Jarrow Trilogy 02 - A Child of Jarrow

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

Afterwards, Kate tried to pull the girl into her arms and reassure her it was just a bad dream. But Catherine stiffened in rejection and held her face away as if she could not even bear to breathe the same air. So Kate’s words of comfort shrivelled on her lips and she fell into exhausted sleep. Sometimes she slept late and it was John who came to rouse her with predatory hands on her thighs and buttocks.

  ‘Get away!’ Kate cried groggily.

  ‘Well, get up you lazy bitch and give us breakfast.’

  Catherine lay in bed for weeks until gradually her interest in life returned. She found she could get up and walk a few steps. Kate moved her to the settle in the kitchen where she could watch the other children playing in the street. She still seemed oddly detached and did not show any inclination to try to join her friends. But Kate was heartened by her increasing appetite and the occasional spark of defiance.

  ‘You’ll be back at school by blackberry picking,’ she encouraged.

  ‘I’m not ganin’ back,’ Catherine announced. ‘I don’t learn anything useful.’

  Kate snorted. ‘Tell that to Miss Coulthard.’

  ‘I wish she was dead,’ Catherine muttered. ‘She’s always picked on me. I hate school.’

  Kate scolded her for such a thought and let the matter drop.

  During her long recuperation, Davie McDermott reappeared from sea and asked for lodgings.

  ‘I heard about Jack,’ he said with a touch on Kate’s shoulder, ‘and I’m sorry.’

  She nodded and quickly cleared the bedroom for his use.

  Catherine perked up to hear the stoker’s tales of stormy voyages to the West Indies and America. They sat and played cards at one end of the table while Kate hummed over the ironing at the other. Kate enjoyed his quiet, easy-going presence and he was generous with jugs of beer in the evening. It reminded her of happier moments when Stoddie had flirted with her and made her feel special. She longed to know what had happened to Davie’s brother-in-law, but was too shy to ask. Catherine, though, was not.

  ‘Did he come home after the war?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye, he’s working over Liverpool way,’ Davie said, rolling a cigarette.

  ‘Just think of it - after all them years in a prison camp. Can he speak German?’

  Davie laughed softly. ‘Don’t rightly know.’

  ‘D-did he -’ Kate floundered, ‘has he . ..? Is he wed to your Molly’s friend?’

  Davie shot her a look. ‘Aye, been married six months or more. Taken a shore job to please her.’

  Kate felt her heart squeeze. How she envied that woman!

  ‘That’s grand,’ she forced herself to say. But shortly afterwards, she had to rush to the privy to stop the others seeing the tears she could not hold back.

  Later, when Catherine had fallen asleep and John was not yet returned from the pub, she unburdened her troubles to Davie, her tongue loosened by drink.

  ‘I cared for him,’ she sniffed. ‘I thought we had an understanding, me and Stoddie. But now I’ve got no one - never will, not as long as old John rules this house. I’m saddled with him and with the lass,’ she said morosely. ‘Look at her, sleeping with the face of an angel. But I cannot work her out. Sometimes she plays up like the Devil. I’ve tried to get her to learn her lessons, but she’s that awkward. Does the very opposite of what I say, just to spite me. She’s got his wayward nature, Mr High-and-Mighty Pringle-Davies.’

  If she had not drunk so much, Kate would never have uttered his name. She had never spoken of him in years, had kept his name locked inside her like a guilty, burning secret. Why had she told such things to this quiet seaman, who gave away so little himself?

  Suddenly Davie spoke. ‘He can’t have been worth much, leaving a lass like you to fend for yourself.’

  She turned on him with bleary eyes. ‘For years I kept hoping he might come back - daft, wasn’t it? But I kept telling meself something must’ve happened to him, not to have done. But I was just being soft in the head. Lads just take what they want and hoy the rest to the Devil.’ She gave a mirthless laugh.

  Davie said nothing, his craggy face impassive and eyes watchful.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, ‘take no notice of what I say. It counts for nothing.’

  She stood unsteadily and went to bank up the fire for the night.

  The next day, to Kate’s dismay, Davie packed his bag and said he was going home. She cursed herself for her drunken ramblings of the night before. She could not remember what she had said, except she knew it had been too much. She had a vague memory of mentioning Alexander, and blushed to think of it.

