Kate took her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘Don’t you stick your nose in the air at the likes of Davie McDermott. He’s a good man and you’re lucky he wants to take us on. I’ve waited years to have a ring on me finger - made respectable - to hold me head up high round here. By the saints, I have, and you’re not ganin’ to spoil it!’
‘Well, I’ll not bother coming if you don’t want me there,’ Catherine pouted.
Kate immediately changed tack. ‘Hinny, don’t be daft, course I want you there. We both do. Now haway and get dressed, and we’ll say no more about it.’
That was so typical of her mother, Catherine thought with resentment: one minute scolding her like a child, the next brushing aside her concerns as if they were of no importance. But she was a child no longer; she was seventeen, with a young woman’s body and feelings.
She watched Kate now, her face flushed under a large hat that Aunt Mary had lent her, her blue eyes lively. At forty-one, she often looked ten years older, but today her mother looked pretty in a lilac dress, her mood skittish as a girl’s.
They had already had a drink at the house before leaving; Kate, Grandda John, Davie and cousin Maisie. There would be plenty more drinking afterwards at the Penny Whistle where Kate sometimes worked. How many times had she been sent there as a child, to fill up that hateful jug with whisky for her mother and grandfather? Catherine shuddered at the memory.
‘Just fill the “grey hen” for me, Kitty.’ Kate would slip her the money. ‘I’ll make it worth your while - a twist of sweets from Aflecks. I’ve had a hard day, hinny, don’t give me that look.’
And she would go, in the slim hope that it would sweeten tempers in the warring household at Number Ten, William Black Street. More often, it fuelled her grandfather’s violent drunkenness and Kate’s morose self-pity. A jug of whisky meant smashed crockery and Grandda chasing Kate with filthy words and the fire poker. It meant black eyes and pictures off the walls. And later it meant Grandda wetting himself and Catherine being woken by Kate to placate him and coax him to bed, the smell of urine making her retch.
Well, she would not be setting foot inside any pub today, Catherine determined. As soon as the dismal little ceremony was over, she was going to get out of this dress and escape to Lily’s for the rest of the weekend.
The next moment, the clerk called them.
‘But our Mary’s not here yet,’ Kate said, suddenly flustered, staring past the outer door for her younger sister.
‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ John McMullen grunted. ‘She’ll want to make a grand entry and keep everyone waiting.’
‘Well, we can’t wait,’ Kate said in annoyance.
Catherine was not going to be the one to tell her mother that Mary had no intention of coming. She thought nothing of Davie McDermott either. Aunt Mary saw the marriage as further proof of Kate’s poor judgement.
‘If she thinks I’m going to wish her well, she can think again. I’ve better things to do than watch the pair of them getting drunk and making a spectacle of themselves. And I’ll never forgive her for calling my Alec a conchie and a yellow-belly, just ‘cos he failed his medical during the war. Well, he’s twice the man that David McDermott will ever be.’
‘Come on Kate,’ Davie chivvied, ‘we don’t need your sister. Maisie and Kitty can be our witnesses.’
He helped old John to his feet and into the inner room where the registrar was eager to get on with the proceedings.
As Catherine listened to the short address, the curt questions and hasty answers, she felt a stab of guilt. Davie was not a bad man. He was gruff and shy, and had never been unkind towards her. He was one of the first lodgers she could remember, swaggering through the door of their home with her Uncle Jack and another seaman, Jock Stoddart, noisy with drink and laughter, the smell of the sea on their kitbags. She had preferred Stoddie, but he had married someone else, and Kate had been left with the choice of Davie or endless years at the beck and call of her boorish stepfather, John McMullen.
Why shouldn’t her mother marry Davie? Didn’t she deserve a bit of happiness after all the years of being bullied and vilified for her one mistake, bearing a child out of wedlock?
A familiar wave of shame engulfed Catherine. She was that mistake. Her mother’s life had been ruined because of her. Kate was the laughing stock of the New Buildings in East Jarrow where they lived. Kate the drinker, Kate the slut. ‘Thought she could pull the wool over our eyes and pass that bairn off as her little sister. As if old Rose could still be bearing babies at her age! Mark my words, the lass will go the way of her mother, see if she doesn’t. Blood will out. She’s too big for her boots already, that Kitty McMullen.’
