THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Mark,’ she tried to explain, ‘we had a row…’ She convulsed in tears again.

  ‘Hush!’ he soothed. ‘You don’t have to tell me now.’

  At the casualty department, Jo was wheeled into a side room and helped on to a bed. A nurse came and changed her into a hospital gown and a doctor checked her over. She wanted to ask what was happening to her, but did not dare, for fear of what they might say. She lay alone, comforted only by the thought that her father and Pearl were sitting somewhere nearby, waiting. She was given something to ease her cramps and it made her drowsy, for she dozed off to sleep.

  She woke to a strange sensation and cried out for the nurse.

  ‘That’s it,’ the woman said, removing the mess from between her legs and depositing it into a metal bowl. ‘Sorry, pet, but it’s over now.’

  Jo lay shaking uncontrollably, too stunned to cry. Shortly afterwards she was taken on to a ward full of women eating breakfast. The smell made her want to vomit. The doctor was explaining something about having to go into theatre to clear out her womb. She felt numb and bewildered and wondered where her father was. Maybe Pearl had told him about the fight at the pub and the baby being Gordon’s and he was too disgusted with her to stay and wait around the hospital. Then, just before she was taken to theatre, Jack and Pearl appeared.

  ‘I’m sorry, pet,’ he said, stretching out his arms to her. She hugged him tight as she had not done for an age, unable to speak for the tears flooding her throat. All that mattered at that moment was her father’s arms around her and his kind, sympathetic face.

  Pearl kissed her cheek. ‘We’ll be here when you wake up after the op,’ she promised.

  Jo remembered being taken into the theatre and a friendly anaesthetist asking her to count to ten. The next thing she knew, she was back on the ward, staring at a sunbeam on the ceiling and feeling strangely detached and content. She watched herself smiling at her father and heard her own slow voice telling him that she felt fine. She vaguely recalled chatting about what was on the menu for tea, and then Jack and Pearl were gone.

  Sleep claimed her and she woke to find it dark and the lights out. Someone was moaning in the corner. Jo dozed off again. Later she was disturbed by someone being moved hurriedly in the ghostly light of the ward, and she could not get back to sleep. By then the numbing anaesthetic had worn off and the full brunt of the miscarriage hit her.

  Her dreams of married life with Mark and their first baby lay in shreds. In a few painful hours, their future had been torn from them. What use now was the flat they had chosen, with its second bedroom for the baby? Even if the nightmare of losing it had not happened, Mark might have washed his hands of them anyway. He had been prepared to raise another man’s child as his own for her sake, but not his hated older brother’s child.

  Gordon had humiliated Mark in front of all their friends. He could have borne it from another man, Jo thought, but not Gordon. He was the brother who had rejected Mark when he most needed him, the betrayer who had sided with his father in turfing him out of the family home. The resentment was long-running and deep. In Mark’s eyes, Gordon had had everything in life that he ever wanted, especially the attention of his parents. Useless to tell him now that Gordon had felt the same envy at his brother’s closeness to Ivy, or that Gordon believed he and not Mark had been the main victim of his parents’ warring.

  And now, Jo winced; Mark knew that Gordon had slept with her and fathered her baby. Gordon had snatched his future dreams too. Jo wept into her pillow, in the full rawness of her loss, knowing that Mark would blame her for not telling him herself. She was a worse betrayer than Gordon, she accused herself brutally.

  So it came as a shock when Mark appeared at her bedside at visiting time that evening, with a small bunch of flowers. They stared at each other, not knowing what to say, too aware of the other people around them. Others on the ward had looked at her askance for being unmarried and she had overheard one of them muttering that losing such a baby was for the best. Jo was painfully aware that they were glancing with hostility at Mark, believing him to be the cause of her shame. It left her unable to say what she really felt, that she had missed him and wanted him so badly through the terrible ordeal.

  Instead she joked lamely, ‘Did these come from Bewick’s garden?’

  ‘Nowt grows there in November,’ Mark answered wryly. ‘I had to pay for these.’

  She took them. ‘Ta.’

  ‘How you feeling?’ he asked.

  Jo felt like saying ‘Awful,’ but wanted to spare him her private torture. ‘All right,’ she managed.

