Katie Mulholland

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Go ahead.’

  She picked up the candle. Then, pointing towards the pies that had now spread themselves out of the paper, she said, ‘I’ll…I’ll take her one of these.’ Under his penetrating gaze she picked up a pie and went into the bedroom.

  ‘There, there,’ she said to Lizzie. ‘Don’t cry. Aw, don’t cry any more. Eat this, it’s a pie.’

  Lizzie’s face moved into a smile; she opened her mouth and in two bites the pie had disappeared, and her eyes, looking into Katie’s, said she wanted more.

  ‘Later. You’ll have another later.’

  As she straightened up from over the bed she was aware that the door had opened, and half turning her head she saw him standing looking at them. She wanted to place herself in front of Lizzie to shield her from his sight, but it was too late. Lizzie didn’t see him, or if she did she took no notice, and Katie, pushing the pillows into position behind her back and putting the patched quilt over the enormous bulging stomach, said, ‘There now. Be a good girl. I’ll be back in a moment.’ She walked past the man and into the room, and it was a full minute before he came and joined her.

  ‘Is she a mongol?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A mongol?’

  Katie did not know what he meant by a mongol. She said, ‘She was born like that; she’s always been like a child.’

  ‘And you, you look after her?’ He was standing straight now, his face unsmiling. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since my mother died. And before that. The past few years or so.’ She looked down at the pies now, and, his gaze following hers, he said breezily, ‘Well, let us eat.’

  She brought two plates and some cutlery from the cupboard, and she had just started to eat when he said, ‘Bread. I like bread with peas.’

  She had her mouth full of pie and she had to swallow three times before she could say, ‘There’s no bread.’ There was a rough defiant note in her voice, and her expression was bitter as she stared at him through the candlelight and added, ‘I wouldn’t have gone to the Anchor for the job if…if I’d had bread to spare.’

  He put down the spoon that was hovering over his plate, and leant against the chair rails. Pushing his elbows well back until his hands were resting on his stomach, he slowly drew in his bearded chin tight against the high collar of his jacket, and like this he surveyed her from across the table. He was looking into a face the like he had never seen before in any port, and he was not even seeing her clearly, for the illumination from the tallow candle was limited. Her eyes were the largest, the strangest, most arresting he had ever beheld. He had come upon something here he couldn’t as yet understand. Why wasn’t there any man about the place…about her? What were they up to in this land of frozen faces, faces which didn’t know how to laugh; this land of mean, calculating minds? He didn’t like the English. He had never liked the English. All brothers under the skin, so the saying went; but how did you know you were an Englishman’s brother? You could never get under the Englishman’s skin. But this woman, this woman without a man, this woman with the face of…what? Not an angel. No. No. What kind of a face was it? A strange face, a beautiful face. Yes, yes, but something more. A good face. Yes, a good face. A lonely lost face. Why hadn’t it brought a man to her? There must be a man; somewhere there must be a man who owned her. It was against all nature that, looking as she did, she should be alone. He slowly brought himself from the back of the chair, and leaning forward, his elbows one each side of his plate, he asked quietly, ‘You have a man? The truth now. You have a man?’

  She raised her eyes from the plate and said with a calmness that puzzled him, ‘I have no man. Nor do I want one.’

  ‘No!’ There was that jocular, cynical tone in his voice again, but hers was hard as she replied briefly, ‘No.’

  Not moving his position, he said, ‘Pity, great pity, you feel like that, because…I have a surprise for you…you’ve got one.’ He now dug his thumb into the middle of his waistcoat. ‘I am your MAN.’

  She had been chewing on a mouthful of peas and one stuck in her throat and brought on a spasm of coughing. She rose from the table and stood aside, her head bent, one hand pressing against her chest. She had her back to him, and when she heard his chair scraping on the wooden floor she turned swiftly, still coughing, and the next minute she found herself pressed against him. One big hand on her buttocks, the other under her armpit, he arched her stiff body into his. Her eyes staring into the face within an inch of hers, at the full red mouth through the mass of fair hair, she watched the lips move and say again, ‘I’m your man…yes?’