How often she had overheard the gossips’ hurtful words about the two of them. They were seared into her soul as if from a branding iron. Better if she’d never been born.
Catherine’s eyes smarted with tears. Her feelings were so confused. She was wicked and bad to wish ill of her mother’s marriage to Davie.
After the brief ceremony, she kissed her mother and Davie.
‘Good luck,’ she smiled, forcing an act of being pleased. ‘I’m glad for you.’
‘Thanks, hinny,’ Kate beamed tearfully. ‘This is the happiest day of me life.’
Catherine’s heart twisted. What about the day you met my real father? What about the day you fell in love with him? The day you gave birth to me and first held me in your arms? There was so much she yearned to know but could never ask.
‘Haway, let’s get on with the celebratin’!’ John stamped his stick with impatience. ‘Give me your arm, Kitty.’
Catherine helped him round to the pub, then said, ‘I’m not stoppin’, Grandda.’
‘It’s your mam’s weddin’ day, lass. Let your hair down! You cannot gan to confession with nowt to confess.’
‘How would you know?’ Catherine teased.
‘Don’t give me your lip,’ he growled. But she knew he would not take offence. For all the trouble her illegitimacy had caused the family, her grandfather had always been fair to her. He and Grandma Rose had brought her up as their own daughter until the truth had leaked out, and he had shown her a rough love and protection that she had never seen him give his stepdaughters, Kate and Aunt Mary, or Aunt Sarah in Birtley.
‘I promised to see Lily.’
‘Keep out of trouble, the pair of ye,’ he grunted.
‘Father O’Neill’s youth club is all the trouble we’ll see.’ She pecked him on the cheek. ‘Tell Kate I’ll be back the morra after Mass.’
‘Away you gan, Saint Catherine, and save us from a sermon!’
She hurried away before her mother reappeared and dragged her inside. Within half an hour, she was changed into a skirt and jumper, and riding her bicycle down the hill from East Jarrow, under the dank railway arches of Tyne Dock and into South Shields.
Catherine knew its streets well. Ever since she could walk, she had wandered far from home, exploring its shops and gazing at the street sellers: organ-grinders with monkeys, medicine men with potions, strolling players, rag-and-bone men, carpet sellers and fishwives. This river town meant the excitement of the noisy, stuffy picture houses on Saturdays, as well as the humiliation of carrying a heavy bundle to the pawnshops on Mondays. She loved and hated it.
Lily lived on a terraced street, similar to hers on the outside, but a world apart inside. Lily’s mother filled the neat kitchen with flowers from her husband’s allotment, which added to the comforting smell of furniture polish and starched linen. Kate’s kitchen smelt of other people’s wet washing, stale beer and the soot of an unswept chimney.
Lily’s home was flooded with light from sparkling windows, while Catherine’s was dingy from the grime that blew from the docks and ironworks. Not that she and Kate did not try hard to keep the place clean. But with John around all day long, demandin
g attention, and Kate too tired after working odd jobs and taking in washing, the housework never quite got finished.
Lily’s father worked on the trams, polished all the shoes and never took a drink. Her mother made the best stottie cake and scones on Tyneside. Good food, flowers and sunshine, that’s what Lily Hearn’s parents offered, and Catherine longed for all of these on this strange day.
Lily was waiting with a parcel of sandwiches in her saddlebag and a bottle of lemonade.
‘Wasn’t sure if you’d come,’ she smiled cautiously. ‘Everything gan all right?’
Catherine nodded. ‘Let’s cycle out to Cleadon - it’s too hot in the town.’
Lily agreed and they were soon on their way, the breeze off the river pushing them up hill and out of Shields. They stopped in a cornfield above the solid mansions of Cleadon. In the distance, a hazy smoke lay over the docks and factories of Tyneside and beyond that, the pearly shimmer of the North Sea.
Catherine lay back among the green wheat and closed her eyes in the warm sun.
‘Is it all right if I stay at yours the night?’
