A Child of Jarrow

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Let’s drink to your beautiful daughter,’ Danny would toast. ‘The prettiest girl in Jarrow by far, so she is.’

  ‘You could do worse,’ John grunted. ‘She’s hard-working. Bit too fond of the beer, mind. And the lads.’

  Danny winked at her. ‘I’ll drink to that,’ he grinned.

  ‘What she needs is a good strong Irishman to keep her in her place.’ John gave a lecherous laugh. ‘That’s where she’s gone wrong.’

  Kate put up with the jesting because Danny’s was good-natured and she looked forward to the drinking at the end of a hard day of scrubbing pub floors, queuing and making meagre rations go round. She enjoyed the attention he gave her and the daring kisses and squeeze of the waist when John had staggered to bed. He began to drop hints that it was time he found himself a wife and Kate dared hope it might be her. Sometimes she felt guilty about Stoddie, but Danny was here and in work and could provide for her daughter now. Stoddie was out of reach and might never return. If there was a chance of becoming a respectable wife she would seize it.

  Only Catherine was a problem. Despite Danny being kind and friendly towards her, she was rude to him, pretending she did not hear when he called her over and offered her sweets. After a few weeks she would run off rather than sit on his knee and listen to his jokes.

  ‘Why won’t you like him?’ Kate asked her in exasperation.

  Catherine fixed her with a stubborn look. ‘I like Dr Dyer. He gave me a ride in his motorcar.’

  Kate was baffled. ‘What’s Dr Dyer got to do with anything?’

  ‘He’s canny and he’s got no wife. Why can’t you court him?’

  Kate looked at her dumbfounded. ‘Don’t talk so daft! He wouldn’t look twice at the likes of me.’

  ‘He thinks you’re canny,’ Catherine persisted.

  Kate was flustered. She liked the young doctor who had delivered her daughter, but he was as beyond her reach as Alexander. She would not make that mistake again and she would not have the girl making a fool of them all with her fancy notion.

  ‘You haven’t been making up stories about me and the doctor, have you?’ She took hold of Catherine roughly. The girl avoided her look. ‘Don’t you dare say owt about it. You’ll land us all in trouble with your silly tales. There’s nowt between me and Dr Dyer and never can be. I’m courtin’ Danny, whether you like it or not. He might be your da one day if you’re lucky.’

  ‘Never!’ Catherine said with a look of horror.

  ‘Don’t you go spoiling me chances of a good man,’ Kate cried in alarm. ‘Even Father thinks he’s a canny match.’

  Catherine tore out of the house without another word and did not come back until after dark. She grew more wilful by the day, vomiting up the precious food Kate cooked her and refusing to go to school. She woke her at night with strange babbling and several times Kate found her wandering about the yard in her nightdress, letting in the bitter cold air. Kate could not fathom her behaviour and blamed it on the worsening war.

  Then one raw spring evening, Kate came in feeling mellow after sharing a drink with Maisie after work. At once she noticed that Danny’s canvas bag was gone from the settle where he slept at night. Rose’s face was in shadow, but Catherine sat at her feet, subdued and quiet.

  ‘Where’s Danny?’ Kate asked in confusion.

  ‘He’s scarpered,’ John snarled from his chair.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Didn’t want you after all,’ John sneered. ‘More interested in the bairn, the Fenian bastard. Found him out the back when I went to feed the hens - hands up her skirt—’

  ‘John, that’s enough,’ Rose interrupted, her voice heavy.

  Kate’s stomach heaved. She stared at Catherine, but the girl looked away.

  ‘I d-don’t believe you,’ she stuttered. ‘Danny’s a grand man. He wouldn’t...’

  ‘Well, I gave him a taste of McMullen medicine,’ John said grimly. ‘Kicked him down the street. You’ll not see him again.’

  Kate was stunned. One minute she was courting the handsome Irishman and dreaming of marriage, the next he was gone. It did not make sense. And all over the lass! How could he have done that to her? Kate was filled with disgust and disappointment.

  ‘Are you sure ...?’

  Rose leant forward so that her chiselled, pained face showed in the firelight. ‘He was a bad ‘un and you’re well shot of him. We’ll hear no more of it.’

