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THE JARROW TRILOGY: all 3 enthralling sagas in 1 volume; The Jarrow Lass, A Child of Jarrow & Return to Jarrow

Page 73

by Janet MacLeod Trotter


  ‘You’ll kill us,’ she protested. ‘Leave us alone.’

  ‘I’ve a right to it, woman! I’ll tell the priest.’

  ‘And I’ll tell him he’ll be readin’ me the last rites, if you don’t leave off us!’

  So there was little point going to Rose with her troubles, Kate realised. Her mother’s sympathy for her had shrivelled up like last year’s leaves.

  As Kate staggered back indoors with her load of coal and set about building the fire, she thought bitterly how differently Mary was treated. Her younger sister was married now and living in an upstairs house in the same street, at Number Thirty. Poor Alec. He had been tricked into marriage. Mary had been jealous of the way Alec would linger at Number Ten, chatting to Kate.

  ‘Don’t you turn my Alec’s head with your flirtin’!’ Mary had accused.

  ‘I just offered him a cup of tea,’ Kate protested.

  ‘You’ll not have him, he’s mine,’ her sister had hissed. ‘He’s not after spoilt goods.’

  Kate was hardened to Mary’s malicious tongue, but she would give her no excuse to blame her if Alec tired of Mary’s bossiness and finished with her. So she ignored Alec when he came to the house and pretended she did not see the lingering looks he gave her across the table. Was it possible he felt something for her? Or did he just see what other men saw - a woman with a bad reputation who took her solace in drink when she could afford it?

  Probably she would never know, for Mary had got herself pregnant last autumn and swiftly married. She knew her Alec would no more desert her than run off to Timbuktu. Kate stabbed hard at the fire with the poker. Life was so unfair. Mary had sneered at her for years for going with a man outside wedlock and yet she had done the same. The hypocrisy made her sick! And the others were just as bad. Mary never felt the sting of John’s belt buckle for her ‘sin’, because by the time baby Alec was born in the late spring, Mary had been respectably married and blessed by the priest.

  She unbent from her task by the hearth and saw Jack eyeing her from the settle. She thought he had been fast asleep. Had she spoken any of her thoughts aloud? Kate worried.

  ‘Morning,’ she said.

  He grunted in return.

  ‘Get yourself washed,’ she told him, ‘then I’ll wake the bairn.’

  She busied herself with brewing the tea and setting the table for breakfast. Jack swung off the settle and padded into the scullery to douse his bleary eyes. A few moments later, Kate followed him in to peel potatoes in the bucket for the midday hotpot. Startled, she realised he was stripped naked. Since a young boy he had been painfully shy at his sisters seeing him undressed and they had often teased him.

  But she stopped and stared at his broad back, the tightly muscled arms from labouring, sunburnt where his sleeves had been rolled up. In contrast his bottom was pale as milk, his legs thick with hair. Kate saw it all in seconds, the body of a fully grown man, and her pulse began to quicken. Then Jack turned and stared at her. She nearly fainted in shock. He was aroused.

  Kate stifled a scream and grabbed a grubby towel from a nail on the door.

  ‘Eeh, put that round you!’ she cried. ‘The lass might see.’

  In a fluster, she forgot the potatoes and fled back into the kitchen, heart pounding. Hacking at the bread with a knife, she tried to rid her mind of the image, but could not. Despite the knowledge that Jack was twenty-two and had been a working man for eight years, she had never thought of him as anything more than a lad, her little brother. He might drink and fight like his father, but in many ways he was still boyish. The way he became tongue-tied and blushing whenever a girl spoke to him, his childish enthusiasm for playing practical jokes with his docker friends, his rough-and-tumble friendship with Catherine.

  As far as Kate knew, Jack had never asked a girl out, let alone seriously courted one. His family and friends often teased him about his lack of interest. But here he was, bold as brass, showing her that he had manly urges. It was time he was courting. Then John’s crude drunken words came back to her.

  ‘Come on then, nancy-boy, let’s see you fight for the bitch. She’s the only lass you ‘ll get. Not even the whores in Holborn look twice at you!’

