Kate Hannigan's Girl

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘No,’ he mumbled. And she looked to where his eyes were fixed ahead and saw, with a start of surprise, that the couple were Cathleen and Terence.

  Why, she thought, I didn’t know he was home. And she—she should be at the art school.

  As the distance between them lessened, she felt that the surprise was mutual. Terence looked rather sheepish, but Cathleen was using her surprise, and Kate, under the unblinking stare of Cathleen’s eyes, found herself feeling, for no reason whatever, at a disadvantage.

  Cathleen spoke first, and her tone managed to convey the expression of her eyes: ‘Well, well!’ she drawled. ‘We never know, do we?’ Her eyes darted to Steve, then back again to Kate. ‘Walking it are you? Giving the car a rest?’

  Kate grew hot, and thought: What made me think she had improved? What does she mean?…And this is what has been upsetting Annie, ever since the night of the party: she couldn’t bear Cathleen to be friends with Terence.

  As she found herself explaining her presence with Steve, she felt furious, but went helplessly on, ‘I didn’t want Steve to drive right up to the fifteen streets, and the case is rather heavy.’

  She was still further dismayed when she realised that Steve, without a word or a glance, had stalked straight ahead. Now why had he done that? ‘I didn’t know you were home, Terence,’ she said.

  He was standing stiffly, ill at ease, and seemed to have lost the calm sureness of manner that she remembered admiring at Christmas. ‘I came last night,’ he replied.

  ‘And tempted me to stay away from school today. What do you think of that?’

  Terence turned quickly towards Cathleen, his brows drawn together. He seemed to be on the point of speaking, but, instead, gave a bewildered shake of his head.

  And she went on, ‘You won’t split, will you, Kate? You won’t tell Mummy or Daddy?’ She gave a little wink. ‘And I won’t tell Uncle Rodney.’

  Kate could hardly believe her ears. The implication was so bald, so direct, and in front of Terence Macbane, too. ‘Cathleen! How dare you!’ she cried, her eyes wide and angry. ‘How dare you say such a thing!’

  ‘Oh, I was only joking. You know I was only funning.’ Cathleen was all contrition. ‘Don’t be vexed. I’m sorry.’ She smiled at Kate appealingly.

  The girl was impossible. She could say or do the most outrageous things and smile and coax her way out of them. What on earth had made Kate think she was improving? She was worse than ever!

  ‘Well, in future please don’t joke about such things to me, Cathleen. Goodbye. Goodbye, Terence.’

  Kate walked swiftly away, filled with indignation. How dare she! Implications like that weren’t made on the spur of the moment. Why did she say that? What was she trying to do? How dare she insinuate! Oh, it was unpardonable. Just supposing she said some such thing in front of Rodney. Kate shivered. Rodney had no reason to be jealous of her, God knew, but his love for her was possessive and threaded with jealousy. She had to show him in countless little ways that he was her life, for his physical handicap had taken away his natural arrogance and deprived him, not a little, of his self-confidence. So just suppose he should think…Oh, that girl! This wasn’t the first time she had coupled Kate’s name with that of Steve, but there had seemed to be no ulterior meaning in it before, no threat. And then there was this business of Terence Macbane—she had certainly made headway there. Why didn’t Annie fight her? She had all the weapons to her hand…But no, Kate admitted somewhat sadly to herself, Annie wasn’t a fighter.

  Kate was so disturbed she almost walked past Father Bailey, who was standing at the corner of Whitley Street. He was talking earnestly to a man in working clothes, but at the sight of her he turned and cried, ‘Ah, it’s you, Kate. Are you on your way to Mrs Mullen’s?…You are? Then I’ll be up after you. I’ve been meaning to come and see you for ages.’ He turned quickly back to the man again, who was showing signs of trying to escape, and Kate heard him say, ‘You know, Jack, you’re a bigger liar than Tom Pepper; you’ve told me a different story altogether from your missis.’

  Kate had to smile, in spite of the intense feeling of irritation that possessed her. Dear Father Bailey. Still at the job of trying to straighten out lives, whether they wished to be straightened or not.

  Steve was standing by the Mullens’ door, and she said without looking at him, ‘Will you meet me at five o’clock, Steve, at the same place?’