  Kate clenched her fists and fought back bitter tears. ‘Kitty - I’m sorry,’ she gulped, leaning down to hold the child. But Catherine flinched away from her touch.

  Kate forced herself to get on with the chores, though she wanted to run to the bedroom and howl into the bed clothes. She hated Danny for his betrayal, appalled that he could have been molesting her daughter while winning her with sweet words. Danny had thought so little of her virtue that he even took advantage of her child. No wonder the girl had been acting so strangely of late.

  Kate fought off nausea to think of it. She would not be so easily taken in again, by God she would not! She was destined to the purgatory of the unmarried mother. Well, if that was her fate, she would let no man touch her heart again.

  Danny MacQuade was never mentioned after that, but his memory lay like a festering sore between Kate and her daughter, a source of guilt and resentment to them both. Catherine hardly spoke to her mother, just threw mutinous looks and turned her back. Kate found herself shouting at Catherine all the more for her increasingly unruly behaviour. But the damage had been done. She had not been there to protect her daughter from Danny’s lecherous attention and now Catherine seemed to be punishing her for it. Kate lost count of the times neighbours came complaining to her door at the nine-year-old’s fighting in the street.

  ‘Look at the eye she’s given my Sally!’ one woman berated. ‘You should keep her indoors till she learns her manners.’

  But the more Kate scolded her daughter, the more aggressively Catherine behaved among her friends. Kate saw how the girl bullied the others, pushing them around if they would not do as she commanded. Her tendency to bossiness was now backed by a brawny strength. ‘I’ll fight ye!’ Kate heard the loud threats and despaired to think her child was turning into a wild McMullen. It was as if the wicked things that Danny had done had unhinged her, for Catherine had shied away from fights in the past.

  Something else worried Kate. It was months since the exclusion of Cissy’s party and Catherine had soon been playing with her friends again as if nothing had happened. But Kate could not help feeling the girl had neither forgotten nor forgiven. She seemed angry and resentful with everyone, but especially with her. Kate could not control her. As summer came, she tried to occupy her with chores, taking in extra washing to try to make ends meet.

  Catherine would be sent to fetch the washing and carry it back. She complained bitterly that her back was hurting and tried to get Rose to intervene.

  ‘I cannot carry it, Mam,’ she whined. ‘Tell our Kate to stop picking on us.’

  ‘Kate, let her be,’ Rose chided. ‘The lass is all done in after her long day at school.’

  Kate flared. ‘She’s a lazy little madam! And she’ll help me with this lot or I’ll skelp her backside.’

  ‘She’s just a bairn.’

  ‘She’s nearly ten,’ Kate snapped. ‘You sent us out on the street at her age.’ She threw her mother an accusing look. ‘Is that what you want for Kitty? ‘Cos if we don’t get this washin’ done, that’s what it’ll come to. I’m the only one workin’ meself into an early grave round here. Look at me hands - red raw they are!’

  Rose was stung into silence and resentfully Catherine stalked out, dragging the overloaded basket of washing.

  But more often than not, she was nowhere to be found when Kate called her to help. She roamed the streets, a law unto herself.<
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  One day she came rushing back in, her dress soaked and rank-smelling.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Kate demanded.

  ‘Down the Slacks,’ Catherine said defiantly, yet her look was shifty.

  ‘I’ve told you never to play down there.’

  ‘I was looking for firewood,’ she muttered.

  ‘Get out of those stinking clothes now,’ Kate ordered. ‘And if you ever go near that place again, I’ll string you up like Jobling, so I will!’

  Catherine slunk past her. That evening at tea, she sat subdued without a word to any of them and did not attempt to go out again. She kept glancing out of the window as if watching for something in the dying light. Just as Kate was lighting the lamp, there was a knock at the front door. In an instant, Catherine was out of her seat and bolting for the yard.

  ‘What’s got into her?’ John asked suspiciously.

  Kate went to the door in dread. A man she did not recognise stood in the shadows, grasping his cap nervously.

  ‘This the McMullens’?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘Aye,’ Kate nodded cautiously. John loomed at her shoulder.

