Talking of praying reminds me that I used to walk through the arches with my hands joined as if in prayer. I usually did this on a Friday because the men were paid on a Friday, and I used to pray to Our Lady that I would go home and find them all right. I would think in the plural, but it was Kate that I meant.
People used to stop me and say, ‘What are you walking like that for? Are you cold?’
And I would say ‘Yes. Me hands are freezin’.’
Years later a woman reminded me of this. When she had noticed me walking with my joined hands under my chin on a warm day she had realised I was praying. She ended by saying, ‘But aye, hinny, you had something to pray for with old John and that lot, they were enough to make anybody old-fashioned.’
Seven
I remember very distinctly the day in nineteen hundred and fourteen when the First World War broke out. I sat a long long while on the slack bank looking across the timbers over the gut to where the ships were passing up and down the river. I was waiting for the battle to begin – I couldn’t understand why they were so long about it.
I walked up Philipson Street. There seemed to be no children about, but Mrs McArthur was cleaning her front step, and as I had to talk to someone about this war I went up to her and said, ‘Mrs McArthur, do you know there’s a war on?’
‘Yes, Katie, I do,’ she said.
‘I’ve been sitting on the slack bank waiting for ages for it to start. They take their time, don’t they?’
She smiled at me and said, ‘You’re a funny lass, Katie. Eeh, you are a funny lass.’
In the very early stages of the war me Uncle Jack and his pal got blind drunk one Friday night and woke up on the Saturday morning to find themselves soldiers. We were all very proud of this unconscious voluntary act of Jack’s, me granda particularly.
I was only eight years old when the war broke out but the feeling of change that came over the country was felt in the kitchen, as it was in every house, and I can recall the atmosphere that pervaded the world . . . my particular world at that time. It was full of bustle and urgency. I seemed to spend my day standing in queues. Sometimes at Allen’s, the butchers, I would stand for hours, because meat was scarce. And then again in the evening, hours and hours in the beer queue. I have only isolated pictures of the war, such as returning from The Crown and meeting me Uncle Jack on the road. He was solid and sober and it was a Saturday afternoon, I recollect the happy feeling of this day; he was in his khaki uniform and he gave me a penny. He was stationed at the time in Mortimer Road School in Shields and he used to bring me back little infant exercise books. There was one in particular. In it was a picture of a little girl sitting before a fire and to her side was a small table on which stood a cup and saucer and at her feet sat a kitten. For years and years that picture spelt security to me. I was the little girl sitting snug and warm. Nothing could touch me. Jack always remembered to bring me something from the school even if it was pinched. When he went to France I wrote to him every week, but my writing was so bad that Kate always had to do the envelope. In return he sent me cards with silk patterns woven on them. I have one still. It has a mandolin on it.
Then there was the time when Jack came on his one and only leave. He was a changed individual. No longer was he shy; he was fighting for his country, he was a big shot. To my amazement, he took me by the hand and went visiting round the New Buildings. We went to Mrs Bolton’s in the terrace. I had never been in Mrs Bolton’s backyard before, and I can see him now chatting and shaking hands with everybody. Of course he had a little load on but he wasn’t drunk. Yet before he joined up whatever his condition he wouldn’t speak to the neighbours, let alone visit them. No, Jack was a changed individual.
He also had, I remember, a row with my Uncle Alec. Why wasn’t my Uncle Alec in the war doing his bit? The row took place in my Aunt Mary’s backyard. For medical reasons my Uncle Alec had been turned down. But this did not satisfy me Uncle Jack. It would appear that he was the only man in the war, the only man doing his bit, but things weren’t going too well and he wanted help. How could he win the war if he didn’t have help?
The night he went away we went hand in hand to the docks, and on the way to the station we called in at Walker’s, the chemists, in Hudson Street, and old Mr Walker gave him a box of powder that would kill lice. I was very proud of Jack that night and sad because he was going away, but when we reached Newcastle Station I longed for him to get himself off so that I could get our Kate and me granda back. Our Kate was ‘bubbling like anything’, she always bubbled loudly at a certain point in her whisky intake. The shame was heavy on me that night.
Then came the day when the letter arrived from Jack saying that he had been offered promotion. This was wonderful news, fantastic news. Jack was a sniper and because of his prowess in this direction he had been offered a stripe.
‘No,’ said me granda, ‘you write back this minute and tell him not to take it.’ Me granda had been in the Army and to him anybody rising from the ranks was suspect.
But Jack did take the stripe and when this news came me granda said, ‘It’s the beginning of the end, it won’t be long now.’ And in a very short time we had a letter to say that Jack had been wounded, and then a letter from the priest to say he was on his way home.