  Surely he wasn’t aroused because of her? Please, God, no! Kate pushed such unwelcome thoughts away and rushed to get the bacon on. When Jack came back in the room, she barely glanced at him. She went to wake Catherine and her stepfather, plonked breakfast in front of them and escaped to the parlour to see to Rose.

  By the time she emerged Jack and John had left for work. She sat down with a thankful sigh.

  ‘Come here, hinny, and I’ll untie your rags,’ Kate beckoned to her daughter. It was extra work binding up Catherine’s long hair every night, but worth it to see a beautiful cascade of ringlets on her shoulders in the morning.

  But today, the girl seemed out of sorts. ‘Don’t want to,’ she complained moodily. ‘I want to stay at home the day.’

  ‘Well you can’t.’ Kate was firm. ‘Got to leave in ten minutes or you’ll be late for school.’

  ‘Don’t want to gan to school.’ Catherine’s look was mulish.

  Kate sighed impatiently. ‘You like school. Don’t be awkward.’

  ‘I’ve got a pain.’

  Kate grabbed the child by the arm and yanked her towards her. She gripped her between her knees while unknotting and pulling out the tight rags.

  ‘Ow!’ Catherine complained. ‘You’re hurting me!’ She tried to pull away.

  Kate held on to her hair. ‘Don’t you start,’ she warned. ‘I’ve enough to do today without you throwing one of your paddies.’

  ‘I don’t want to gan,’ Catherine cried, stamping her foot. Kate could see she was working herself up into a tantrum.

  ‘Why not?’ she asked in exasperation.

  ‘ ‘Cos Margaret Lodge won’t let me skip with her.’

  ‘Is that all? Gan and skip with someone else.’

  ‘Margaret Lodge won’t let me skip with any of them.’

  Kate swung the girl round. She could see tears welling in her eyes.

  ‘Who’s this Margaret? Is she family with Dolly Lodge from Leam Lane?’

  Catherine nodded. ‘Cousins.’

  Something squirmed in the pit of Kate’s stomach. Was it possible . . .? Kate swallowed her fear. She stood up and went to fetch a length of rope she used as a washing line in the house when it was too wet to hang clothes in the lane.

  ‘Here, take this. Margaret can gan skip with the devil.’

  Catherine’s eyes widened at the sudden gift. ‘Ta, our Kate,’ she gasped.

  After that there was no difficulty getting the girl ready and she ran off across the fields at the back of the New Buildings, taking the summer shortcut to Simonside.

  To Kate’s relief nothing more seemed to come of the incident with Margaret. She was worrying unnecessarily that rumours might have spread from Leam Lane about Catherine’s origins. It had just been a tiff among friends.

  A few days later it was Catherine’s seventh birthday and Kate hurried back from work to lay on a special tea. She had stayed up the previous night baking cheese pies and a ginger cake. She’d taken on an extra decorating job in Lancaster Street to pay for the ingredients and a bag of boiled sweets for Catherine to share out with her friends.

  Mary came round with baby Alec to help, but spent most of the time fussing over the small infant and telling Kate of the new furniture they had ordered and the baby clothes Alec’s family had bought them.

  ‘Course, the upstairs houses are bigger,’ Mary crowed, ‘so the bairn can have his own room. And we don’t need to sleep in the parlour, so there’s room for proper furniture. Matching, of course. Mam, you’ll have to come round and see. I’ll send Alec round to help you up the street.’

  Kate bit her tongue. At le
ast Mary would not be swanning off with Catherine to the pictures this year, now she had the baby to look after.

  Catherine came clattering in with a gaggle of friends in her wake.

  ‘Can we eat yet, Kate? We’re all ravishing.’

  ‘Where did you swallow that long word?’ Kate laughed.

  ‘You mean ravenous,’ Mary corrected. ‘My Alec says that when he comes home.’

  ‘Ravishingly ravenous then,’ Catherine pouted.

  Kate shot Mary a satisfied look. ‘Aye, tea’s ready. Gan and wash your hands.’

  She watched them tucking into her food and felt a glow of wellbeing. Thanks to her hard work, her daughter was enjoying a good birthday spread. None of her friends would go home with bad tales about the way Kate ran the McMullen household.

  As they finished, Kate handed out the surprise bag of sweets. ‘Gan out and play.’