  He made a motion with his head, touched his cap and walked away. There was a droop of dejection about his shoulders that filled Kate with sudden pity and uneasiness…Could Cathleen have said something to him? Could she have hinted? Of course not, that was nonsense.

  Mrs Mullen opened the door, exclaiming, ‘Oh Kate, lass, what a day to come!’

  ‘What a day to wash,’ said Kate, following her into the kitchen, which was strewn with wet clothes. ‘And you expecting Rosie too!’

  ‘That’s the reason, lass. I just couldn’t sit still, I had to do something. And it would have been all right,’ she exploded, ‘if that bitch of a Mary Overton hadn’t started to shovel her coal in. She just did it to nark me. Funny what people’ll do when they think your bairns are getting on. We’re not speaking, you see.’ She suddenly laughed, her small eyes twinkling behind their wrinkled lids. ‘What a life! When you’re expecting something good to happen, you can’t sit still and enjoy the waiting. Anyway, how are you, lass? And I say!’ she cried, looking at the case, ‘you didn’t carry that up yourself?’

  ‘No,’ said Kate. ‘Steve brought it.’

  ‘That’s all right then. But, lass, I keep telling you, you shouldn’t do it. It’s no use talking.’

  ‘No,’ said Kate, ‘it isn’t. I’m about as stubborn as you are.’

  Mrs Mullen bundled the wet clothes into a zinc bath and pushed them under the table, saying, ‘I’ll put them up tonight when I get them off to bed. Now for a cup of tea, eh?’

  ‘You’d better put out three cups,’ said Kate. ‘Father Bailey’s on his way.’

  ‘Is he?’ exclaimed Mrs Mullen. ‘Well, it never rains but it pours. Still, we see him pretty often now. But I don’t mind Father Bailey…Remember Father O’Malley, Kate? By, he was an old devil, wasn’t he? You know he’s givin’ up?’

  ‘No,’ said Kate, ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Yes. He’s retiring on his rheumatism. By, there won’t half be some sighs of relief when he goes. I should think Father Bailey’ll get the parish, won’t he?’

  ‘I should think so.’

  ‘I’d better tell you,’ went on Mrs Mullen as she mashed the tea, ‘we’ve got somebody you know in your old house next door. She’s been there some weeks now. I didn’t like to put it to you before, but seeing as how Father Bailey’s coming, he may mention her to you, for he’s always dropping in there…It’s your cousin Connie, Kate.’

  ‘What! Connie Fawcett, living here?’

  ‘Aye, I thought you’d get a gliff. It was funny her coming next door. And she’s going from bad to worse, never sober if she can get it…That Jake Riley’s there, when his boat’s in. And there’s high-jinks as long as the money lasts, and then they’re borrowing and pawning for the rest of the time, for she won’t work. I doubt if she could if she wanted to, with that fat. I think there must be something wrong with her.’

  ‘How is her boy?’

  ‘Oh, it’d break your heart to see him! He looks after her like a mother; he waits for hours round the docks and brings her home, staggering drunk, and very often puts her to bed. Poor bairn, and him not nine yet. Oh, it’d break your heart. It would be bad enough if he was a bit of a lass…You don’t mind me telling you, Kate?’ she added.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Kate. She was sorry that Connie was next door, for she didn’t want to meet her. But after all, what did it matter? She couldn’t explain to Mrs Mullen that Connie Fawcett was no relation of hers whatever without giving away the secret her mother had imparted to her as she lay dying, and explaining that Tim Hannigan had not been her father.r />
  ‘Oh dear!’ exclaimed Mrs Mullen. ‘Here comes Father Bailey, and I wanted to have a talk with you about Rosie.’

  ‘Ah, there you are. A cup of tea too!’ cried the priest, putting his weight against the kitchen door in an effort to close it. ‘What could be better, eh, Kate, on a day like this? It’s enough to blow the whiskers off Michael Finnegan’s chin again.’ He threw back his head and laughed at his own sally, and both Kate and Mrs Mullen laughed with him.

  ‘And how is that heathen of yours getting on?’ he asked as he drank his tea.

  ‘He’s very well, father,’ smiled Kate.

  ‘Oh, father! Fancy calling the doctor that! And him one of the finest men living,’ said Mrs Mullen.