  She was trembling from head to foot, more than she had done when he first grabbed her. There was no pore in her body that wasn’t open, pouring sweat. Yet it wasn’t with fear—at least not the kind of fear she had previously experienced; the fear that Bernard Rosier had brought into her body; the cold, cold fear that Mark Bunting had filled every hour of her waking days with, and most of her nights. Nor was the fear that was possessing her now created by this great, blond man, this utter stranger. The fear was of herself, her feelings, of the very fact that she wasn’t afraid of him.

  When he kissed her her whole face seemed lost in a tangle of hair. The kiss lasted a long time, and the strange fear in her mounted again. After the first moment of it she no longer resisted it; she did not return it, but she did not resist it. When he withdrew his face from hers he did not look at her, but his eyes flashed around the room and alighted on the raised pallet in the dim corner. Still with his arms about her, he now drew her towards it, circling the dark bulk of a chair in the progress. When they were standing near the bed her body became stiff again and unyielding. He felt the change in her immediately and, one hand going swiftly around the back of her knees, he lifted her upwards as if she was a child and the next minute she was lying on her back on the bed and he was beside her, and when his arms went about her the trembling of her body increased. He became still against her for a moment, silent and still, and then he said, ‘Don’t tremble; I won’t hurt you.’

  And he didn’t.

  She was actually laughing. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed like this. As a child she had felt full of joy and laughter, but she imagined that that was a natural part of childhood; all children could laugh and feel joy until life got at them. But now, with her arms laden with packages of food, more food than she had ever seen in her life at one time, except up at the House, she was walking beside the burly captain, who had a sack of coal perched on his shoulder which he supported with one hand, while under the other arm he carried a bundle of candles, and she was laughing.

  Just over an hour ago she had wanted to go to sleep, drop into a soft beautiful sleep, but he had pulled her to her feet and said one word ‘Food.’ And she had repeated dazedly, ‘Food.’ And then shaking her by the shoulder, he had laughed and cried, ‘Wake up, wake up, min elskling. Yes, food and coal; I’m going to warm you inside and out.’ He had gripped her face in his hands, pressing her mouth outwards. She had explained that it was too late, at least for coal; the shops were open till ten, some after, but not the coal depots.

  But he had opened the coal depot. Knocking on the man’s door, he had demanded him to fill the sack with coal. And now here she was, like an excited child, hurrying by his side. What had come over her? For a moment she thought of Joe, then dismissed him. Joe wouldn’t be back the night. Something had happened to her, something strange and beautiful, and she wanted to hang on to it. She would have to face Joe, likely tell Joe, but that was tomorrow; there was still tonight…

  The fire was blazing, the cupboard was full, she had eaten the best meal she’d had for many a long day. She’d had a piece of steak half an inch thick, a lump of black pudding and two fried eggs. Between them they had finished a crusty loaf and half a pound of butter, and now they were sitting on her bed which he had pulled right up to the fire, drinking cups of steaming tea, with whisky in his. Lizzie was asleep on a full stomach; the grate was full of burni
ng coal; and she felt at rest within herself as she had never done in her life before.

  She was pressed close to him, held there by his arm, and every time she turned her face towards him his eyes were waiting for her. She liked his eyes. She could see them clearly now in the light of the six candles he had lit all at once. She had wanted to stop him lighting more than two, but she didn’t; this was a night apart, a strange night, a night that would never happen to her again. She knew she was doing what the bad women did, and she knew that her mother and father, and her granda, would be turning in their graves, but she didn’t feel any great sense of sin because God and sin and chapel-going had fled her life the day they put a rope around her father’s neck.

  Her head now resting against his shoulder, she asked softly, ‘What do they call your ship?’

  ‘The Orn. It means “eagle” in your language.’

  ‘Is it a big ship?’

  ‘So so, big enough to carry timber…and odds and ends.’ He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Do you come into the dock often?’

  A deep rumbling chuckle went through his body and into hers, and, putting his head down to try and see into her face, he said, ‘Do you want me to come into the dock often?’

