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

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Poor things, let me take it away,’ she said, bustling in quickly.

  Catherine faced her in defiance. For that brief moment she was a mother.

  ‘He’s a boy, Mrs Hume,’ she said proudly. ‘And we’ve called him David.’

  Chapter 47

  Catherine refused to let the midwife take her baby away until the priest had been. She wrapped David in her bed shawl and cradled his cooling body. The rancid smell of the afterbirth burning on the sitting-room fire made her want to vomit. Tom, unshaven and bleary-eyed, came back with Father Shay, the elderly priest at St Michael’s.

  He was kind and concerned, saying a prayer over Catherine and her lifeless son. Mrs Hume hovered in the doorway, sighing in disapproval and muttering about it being unnatural to make such a fuss over a stillborn.

  ‘I want him christened, Father,’ Catherine croaked. ‘He must go to Heaven.’

  The priest looked sorrowful and shook his head.

  ‘I can’t christen a child that’s never lived.’

  Catherine stared at him in confusion. ‘But he did ‘ She could not find the words to describe how very real her son had been. He had grown and moved and lived inside her.

  ‘If it had lived a few hours . . .’ He spread his hands in apology.

  Tom said very quietly, ‘Will he be allowed a Christian burial?’

  Father Shay looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, but if he’s not christened he can’t be buried in sacred ground.’

  Tom looked at Catherine in distress. She gripped David in desperation.

  ‘Where then?’ she demanded. ‘What will they do with him?’

  At that moment, Mrs Hume bustled past the embarrassed priest.

  ‘You mustn’t upset yourself over such things,’ she said, reaching for the bundle in Catherine’s arms. ‘It’s just not meant to be.’ Swiftly she pulled the dead baby away and carried it from the room.

  Tom followed her out. The priest turned to go.

  ‘Tell me!’ Catherine cried hoarsely. ‘Where will she take him?’

  ‘The body will be put in a common grave,’ Father Shay said.

  ‘Like a heathen,’ Catherine said, beginning to shake. ‘What about his soul? Where will that go? Stuck in Purgatory for ever and ever!’

  ‘You mustn’t dwell on it, Mrs Cookson,’ he said. ‘God takes care of his own.’

  She struggled to sit up. ‘But he’s not God’s - he hasn’t been christened. If the Church thinks he never existed, then he doesn’t have a soul. That’s what you think, isn’t it? My baby has no soul!’

  Alarmed, the priest said, ‘You must accept God’s will.’ He hurried from the room.

  Tom came back to find Catherine clinging to the bed covers, trembling and sobbing. He went to her and held her tight. For minutes they hugged and wept, beyond speech. Finally, Tom pulled away.

  ‘Mrs Hume said you must wash and then rest. She’ll call back later to see you.’

  Catherine looked at him, wondering how he could talk about such mundane things as washing and sleeping. She did not care if she never washed again.

  ‘Did you kiss him?’ she asked abruptly.

  Tom looked haggard. He shook his head.

  Catherine gulped. ‘Neither did I. We didn’t kiss him. That woman took him so quickly.’ Tears began to stream down her face once more. ‘I never got to kiss him goodbye!’

  ***

  Catherine remembered little of the following days. They were a fog of pain. She was physically exhausted and mentally in torment. In the long sleepless nights, she searched around for someone or something to blame for her son’s death.

  The naval doctor had weakened her and damaged the baby with his brutal emetic. The wild-goose chase to Tyneside had brought on the premature labour. Kate was to blame. If her mother hadn’t caught a cold, if she hadn’t provoked a jealous neighbour with her drinking, if she had been a more responsible mother . . .

  Mrs Hume was a terrible midwife, doing nothing until it was too late, then punching her insides and cutting off the life-breath of her struggling son. Even Tom did not escape her fevered attempt to find a scapegoat. He should have listened to the doctor who wanted to send her to hospital. Perhaps there might have been a chance of saving David there. Tom should have insisted.

