble all the time? Why go to the Anchor if you tremble?’
‘I…I went for work; they…I heard they wanted a barmaid.’
Again his head went back and the street rang with his laughter, of which the passers-by took no notice. A drunken Swede laughing with a woman in the streets at night was nothing new. ‘You a barmaid in the Anchor! Ah!’ He grabbed her face in his big hand and pressed her jaws in as he said, ‘You’d be eaten alive. Do you want to be eaten alive… ? No, no.’ He answered himself. ‘You’re frightened of being eaten alive. Why did you want to be barmaid in the Anchor? There are other works you could do.’
‘My…my sister is sick. I’ve got to look after her; I can’t go out durin’ the day.’
‘No-one else to look after your sister? No parents?’
She shook her head.
‘You married?’
Again she shook her head.
‘You live by yourself?’
‘With…with my brother.’
‘Why does your brother not work for you then?’
‘He’s on strike. He’s away lookin’ for work…’ Before she had closed her mouth on her words she knew she had made a mistake, and he lost not a minute in making use of it. With a nod of his head he said, ‘So. So he’s away. Well, we go home then?’
‘No!’ Her voice was harsh now. ‘No, no, I tell you. No!’
He did not seem to take any heed of her protest but went on, ‘What do you want money so badly for you go to the Anchor?’
When she didn’t answer he brought his face down close to hers and said on a surprised note, ‘You sulten…hungry?’
She closed her eyes for a moment but still didn’t speak; and when she opened them she did not look into his face but at the top brass button of his uniform, and some section of her mind registered the fact that he was a captain. This seemed to explain the way he talked, for although a foreigner he used his words like the gentry did.
‘My God! That’s right, isn’t it? You’re hungry. Come, come.’ He now took her by the hand as if she was a child and pulled her through the doorway of the pie and pea shop, and there, in a voice that seemed to shake the ramshackle place, he cried, ‘Pies! Half a dozen. Hot. No, one dozen; I could eat half a dozen myself. And peas, two pints.’
‘Where’s your can?’ said the man.
‘Can?’
‘Aye, sir, yer can’t carry peas in a bit paper.’
‘That one there, I’ll buy it.’
‘It’ll cost you fowerpence, sir.’
‘Fourpence it is. And fill it to the brim.’
The man behind the counter now wrapped up the pork pies in a piece of newspaper, and when he pushed the parcel across the counter the captain, picking it up, thrust it into Katie’s arms.
As she held it against her breast she could feel the heat of the pies through the paper and she had a desire to grab one out and thrust it into her mouth. She also had the desire to take to her heels and fly; and she saw her chance as he was paying the man. Once outside the door she could be away up one of the dark alleys and safe, and the pies with her.
She was backing to the door when he turned round, and like someone chastising a child about to do a mischief he turned his chin to the side, while his eyes remained on her and gave that telling exclamation of ‘Ah-haa!’ Then, thrusting his hand back towards the counter and the man, he received his change and without looking at it thrust it in his pocket. Then his hand groped towards the can; he picked it up and came towards her, and after looking at her hand for a second said, from deep in his throat, ‘We go home now, eh?’
He held her with one hand and carried the can of peas with the other, and like this they went through the warren of dimly lit streets and past the black alleyways until they reached the end of Crane Street, and here, pulling him to a halt and her voice full of pleading, she said, ‘Please, please don’t come any farther.’
‘You don’t want me to come to your home?’
‘No.’
‘You’re lying. You want me to come.’
‘I don’t, I don’t, I tell you.’ She was hissing at him now. ‘I just want you to leave me alone. Don’t you understand? Just leave me alone. You can have the pies…here.’ She thrust them at him. But he ignored her action and said, ‘I don’t believe you. But, look, we’re on the waterfront and near the Middle Gates. There’ll be one of your pollis men there. Shout. Go on, shout, and they’ll come and order me off…Go on.’
She stood breathing deeply and peering at him. She had thought of that herself. She had thought, if I shout the pollis’ll come. But as afraid as she was of this great, bearded man, she was more afraid of the pollis. It was when she thought of being afraid of him that she realised she was only afraid of him because of what they would say in the house, her taking a man up there, and what Joe would say if he found out.
She said lamely, ‘We…we could walk and eat these as we went.’ She patted the bundle of pies.
‘But I don’t want to walk, I want to go to your home. I want to know where you live…Besides, it would be very uncomfortable eating pies while we walked.’ He gave a small laugh now. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘This is your street?’
When she didn’t answer he took her arm again, and like someone under escort she walked up the street with her head bowed.
&n
bsp; There were people about, but they took no notice of her or her companion. Again, what was unusual about a sea captain walking this street with a woman?
Before she opened the door softly she paused and was about to say to him, ‘Be quiet,’ but she felt that if she did he would let out his big laugh and raise the house.
As soon as they entered the hall Lizzie’s wailing came to her, and she hurried forward up the dark stairs; and when he stumbled after her she put her hand out to steady him, and he gripped it and held it until they came to the top landing. And there she whispered, ‘Stand still; you…you might knock the bucket over.’ As she groped for her key in her coat pocket he said, ‘What is that noise?’ She didn’t answer but unlocked the door, and when she opened it it came to her that here was another chance of escape, she could bolt the door in his face. Yes, and have him bellow the house down. From the little she knew of him she could well imagine him doing just that.
She groped her way towards the table, put the pies on it, then moved cautiously towards the mantelpiece and instinctively her hand found the candlestick. There was no glimmer left in the fire to light the candle, so, going back to the landing, she whispered, ‘I haven’t a light.’
Without a word he handed her a bulky box, and taking a match from it she struck it on the rough underside of the candlestick; then she lit the candle, shielding its flame for a moment with her hand. Now, turning abruptly, she walked back into the room.
He was standing in the centre of the room near the table when, looking towards the door from where the noise came, he said, ‘Your sister, is she a baby?’
‘No. You…you can sit down; I’ll…I’ll have to see to her for a moment.’
‘You do. Do that; the night’s young.’ He turned from her and looked slowly around the room.
‘I’ll have to take the candle,’ she said.
He was looking at her again. ‘That’s the only candle you have?’
‘Yes.’
Katie Mulholland Page 21