The pain made her grandmother’s temper as brittle as an eggshell, and in order to keep the peace, Katie often had to suppress the retorts she felt like making. She was not going to let her life be made a misery, however, and when it came to the point where she could bear it no longer, she would stand up for herself.
When Mary Ann complained one morning about how hard it was for her to go down on her knees and worse still to get up again, her grand-daughter said, ‘I’ll rise earlier in the mornings to light the fire, and I’ll do the housework when I come home at nights.’
‘I’ve kept this place clean from the day I was wed,’ Mary Ann barked, ‘and I’m not letting it go to rack and ruin.’
‘It wouldn’t go to rack and ruin,’ Katie flung back. ‘I can keep it as clean as you ever did.’
‘You’re not getting the chance. Once I’m away, you can please yourself what you do, but as long as I’m able, I’ll do things my way. I’m still mistress of this house.’
Katie stopped arguing. Her grandmother would have to give in sooner or later.
Mary Ann, however, kept on doggedly, and it was almost the end of November, when Katie was about to go back to work one afternoon, before she muttered, ‘I’ll need some vegies for the broth the morrow.’
Knowing what it was costing the old lady to admit to being unable to walk to the shops, Katie just said, ‘If you write out a list, I’ll hand the basket in to Jimsie on my road to the baker, and I’ll collect it when I’m coming home.’
Later that day, she was struggling with the load of leeks, carrots, turnip and potatoes the greengrocer had packed into her basket when someone took it from her and a deep voice said, ‘You’re nearly down on your knees with that, Katie. Let me carry it for you.’
She looked round gratefully. ‘You’re home again, George? Thanks. If I’d known how heavy this would be, I’d have asked Jimsie just to put in half a stone of tatties.’
‘What’s wrong with Mary Ann that she’s not doing her own shopping? Is she laid up?’
‘Not exactly, but her knees have bothered her for a long time, and she’s hardly able to walk at all now.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. I used to carry her basket and all, when I was a young laddie.’
Katie smiled. ‘Aye, she told me.’
‘She used to make out she was a real tartar, but she aye gave me a ha’penny for helping her.’
‘I hope you’re not expecting a ha’penny from me.’
They both chuckled at that, then George said, ‘Would you mind if I came in with you to have a word with her?’
‘No, I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you again.’
Mary Ann was glad. ‘Come away in, George,’ she beamed, ‘and Katie’ll make you a cup o’ tea.’
‘Don’t bother, Katie. Ma’ll have my supper ready.’
‘I’d better do what I’m told,’ she smiled. ‘Grandma still thinks I’m a wee lassie to boss around.’
The old woman shook her head. ‘You’re getting ower big for your boots. It’s a man you need, to keep you in about.’
‘Oh, Grandma,’ the girl protested, ‘what’ll George think?’
‘I think she’s right,’ he grinned.
Katie blushed, and Mary Ann sat back. ‘And how long are you home for?’ she asked the young man.
‘I’ve got another week before we start the painting and doing all the things that need to be done. The Jean Nutten’s not a bad old tub, but every time we come back off a trip, there’s more and more to be done on her.’
‘The Jean Nutten?’
‘The skipper named her for his wife. I’m thinking about signing on a Cullen boat, though, for I’m tired of being away so long at a time, when I could be home every weekend.’
Mary Ann’s pointed glance in her direction made Katie’s colour deepen even further. ‘Do you take sugar in your tea, George?’ she asked, not daring to look at him.
‘Two spoons, please, no milk.’
‘How’s your mother keeping?’ Mary Ann took his attention back to her.
‘She’s fine, thanks. How are you, yourself?’
‘I’d be fine if it wasna for my knees, though I suppose I shouldna complain at my age.’
‘You haven’t changed much since I was a laddie.’
She took the compliment with a nod. ‘I canna say the same for you. You used to be a wee nickum wi’ a dirty face and holes in the knees o’ your breeks, and look at you now – a fine upstanding young man. You’ve still got the same taking way about you, though. Hasn’t he, Katie?’