  ‘Ta, Kate,’ Catherine said, rushing to the door.

  ‘Hold your horses,’ Mary stopped her. ‘I’ve sommat for you, from me and Alec.’

  Kate watched as Mary flourished a box from out of her shopping bag. The children crowded round excitedly as Catherine opened it. The girl gave out a gasp of delight.

  ‘Eeh! Our Mary!’

  As she held it aloft for all to see, Kate could not believe her eyes. It was a beautiful china doll with a delicately painted face, dressed in layers of white silk.

  ‘It must’ve cost a fortune!’ Kate blurted out, stupefied.

  Mary smiled in confirmation. ‘And the hair’s real,’ she boasted.

  Catherine clutched the doll to her, stroking the fair hair in wonder. She had never possessed anything so expensive or special. Kate’s insides twisted with jealous resentment.

  ‘Careful with it,’ Mary fussed. ‘Don’t squeeze it too tight or you’ll break it.’

  Catherine cradled the doll in her arms as if it were made of eggshells.

  ‘It’s grand,’ she gasped in awe, ‘the best present I’ve ever had. Thank you, thank you, Mary! You’re me best sister.’

  Mary sat back and preened. Kate had to look away. The envy in her eyes must shine out of her like headlamps. She set about clearing the table and resetting it for the men. She could not speak for the anger that choked her. How dare Mary steal the show with her expensive doll? Just because her husband had a steady job and money to spare. It was she who had worked her fingers to the bone to lay on this tea for Catherine and her friends, no one else! She might as well not have bothered for all the thanks she got! Catherine did not even love her. Her affections could be bought in a trice by a china doll.

  Kate was thankful when Mary left soon after and John and Jack tramped in, dusty and sweat-stained from work.

  ‘There’s more work coming in the yards,’ John reported. ‘New orders on the books from the Government.’

  ‘That’s grand,’ Rose wheezed, looking up from her mending.

  ‘Aye, battlecruisers and that,’ Jack said with enthusiasm. ‘It’s ‘cos the Germans are buildin’ ships as fast as they can. Maybes we’ll have a scrap with them if it carries on.’

  ‘The saints preserve us,’ Rose shuddered.

  ‘We’ll not fight the Kaiser.’ John was dismissive. ‘He’s related to the King.’

  ‘I’d join up if we did,’ Jack said. ‘Missed the last one.’

  Kate remembered how keenly her brother had followed the Boer War, re-enacting the sieges and battles of distant Africa with a rifle made out of driftwood. She had bought him a book about the war that he had read over and over until it fell to bits with handling.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Rose told him sternly. ‘Sit down and have your tea. There’s cake left from the bairn’s party.’

  The men were quick to demolish the rest of Kate’s baking, though no one gave her credit for it. She stood at the sink washing up, seething with indignation.

  ‘Cut us another slice of cake, lass,’ John called over. ‘And you haven’t put sugar in me tea.’

  Kate banged down her dishcloth and stalked to the table. ‘Want me to drink it for you an’ all?’ she muttered.

  ‘Don’t give me your lip. You sound like one of them suffragettes.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’ She splashed in sugar and stirred it round vigorously.

  ‘What was that? Aye, unnatural bitches the lot of them. And that one at Epsom - spoilt a good day’s racing.’

  ‘Emily Davison?’ Kate glared at him. ‘She died, for pity’s sake!’

  ‘Serves her right, bloody woman.’ John slurped his tea noisily. ‘Could’ve killed the King’s horse or the jockey.’

  ‘Well, I think she was brave,’ Kate dared to say. ‘And us women have a canny lot to complain about. It’s slavery for lasses they want to abolish first.’

  ‘Kate ...’ Rose murmured in warning.

  But John slammed down his fist, already riled. ‘Did I ask for your opinion? There’ll be no complaining under my roof from you or any other bitch, or it’s a good hidin’ you’ll get. Do you hear?’

  Kate swallowed her fury and stormed back to the scullery sink. She knew her stepfather was itching for an excuse to use his belt on her back. She would not give him the satisfaction. Rose mollified her husband by sending Jack out to buy a jug of beer. The nearest pub was a ten-minute walk away and John was less inclined now to go out drinking since moving up the hill, preferring others to fetch it in.