It was on a Saturday morning that Kate went up to Jarrow store. She had got three big clubs out and was buying new bedlinen and all the things necessary for a wounded hero. And before she came back a telegram arrived. I took it into the kitchen where me granda was feeding the canary. He had a way with canaries. I read out the wire to him and he sat down. It was one of the three times in my life that I saw him cry. The other two times were when the canary died, and when I kissed him goodbye the day I came south.
When Kate came in she, too, cried. But shortly after this, holding me in her arms, she spoke, as if to me but more to herself, saying, ‘It’s God’s will. And the best thing that could have happened, for there’d be no place for me or you here if he’d come back. One of us would’ve had to go and it wouldn’t have been him.’
Another good thing that came out of me Uncle Jack’s death was that me granda got a pension. He got this because it was put over that he had relied on his son’s money before he enlisted. If me granda had relied on me Uncle Jack’s money in order to live he would have been dead many years earlier.
The pension was a godsend and every Tuesday morning me granda would wash himself with a great deal of spluttering in the tin dish, part his hair while he looked in the mirror above the mantelpiece, then don his overcoat – he had one by now, Kate had seen to that – and he would then walk up to Bogey Hill where the Post Office was. The Post Office was kept by the Misses McFarlane, and the elder one, the postmistress, a lady of terrifying refinement and austerity, at least to me, would sign his name where he put his cross.
I first became aware of indulgences after me Uncle Jack died. Among his possessions the priest sent home was an illuminated watch of no particular value, so I was allowed to keep it, and I would take it to bed with me at night and hold it while I prayed for the release of his soul from purgatory. Certain prayers had attached to them certain indulgences. You said so many prayers for so many days and you got so many indulgences. What were indulgences? The dictionary says that indulgence in the Roman Catholic Church means ‘remission of punishment still due to sin after sacramental absolution’. All I knew at that time was that the more prayers I said for him the quicker I would get him out of purgatory, for Jack I knew was sure to be in purgatory. So night after night I would drag him a little further out of the black depth. Sometimes I would grab deep down and get hold of his outstretched hand, and holding him tight pull him up towards me. At other times I would peer through vast iron gates to see him ascending out of a great hollow. After months of praying I got him to the actual gates, I could see his face and it was saying to me, ‘Hello, Katie, I knew you would get me out of this.’
But where was I to take him? What was I to do with
him? By all accounts he should now go to Heaven, up to God. I had never thought of going to Heaven, my thoughts never ascended that far. I was either saying prayers to prevent me being thrust into Hell, or saying prayers to get somebody out of Hell and purgatory. Heaven was a closed shop, I knew nothing about it, so regretfully I left me Uncle Jack on the other side of the iron gates and I can’t remember praying for him any more.
My grandma too was dead by this time. I do not remember the date on which she died but I remember the night very well. I was lying in the desk bed and she was now lying in the brass bed in the corner of the front room. The room, too, was full of people. My Aunt Mary, my Uncle Alec, my Aunt Maggie, me granda, and Kate, and some others. Somebody said to me, ‘Go to sleep, hinny.’ But I couldn’t sleep, and then I heard me grandma make a funny noise and she was sick, and I thought to myself, She’ll be better now she’s got it up.
It was the death rattle and she died within a few minutes. And no-one took me out of that bed. I woke up the next morning and she was laid out. And she lay like that for two days.
‘You must see your granny before she is screwed down,’ somebody said, and they took me into the front room and the sight of this blue-black terrible looking face frightened me to death. One glimpse was enough and I ran out of the room, out of the house, to the slacks.
Me grandma lay in her coffin on trestles in the centre of the front room. She lay there for three days, and every now and again Kate would put a bucket under the coffin to catch the blood and water. I was sick a lot during these days and people said, ‘The bairn’s missing the old girl.’
There was no wake or sitting up at night – Kate put her foot down on this – but there was drinking in the kitchen.
It snowed on the day me grandma was buried in Jarrow Cemetery and Kate’s crying at the graveside was like the howling of a dog, and I was stiff with cold and loneliness and shame and I wished I was dead too. I missed me grandma. She had always been a haven to me. Perhaps she had stood between me and Kate, but her going did not draw us together. Why hadn’t our Kate died instead of me grandma, I asked the unseen power that made people die. If she had I could have looked after the house and everybody and saved money and paid off the rent.
Immediately after me grandma’s going things changed, and not for the better. Me granda was determined to have dominance over Kate, as he had had over me grandma, and for a time he drank more heavily and brought less money home. There were no lodgers and Kate used to go out half-days here and whole days there. She did try to get taken on at the Barium Works but the female ganger was a loud-mouthed woman from Bogey Hill who had her favourites, and Kate didn’t happen to be one of them. All during the war she rarely earned more than three-and-sixpence a day.