  ‘What of it?’ he demanded.

  ‘I don’t want to cause any bother,’ the man said, ‘but I was told it was your lass did it.’

  ‘Did what?’ John demanded.

  ‘Nearly drowned our Billy.’

  ‘Never!’ John exclaimed. ‘Not our Kitty.’

  ‘She was seen doing it - lad saw her from the Jarrow tram, holding his head under the water. If he hadn’t got off and stopped her ...’ The man swallowed. ‘Well, our Billy’d be a goner.’

  Kate felt dizzy. ‘Mary Mother!’

  ‘Can you be sure?’ John was still incredulous. ‘Maybes your lad’s a liar.’

  The man frowned in anger. ‘I’ve heard talk of your lass before, always daring the bairns to jump the timbers in the Slacks. This time she went too far and pushed him in.’

  ‘The Slacks?’ Kate gasped.

  ‘Aye, missus, that’s where it happened.’

  Kate knew it to be true. Catherine had made no secret of being at the forbidden Slake. That must be where she went when she disappeared so often. Her blood ran cold to think what the girl had done there.

  ‘Must’ve been an accident,’ Kate blustered. ‘Our Kitty would never harm a flea.’ But even as she said so, Kate had an image of Catherine’s face creased in savage glee as she swung a younger girl around by the arm until she screamed in pain for mercy. How many times recently had she glimpsed her picking on younger children and had turned away, not wanting to see? Too many.

  The man’s look was pitying. ‘The lad on the tram saw it all, missus. He stopped her drowning our bairn. Maybes it was a daft game gone wrong - or maybes it wasn’t.’ He gave her a warning look. ‘But you’ll have to do sommat with her, missus, you really will. ‘Cos she’s got to be stopped.’

  ‘Aye,’ Kate gulped, ‘I’ll see to her.’

  The man nodded and jammed on his cap. As he strode away up the street, Kate called after him, ‘Sorry for your trouble!’

  She returned inside with a leaden heart. What kind of monster had she bred? Maybe the priest was right in thinking no good could come from a child born in sin. John gave her a look of contempt.

  ‘She’s your problem - you sort her out.’

  Kate watched him retreat to his chair by the hearth. He wanted nothing to do with the punishment, as if it was only her fault for the way Catherine was behaving. She looked to Rose for support. Her mother’s haggard look showed she had heard the exchange on the doorstep.

  ‘Fetch her in,’ Rose said stonily. ‘She’ll take her medicine.’

  Catherine would get no leniency this time from her grandmother. She had nearly killed a boy. Shame and fury surged through Kate. The girl had been nothing but trouble and heartache from the moment she stirred in her womb! She strode out of the kitchen and down the yard. The door to the netty was locked.

  ‘Are you in there?’ She rattled the handle again. ‘I know you’re in there. Come out, you little beggar!’ Kate hammered on the door, but no answer came. ‘You can’t stay in there all night. We know what you’ve done. That bairn’s da’s been at the front door. How could you do such a thing? I’m ashamed of you - right to the soles of me boots, I’m ashamed!’

  She hammered some more, but Catherine neither stirred nor spoke. The silence infuriated Kate and her frustration and anger mounted. She itched to get her hands on the girl. But short of breaking down the door, she would have to wait.

  ‘You’ll get such a beating when you come out,’ she cried as she left, ‘you’ll not sit down for a week. I promise you that!’

  Kate crashed around the kitchen, finishing the day’s jobs, fuming at her powerlessness over her wayward daughter. By God, she’d make her pay for all this trouble. What she wouldn’t do for a drink! Just one to calm the palpitations in her chest, numb the hateful thoughts in her head. But there wasn’t a penny spare for liquor.

  Finally it was John who acted. He got up abruptly from his seat and went down to the privy. For an anxious moment, Kate thought he might be going to take the beating into his own hands and with a brief jolt of alarm remembered how long ago they had cowered with their mother in the outhouse, terrified of John’s murderous intentions. But then he had been mad with drink and rage; now he just seemed tired and wanting the punishment to be over.

  ‘Kitty, haway out and face the music,’ he cajoled. ‘Best get it over with, then we can all gan to our beds.’