  ‘No, no.’ She tried to pull away from him now, but he held her tight and she muttered, ‘I didn’t mean I…’

  ‘There. There. It’s all right. I understand you to mean whatever you didn’t mean.’ He chuckled quietly as he pressed her hard against him, then said, ‘Half the year we come to the Tyne, from April to October. Some of our men come over on the last ship and stay here all winter. They get ships plying along the coast.’ He laughed heartily as if at a joke; then, stroking his beard with his hand, he asked, ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Nearly twenty-one,’ she said softly. Then, glancing up at him, she said, ‘And you, how old are you?’

  ‘Ah!’ He closed his eyes and moved his big head from side to side. ‘Too old. Too old.’

  ‘Thirty?’ She knew she was being kind to him.

  ‘Huh!’ His head jerked backwards. ‘You think I look thirty? That is good. Ah, good.’ After a space of time, during which he held her face turned upwards to him and staring into her eyes, he said, ‘I am thirty-seven years old. But tonight I am twenty-seven. No, twenty-three, and life is just beginning.’ There followed another silence before he said, ‘We have been together three hours—no, three hours and a half, and I don’t know how they call you.’

  ‘Katie Mulholland.’ She never called herself by her married name.

  ‘Kaa-tee Mulholland. It is a full mouth of a name. Kaa-tee Mulholland.’

  ‘And your name?’

  ‘Andrée Fraenkel.’

  ‘Ann-drée. It’s like Andrew in English.’ She laughed and said, ‘I’ll call you Andy.’

  ‘Andy!’ He put his head on one side. ‘That is like what my…’ He broke off, swung her around until she was resting with her back against his chest, then said, ‘Andy it is.’ After this he remained quiet for a time, his arms tight about her, his bearded chin resting on the top of her head.

  In the strange warm silence, as she lay staring into the fire like someone entranced, there were forced into her mind thoughts of tomorrow, of who might see him leave; Meggie Proctor, Jinny Wilson, or Mrs Robson. She was afraid of Mrs Robson seeing him go. Perhaps he would go early before anybody was up; he’d have to get back to his ship. She brought the niggling worry to the surface by asking, ‘When do you sail?’

  ‘Sail?’ He seemed to drag his thoughts from some distant place. ‘Ah, not for some three days. She is having repairs and her bottom is needing a scrape. Three whole days, Kaa-tee.’

  She hadn’t time now to feel fright or apprehension at the thought of him being around the place for three days, because his hands were loosening the buttons of her bodice and she did not stay them.

  It was when her breast was exposed above the line of her shift that his eyes came to rest on the zig-zag red weal standing out from the warm cream flesh. His eyes now asked her a question, but she did not speak. Then slowly he moved his finger from the end of the weal and following its course, his hand mounting to her shoulder. Now, half hitching himself up, he swivelled her round towards the candlelight. She felt his hands undoing the hook of her skirt; then, with a quick jerking movement, her shift was tugged up from within the bands of her petticoat and thrust forward over her head. Following this, there was silence again.

  Slowly now she turned towards him and she saw the red gap of his mouth open and his tongue waver in it before he asked in an undertone, ‘Who did this?’

  ‘Oh.’ She drooped her head and swung it back and forward before saying, ‘Oh, it’s a long story.’

  ‘Who did it?’ His voice was louder now and roughly his hand jerked her chin up.

  ‘My…my husband.’

  ‘Your husband?’

  She moved her head once, then said, ‘My father killed him for it…No, no.’ Again her head was shaking. ‘He didn’t, it was the others; but he beat him and he was found dead later and they hanged him, my father.’

  He was staring at her, his eyes wide, his mouth open, his cheeks pushed upwards with incredulity. He began to speak rapidly now, in his own language, but when he finished it was in her own tongue and he said, ‘Almighty God, you have been flayed.’