  ‘That’s as it may be, but there’s room for improvement…You don’t agree with me, Kate?’ He leant across the table and looked at her through half-closed lids.

  ‘I never agree with you, father. You know that by now.’

  ‘Sure. Sure. But time will tell…Ah, yes.’ He turned to Mrs Mullen and smiled benignly. ‘It looks like a big wash you’ve got today.’ He indicated the bath under the table.

  ‘Oh, just about the usual, father.’

  No-one spoke for a moment. Then, with a well-feigned start, Mrs Mullen got up, exclaiming, ‘Goodness! I’ve left some things in the pot, they’ll be boiled to bits!’ A wink’s as good as a nod to a blind horse, she thought as she dashed out; he wants to get at her again…Poor Kate.

  Kate sat smiling at the priest, and waited. With the finesse of an elephant, Father Bailey led up to the subject he considered it his duty to discuss whenever they met.

  ‘And how are you feeling, Kate?’

  ‘Oh, quite well, father.’

  ‘And are you hoping for a boy or a girl?’

  ‘I think I’d like another girl, father.’

  ‘Ah yes. Another Annie. There’s a girl for you. They thought the world of her up at the convent. The Mother Superior has every praise for her, and she was the light of Sister Ann’s life. Sister Ann really loves that girl. Did you know that, Kate?’

  ‘Yes, father. And Annie’s very fond of her.’

  ‘Yes, another girl like Annie.’ Father Bailey rested his hands on his round stomach and tapped his fingers gently together. He seemed to be addressing the huge black kettle that stood on the hob when he said, ‘Do you think Annie’s nature would have been as sweet as it is if she hadn’t been brought up in the faith?’

  ‘She would have still been herself, father.’

  ‘No, Kate. No. Annie is more soul than body. I know. And the glory of her faith has brought it out.’

  Kate moved restlessly, and Father Bailey turned swiftly towards her, his hands no longer in repose but stretched out to her across the table, the palms upturned, expressive with pleading. ‘Kate, don’t you see what a sin you’re committing by not having the boy christened? Don’t add to it with another.’

  ‘Oh father, don’t go into it all again. You know David was christened in the Church of England.’

  ‘But that’s not your church, Kate.’

  ‘I have no church, father.’

  ‘Nonsense! Nonsense! Far better not have him christened at all than you should have him done outside the true church.’

  ‘Well, all right,’ said Kate, tartly. ‘I’ll follow your advice with this one.’

  ‘God forgive you for even saying such a thing, Kate!’ The priest was becoming red in the face. ‘You know you are responsible for the lives you bring into the world. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Only up to a certain point; I believe that a child is an individual from the moment it is born.’

  ‘Ho ho! Here we go again. Doctor Rodney Prince’s ideas,’ scoffed Father Bailey, ‘not yours, Kate.’

  ‘Yes, mine, father.’ Kate’s voice was angry now. ‘That’s the trouble with you all, you don’t give people credit for thinking things out for themselves. You don’t want them to think at all, just follow blindly on.’

  ‘Hell, no doubt, is full of people who have thought things out for themselves, Kate. In your thinking, have you ever thought about that point?’ The priest’s voice was quiet.

  ‘Yes, I have thought about it—and dismissed it; for hell is absolutely alien to the real meaning of Christianity.’

  ‘Oh is it?’ said Father Bailey with an air of having just learnt something. He nodded at her. ‘How nice and comforting for you to have gone a step further and dismissed hell.’

  ‘I just cannot accept the idea of hell, father. In my mind, it’s the contradiction of the very idea of a god who is Love…Oh, it’s all so childish, pandering to the superstitions of the ignorant.’

  ‘Away with you, Kate. Simple justice points to it!’ Father Bailey stood up and confronted her. He leant towards her, his hands on his knees, his face level with hers: ‘Would you like to see Tim Hannigan being received by God on equal terms with your poor mother?’

  Kate stared at him. ‘It’s a question whether God receives anyone. To me hell and heaven are right here.’

  ‘Kate…Ah well!’ He straightened himself and smiled. ‘God has mysterious ways of working. Kate, you are a queer woman.’ He sat down again and mopped his face with his handkerchief. From the wash-house across the yard the squeaking, clanking, jangling sounds of the mangle could be heard in the quiet of the kitchen, terminated every now and again with a sharp groan which ended in a thump as some garment was released from the rollers. The ragman’s voice came from the back lane.