Looking at him – tall and broad, with an attractive smile that made her heart beat a little faster – Katie could only agree. ‘Aye, I suppose he has,’ she mumbled.
He gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘And Katie’s as bonnie as ever … maybe bonnier.’
While they drank the tea, George told them about his trips to Shetland and down the east coast as far as Yarmouth, and Mary Ann let Katie ask the questions, smiling to herself at how things were going.
At last, George said, ‘I’m keeping you from your supper, though, and Ma’ll think I’m lost.’
Mary Ann held out her hand. ‘You’ll come back to see me?’
‘Aye,’ he smiled, ‘I’ll do that.’
‘See him out the door, Katie.’
The kitchen door opening straight on to the road, Katie knew what her grandmother was up to, but did as she was told. ‘I’m sorry if she embarrassed you,’ she said when they were standing outside.
‘I wasn’t embarrassed. She made my mind up for me.’
‘What about?’
‘I was wondering if I should ask you to come for a walk with me later on.’
‘And what did you decide?’
‘I decided not to ask you.’ He gave a mischievous grin and added, ‘I’m telling you – I’ll come for you about eight.’
Annoyed at him for teasing, she said, cuttingly, ‘What if I tell you not to bother?’
His face fell. ‘Oh, you’re not turning me down, are you, Katie? Surely you’ll come out for a wee walk?’
‘I’ll think about it.’
His grin returned. ‘All right, I’ll give you five seconds. One, two, three …’
She gave him a push. ‘Oh, go on with you, George Buchan.’
She was shaking her head in amusement when she went inside again, and Mary Ann said, ‘You’re going out wi’ him, then?’
‘You were listening?’
‘I couldna help hearing. I’m nae deaf yet.’
‘You won’t mind being on your own?’
‘It looks like I’m going to be, whether I mind or not.’
‘I’ll not go if you …’
‘Ach, just go, and stop your havering.’
Not aware that George’s mother had been angry when he told her where he was going, Katie wondered why he was so subdued when she went out in answer to his knock, and was glad when his spirits lifted in a few seconds. ‘Where do you want to go?’ he asked. ‘To the Bin … but maybe that’s too far. What about along the shore? Or is there anywhere else you fancy?’
‘I love going along the shore.’
As they walked, they reminisced about their schooldays and speculated as to the whereabouts of their classmates who had left Cullen. When they came to the Three Kings, Katie said, shyly, ‘Have you ever … ?’ She halted, then whispered, ‘Ach, you’ll think I’m daft.’
‘No, go on.’
‘Have you ever thought they’re something more than just rocks?’
‘Have you?’
‘I used to think they were the Three Kings in the Bible.’
‘The Wise Men?’
‘Aye, and I spoke to them and told them things.’
‘What kind of things?’
He sat down at the base of the one nearest them, and she sat down beside him. ‘Childish things, mostly about being annoyed at Grandma. Not Granda, though, for he was always good to me.’
‘Was your Grandma not good to you?’
George opened his mouth as if to say something, but shut it again, so Katie went on, ‘I was working for the doctor’s wife at first, then Grandma put me into service miles away without even asking me if I wanted to go.’
‘Did you not like being in service there?’
‘I didn’t mind Mrs Gunn, and Sammy was my friend, but Mr Gunn …’
‘Sammy? Was he their little boy?’
‘He was their son, just two years older than me.’
‘Oh!’
The word conveyed dismay, and, realizing what he thought, she hurried on, ‘I was sorry for him … he was a bit simple and he’s in Ladysbridge now.’ Her guilt about Sammy reared its head again, and she burst out, ‘I don’t want to speak about him. What were you going to say a minute ago?’
‘I was going to ask if you wanted to come back to Cullen, or if you just came to keep Mary Ann company when William John died?’
Katie pulled a face. ‘I didn’t really want to come back. Grandma and me never got on, but … well, things happened to me that made me want to get away from where I was.’