‘Aye,’ Lily agreed with a nudge. ‘Giving the bride and groom a bit time to themselves, eh?’
Catherine sat up. ‘It’s not like that. Kate’s just gettin’ wed so she can call herself Mrs McDermott, nothing more. It’s not as if they’re in love - they’re too old for all that.’
Lily arched her eyebrows. ‘Your mam’s not so old. You could have a baby brother or sister by this time next year. That’d be canny, wouldn’t it?’
‘No! It’d be terrible. Don’t say that, Lily. I don’t even like to think of them - you know - doing it.’
Lily giggled. ‘Do you ever think of what it must be like?’
‘What?’
‘Going with a lad.’
Catherine gasped. ‘Course not! I mean, not until after I’m wed.’
Lily gave her a shove. ‘Eeh, your face - what a picture!’
Catherine abruptly laughed. ‘We shouldn’t be talking of such things. Imagine what the priest would say if he heard us.’
‘It’s only natural to be curious,’ Lily said, playing with tendrils of her dark hair.
Catherine watched her friend running slim fingers through her springy fringe.
‘Doesn’t it frighten you - the thought of having a bairn?’ Catherine asked quietly.
Lily pursed her lips. ‘Not really. Mam says giving birth is like going three rounds with the poss tub. It leaves you all done in - but the results are worth it.’
The two friends burst out laughing.
‘I could never talk about such things with Kate,’ Catherine said in admiration. ‘I wish I had your mam and dad.’
‘Well, at least you’ve got a da now.’
Catherine felt quick resentment. ‘Kate has a husband,’ she said sharply. ‘It’s not the same as me having a da.’
Lily shrugged. ‘You’ll get used to him in time.’
‘I don’t want to get used to him,’ Catherine said with passion. ‘I want. . .’
Lily regarded her with puzzled dark eyes. ‘What do you want, Kitty?’
Catherine felt gripped by a deep longing. Lily was the only one in the world she could possibly tell.
‘I want me real da. I feel like only half a person, not knowing him. He must’ve been someone really special for Kate to take such a risk.’ Her green eyes shone with intense yearning. ‘I want to see what he looks like, hear how he speaks - know everything about him. I feel like a square peg in a round hole - always have done. I don’t feel like Kate’s daughter. I feel like his daughter, whoever he is.’
Lily frowned. ‘Didn’t know it meant that much to you, Kitty.’
‘It does! Ever since Kate said she was going to wed Davie, I’ve thought of me real da more and more. I can’t think of owt else.’ Catherine seized her friend by the hand. ‘Will you help me look for him?’
‘What, your real da?’ Lily looked startled.
Catherine nodded vigorously. ‘Say you will, Lily. I’ll never be happy till I find him.’
Lily’s look was dubious. Only reluctantly did she agree. ‘Aye, if it means that much to you, Kitty.’
Chapter 2
Catherine made an effort to be nice to Davie that week. She had the tea ready for her mother coming in after her cleaning jobs, and made herself scarce afterwards.
‘I’ve a parcel to deliver down Jarrow,’ Catherine announced one evening, wrapping up a set of finished cushion covers that she had been working on all day. She was proud of her small business of hand-painted furnishings. The next evening she said, ‘I’m off over to Lily’s. Be back before dark.’
But the McMullen house was too cramped for comfort: three rooms and a scullery, yet Davie and her grandda had to lounge around in the kitchen, getting under her feet while she tried to work. It got on her nerves the way Davie watched her painting the delicate flowers and birds on to the cushion covers and mantelpiece borders. She needed peace and quiet, but he never stopped whistling. She tried to tell Kate.
‘I need the table for me painting, you know that. But he spreads his newspaper all over it - and his baccy. Bits get in me paints.’
‘It’s his home an’ all,’ Kate pointed out.
‘And I’ve a business to run,’ Catherine said in exasperation. ‘I thought you were proud of me making me own way?’
‘I am, hinny.’
‘Then speak to him,’ Catherine pleaded.
‘I will. But you’ll have to get used to sharing,’ Kate warned.
Catherine bit back many a retort when Davie snorted brown snuff off the back of his gnarled hand and sneezed over her work.