  He began to gnaw on a finger and Jo knew he was trying to bring himself to say something. ‘Look,’ he began.

  ‘No, I know what you’re thinking,’ Jo broke in. ‘It must be difficult for you to come here.’ She dropped her voice. ‘I’m sorry I never told you about…you know. I should have done. But it doesn’t really matter any more, does it?’

  He gave her a long, questioning look. Jo was aware of the people at the next bed falling quiet, listening. She should have said she had not wanted to hurt him with the truth, that she had really wanted to marry him anyhow. But the words would not come and she felt inhibited in this large ward with its eavesdropping patients.

  Mark seemed about to say something when Jo noticed Pearl and her father crossing the room towards them. ‘Here’s me dad,’ she gulped. Mark stood up, looking awkward. They exchanged embarrassed greetings, the men not knowing what to say to each other. Pearl gave Mark a kiss. ‘Sorry for you, pet, an’ all.’

  Jo watched them helplessly, consumed with guilt that she was putting them all through this purgatory. She could see Mark glancing to the door, desperate to escape.

  ‘You don’t have to stay,’ she told him quietly.

  He shot her a bitter little look and nodded. ‘Aye, well, I’ll call round when you’re home if you want.’ Jo nodded back, aware that she had handled their meeting badly. Miserably, she watched him go.

  Mark hurried from the ward, making aimlessly for the stairs. He felt wretched at leaving Jo. She had looked so pale and withdrawn, as if she were already putting the past behind her, cutting him out. He had been so angry with her after Gordon’s taunts. She had strung him along and made a fool of him. Why had she not told him it was Gordon’s baby? he had railed.

  But as he had calmed down later that night, he began to question what he would have done if he had known. Would he have offered to marry her at all? He doubted it. He would probably have left her to fend for herself. He had lain all night plagued with thoughts of how Jo had been his brother’s lover. He knew from Marilyn that Jo had been in love with this other man and hurt by his rejection, and it was agony to discover it had been Gordon. He had merely been second best. Was that always to be his lot in life, to be runner-up to his older brother? Mark had raged.

  Then news had come about Jo’s miscarriage and he had been shocked to the core. Pearl had come round to see him, but he had been out all day, wandering around a cold and windswept Whitley Bay. By the time Ivy had given him the news, it had been too late to go to hospital to see Jo. Part of him had wanted to rush straight to her, to comfort her in her loss − in their loss.

  Yet a small, mean thought niggled deep inside. It was not his loss, it was Gordon’s baby. If it would have caused his brother any pain, he would almost have derived a vindictive pleasure from the miscarriage. Jo too was being punished for hiding the truth from him and for using him. Then Mark had been overwhelmed with remorse at such thoughts. He began to wonder if his own violent reaction to Gordon’s revelation had brought about the miscarriage. He hardly slept all night, torturing himself that he was somehow responsible for Jo losing the baby.

  Now, as he clattered down the hospital stairs, unaware of those around him, he thought about Jo’s reaction to his visit. He had come to say to her that he would still marry her if that was what she wanted. He had wanted to say sorry if the upset had caused her to miscarry, but she had not let him sa
y it. She had kept him at arm’s length, almost eager to see him gone as soon as her family arrived. And she had talked as if it was already over between them.

  He saw now that it probably was. Jo had only ever agreed to marry him for the baby’s sake and because Jack had been adamant that she should. When he had mentioned getting engaged before, had she not put him off? She did not seem as distressed at losing the baby as he had feared either. Maybe for her it was a relief, a way out of a reluctant marriage. Gordon had been the one she had really wanted, not him, he told himself harshly. Now she could get on with the life she had planned without him − her college course and a teaching career.

  He went out into the twilight, gulping down treacherous tears in his throat. Why did he feel so wretched about the loss of someone else’s bairn? he thought in bewilderment. And why did his heart ache so much for the woman upstairs who had hurt him so badly two nights ago that he had sworn to himself never to see her again?

  ‘Mark!’ A voice called to him out of the dark and Brenda almost bumped into him. ‘I thought you hadn’t seen me.’ She was clutching a box of chocolates.

