Return to Jarrow

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Chapter 43

  That night, Catherine dozed in a chair in Bridie’s room. She could not sleep for fear of what Bridie might do and could not rid her mind of the angry look on Tom’s face. Bridie finally slept and Catherine listened out for the return of the men.

  After midnight she heard the key in the door and whispered good nights on the stair. She wanted to rush out and apologise, but when she moved across the creaking boards, Bridie stirred. She could not risk a scene this late at night. So she let the footsteps pass, and sat awake, wondering with whom Tom had danced.

  The next morning, Catherine brought Bridie breakfast in bed and told her to rest. The woman looked haggard and contrite.

  ‘I know the Devil gets into me when I think I’m going to lose you,’ she confessed. ‘I’m sorry, girl. I don’t mean to cause you trouble. Please forgive me.’

  Catherine nodded, her heart heavy. She was only just beginning to see how obsessive was Bridie’s love. It was more stifling than Kate’s need for her.

  Downstairs, Mrs Fairy helped her serve out bacon and eggs. The major told her pointedly what a good dance she had missed. There was no sign of Tom.

  ‘Mr Cookson’s gone to communion,’ Mrs Fairy said. ‘Taken a picnic - said he’d be out all day.’

  Catherine’s unease grew. Summer Sunday afternoons were times they managed a walk together. She needed to talk to him. She spent the day in the garden, weeding vigorously, unable to settle to writing or reading. By the end she was aching and exhausted. Pausing to sit in the warm summerhouse on her way back to the house, she promptly fell asleep.

  She was woken by a gentle shake of the shoulder. Tom’s deep brown eyes were looking straight into hers.

  ‘Tom!’ she cried in startled relief. She reached her arms around his neck but he pulled away. ‘You’re cross with me, I know,’ Catherine said quickly, seeing his stern look, ‘but I had no choice last night. I’ve never seen her in such a state. I really think she would have done some harm.’

  Tom stood watching her, his face taut. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said quietly, ‘but I can’t go on like this, Kitty. Nobody’s happy. There’s a bad feeling about the house - you could cut it with a knife.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ Catherine asked desperately.

  His look did not waver. ‘Choose between us. Either Bridie goes or I go.’

  Catherine gulped. ‘But I can’t just hoy her out - not with Maisie as well.’

  He was suddenly angry. ‘Then you’ve made your decision. I think it’s the wrong one. Bridie’s like a leech on your back - she’ll never let you be your own woman like I would - but it’s your choice.’

  ‘It’s not my choice!’ Catherine protested. ‘I don’t want to be tied to Bridie’s apron strings any more. It’s suffocating living with her. But what can I do?’

  ‘You could help find her another lodging house - like you did for your mother,’ Tom challenged.

  ‘I’ve thought of that,’ Catherine insisted, ‘but I can’t afford to.’

  ‘It’s not impossible.’ Tom was adamant. ‘But you’ve got to want it to happen, Kitty, really want it. For you and me. And I don’t think deep down you really do.’

  He turned away. Catherine was filled with panic. She knew that this time he would not come back. He was too hurt, and there was a stubbornness under the shy exterior, a firmness of purpose to match her own.

  ‘I do want it!’ she cried, jumping up after him and grabbing his arm. ‘More than anything I want us to be together.’ She shook him to try to make him understand. ‘But you’ve got to help me deal with Bridie. After last night, I think she might be capable of anything.’

  Tom seized her to him and held her tight. ‘I’ll be here to face her with you.’

  Catherine clung on. ‘Then together we’ll be strong.’

  Before she said anything to Bridie, Catherine went to the bank and asked about a loan. She could not raise enough to buy Bridie out. She had managed to build up another insurance policy, but again the cash value was not enough. It caused another argument with Tom.

  ‘If you can’t afford to set her up in business, she’ll just have to go back to work,’ he said, losing patience. ‘There’s plenty of it around now - new armaments factories opening up by the day.’

  ‘No.’ Catherine was firm. ‘I’ll think of something else. She gave up her job to help me with The Hurst. She’s used to this life now - and she’s put a lot into the place. It wouldn’t be fair.’