  To Kate’s amazement, a few moments later, she heard the bolt slide back and a shadowy figure emerged from the darkened privy. She steeled herself not to weaken at the sight of Catherine’s pale, red-eyed face as she entered the kitchen. Grabbing her roughly by the arm, Kate pulled up the girl’s skirts and smacked her swiftly and hard on her bottom and legs.

  ‘Don’t you ever gan down the Slacks again!’ she roared. ‘And you leave them bairns alone, do you hear?’ She shook her until Catherine sobbed and nodded.

  ‘A-aye ... I’m s-s-sorry—’

  ‘You’ll not gan out to play for a week - you can make yourself useful round here. Now get to bed and say your prayers.’ Kate flung her away.

  Catherine scrambled round the table and limped into the bedroom, banging the door behind her. Kate stood panting, her callused hands clenching and unclenching as the rage inside her subsided. For a moment she had hated her daughter with every fibre in her body, could have beaten her till there was no more defiance in her tawny eyes. Now, she stood trembling and shocked by the strength of her anger. She was no better than Catherine. They were two of a kind, capable of the worst. Perhaps they were cursed. For the thousandth time, Kate rued the day she had ever set eyes on Alexander.

  She pushed back the strands of hair that had escaped their pins and saw Rose staring at her. In the dimness she could not read her expression. Did her mother hate and despise her the way she sometimes did her own daughter?

  ‘Mam,’ Kate whispered, ‘what shall I do with the lass?’

  After a moment, Rose said quietly, ‘She’s got too much spirit. Kitty needs a firmer hand than most. Go and speak to the priest.’

  John snorted. ‘She needs teaching what’s right and wrong, that’s all.’

  ‘She gets that,’ Kate said defensively. ‘Here and at St Bede’s.’

  John shrugged. ‘Have the lass gan to school closer to home - where you can keep more of an eye on her. A good Catholic school, of course.’ His look meant there’d be no nonsense like sending her to the Anglicans again. ‘Aye, St Peter and St Paul’s, down Tyne Dock.’

  ‘With Father O’Neill?’ Kate asked with a sinking heart. Their local priest had aged over the ten years since Kate had come home but not mellowed. ‘He’d be too hard on the lass.’

/>   ‘It’s what she needs,’ John declared, ‘what you should’ve got at her age if your mother hadn’t been so soft. Then maybes things might’ve turned out different.’

  Kate bristled, but swallowed a retort. She was too drained to argue with him. And perhaps there was something in the suggestion. The firebrand priest might be the only one who could tame Catherine’s wilfulness.

  Kate looked at her mother and Rose nodded.

  ‘I’ll gan and see about it the morrow,’ Kate sighed in agreement.

  Much later, when Kate finally fell into bed, she thought Catherine was asleep, curled up in a ball. Then in the dark she heard her sniff. Reaching out a hand, she felt her daughter’s hair. It was wet and sticking to her cheeks with tears.

  ‘Kitty?’ she whispered, her anger spent.

  Catherine sobbed out loud, ‘I’m sorry - I d-don’t know why I did it.’ Her body shook as she tried to explain. ‘They’re always teasing me. I just got all angry inside. It wasn’t Billy’s fault, he was just there. I didn’t mean to hurt him, I promise.’ Catherine’s voice broke as she wept again. ‘I’m bad and terrible and I’ll g-go to hell!’

  ‘Hush now.’ Kate reached out quickly and pulled her into her arms. ‘You’re not ganin’ to hell.’

  She rocked the girl soothingly until her sobbing died down. ‘Don’t you listen to what the other bairns say - they don’t mean the half of it. You’re not a bad lass underneath. They think you are because of me - but you’ll prove them wrong, hinny. You do what your mam and your teachers tell you and you’ll make some’at of yourself, by heck you will.’

  Catherine burrowed into her side and they fell asleep wrapped around each other, untroubled by nightmares or restless wanderings for the first time in months.

  Chapter 43

  Catherine appeared to settle quickly at St Peter and St Paul’s in Tyne Dock and the bouts of temper gradually abated. Soon John was teasing her for being too holy.