  ‘Been in to see…?’ she began, then laughed at herself. ‘Well, of course you have − stupid question!’ She put out a hand and touched his arm. ‘Is she all right?’

  Mark shrugged. ‘Seems canny. Jack and Pearl are in.’

  They exchanged awkward smiles and he suddenly felt his exclusion. Nobody knew what to say to him anymore, and he wondered if Brenda had known about Jo’s affair with Gordon all along. Maybe he was the only one to have been kept in the dark about it, while half of Wallsend chewed over the gossip. He felt a surge of renewed anger towards Jo for the humiliation and misery that he felt. Even old friends did not seem comfortable with him any more. She had robbed him of that too.

  Turning from Brenda with a grunt for a goodbye, Mark pulled up his jacket collar and marched into the dark. He walked into the first pub he came across and drank himself into a numbing stupor.

  ***

  It was nearly two weeks before Jo saw Mark again. When she came out of hospital, she went to recuperate at Pearl’s flat, where she could gaze out of the ninth-floor windows over the grey docklands and the bare trees of the park. She found her father’s fussing attention touching but wearing. Worst of all, he would not stop fretting about the wedding arrangements.

  ‘Where is that lad?’ he demanded. ‘Is he going to wed you or not?’

  ‘I can’t blame him if he doesn’t, can I?’ Jo had cried in distraction.

  Her father had blustered: ‘From what Ivy says, he’s spending his whole time drinking. He’ll lose his job if he’s not careful. I’ve sometimes wondered if he’s up to the responsibility of marriage. Always had a bit of a screw loose, if you ask me. Like all those Duggans.’

  So Jo had taken refuge at Pearl’s, where her aunt had protected her from Jack’s questions. ‘He doesn’t always think before he speaks,’ Pearl defended her brother-in-law. ‘But he’s hurting too over you losing the bairn. He wants the best for you – to protect you. He hates to see you so unhappy.’

  In the peace of Pearl’s bright flat, Jo came to a decision. While her aunt was out at the supermarket, she went looking for Mark. Wrapped against the biting cold of an east wind that funnelled up the river, she made her way down Nile Street and knocked on Ivy’s door. It was the first time she had seen Mark’s grandmother since the miscarriage, and the plump old woman hesitated a moment before giving her a warm hug and pulling her inside. Ivy’s kindness made Jo feel renewed guilt at the pain she had caused everyone.

  ‘I’m not stopping,’ Jo said, keeping on her purple coat and crocheted hat. ‘I just wondered if Mark…’

  ‘He’s down to Hartlepool today, not back till teatime,’ Ivy explained. ‘Just stop for a cuppa.’

  Jo plonked herself down by the cheery fire and found herself telling Ivy everything. ‘In a way it’s a relief that the truth came out,’ she admitted sadly when she’d finished. ‘I don’t think I could have gone through with the marriage keeping the secret that the bairn was Gordon’s. It would have destroyed me, bottling up a secret like that for years, don’t you think?’ Ivy was pensive and did not reply. Jo went on, ‘And there would always have been the chance of Gordon wrecking things much later, when it was all too late. He would have always had a hold over me. At least now he can’t do that.’

  Ivy seemed upset by her words, so Jo stopped. The older woman went to stoke the fire, then asked, ‘You’ve made up your mind to call the wedding off, haven’t you?’

  Jo answered quietly, ‘Aye, I have. I’ve spoilt things between us. At least I can release Mark from having to marry me now there’s no point. He can go back to sea, do something that makes him happy.’

  ‘And you, hinny?’ Ivy asked with eyes glinting with emotion.

  Jo shook her head. ‘I don’t know yet. I find it hard enough deciding what to wear in the morning, let alone thinking of the future.’

  Ivy trembled. ‘Eeh, it breaks me heart, hinny!’

  Jo left before either of them broke down crying. Since coming home, she found tears came all too easily. She hurried through the town, wishing to avoid seeing anyone she knew. Ted had been understanding about giving her time off, but she had written a letter telling him she would not be coming back to the pub. Like the winter drawing in around her, she wanted to hibernate and hide herself away from the world.

  Mark came that evening to Pearl’s flat, and her aunt left them alone and went down to Jack’s. He looked haggard, his eyes dark-ringed and haunted.