  Catherine had another reason she could not share with Tom. Only she knew just how intense and dangerous was Bridie’s love for her. She had seen it in the wildness of her eyes the night she had threatened to kill herself. Catherine knew from her own confused feelings for Kate how love could seesaw with hate. If Bridie’s love was spurned, the backlash of hate could be deadly. She must do all she could to give Bridie a decent alternative.

  It was while walking in the garden in the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep, that the idea came. She looked up at the dark canopy of trees and back across the damp sweep of lawns. This was her greatest asset, the land beneath her feet. Builders would snap up the chance of putting a modern villa on such a site. With the money she could buy Bridie a boarding house of her own.

  Catherine’s heart was sore at the very thought. But it was the answer she had been praying for. Armed with this new proposal, she braced herself to put it to Bridie.

  As predicted, Bridie exploded with rage. Catherine was heartless and spiteful, a betrayer of loyal friends. Then there were tears and pleadings. For Maisie’s sake let them stay. She would not stop her going out with Tom if that’s what she really wanted.

  But Catherine, strengthened by Tom’s quiet presence, went ahead with the sale of two-thirds of the garden. Even suicide threats and malicious slandering did not sway her.

  ‘You ungrateful woman!’ Catherine finally snapped. ‘I’m nearly bankrupting myself to set you up in your own place! How dare you tell my guests that I’m throwing you and Maisie out? I’m being more than fair - and after all you’ve said and done to Tom.’

  Any mention of Tom brought a string of invective from Bridie.

  ‘You’re making a big mistake throwing your life away for such a man. It won’t last. He’ll bore you to death. In ten years’ time he’ll go off with a younger woman. Then you’ll regret getting rid of the only real friend you’ve ever had.’

  Catherine locked herself in her bedroom at night, ignoring Bridie’s nightly tirades or pitiful wailing at her door. It was a terrible few weeks, while she searched for a house she could afford. The world at large at odds with itself too, seemed to mirror the poisonous atmosphere at The Hurst. Hitler’s storm-troopers had marched into Czechoslovakia, his imperial ambitions growing. The fascists in Spain were gaining the upper hand. The fear of another Great War was brewing and nobody seemed certain of what to do.

  Catherine bullied Bridie into going to see a boarding house in St Leonards. It was more than she had wanted to pay, but she knew Bridie would like it, set as it was in a street they had admired on long-ago promenades around the resort.

  After the contract was signed, Bridie fell into sullen acceptance. She spoke to Catherine only through the other guests.

  ‘Ask her whether she wants the fire on tonight.’ Or, ‘Tell her I’m taking Tuppence for a walk with Maisie.’

  Embarrassing though this was, it was preferable to the weeks of emotional outbursts. But Catherine had not foreseen the consequences of Bridie’s insidious remarks. When it came for her and Maisie to move out, five of her lodgers gave their notice too.

  ‘She’s taking all my custom!’ Catherine wailed at Tom. ‘They think I’m to blame for it all. It’s so unfair!’

  Tom wrapped strong arms about her. ‘You’ve still got me and the major - and sweet Dorothy. We’ll soon
build up the numbers again.’

  It was the way he included himself in tackling the future that gave Catherine the courage to get through the final days of Bridie’s presence. A van was hired to take furniture to the new house. Bridie loaded up extra pieces that had not been agreed on, but Catherine let them go.

  On the day of departure, Catherine returned from the bathroom to find Bridie in her room searching through drawers. She had amassed a pile of trinkets, handkerchiefs and scarves.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Bridie flicked her a look and carried on rummaging. ‘Taking back what’s mine.’

  ‘But you gave me those things,’ Catherine protested.

  ‘I gave them to a different Catherine - a caring girl I used to know.’

  Catherine was indignant. ‘Please don’t go through my things.’

  Bridie’s look was disdainful. ‘Don’t worry - I’m returning everything you gave me.’ She picked up a bag and emptied it on to the bed. Out fell clothes, hair combs and jewellery. Savagely, she stuffed in the reclaimed presents. Catherine gripped her dressing gown about her, biting back bitter words.

