Katie Mulholland

by Catherine Cookson

  Then, looking at Andrée, she said softly, ‘This is Mrs Noble.’

  Andrée, his hands now hanging by his sides, bowed slightly from the shoulders. It was a courtly gesture and Theresa recognised it as such; she recognised it as the action of a gentleman. After staring into the big vivid blue eyes for a moment her own dropped sharply away, but not before they had traversed his broad chest, only partly covered by a white shirt, his belted trousers and slippered feet. The awful truth deprived her of speech.

  From shaking fingers Theresa dropped the books on to the table, then the parcel, and turning her back slowly on the man she confronted Katie, her eyes wide and accusing. Through her thin lips she now said, ‘I would like a word with you in private, Katie.’ And on this she went towards the door, and Katie, after casting a glance at Andrée, a helpless one this time, followed her on to the landing and to the head of the stairs, where Theresa had taken her stand.

  ‘Katie! What…what have you done?’ Theresa’s words were accusing, bitter, and they came through her clenched teeth. She was trembling as if consumed with rage.

  ‘He’s a friend, Miss Theresa.’ Katie’s chin was up.

  ‘A friend? How long has he been a friend? Answer me.’

  Katie blinked her eyes, then brought her head forward as if to see Miss Theresa better, and in a voice that was almost calm and held a touch of dignity she said, ‘I’m a woman, Miss Theresa, I’m no longer a child; and I’m me own mistress, I can do what I like.’

  ‘And with whom you like, I suppose.’

  Again Katie screwed up her face as she looked at the woman opposite. She had been prepared for Miss Theresa being shocked, but she couldn’t understand her anger. It was like, like…She couldn’t find words to translate Miss Theresa’s attitude so that she could understand it.

  ‘Joe. What has he to say about this?’

  ‘It’s not Joe’s business, it’s mine, Miss Theresa. I…I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I’ve always been grateful because you’ve been so kind to me, but…but what I do with me life is, as I said, my business.’ Now she bent towards Theresa again and, her voice dropping to a soft whisper, she said, ‘And, I’m happy. I’m happier than I’ve been in me life afore. He’s a good man.’

  ‘A good man!’ Miss Theresa’s lips moved away from her teeth as if she had tasted something vile. ‘A sailor from the docks—because that’s what he is, isn’t he? And a foreigner, and twice your age, I would say.’ Now, her voice and face matching each other in viciousness, she cried, ‘Don’t you know that they have women in every port they touch, filthy women, diseased women?’

  Following this, they stared at each other in the gloom; then Theresa, her voice filled with pleading, her manner changing utterly, beseeched, ‘Send him away, Katie. Go on in now and send him away. Please, please. I…I can’t bear to think of you with him. I’ve…I’ve always been kind to you—you said yourself I have—well, do this for me. Go on and send him away…now.’

  Katie moved back from Theresa. The funny feeling that she’d had a number of times when Miss Theresa had come near her was emphasised in her now, and she said to her, ‘No, I won’t, not now or at any time. And although I thank you for your kindness in the past, I’d…I’d thank you now to leave me alone.’

  To her amazement Katie now saw Miss Theresa’s face crumpling and the tears stream from her eyes. The next minute she was watching her running down the stairs. Slowly she turned towards the door, and when she opened it there was Andrée standing not a foot away. As she looked at him he nodded at her and said, ‘Come, come.’ He put his arm gently round her shoulders and led her towards the fire where, seating her in the chair, he dropped down on his hunkers before her and, taking her hand in his, said, ‘I’ve done you a service; you’re well rid of that one.’

  ‘But she’s been so kind to me.’

  ‘Kind? Huh! Unnatural women are always kind to women.’

  ‘Unnatural women?’

  ‘Yes, yes, she’s no woman, she’s a man under the skin. I recognised it, even before she looked at you. I have a cousin who’s the same. It is a trick of nature.’

  ‘Miss Theresa? No!’ Katie shuddered, and he drew her hands to his breast, saying, ‘Not that I blame her for loving you; no-one could help loving you, and it will remain a mystery to me to the end of my days that I found you alone.’

  ‘Aw, Andy.’ She leant her face forward and rubbed her cheek against his beard, and he fondled her and kissed her and spoke long sentences to her in his own tongue, but when he wanted to make love to her she protested softly, saying, ‘No, no, our Joe might come in. He might come in; you never know.’