  Round and round she argued in her head. But every time she came back to the one guilty thought. She, more than anyone, had killed her baby. If she had believed the first doctor that she was pregnant she would have taken more care. It was she who took the emetic - eagerly. She was the one who had stubbornly insisted on trekking up to Jarrow and it was she who did not want to go into hospital to save her child.

  But Catherine had not thought of him as a child then. She had had no conception of what she carried in her womb. Pregnancy and birth had been shrouded in terrible secrecy; her mind swaddled in ignorance. All she knew from Kate was that pregnancy was shameful and birth was torture.

  Her eyes had been opened too late. Nothing had prepared her for the startling joy of holding a fully formed human being in her arms. Nobody had told her what a miracle it was. She had been utterly surprised by the fierce, possessive love that had welled up inside at the sight and touch of her baby son.

  David. David. David.

  Catherine grew to believe she was not worthy of such a gift. If she had been a better person it would not have happened. She was wicked and sinful. Yet, even as she punished herself for the stillbirth, she turned her back on the Church and its judgement.

  Even when she was well enough to leave the flat and walk short distances, she avoided confession and Mass. She would not answer the door in case it was the priest. She cut herself off from the old comforting prayers to Our Lady.

  ‘Why should her son be born alive and not mine?’ she railed at Tom. ‘What would have happened if Jesus had been stillborn?’

  He looked at her, shocked. But she could not stop.

  ‘Where would his soul have gone?’ she demanded. ‘Let the priests answer that!’

  Tom could not answer her torrent of questions either. He moved around the flat, subdued and wary of her. It seemed to Catherine he could not get away quick enough in the mornings and stayed long hours at school.

  She began to resent his work and the way he had slipped back into it as if nothing had happened. He had dozens of boys to call his own - he did not need their David. He thought bringing her tea and biscuits in bed before he left was all the comfort she needed. She wanted to talk about their baby, but he could not bring himself to mention his name. She needed him there to protect her from callers and neighbours, but he was never there when they came.

  Catherine dreaded going out for fear of seeing women pushing prams. She froze at the sight of babies bundled up in shawls and woollen bonnets. She held her breath and hurried past shop windows displaying baby clothes and booties. Nausea engulfed her when she saw a heavily pregnant woman lumbering across the street.

  Tom watched her in mounting concern, wretched that he could not comfort her. Anything he suggested she dismissed with hurtful looks.

  ‘Why don’t you go to the library today?’

  ‘I can’t read any more - it gives me a headache.’

  ‘A walk in the park, then?’

  ‘I hate the park. It’s full of mothers with prams.’

  ‘Your writing. That’s something you could do here in the flat.’

  ‘I can’t write! What could I possibly want to write about now?’

  Catherine looked at him in misery. How could she explain that the thought of picking up a pencil again made her physically sick? The last thing she had been working on was a story for David. It was half written. If she opened the exercise book, it would be lying there waiting for a happy ending.

  Tom stopped making suggestions. By the Christma
s holidays, he was hardly speaking at all. They were invited to Essex to stay with his family. His mother had written to say she was sorry about the ‘miscarriage’. Kate had also asked them north for Christmas, but Catherine could not face going back there. It would remind her too painfully of the dreadful November journey, and Kate would be tearful and morose about her lost grandchild. She would rather go somewhere that held no reminders of when she was pregnant, so agreed on Essex.

  Catherine avoided all the end-of-term activities: the Christmas play, the carol service, the staff party. Tom’s look was reproachful but she was incapable of putting on a brave face. One choir boy singing about angels or one merry teacher talking about their children and she would burst into tears. Tom went on his own and did not tell her about them on his return.

  On Christmas Eve, they packed a small suitcase and a bag of presents and set off for Grays in Essex. London was chaotic with people on leave trying to catch trains and evacuees returning home for the brief holiday. Slowly they made their way down the Thames towards the massive docks at Tilbury. The river was crowded with shipping, the low-lying riverside etched with chalk quarries and industry. There was a bustle about it that reminded Catherine of Tyneside, though the accents made her think she was in a different country.