  At the door, he turned to her and said very low, ‘Stand up for yourself, Kate. Don’t let old John or the lass lead you a merry dance.’

  Kate returned inside with a heavy heart, to be greeted by Catherine’s resentful look.

  ‘He promised me a game of gin rummy,’ she said petulantly, ‘and now he’s gone.’

  Kate felt as wretched as the girl looked, but was not going to be blamed.

  ‘Aye, well, if you’re feeling so perky, you can get up and help me with the washing the day.’

  To her astonishment, a short while later, Catherine appeared pale-faced in the wash-house doorway, clutching the bag of wooden pegs.

  Chapter 47

  Something changed within Kate after Davie’s visit. She felt a small stirring of self-respect. The tongue-tied Cumbrian with the steady gaze had thought it worth telling her to stand up for herself. For years she had seen herself only as the family drudge, a woman ageing too fast from heavy chores, with a face grown ugly from fatigue, drink and disappointment. But he must have glimpsed something else, something of the old Kate that was worth rescuing. Don’t let old John or the lass lead you a merry dance.

  And oh, there had been plenty of that over the succeeding months!

  Catherine had stubbornly refused to return to school. The weeks of absence had grown into months and the attendance officer had called regularly at their door. Even the news that Miss Coulthard had suddenly died did not persuade her mulish daughter to complete her schooling.

  ‘I’m finished with it,’ she said dismissively, ‘I want to earn me own living. I don’t want to be tret like a bairn any more.’

  How could she tell her mother that it was debt that paralysed her with fear? She wanted to help out so that Kate would be pleased with her and love her more. She longed for her mother to be respectable and not the focus of neighbours’ scorn for haunting the pawnshops.

  So against Kate’s wishes and after a storm of angry words, Catherine found employment at one of the larger houses in Simonside Terrace, cleaning and washing for the family of a foreman carpenter. Her days were long and arduous, but she seemed to thrive on her small bid for independence and the ten shillings a week that she earned.

  Kate demanded most of it, but she noticed how Catherine saved the small amounts she allowed her to keep and spent them on more fashionable clothes and a large-brimmed hat that was her pride and joy. After several months of working life, she bought a second-hand bicycle, having hankered for one for years. She disappeared into the countryside on Saturday afternoons with her friend Lily, whom she had met at the church youth club, and the girls would return with ruddy cheeks. Often Lily would stay over and Kate would hear them whispering and giggling late into the night and be reminded of her and Sarah at that age. But Catherine never shared their confidences with her.

  At fourteen, her daughter was quick to challenge her over what she wore and the chores she agreed to do. The arguments increased, but Kate watched in astonishment and a touch of admiration as the girl answered John with spirited replies when he cursed the world, especially Protestants.

  ‘I think the Salvation Army are canny,’ she declared. ‘They’re not afraid to shout out their faith in the marketplace.’

  Kate had to shove her daughter out of the kitchen as John came after her, waving the poker and baying for her blood. Whether it was Davie’s words or Catherine’s defiance that promp
ted Kate to turn on John, she was never sure. But one night in 1921 when he stormed after her drunkenly around the kitchen table, threatening her with the hated poker, she struck back.

  Without thinking, Kate seized the heavy cast-iron frying pan in which she had cooked his tea.

  ‘Stay away from me!’ she yelled, wheeling round to face him.

  He sneered, ‘You wouldn’t dare. I’d kill you first.’

  ‘I dare,’ she cried. ‘I’ve had enough of you and your bullying ways. If you touch me again, by God, I’ll hit you with this!’

  John laughed harshly and swayed towards her. ‘You don’t frighten me, you slut. Look at you - boozy old hag.’

  Enraged, she swung the frying pan above her head and brought it crashing down on his.

  He staggered back in surprise, tripped over a stool and crashed to the floor, hitting himself on the table as he fell. Kate stood in disbelief at what she had just done. He lay quite still on the floor. She had killed him! Her heart thumped in shock. Then he groaned and moved. Kate dropped the pan with a clang and ran to the bedroom.