‘From service?’
‘No, I left there years before, and I’d a few different jobs in different places.’
Although they fell silent now, each was electrically aware of the other, as if some invisible cable joined them, and Katie could not – did not want to – draw away when George’s hand slid over and covered hers. They kept sitting thus for some time, then he lifted her hand to his face. ‘You’ll come out with me again, Katie?’
The humble pleading made her feel as if she were floating on air, giving her a sense of power. Her hand still tingling from contact with his rough cheek, she suddenly remembered her experience with Dennis. It was almost as if she were being given a warning, and she knew she had to be careful. About to say, once again, that she would think about it, she realized that it wouldn’t be fair to tease George this time. ‘All right,’ she smiled. ‘I do like being with you …’ She paused, then added, firmly, ‘just as a friend.’
He let out his breath. ‘That’s all I wanted to know. Now, we’d best get back, it’s too cold to be sitting about.’
He helped her to her feet, and they stood facing each other, so close that his breath stirred her hair, his brown eyes, more serious than she had ever seen them, locked with hers, then he turned away abruptly. She was sure that he had been going to kiss her and was quite glad that he hadn’t. He was an old school friend she liked talking to, and anything more than that would spoil it.
At her door, he squeezed her hand. ‘Tomorrow same time?’
‘If you want.’
Inside, Mary Ann eyed her with interest. ‘Well, did you enjoy yourselves?’
‘Aye, we’d a walk along the shore.’
Her lack of excitement told her grandmother that nothing had happened between them. ‘I’m away to my bed then, so mind and turn out the lamp when you go to yours.’
‘I’ll not forget.’ Katie poured herself a cup of tea and sat down by the dying fire. She suspected her grandmother was hoping she would fall in love with George, but a girl couldn’t turn love on and off like a tap, though she was attracted to him, she couldn’t deny that. When they left school, he had just been an inch or so taller than she was, and he seemed to have shot up since then, for her head only reached his shoulder. His face had lost its chubbiness, the puppy fat had gone from his body – he looked better without it – and he wasn’t a boy any more. His hands were calloused, and his light brown hair looked as if he had hacked at it himself – or maybe one of the men he sailed with had cut it for him when they were away. He didn’t seem to care about his appearance, which was a good thing, for it showed he wasn’t vain like Dennis had been.
Thinking about Dennis started the old ache in her heart – not an ache for a lost love, but anger at having been duped by the man she had believed loved her – and she stood up and turned out the lamp.
George was pensive as he walked home. Why hadn’t he kissed Katie? He had wanted to, but something had held him back. Was it what his mother had said about her? At the time, he had thought it didn’t matter that she might have been born out of wedlock, now he wasn’t so sure. He had been brought up in a religious household, and had been taught to believe that no decent woman would allow a man to touch her before they were married. If Katie’s mother hadn’t been married to young William John, if she’d been a girl he’d just played around with, would it mean Katie had inherited loose morals from both parents? He might be wise not to get too deeply involved with her, for he would expect the girl he chose as a wife to be a virgin, and he didn’t know what she’d got up to when she was working away from Cullen.
His mother pounced on him as soon as he went inside. ‘I hope you didna try onything wi’ that lassie?’
‘Her name’s Katie,’ he said, sharply, ‘and she’s too nice for me to try anything, even if I’d felt like it, which I didn’t. We were just walking, and speaking.’
‘You’d best be careful. Did she tell you about that man she had wi’ her at the station?’
‘Him that looked soft? She told me who he was.’ George told her no more because there was little more to tell.
Not having expected Katie to mention the man at all, Ina was taken aback, but she said, tartly, ‘Dinna forget she could be a bastard.’
Despite what he had been thinking on his way home, George burst out, ‘It wouldn’t be her fault if she was, and I’ve aye been real fond of her.’
‘As long as that’s all. If you ever think on taking her as your wife, I’d …’
‘If I want her for my wife,’ he said, firmly, ‘I’ll take her, though I doubt if it’ll ever come to that. We’re just friends, and I’ll keep on seeing her, whatever you say.’