  ‘Do you think he will come today?’

  ‘I don’t know. He might.’

  ‘I hope he does; I would like to meet him.’

  She closed her eyes and said to herself, God forbid…

  They were sitting having a meal when Joe made his appearance. Andrée was laughing loudly about something she had said. In the last few days it seemed she had recaptured her art of telling a tale, and so she didn’t hear the footsteps until they reached the landing. By the time the door opened she had screwed round in her chair and was facing him.

  In the framework of the door Joe stood, one elbow bent, his fist gripping the end of a small canvas sack that was hanging over his shoulder. He looked dusty and tired, and in this moment his face had a mild, childlike look of bewilderment on it.

  Katie sidled up from her seat that was set close to Andrée’s. He, too, rose with her and stood looking at the short young fellow in the doorway, and he waited for him to speak.

  And Joe spoke. With a sudden twist of his wrist he flung the canvas bag to the corner of the room where it hit the wall with a soft plop, and, moving towards them, but looking only at the man and taking in, as Theresa had done, his attire, right down to the red slippers—mostly the red slippers, for they indicated something that shot the words from him—he said, ‘What in hell’s name are you doin’ here?’

  Katie, pushing herself in between them now and with her face close to Joe’s, said, ‘I can explain, Joe, I can explain. Now look. Don’t lose your temper, just listen an’ hear me out. This is Captain Fraenkel.’

  ‘What’s he doin’ here?’ Joe, his body as stiff as a ramrod, his fists clenched by his side, was glaring up over her head towards the big bearded fellow.

  ‘I’m a friend of your sister’s. I am pleased to meet you.’ Andrée took a step to the side.

  ‘Friend be buggered. Now get yourself to hell out of this. She wants no friends among Swedes; she can pick her friends from among English blokes, and not from the riff-raff of the boats, either.’

  ‘Joe, listen to me.’ She clutched at his arm, only to have him pull it away from her grasp. But she went on, ‘You’re mistaken; just listen. Andy, he’s a captain, a captain of a big ship…’

  ‘It wouldn’t matter to me if he was captain of the Terror, he’s a foreigner, and no good at that, else he wouldn’t have taken you down.’

  ‘Joe, Joe, he didn’t! It wasn’t like that at all. I lost me purse an’…an’ he helped me.’

  Joe turned his eyes from her and his gaze dropped to the red slippers again, and he looked at them for a time before he moved across the floor towards her bed, and there he looked at Andrée’s boots standing at the foot of it, and at his coat lying across it. Swinging round now, he barked, ‘Get out? Do you hear? Get out!’

  ‘What if I don’t go?’ Andrée’s voice was calm-sounding.

  ‘Then I’ll bloody well make you, as big as you are.’ Joe seemed to spring from where he stood to the centre of the hearth, and in a split second he had picked up the poker and had raised it in his hand, and as Katie let out a scream she saw Andrée’s arm flash upwards and the next minute the poker dropped like a matchstick to the floor, and so hard was Andrée gripping Joe’s wrist, and so high was he pulling it upwards, that Joe was almost standing on his toes. Then, as if flicking off a speck of dust, Andrée flung him aside. I
t was a disdainful action. He now went to the bed, and, sitting down on it, pulled on his boots, then stood up and got into his jacket, following which he went to the chiffonier and took his cap from it. This done, he came slowly to Katie where she was standing, her head bowed, and her joined hands pressed into her neck, and said grimly, ‘I’ll be back before I sail. Talk to him, tell him how things are…I’ll be back.’ He put his hand out and lifted her head up to him, and they looked deeply at each other. Then he turned and went towards the door, but before he reached it Joe shouted at him, ‘This is my house, I pay the rent, an’ if you show your nose on these stairs again I’ll put the pollis on to you. Get that?’

  ‘Det er det samme for meg,’ said Andrée. ‘Do that. But I’ll be back.’

  The door had hardly closed on him before Joe, picking up the red slippers, pelted them towards it. Then, with his fists and teeth clenched, he glared at her and she looked at him sadly, pityingly, until, his hands suddenly coming out, gripped the front of her dress. And at this action her whole manner changed. With a swift movement she thrust him from her, crying, ‘Don’t you start that, our Joe! You’re not dealing with a child, an’ you remember that. There’s nobody gonna knock me about again. No, by God!’