  Bridie advanced towards her. ‘The only things I’ve kept are the letters,’ she said with suppressed fury.

  ‘Letters?’

  Bridie’s face lit with triumph. ‘Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten. All those letters you wrote to me when I was in Ireland telling me how much you loved me, how much you missed me - inviting me to live with you. Love letters, Catherine! I couldn’t throw those away now, could I? Wonder what your precious schoolboy would make of them?’

  Catherine looked at her in horror, struggling to remember. She had written to Bridie once or twice when she was lonely in Hastings - and on a visit to Jarrow telling her what she was doing. They were far from love letters. Perhaps over affectionate in retrospect, but then she had been young and hungry for friendship after falling out with Lily.

  ‘They weren’t love letters,’ she protested.

  ‘Yes they were - full of passion - better than anything you’ve written to the schoolboy, I bet.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’

  Bridie’s look softened. ‘Oh, girl, how have we come to this?’ Abruptly she dropped the bag and threw her arms about Catherine. ‘I don’t want to hurt you - I want to stay with you! Change your mind. We can rent out the other place. It’s not too late.’

  Catherine could hardly bear to be touched by her. Bridie felt her tense and slowly pulled away. Her blue eyes were brimming with tears. She spoke so quietly that Catherine struggled to hear.

  ‘If I can’t have you, he never will - I’ll make sure of that.’

  Before Catherine could ask her what she meant, Bridie was barging past her with her bag of possessions and out of the room.

  Shaken by the encounter, Catherine skipped breakfast and went off early to work without further goodbyes. She left a ten-shilling note in an envelope for Maisie and kissed the sleepy girl goodbye in the kitchen.

  ‘You can come back any time to visit,’ Catherine assured her, ‘and help me walk Tuppence.’

  All day at the laundry she felt faint with lack of food and sleep, but was too anxious to eat. Returning home that evening, her battered spirits lifted to see Tom coming out to greet her. Bridie would be gone with most of her business, but at least there would be peace and quiet at The Hurst.

  Tom kissed her openly, but something about his guarded look made her stop.

  ‘What is it? Surely she’s not still here?’

  Tom shook his head. A muscle throbbed in his tense face as he spoke.

  ‘She’s taken Tuppence.’

  Catherine looked at him in bewilderment.

  ‘It’s all right. I’ll go over there and fetch him back. She’s just being spiteful to the last. Told Mrs Fairy that the dog was hers since she’d bought him - and that Maisie couldn’t live without him.’

  It was too much for Catherine. She crumpled against him and broke down weeping. Tuppence was like a child to her, full of unquestioning love. Tom hugged and comforted her with soft kisses, steering her back to the house. She could hardly bear to walk in the door with no dog bounding out to meet her.

  But Tom was resolute. He’d go over that very evening, if that’s what Catherine wanted.

  ‘Why would she do such a thing?’ Catherine kept asking, quite at a loss.

  Mrs Fairy shook her head in disbelief. ‘She was acting that strange when she left, I think she just did it on the spur of the moment.’ She pressed Catherine to eat her soup while it was hot.

  They ate in subdued silence, then Mrs Fairy said, ‘She left a message for you - not that it makes a ha’pence of sense. Said before you came demanding the dog back, think about the letters.’

  Catherine let her spoon clatter in the bowl. Mrs Fairy shrugged.

  ‘That’s what she said - “Tell her it’s the dog or the letters.” ‘

  Catherine stared at her bowl. How Bridie must hate her with a vengeance to make such a demand. Damn the letters! Let Bridie show them; Tom would see them as naively passionate, and still love her.

  ‘What does she mean, Kitty?’ he asked.

  His troubled face made Catherine decide. She would put him through no further worry or humiliation at Bridie’s hand. Catherine shook her head. ‘Means nothing. Let Maisie keep Tuppence. He’ll help her settle in.’