Ina flounced out of the room, and George sat down, wishing that he knew what Katie and the man – Sammy, she’d called him – had done that made Johnny Martin arrest them. She had apparently been released quickly, so it couldn’t have been anything bad, but maybe it was why Sammy had been sent to Ladysbridge. George wasn’t surprised that his mother was doing her best to put him off Katie. Since his father died, he’d been the be-all and end-all of her existence, and she would likely think no girl was good enough for him. Mary Ann, on the other hand, had seemed to be encouraging him, though he hadn’t made up his own mind what to do.
Ella Brodie opened her door just wide enough to see who had knocked. Having overslept for the first time in years, she was ashamed to be seen in her nightgown at nine o’clock in the morning and was glad to find it was only the widow from next door. ‘Aye, what is it?’ she asked, testily.
Mrs Frain held out a letter. ‘It’s addressed to Katie Mair, and I minded you saying she bade in the house afore me. The postie put it through my door, and I thought you’d ken where she was.’
Ella was about to refuse to take it when she noticed that it looked official, and thinking that it must be important, she decided to let bygones be bygones. Whatever Katie Mair had been, it wasn’t Christian to keep her letters from her. ‘I’ve nae idea where she is, but her and Lottie McRuvie was awful friendly, so she’ll maybe ken. I was going up to the baker’s any road, so I’ll take it.’
Before she went out, Ella had another change of heart. It maybe wasn’t such a good idea to be handing Katie’s private correspondence over in a crowded shop, with so many gossips ready to broadcast it to the four winds. It would be best to go to the Temperance Hotel and give it to that waiter Katie had lived in sin with. He’d likely know where she was.
As soon as he was free, Dennis opened the letter Ella Brodie had given him. He had no reservations about reading it; he wanted to know what it said before he sent it on to Cullen – he was sure Katie had gone home to her grandparents.
His eyebrows shot up in astonishment when he discovered that it was a notification of Samuel Gunn’s death i
n the Mental Institution at Ladysbridge. So the daftie had landed in the asylum? After Katie always swearing she would never have him put away, she had actually gone and done it. Dennis felt quite resentful. She wouldn’t do it for him, but she must have done it for some other man. That hurt his pride. It bloody well did, and he would let her find out for herself that the daft blighter had kicked the bucket. She didn’t mean anything to him now, so why should he go out of his way to post on this letter? With an evil grin, Dennis held his lighter to the corner of the paper, watched while it flared up, and then dropped it into the ashtray before it burned his fingers.
Chapter Twenty-two
The Jean Nutten being berthed at Peterhead, where her crew carried out the necessary maintenance, George Buchan saw quite a lot of Katie over the winter. There were times when he wondered if he was being fair to her – he wasn’t ready to tie himself down – yet he couldn’t bring himself to break off with her, for there was something about her that drew him like metal to a magnet. He told himself that he hadn’t fallen in love with her, but he always felt put out when she turned her head away if he tried to kiss her goodnight and his lips met her velvety cheek.
The only good thing about it was that he could answer his mother honestly when she asked him if anything was going on between him and Katie Mair. ‘Nothing’s going on,’ he told her one night. ‘We’re just good friends, and it looks like that’s all she’ll ever want from me.’
‘Aye, well,’ Ina muttered, ‘she’s more sense than I gi’ed her credit for.’
After one miserably wet evening spent with Mary Ann’s eyes darting back and forth from him to her grand-daughter as if searching for signs of blossoming love, George looked at the girl quizzically when they were saying goodnight outside the door. ‘I think your Grandma’s hoping …’
‘She’ll be disappointed, then,’ Katie declared. ‘I don’t want anything to do with men.’
He should have been relieved at this, but a pain started somewhere inside him, cramping round his heart and telling him he’d been fooling himself to think he didn’t love her. ‘You’ve been coming out with me for ages, and I’m a man.’
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