  Christmas in the Cooksons’ small terraced house passed quickly enough and Tom’s mother did her best to make Catherine feel one of the family. Catherine stood in the cramped kitchen peeling potatoes, half listening to the chatter of Tom’s sisters, both of whom were courting. One brother was away in the navy - Egypt, they thought. The youngest was out kicking a ball in the wet back lane.

  Tom kept peering in anxiously to see if she was all right. Catherine relaxed and ate more than she had in weeks, grateful for their friendly warmth. The small glass of sherry, specially hoarded for the occasion, made her light-headed and comfortably detached. After lunch she went to lie down while Tom went for a walk with his sisters.

  When Catherine got up she could hear voices and laughter downstairs. His mother had mentioned some cousins were calling for tea to see them. She walked in and was halfway across the room to Tom when she stopped.

  A dark-haired young woman was sitting by the fire, joggling a baby on her knee. The baby was gazing about with large eyes, a fist in his mouth, dribbling and making little noises. Catherine was transfixed.

  ‘This is cousin Betty,’ Tom’s mother said, ‘and little Winston. Come and sit down, Kitty.’

  The young cousin smiled. The only empty seat was next to her. Catherine looked at Tom in panic. He smiled at her tensely. She went and sat down, shrinking into her seat, heart pounding. The room was overpoweringly stuffy, her palms sweaty.

  The conversation resumed. It was all about baby Winston, what a good appetite he had and how he was nearly sitting up by himself. One of the sisters offered Catherine a cup of tea. She nodded, feeling faint.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to have a hold of the baby first?’ the senior Mrs Cookson asked.

  Catherine gawped. She could not mean it. But Tom’s mother was smiling at her in encouragement and nodding.

  ‘Course you can,’ Betty said, holding the baby out to her. Winston sensed the handing over and began to grizzle. Betty joggled him up and down and waited for Catherine to take him.

  She sat paralysed. The thought of touching the child made bile flood her throat. She swallowed and tried to speak. Everyone was looking at her now, willing her to hold the baby. What did they think? That nursing someone else’s baby boy would make up for the absence of her own?

  What torture! No one had made any mention of David, not one word. Now they were behaving as if she and Tom had never had a baby at all. How could they?

  ‘No, I don’t want to . . .’ she mumbled.

  As she sat frozen, Tom abruptly stepped forward.

  ‘I’ll take him,’ he said, fumbling for the boy. He took the baby gingerly, as if he were made of porcelain. Gripping him awkwardly to his chest, Winston instantly began to cry.

  ‘Rock him,’ Tom’s mother said. ‘They like movement.’

  ‘He likes to look over your shoulder,’ Betty advised.

  Winston bawled louder. The noise seared Catherine like a branding iron. They had never heard David cry. She would have given the world to hear it. It was more than she could bear, watching Tom holding the baby, struggling to stop the wailing.

  She sprang out of her seat and rushed for the door, knocking over someone’s cup of tea on the carpet.

  ‘Sorry,’ she gabbled, but did not stop. She raced from the room.

  Behind, she could hear Mrs Cookson say in an offended voice, ‘There was no need for that. Thought it might help the girl to have a little cuddle.’

  Catherine fled out of the house. It was already dark outside and she stumbled around in the pitch-black. Tom found her at the end of the street, shivering and weeping in a boarded-up doorway.

  ‘H-how could you h-hold him?’ she accused. ‘And your m-mother - so cruel!’

  She tried to shake him off when he put an arm around her. But he persisted.

  ‘She thought she was helping - she doesn’t understand.’

  ‘No, she doesn’t,’ Catherine said bitterly. ‘Nobody does.’

  ‘I do,’ Tom said gently.

  Catherine said hotly, ‘No you don’t - or you wouldn’t have been able to touch Winston.’

  Tom dropped his hold. She could not see his expression but saw him stiffen.