  From a distance now he glared at her. Then, his voice bitter, he said, ‘No, you’re not a child. I’ve learned that all right in the last few minutes. It’s a whore I’ve got to deal with now.’

  ‘Joe! I’m not, I’m not!’ Her protest was loud.

  ‘He slept here, didn’t he? Don’t deny it. Didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’ She reared herself up. ‘An’ he’ll sleep here again.’

  ‘By God, he won’t, not while I’m payin’ the rent. Now look here…’ He came towards her, his forefinger thrust out stiffly. ‘You can make your choice; it’s either him or me. I’m not runnin’ any house for whoring. Now you’ve got it. You give him the go-by, and right now, an’ we’ll try to live this down; if not, you’re on your own.’

  ‘Joe, Joe, listen to me.’ She put out her joined hands towards him. ‘I’ll tell you how it happened; just listen to me, will you? I went down to the market an’ I lost me purse…’

  Joe interrupted her with a harsh mirthless laugh. ‘You lost your purse. You who could look after two hundred and forty-seven pounds. You lost your purse.’

  ‘I did, Joe, I did. You can ask Meggie Proctor an’ Jinny Wilson downstairs; they lent me the money atween them to pay the rent. I was at me wits’ end. I went to the Anchor to get a job and it was there I met him.’

  ‘The Anchor!’ His head was back now, and again he made the mirthless sound. ‘Well, you went to the right place to start, didn’t you? You mean to tell me you didn’t know what goes on in the Anchor? It’s not called the whore market for nothing. You mean to say you didn’t know?’

  ‘I only knew I was hungry,’ she said bitterly, ‘an’ Lizzie was cryin’ because she was hungry. I had no heat an’ only half a candle. Besides, I’d had nothin’ for nearly three days but a drink of tea and a bit bread.’

  ‘You could have gone to Miss Theresa.’

  Now her voice was loud and harsh. ‘Well, I didn’t go to Miss Theresa. An’ I wouldn’t go to Miss Theresa. An’ I’m glad I didn’t.’

  He stared at her in silence for a long while, and then his voice, quieter now, but his words terrible-sounding to her, said, ‘You’re bad, our Katie. Right at bottom you’re bad. There was the bairn, an’ then off your own bat you go to Buntin’. Nobody made you go to him, an’ because you went me da was hanged and me mother went out of her mind, an’ now you’re gone on the streets. You’re bad…you’re bad.’ He repeated the last two words in a dazed fashion as if he had just become aware of the truth of his assertion, and she cried at him, ‘Joe, don’t say that. I’m not, I’m not bad. What happened to me years gone I couldn’t help.’

  Again they were staring at each other in silence. And then he answered her last remark, saying, ‘Perhaps not, perhaps not all the other things, but this one you can. This is your test piece. Send him packin’, an’ I’ll believe you.’

  Another silence. And Katie, closing the gap between them, came to a stop quite close to him and said, ‘No, Joe, I’ll never send him out of me life. He’s in it for as long as he wants.’

  ‘That’s it then. Aye, well, that’s it then. Now we know where we stand…An’ her?’ He nodded towards the bedroom. ‘He’s goin’ to take on her an ‘all?’

  ‘I’ll see to her.’

  ‘By God, an’ you’ll have to. You’ll have to work overtime. Bloody well double time.’ He now let out a spate of obscenities.

  She had never heard him talk like this before in her life. She knew he likely did in the shipyard, but he had never used bad language in the house. Neither of them had been brought up to it, but now he was acting like any man out of the docks. And yet, to his mind, wasn’t she acting like any low woman from the docks? Yes, she could see that his attitude was justified, but she could do nothing about it.

  Clutching at anything that might act as a stumbling block, he now said, ‘This is me furniture in here.’

  ‘Your furniture?’ She wagged her head, then said quickly, ‘Aw, no, Joe. No, it isn’t yours. Miss Chapman gave it me in exchange for the child. They’d have given me the moon to carry away, but you’ll remember I wouldn’t take anythin’ except the furniture because I knew we would want it when we got this end…No, Joe, the furniture isn’t yours, an’ don’t you try to take it from me, Joe, I’m warnin’ you. It’s all I’ve got.’