  Tom looked baffled, but let the matter drop. He was so happy to be free of Bridie’s relentless bullying that Catherine’s sadness over Tuppence soon lifted. For the first time they could sit and chat and laugh together without glancing over their shoulders. Tom was shaking off his shyness, his confidence increasing in their growing love.

  Catherine’s exhaustion after the turmoil of the summer lessened. She revelled in his company and did not care if the priest or anyone else disapproved. She was deeply in love.

  At times, she was so happy, that she almost forgot about Bridie’s existence.

  Chapter 44

  1939

  Catherine, Tom and Major Holloway sat tensely around the wireless, listening to the King’s broadcast confirming the country was at war.

  ‘We can only do the right as we see the right, and reverently commit our cause to God.’

  Tom turned it off. Outside it was a beautiful sunny September evening. They sat in silence for several minutes, then the major shook his head.

  ‘I never thought I’d see another war in my lifetime. The war-to-end-all-wars, they said.’ He gave out a long sigh. ‘I’m too old to fight. What will you do, Tom?’

  Catherine was startled. She was thinking back to the first day of the Great War when, as a child, she had rushed outside to see if they were being invaded. Her grandfather had laughed at her foolishness. She had not thought of Tom enlisting.

  ‘You won’t go and join up, surely?’ she cried. ‘They’ll still need teachers.’

  Tom regarded her with troubled eyes. ‘If I’m called up . . .’ He shrugged.

  She went to bed that night full of foreboding. Their strangely tranquil year together was over. It was months ago that Catherine had given in her notice at the laundry. Tired out from trying to juggle her job with running The Hurst, she had decided to concentrate on building up her business once more.

  Money had been tight, but with the help of Tom, Mrs Fairy and Rita, she had attracted new custom and begun to make The Hurst viable again. She had bumped into Bridie twice; once in church at Christmas and once outside the cinema. The woman had been more like her old self, breezy and full of chatter as if the past rows and recriminations had never been.

  ‘I’m doing grand - turning away business, so I am,’ she declared. ‘Hear you’ve given up work at the laundry. Wasn’t I always telling you to do that? You look younger by years!’

  Catherine remembe
red her saying no such thing, but let it pass. She waited for Bridie to question her about Tom, but she didn’t. Nor did she say a word of thanks for the gift of the boarding house that was giving her such a good living. Catherine refrained from a caustic reminder.

  ‘Come round and see me and Maisie,’ Bridie encouraged. ‘I miss our chats.’

  Catherine ignored the invitation and did not mention it to Tom.

  The one incident that disturbed their peaceful existence was an emotional letter from Kate in the spring. Davie had been killed in an accident - fallen off the quayside returning to his ship and drowned. By the time the letter arrived the funeral was over. Catherine wrote her mother a long sympathetic letter, but stopped short of inviting her back to Hastings. She was not going to risk anyone coming between her and Tom again.

  When she heard nothing back from Kate, she wrote to Aunt Mary for news. Her aunt was quick to write back with the gossip. Davie had been drunk. They’d rowed over something. He’d stormed off to his ship and never returned. Body washed up in the Slake two days later weighed down with whisky bottles. Maybe he’d meant to step off the staithes; maybe he hadn’t. Whichever it was, Kate was blaming herself.

  Catherine discussed it with Tom. ‘I thought he was working the ferries?’

  ‘Perhaps he’d decided to go back to sea,’ Tom suggested. ‘Poor man. Poor Kate.’

  They looked at each other for a long time, but neither voiced what the other was thinking. Take Kate back and she’d be meddling in their lives just as before. Instead, Catherine sent money that she could scarcely afford. She heard nothing back for a month until a card came on her thirty-third birthday wishing her well. Kate had moved to a flat in Chaloner’s Lane and had a cleaning job at a doctor’s surgery. Catherine was thankful that her prayers had been answered.

  As for Tom, somehow the talk of marriage had slipped into the background. They were living quite happily under the same roof, sharing meals and conversation, going to films and concerts, reading to each other by the fireside like an old married couple. All that was missing was sharing each other’s bed.