  Father Bailey broke the silence: ‘I shouldn’t be worrying you at this time. I’m sorry, Kate.’

  She smiled at him gently: ‘I understand, father. I think I’d miss it if you stopped.’

  ‘I pray for you often, Kate,’ he went on, mopping his face, and the words came, muffled and embarrassed, through the handkerchief: ‘I cannot explain it, but I’ve always had the idea that some time you are going to need me, that our lives are definitely crossed for all time. Oh, I cannot explain it.’

  Kate looked tenderly at the priest, at this good priest, and thought, as she had often done before: Had I come under him instead of men like Father O’Malley, I wonder if I would have rebelled so much? She said gently, ‘You have always been good and patient with me, father, and it grieves me when I have to disappoint you.’

  He rose and took up his hat from the table. His face showed his broad smile again, and he said, ‘Don’t worry. God’s good. And you know what they say: the Devil’s not bad, for he looks after his own.’ He laughed, and patted her shoulder: ‘Well, I’m off. Now take care of yourself, Kate, and remember me to that heathen of yours…God bless you. I’ll look in on Mrs Mullen down in the wash-house. Goodbye, Kate. Goodbye.’

  He was gone, and he hadn’t mentioned Connie. For that at least Kate was glad. She sat as she always did after an argument with him, filled with sadness and regret, and she realised, not for the first time, that the spirit passed through valleys of loneliness in its search for freedom. And somehow Father Bailey always emphasised that loneliness, and made her look back with regret on the sense of security the Church offered to the faithful …

  It was nearly half an hour later when the back door opened and Rosie came in, and the look on her face told Kate and her mother what her news would be. In appearance, Rosie had altered little during the past four years; she still remained stocky, and her face maintained the round, buttony look of her childhood. It wasn’t until she spoke that the difference in her became evident. Although she addressed her mother as ‘Ma’, and the inflexion of her voice was still that of the Tyneside, there was a quality about it that definitely stamped her with personality. She put her case down, looked from one to the other, and said, simply, ‘It’s the Albert Hall, the first week in October, in Verdi’s Requiem.’

  Mrs Mullen, drying her hands on her apron, shook her head from side to side, but said nothing. Kate, too, was silent for a time. Then she burst out, ‘Oh, Rosie, how wonderful! Oh how wonderful! The doctor will be delighted
…And at the Albert Hall!’

  ‘I tried to get through twice last night, but they said the line was engaged; I wanted him to know first. I was going to try again this morning, but there wasn’t time, as I caught the first train. Oh, I was glad to get out of London!’ she added. ‘I didn’t like the little I saw.’

  Mrs Mullen still stood shaking her head and gaping at her daughter. The shake became a jerk, and she blinked her eyes rapidly. Rosie said banteringly, ‘You’ll have to make a fur coat with those rabbit skins you’re curing, Ma, and get going on a dress suit for me da; he won’t be able to sit in a box with his old mac on.’

  ‘Eeh, lass! I just can’t take it in…And what the father’ll say, God knows. You won’t be able to hold him down now…Eeh, Kate! And all through the doctor’s kindness.’ The tears let loose, she put her apron to her face.

  ‘Oh, come on, Ma,’ said Rosie; her mother’s rare tears always caused her deep embarrassment. ‘Come on. Here am I dying for a cup of tea and all you do is howl.’

  ‘Oh yes, lass, you’ll be parched. Eeh, but it’s knocked me into the middle of next week…Yes, let’s have a cup o’ tea.’ But instead of moving, she looked at Kate, and asked, ‘Oh Kate, lass, what do you think of it?’

  As Mrs Mullen bustled about the kitchen Rosie described her audition to Kate, telling her what the great Caroli had said about her voice. She was still dazed with her stupendous good fortune, for she was the only newcomer to be given one of the four solo parts of the Mass.

  ‘I’m so happy for you,’ said Kate. ‘It’s going to mean a new life for you in many ways. You’ll have to get to like London, you know, Rosie—and other big cities. You won’t see the old Tyne very often now.’