‘Canny day for a walk,’ she suggested pointedly the next day.
Davie nodded in agreement. ‘Aye, you spend too long cooped up in here with your painting. Can’t be good for your eyes. You get yourself out and I’ll keep an eye on old John for a bit.’
Catherine got up in annoyance and cleared her work into a box. She could not stand another day of him peering over her shoulder with his tobacco smell.
‘And if you’re passing Aflecks, will you get me a bit of baccy, pet?’
She felt like telling him to get it himself, but didn’t. Just three more days and he’d be gone. Maybe then Kate would show her an ounce of attention, help her sew in the evenings instead of getting drunk and loud with her seaman husband. She longed for those rare quiet times when she and Kate worked on the cushion covers together and there was no extra money for whisky.
Catherine wandered aimlessly down the street and stood at the end looking down at the River Tyne. The tide was out. A raw smell of effluent, mud and timber wafted up from Jarrow Slake, the tidal inlet below. She had played there as a child, defying her mother and grandmother. The game had been to run along the bobbing planks of timber stored in the Slake, daring each other to go further and deeper. Then there had been the day when a young boy had nearly drowned and she had never gone there again. Billy. Catherine had not thought of him for years. She felt a chill shiver go down her back. No, she could not think about it. There were memories locked inside her head that were too painful to probe. Best to forget.
She turned on her heels and away from the breezy riverside. A few minutes later she was at the top of the dusty street and knocking on Aunt Mary’s door. An upstairs window flew open.
‘Come on up,’ Mary called out. ‘Remember to wipe your feet.’
Catherine smiled to herself, recalling Kate’s comment: ‘When her house burns doon, our Mary’ll be tellin’ the firemen to wipe their feet before they come an inch further.’
The upstairs flat was stifling, the windows closed against the swirling black dust from outside. Her aunt was ironing in the kitchen. It looked so much bigger than theirs, uncluttered
with the large mismatched furniture that Kate and Grandda collected.
‘Had enough of the drunken sailor already?’ Mary snorted.
Catherine felt disloyal as she nodded.
‘Pour us both a cup of tea,’ her aunt ordered, ‘and you can tell me all about it. How was the wedding? Young Alec wasn’t at all well and I couldn’t leave him.’
Catherine saw no sign of her younger cousin. ‘Is he still ill?’
Mary flapped a hand. ‘No, no, he’s out with his father - gone down to Shields fishing.’
How Catherine wished she could be in the company of her gentle Uncle Alec and cheerful cousin on the pier at South Shields at that moment. Father and son fishing in the sunshine. She pushed the thought away quickly.
‘Did our Kate make a spectacle of herself?’ Mary asked eagerly.
‘No,’ Catherine defended her mother. ‘It was quiet and quick, and they both looked happy. Kate looked grand in your hat, Aunt Mary.’
Mary sniffed. ‘Well, tell her I want it back. She’s never thanked me for it.’
‘You’ve never been to see her yet,’ Catherine dared to say.
Mary gave her a sharp look and Catherine knew to be cautious. Her aunt took offence at the slightest remark. That was why Kate, who always spoke her mind, was constantly in trouble with her younger sister. All through her growing up, Catherine could remember spectacular rows between the sisters and threats of never speaking to each other again that could last for months. She quickly poured the tea from the pot on the stove into delicate china cups.
‘Anyway, I didn’t stay for the weddin’ party,’ Catherine confessed.
Mary gave a tight smile of satisfaction. ‘I can’t blame you. What would a good devout Catholic lass like you be doing in the sort of place Kate chooses? No, you’re more like me - too much breeding to be seen inside a public house. That’s the Fawcett stock showing through. My father was a respectable steelman, you know, and a brethren of St Bede’s. It’s a crying shame he died of consumption so young, and me just a baby. Life would have been very different for us if he’d lived. We’d have stayed Fawcetts instead of coming down in the world as Irish McMullens.’
THE JARROW TRILOGY: all 3 enthralling sagas in 1 volume; The Jarrow Lass, A Child of Jarrow & Return to Jarrow Page 86