  ‘Kitty, get up this minute!’ She shook her daughter awake, terrified that any moment John would come barging after her and beat her to a pulp. ‘Quick, Kitty, we have to flee!’

  She dragged the sleepy girl out of bed, hardly giving her a moment to throw on a coat over her nightdress. Catherine stopped short at the sight of her grandfather sprawled on the floor, a hand clutched to his head. Blood was trickling through his fingers.

  ‘Grandda?’

  ‘Haway, Kitty,’ Kate urged without explanation and pulled her out of the house and into the windy night. They ran up the street and hammered on Mary’s door. ‘Let us in, Mary! Father’s after us! Let us in, for pity’s sake.’

  A yawning tousled-haired Alec came to the door and let them inside. That night they bedded down on Mary’s chintz-covered sofa while Mary’s husband went round to see that John still lived. He came back reporting, ‘The old devil’s got a sore head and a bruise the size of a football. I bandaged him up and got him to bed. But I’d stay away, if I was you.’

  So the next day Catherine went off to work and Kate laid low at her sister’s house, wary of any heavy footfall in the street below. But John did not come breaking down Mary’s door or haranguing them foully for all the neighbours to hear.

  ‘Maybes you’ve taught him a lesson,’ Mary said with a touch of admiration. ‘Mam should’ve done the same years ago.’

  Still, Kate kept away, lending a hand around the house and busying herself polishing the many brasses. In the evenings Catherine came in and helped young Alec with his reading. After several days, the sisters were tiring of such close company.

  ‘You’ll have to find somewhere else,’ Mary decreed.

  ‘Give us a few more days,’ Kate bargained, ‘while I sort something out.’ She thought grimly how they would have to look for cheap rooms in Tyne Dock. With only Catherine’s wages and her meagre pay from cleaning jobs they could afford little else. Maybe they could stretch to two rooms and take in lodgers in the second.

  As Kate was fretting over their future, she was startled by a rap at the door. Mary peered behind the lace curtain into the street below.

  ‘It’s Father,’ she gasped. ‘You’ll have to gan down and speak to him. I’ll not have a scene at my door.’

  Kate felt sick, but she gripped her skirts to stop her hands shaking and went to answer the knocking.

  ‘Well?’ She stared at him, chin raised.

  ‘What you doing hiding here?’ he demanded aggressively, though he stood hunched and uncertain. He looked old and ill, his eyes bloodshot and the gash to his head still congealed with dried blood from where he had struck the table. Kate said nothing. ‘There’s nowt in the house,’ he whined.

  ‘So?’

  He looked around edgily. ‘Come back, lass. Both of you.’

  Kate steeled herself against his pathetically pleading look. She would not pity him!

  ‘We’re not coming back.’

  John peered beyond her. Perhaps he hoped for a glimpse of Catherine.

  ‘Kitty’s not in,’ Kate told him flatly, ‘and you’ll not get round her either.’

  ‘Mary’ll not keep you for long,’ he growled. ‘She’ll drive you into the madhouse with her bitching.’

  ‘We’ll find something.’

  John’s face sagged. ‘Please come home. I promise you I’ll not touch you again.’

  Kate could hardly keep herself from laughing out loud. How she wished she could believe him! Number Ten might be bearable if only she could go to bed at night free of fear of assault, free of having to placate his drunken outbursts, free of flying chairs and fists.

  He must have sensed her wavering for he added, ‘Please, for the sake of your dear mother’s memory. She wouldn’t want me left on me own.’

  Kate gave him a contemptuous look. Rose would have left him years ago if it had not been for her daughters. She had thrown in her lot with her abusive husband so as to give them a chance of escape to a better life. Kate saw that now. And it occurred to her that that was what she was prepared to do too.

  She would go back for Catherine’s sake if she had to, but she was determined to hold out as long as she could.

  ‘I’ll send the lass round with some bread and bacon,’ Kate conceded. Then shut the door on him.

  Mary was gleeful. ‘That showed the old devil. Never thought you’d face up to him like that. And you the one always trying to please him when we were lasses!’

  It was a grudging compliment, but Kate felt encouraged. The next day, she spent a fruitless morning looking for somewhere to rent. There was nothing she could afford. Despite the recent slump at the yards, prices were still high and there was a shortage of cheap dwellings to rent. She balked at the thought of taking Catherine to live in a cheap lodging house and doubted her recalcitrant daughter would follow her.