  He stepped back from her now, his jaws champing, and, groping at the handle of the door, he said, ‘Well, you think you’ve made your choice, but I’ll let you sleep on it. I’ll come back the morrow and see if you’ve come to your senses.’

  When the door banged she stood staring at it, her heart beating fast and aching painfully; then slowly she dropped into a chair and, burying her face in her hands, she cried, ‘Aw, Joe! Joe!’ Over and over again she repeated his name, ‘Joe…Joe.’ What would she do with her days? Without Joe to look after, what would she do? There’d be nobody coming nobody to get meals for, except Lizzie and herself…Except when Andy was here…Oh, Andy, Andy.

  Her body rocked now back and forward. What had come over her that within three days she could leave Joe without a home because of this man, this strange man? But she couldn’t help herself, she couldn’t. Nor did she want to; there was no question of choice between him and Joe. If Andy went out of her life now the pain of his loss would be unbearable. All that she had gone through before would be as nothing compared with it. She would give up or sacrifice anything to keep this strange man.

  She had waited through the long twilight and now the darkness had set in and he hadn’t come, and she was sick to the soul. She had gone to the head of the stairs countless times. She had wanted to go down to the street door and wait there, but she couldn’t face the look in Meggie Proctor’s and Jinny Wilson’s eyes. As yet she had not encountered Mrs Robson from the first floor.

  On that first day after Andy had left the house she had gone down to the yard to empty the slops and they had been waiting for her, Meggie and Jinny.

  They had come out of their doors together and they had looked at her and smiled. It would have been less disturbing if they had ignored her, or been scornful of her, but their smiles had said, ‘We’re all lasses together. Fishgate whores or Dock Dollies, we’re all lasses together.’ It was Jinny Wilson who had jerked her head at her and said, ‘Yer started off well, lass. Keep it up. No need to borrow any more now.’ She had wanted to defend herself against the insinuation, but she couldn’t. What defence had she?

  When she heard the quick heavy tread on the lower flight of stairs she went to the door and leant against it for a second, faint with relief. Then she was in his arms, and he was leading her back into the room. And there she clung to him and he pressed her close, and after a moment he said, ‘He’s gone, then?’

  She moved her cheek agains
t his and he said, ‘I’m sorry…Would he have stayed if you had promised…?’

  Again she moved her head; and now he raised her face to his and, with great solemnity, said, ‘You have not made a mistake, Kaa-tee, I’m for you. We have talked over all this. We know, so you go on knowing you haven’t made a mistake. And now’—he drew in a deep breath—‘I have not more than five minutes; I must get back, and quick. I would have been here sooner but I was held up with the dock authorities, so what I must say will be terse, short. We sail to Stavanger, unload our coal there, and if there is a cargo ready for us we should be back under three weeks. However, if I’ve got to take her to Bergen it could be another week or more before I return; it all depends on the weather and the charters. Now, in the meanwhile you must live, so here is five pounds, and if for any reason I should be delayed beyond a month I will get money to you. Never fear, I will get money to you…Take it, take it.’ He closed her fingers over the sovereigns.

  Up to this very moment she hadn’t felt a whore, or a bad woman, because all she had taken from him was something to eat, and coal, and candles; but now the exchange had been made, the price had been paid, and it was as Meggie Proctor had said, Fishgate whores or Dock Dollies. No, no, she wasn’t one of them, she wasn’t. She flung herself against him and her crying shuddered his body, and he began to talk rapidly to her in his own tongue. After a moment his mouth sought hers and he kissed her with a hard, intense passion which she returned. Then, pressing her from him, he looked at her. His blue eyes, seeming to have darkened, now searched her face, moving from one feature to another, before they came to rest on her hair, and his hands moved up and touched it for a moment. Pulling a strand loose from the coil on the back of her head, he whipped out a knife from his coat pocket and, bending the strand into a loop, he cut off about three inches from it. Then he rolled it around his finger before putting it into his top pocket. And now, taking her face between his hands, he muttered thickly, ‘Know I will be back, Kaa-tee. Know that.’ Then again touching her lips, but softly, he said, ‘Don’t come. Just stay there.’