  ‘Do you think I wanted to?’ he demanded. ‘I dreaded it as much as you - but I took him so you didn’t have to. I did it for you, Kitty, no one else. I’d do anything to make things better, make you smile again. You’ve no idea how lonely it’s been.’

  Catherine lashed out. ‘Lonely for you! You’ve got your job, your colleagues, your precious boys. What have I got? Nothing! Just emptiness - a big gaping hole - and arms that ache ‘cos I’ve got no baby to hold! You’ve no idea how that feels.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Tom cried, seizing hold of her. ‘You’re not the only one suffering. I miss him every waking minute. I think of him all the time - what he might have looked like at two, three, twenty-three. I imagine him sitting at the back of my class, putting his hand up to answer a question, gazing at me through spectacles like mine.’ His voice trembled. ‘I lie awake at night in our bed and can’t sleep, because I can’t get the picture out of my mind of you holding him in that very same bed.’

  Catherine gasped in pain. She clutched at him.

  ‘Say it,’ she whispered, ‘say his name. Call him by his name.’

  A sob caught in Tom’s throat. ‘David,’ he rasped, ‘David.

  Instantly their arms went round each other.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Catherine cried. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  They clung together in the icy drizzle, weeping. Gradually, the pain that oppressed them eased a little in each other’s arms.

  ***

  Back in St Albans, one cold January day, Catherine set out for the cemetery where she believed David was buried. She had badgered the priest and the parish for information. It was starting to snow and the day was darkening though it was just past noon.

  She roamed around the large graveyard, glancing at the headstones.

  There would be nothing to mark her baby’s grave. He would have been bundled into a parish grave like a pauper. Still, she could not rest until she knew under which mound of black earth he lay.

  Eventually she came across the sexton, who was chatting to one of the gravediggers. Catherine gave them the rough date of burial. ‘A stillborn boy. Cookson. Father Shay said he was here.’ The two men looked at her in surprise. They fell silent while they thought about it. The sexton shook his head.

  ‘There’s been a few babies from the workhouse . . .’

  ‘No,’ Catherine was adamant, ‘he w
asn’t one of those.’

  ‘I remember,’ the gravedigger suddenly said, ‘tiny baby in early December. Sure the name was Cookson.’

  Catherine’s heart thumped. ‘Do you remember where he was put?’ The man nodded. ‘Yes, over there. We buried him along with an old woman from the workhouse. Remember thinking, well at least he’s got company, poor little mite.’

  Catherine’s eyes stung with tears. ‘Can you show me?’

  The gravedigger took her to an unmarked grave, touched her shoulder and left her alone.

  Catherine squatted down and fingered the frozen earth under its thin blanket of snow. She was strangely comforted to think of David being laid beside an elderly woman; a surrogate grandmother. A Rose McMullen to cradle him in death. He would never be alone.

  When the spring came, she would return and put flowers here for the two of them. Catherine stood up, stiff and cold in the raw air and walked away.

  Halfway home, on an impulse, she turned in to the library. For the rest of the afternoon she sat in its warmth and read a history book. When it was time to leave, she spotted a notice for drawing lessons. After a moment’s hesitation, she wrote down the details. Somehow, she would find a way out of the tunnel of grief that entombed her.

  Today was the first day she had glimpsed a chink of light.

  Chapter 48

  ‘It’s marvellous,’ Tom said in admiration when Catherine showed him her sketch of St Alban’s cathedral. ‘The texture of the stone - the detail - it’s so alive.’

  She smiled at him in triumph. The life classes at the art school had not lasted long. She had felt inferior to the young students, and unable to draw people. Her attempt to draw a small child to illustrate one of her short stories had ended in failure, but she had an eye for intricate detail. Catherine’s charcoal sketches of buildings were good and she was proud at being self-taught.

  Tom looked at her fondly. ‘If only you’d had the chance I’ve had - won a scholarship to grammar school and had the best of teachers. You’ve so much talent.’