  Kate traipsed back to Mary’s to find Catherine already there.

  ‘What you doing back so early?’

  ‘I’m not ganin’ to work for the likes of them no longer,’ her daughter pouted.

  Kate looked at her in dismay. ‘They’ve sacked you?’

  ‘No,’ Catherine was aggrieved, ‘I gave me notice.’

  ‘What?’ Kate exclaimed. ‘Are you daft in the head? They’re laying folk off at the yards and cutting their wages and you choose this moment to pack in your job!’

  ‘Well, she was that bossy,’ Catherine defended. ‘I got sick of her telling me what to do.’

  Kate was about to start a shouting match, when she suddenly crumpled and burst into tears. Catherine looked at her in alarm.

  ‘I’ll find something else,’ she promised quickly. ‘I’ll work hard, but not for those who lord it over me. As Grandda says, no matter who they are, they’ve all got to gan to the netty!’

  The thought of John made Kate cry even harder. To distract her, Catherine pulled on her arm.

  ‘Kate, there’s something I want to show you - something you should see. It’s in Mary’s dressing table.’

  Kate wiped her face on her sleeve. What had the girl been up to now?

  ‘You shouldn’t be poking your nose into her things. She’ll wipe the floor with you if she finds out. Where is she, any road?’

  ‘Out shopping down Jarrow. Haway and look!’

  Warily, Kate followed her daughter into Mary’s bedroom, where her sister never let her polish. It smelt pleasantly of eau-de-Cologne, and the bed was covered in a pretty pink bedspread. She felt a stab of envy as she watched Catherine pull open one of the gleaming mahogany drawers and reach to the back. She pulled out a muslin bundle tied up in string. Untying it, she held out the contents. It was a wad of paper, grubby-edged. Letters.

  Kate’s stomach turned over as she took them. She knew the spidery writing.

  ‘Stoddie,’ she whispered. ‘What’s he doing writing to our Mary?’

  ‘Not Mary,’ Catherine said quietly.

&nb
sp; Then it hit Kate. They were addressed to her. She sat down on the bed before her knees gave way. Sifting through them with trembling hands, she asked in confusion, ‘I don’t understand. What are they doing here?’

  ‘Look,’ Catherine pointed, ‘the dates on them. They were written years ago - during the war. For some reason he sent them here.’

  Kate’s insides squeezed. ‘I told him to - but I thought he’d stopped. Mary never said.’ The full enormity of what her sister had done began to dawn on her. ‘She kept them from me!’

  With trembling hands, Kate pulled out the top letter from its flimsy envelope, almost reluctant to read it. But she had to know.

  ‘Dearest Kate,

  How are you? It’s weeks since I heard from you. How is the bairn? I keep the picture she drew me in me top pocket. Please thank her. It keeps me cheerful. It’s cold here now, but we don’t complain. Must be twice as bad for the lads in the trenches. I miss you and think of you always. Write to me when you can and let me know you still think of me. Fondest regards,

  Stoddie.’

  Kate’s eyes welled with tears. He had cared for her after all. She forced herself to read the other six letters. They grew increasingly despondent, reproaching her for not writing back. The final one, dated in the summer of 1916, was full of hurt and regret.

  ‘... I see from your silence that you never thought of me in the same way I did think of you. I am sorry if my letters have not been welcome. I shall not write another. Send my best wishes to the lassie.

  Yours aye,

  Jock Stoddart.’

  ‘What do they say, Kate? Are they nice letters?’ Catherine asked eagerly.

  Kate bowed her head in misery. She could have had him! He could have been married to her now, instead of some widow friend of Molly McDermott’s. Catherine could have had a proper father. Kate fought down the desire to be sick. Her own sister had hidden these letters from her and robbed her of a chance of happiness! How dare she?

  Kate’s wretchedness turned to white-hot fury. With a roar of pain, she picked up Mary’s bottle of eau-de-Cologne and smashed it against the large dressing-table mirror. Glass splintered into a hundred shards. She launched herself at the row of ornaments and brushes, scattering them to the floor, cutting her hands with broken glass.