  Kate worked on into the evening, rolling pastry at the table in the window, keeping an eye out for Catherine, while the men sat and drank and Rose dozed in her chair. The doors were flung open, letting the evening breeze off the river filter through the stuffy kitchen. As the shadows lengthened, Kate went out and called her daughter in.

  Catherine appeared at the top of the lane. ‘Can I stay out a bit longer, our Kate?’ she called. ‘There’s no school the morrow and it is me birthday. Please!’

  ‘Just another five minutes,’ Kate relented. It was cooler outside and Kate stood for a moment leaning on the back gate, breathing in the salty breeze. She listened to the children racing off up the lane, squealing like seagulls and disappearing into the next street. They were probably playing knocky-nine-doors and annoying the neighbours, but what was the harm in it on such a warm Friday night?

  Friday night. When the pubs filled up and wages got spent and the lucky ones went to the picture house or the music hall and had a laugh. And courting couples went arm in arm to the park or quiet fields ... Kate looked up at the evening star and remembered how it had shone so brightly over the lake at Ravensworth. A deep stab of longing for Alexander went through her. Whatever had become of him? It pained her that she would never know. Most of the time she managed to smother any thought of him. She had long given up believing that he had once loved her, let alone that he might return to discover how she and the child had fared all these years. She had been stupid to think that men did anything except out of selfish motive. They only wanted women in bed or in the kitchen as far as she could see.

  But on rare nights like this, when the warm air prickled the skin and the stars beckoned in a violet sky, Kate remembered what it had felt like to be kissed and courted by the most handsome man she had ever set eyes on. For a brief sweet moment, she remembered what it felt like to be in love.

  Shouting and a clatter of feet startled her out of her thoughts. Catherine came tearing past her into the yard. The girl doubled over, gasping for breath.

  ‘What’s all the noise about?’ Kate demanded.

  Catherine clasped her knees, her chest heaving. When she unbent, Kate saw her face was troubled.

  ‘What’s wrong? Someone been chasing you?’

  The girl shook her head and walked unsteadily to the door.

  ‘Too much excitement,’ Kate declared as they entered the kitchen. ‘I’
ll make you a cocoa, then it’s off to bed.’

  But the girl ignored her and went up to Rose, who was yawning in her chair.

  ‘Mam,’ she said frowning, ‘Mam?’

  ‘What is it, hinny? You look all done in.’

  ‘The missus at Number Sixteen - round Phillipson Street - she was shouting at us.’

  ‘Being a pest, were you?’ John grunted, slouching contentedly in his fireside chair.

  ‘You shouldn’t be out so late,’ Rose reproved. ‘It’s past your bedtime.’

  But Catherine hovered by her, perplexed by something.

  ‘Mam,’ she hesitated. ‘What does bastard mean?’

  Kate flinched and Rose gasped, ‘Where did you hear such a word?’

  ‘That missus at Number Sixteen,’ Catherine repeated solemnly. ‘She said, “You’re a bastard on the inside and the out!” What did she mean? It wasn’t me who knocked on her door - it was Belle.’

  John lurched out of his chair. ‘The bloody wife! I’ll have it out with her!’

  ‘No, John,’ Rose said at once, ‘leave it be.’

  ‘No one says that to one of mine!’ he growled. ‘She’ll get a piece of my mind.’

  Kate felt nauseous. How could the woman be so cruel? She stared at Catherine and the girl looked back baffled.

  ‘It’s what Margaret Lodge said,’ Catherine said quietly. ‘She wouldn’t tell me either.’

  Kate’s stomach churned. ‘They said that to you at school, an’ all?’

  ‘Aye. What’s it mean?’

  Kate set her jaw. ‘Means nowt. You get off to bed. I’ll bring in your cocoa.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Now, Kitty!’ Kate ordered. She watched her daughter retreat into the back room, puzzled and subdued. Kate gripped the table to stop herself shaking. When the girl was gone, the argument erupted again.

  ‘I’ll not have her bad-mouthed by a bunch of dirty Protestants!’ John railed. ‘Told you she should never have gone there. Should be at a good Catholic school, learning the Faith. Teachers would sharp beat the bad words out the little buggers.’

 

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