  ‘Nana’s already told me you’re calling off the wedding,’ he said in a stony voice.

  ‘Aye,’ she gabbled. ‘I meant to tell you first, but Ivy got me chatting. I’m sure Ted’ll give us back the deposit on the room. And I’ll pay for anything owing on the flat − Pearl said she’d lend me −’

  ‘To hell with the bloody deposits!’ Mark exploded. ‘I don’t give a toss about the money.’

  Jo stared at him in alarm. ‘I’m sorry. I know how you must feel.’

  He glared at her. ‘No you don’t! You haven’t a bloody clue how I feel.’

  She grew agitated. ‘Well, it hasn’t been easy for me either! I’m the one who lost the baby, not you −’ She broke off, covering her face in distress. She yearned for him to make a move towards her, some sign that he understood what she had been through. There wasn’t an hour when she didn’t think about the baby, wonder if it was a boy or a girl she had lost. At times she drove herself mad with thinking what should have been. But he did not go to her. Looking up, she saw the empty expression in his eyes.

  ‘I thought you’d be glad to be let off the wedding,’ Jo said in a brittle voice. ‘I was the one caused this whole mess, so I’m trying to clear it up. At least this way you can go back to sea − start again.’

  ‘You mean you can go back to college like you always wanted,’ he said harshly.

  ‘Maybe I will,’ Jo replied shortly.

  He paced to the door, throwing her a stormy look. ‘Well, there’s no point me stopping any longer if you’ve made your mind up.’

  Jo sprang up, angry that he should make her feel guilty at her decision. She thought he would have been relieved, yet he seemed more angry with her than ever. ‘Tell me this before you go, Mark,’ she demanded. ‘If I’d told you about me and Gordon at the beginning, would you still have wanted to marry me and take care of his bairn?’

  He was stung by her question for it was the one that had plagued his fitful sleep for the past fortnight. He could not answer her.

  She gave him a bitter look. ‘No, I didn’t think you would have.’ Her eyes shone with angry tears. ‘Maybe it was for the best then, as Brenda keeps saying. Better to find out now than after we were wed.’

  ‘Maybes,’ Mark echoed, his face stormy. ‘At least now I know what you really feel about me. Gordon was the one you wanted, wasn’t he? But good old Mark, he’d have done as second best − a consolation prize. Except now y
ou don’t need me any more.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Jo cried.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  Jo sobbed, ‘I wanted that baby…!’

  Mark stared at her in misery, unable to offer the comforting words he knew he should. He had wanted the baby too. But all he could think of was that he was being rejected again, only this time by the one person he had loved and trusted all his life. He could not stem the desire to hurt her back, hating himself even as he did so.

  ‘Aye, but you didn’t want me, did you, Joanne?’ he said coldly. ‘You’re not the lass I thought you were − so I don’t want you any longer either.’

  His look was full of contempt as he turned and slammed the door behind him. Jo gave a gasp of pain and crumpled onto a chair, letting out a howl of distress. What had she expected? she asked herself harshly. She was the one who had called it off, hurting him again instead of making things better. She had vaguely imagined that he would be grateful to her for breaking off the engagement, that now he would have the freedom to go where he wished and not resent her for tying him down. Deep down she had hoped that time would heal the hurt between them and that they might be able to make a fresh start, without the pressure of a rushed wedding and a new baby.

  How stupid she had been! Jo thought in misery. The seeds of destruction of their love had been sown even before they had started courting; Gordon had unwittingly seen to that.

  When Pearl came back, she found Jo sitting staring out of the window at the lights along the river. One of the cranes had a line of coloured Christmas lights strung along it. Her aunt took one look at her face and said, ‘Bad, is it?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jo said bleakly. ‘We’ve split up.’

  Pearl came over and gave her a hug. ‘I’m sorry, pet. I wish things could have worked out differently. But at least this way you’re both free to do what you want.’

  Jo was numb, amazed at her own calmness after so many bitter tears. ‘Well, I’m sure of one thing,’ she said. ‘I was right to call it off. He doesn’t love me any more, you see. In fact I think he hates me for what’s happened.’