  Turning her slowly round again, he once more examined the network of red ridges, some pronounced, some faint, that covered her back. When he turned her to face him he said simply, ‘Tell me. From the beginning. Tell me.’ Then he pulled up the coverlet and put it gently round her shoulders and pressed her towards him again.

  So, sitting cradled in the arms of this strange man, a man whom a few hours ago she hadn’t known was alive but whom she felt she knew better than anyone in her life before, even her parents, her grandfather, or Joe, she talked, and as she did so she unwound herself back to the time before the night of the ball.

  She told him everything, right from the beginning; from the day she had started as scullery maid to the Rosiers right up to the day when they hanged her father. And she finished with meeting the Misses Chapman and giving them her child. The only thing she didn’t tell him was the name of the man who had given her the child.

  And as he listened Andrée Fraenkel realised, with disquieting certainty, that he had reached a crossroad in his life. He had felt the pull of her when he had grabbed at her and looked into her face for the first time. But with the telling of her story he knew that a woman had been washed up to him the like he had dreamed of from when he was a boy. For good or bad he was ensnared—possibly for bad, for to keep and hold her would mean the eventual breaking up of his home in his own country, if not the end of his career; at least with the big ships.

  Chapter Three

  For two and a half days Katie lived between a joy that she likened to heaven on earth and an apprehensive feeling that she likened to all hell being let loose as she waited Joe’s return. For three nights the captain had stayed with her, and most of the two days, leaving her only to look over his ship. But today he was sailing. He had to be aboard before eleven o’clock tonight and she was praying earnestly within herself that he’d be gone before Joe got back.

  It was to happen that he and Joe were to meet; but before he met Joe he was to meet Miss Theresa.

  He was sitting in the armchair; his big feet, encased in a pair of bright red soft leather slippers, were sticking upwards on the fender. He had his two hands joined behind his head, which swivelled slowly back and forwards as his eyes followed Katie about the room.

  ‘Kaa-tee.’

  ‘Yes, Andy?’

  ‘You happy?’

  For answer she came to his side and stood looking down at him; she did not touch him, nor he her, but she said, ‘If I’m not it doesn’t matter, because I want to remain in this state all me life.’

  ‘It’s not three days, do you realise that, not three days since we met?’

  ‘Well, as I told you, I thi
nk I knew within the first three minutes. That’s why I couldn’t stop shaking.’

  His fingers now snapped apart, his head and body came up like a released spring and he was on his feet with his arms about her, holding her close. His face above hers, he stared down at her as he asked, ‘What are you going to do with yourself all the time?’

  ‘Oh, the usual. Lookin’ after the house, and Joe and Lizzie. But it won’t be the same…’ She smiled softly at him. ‘Nothing in me life will ever be the same again.’

  ‘It’ll be a full two weeks before I’m back.’ He didn’t say, ‘You won’t have anybody else in the meantime?’ He would not insult her; he hadn’t linked himself with any waterside trollop.

  ‘I’ll be here,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll always be here, and waitin’…What time are you leaving? I mean…I mean from here.’

  ‘I should be aboard by five to see things under way; but if I can slip ashore for a while later, I’ll be back.’

  Their lips were pressed close when there came the sound of footsteps on the wooden stairs, and Katie, pulling herself away from his arms, turned and stared towards the door. Then she took in a deep breath of relief when there came a tap on it. After glancing at him she went and opened the door, but slightly, and there stood Miss Theresa.

  ‘Good afternoon, Katie.’

  ‘Oh! Good afternoon, Miss Theresa.’

  When she didn’t stand aside and allow her visitor to enter the room, Miss Theresa looked at her for a moment in silence, then said, ‘I’ve brought you some books…and this.’ She held out a parcel towards Katie, and as she did so her eyes lifted from her face, over her shoulder, and to a great bearded man standing with his back to the fireplace. Her eyes darting back to Katie, she looked at her with her mouth slightly agape. Then, when Katie, her head erect but her eyes cast downwards now, moved aside, she went slowly into the room and stood near the table.

  ‘This…this is a friend of mine, Miss Theresa, Captain Fraenkel.’ Katie pronounced it Frenkall.