During this period in her life Kate must have felt very lonely indeed. She had promised to marry Jack Stoddard, one of the Maryport men. His sister was married to David McDermott, the man who later became my stepfather. But at this time it was Jack Stoddard who Kate was going to marry, but early on in the war he was taken prisoner. I remember writing letters to him. Then one night as we lay in the desk bed Kate whispered to me, ‘Don’t write to Jack Stoddard any more.’ I turned towards her, hissing, ‘I am going to write to him . . . I like him.’
I knew why she didn’t want me to write to him now, she was finished with Jack Stoddard and had taken up with the man called Davie, whose wife had just died. I thought it was dreadful of her to throw over poor Jack Stoddard and him a prisoner in Germany, and I didn’t forget to let her feel this.
For a time there came upon the house a feeling of comparative tranquillity and respectability. This was the result of a showdown between me granda and our Kate. One Friday night after having blued nearly all his wages he came in drunk – he was now working in a shipyard in Jarrow – and when she remonstrated with him in no quiet voice he threatened to beat her up. She had never raised her hand to him before and when she raised it this time it was holding a big black frying pan. She did not hit him with it but it was a deterrent. Then she walked out of the house up to my Aunt Mary’s, taking me with her. We slept there that night and I likened it to heaven.
I thought life would be full of peace if we could live in my Aunt Mary’s house. I was shutting my eyes to the fact that my Aunt Mary had a name for raising hell – and this without drink. And her own family suffered almost daily from her temper and tantrums.
That Saturday evening was one of the few times I remember not being sent down to Thornton Avenue, to the public house that stood on the corner, there to pay me granda’s Union dues. Even if there wasn’t money for beer there must be money for the Union – no Union, no work. I would climb the brass-bound stairs and stand in a line and wait my turn, and when I came to the little table with the round-faced man behind it, he would smile and say, ‘Ah! Old John.’ He would then stamp the card, hand it to me, and end ‘Ya’ra bonny lass.’
But Kate was not easy in Mary’s house. Two days there were more than enough and she knew in her heart that she could not leave the fathar, an aging man, a frightened man behind all his bombast. So we went back, but under her conditions, and peace reigned. From this time a companionship sprang up between them; and this is strange for she had to fight him too, not quite in the same way she had fought me Uncle Jack but along similar lines, for he would now bring her a cup of tea in the mornings and to wake her he would grip her in the loin and bring her sitting up out of a deep sleep, spluttering, ‘All right! All right! I’m awake, I’m awake. That’s enough!’ Nearly always before she drank the tea she would let out a long drawn breath.
Poor Kate.
Every Saturday afternoon, I went to The Crown. But I had to work for this privilege. My chores usually started on a Friday night after coming home from school. I would clean the ginger-beer bottles – we were then selling ginger and herb beer – we did a roaring trade during the war. The bottles were washed in a sawn-off poss-tub and my job was to make sure that all the old yeast was cleared away from the necks. I hated this job, it was never-ending, and to make the time pass I would push a bottle down into the water, saying with it, ‘Guggle! guggle! guggle! guggle!’ Then shoving the wire brush into the neck of the bottle I would make a similar sound.
By the time I had finished washing the bottles my miming would almost result in lockjaw. Then all the necks had to be re-strung in order to hold the corks. This chore was usually interrupted when I had to go for the beer, and sometimes I didn’t finish until the following morning.
On the Saturday morning I nearly always had to go to the Jarrow store for the corn for the hens. The store was in Hope Street and I would lug a stone of wheat and boxings home. I would take the tram of course, but even with the tram it was an arm-breaking load, and all this because of the checks and the dividend. But of course this latter was no small thing, for at one time a Jarrow store was paying as much as half a crown in the pound.
Then I might have to clean the big steel fender, or do the kitchen window, or do the brasses, and if money wasn’t plentiful I would have to go for the beer on a Saturday dinner time. If it was plentiful, Kate would just slip out, as she put it. But always after my dinner she would give me some coppers and I would away to The Crown. She knew how I valued this trip to The Crown and often during the week if I refused to do something or other she would threaten me with no Crown on Saturday.
‘There’ll be no Crown on Saturday mind you. I’m tellin’ you, it’ll be no use you askin’. There’ll be no Crown on Saturday for you. And remember that, me lady.’
But always on Saturday I went to The Crown. Until this particular Saturday when I said to her, ‘Can I have me clean pinny on, me Sunday pinny?’
She looked down on me, ‘Don’t you want to go to The Crown?’
She was actually asking me if wanted to go to The Crown. This had never happened before.
I said, ‘No, I want me clean pinny on.’ And still looking down at me, she said quietly, ‘You’d better go to The Crown, hinny.’
She said no more but gave me a clean pinny and a clean hair ribbon. I got a bucket of rainwater – I always washed in rainwater – gave myself a great wash, meticulously cleaned my nails, put on my clean pinny and my hair ribbon, and then made to go out of the kitchen door. But before I went over the step Kate’s voice stopped me and I turned towards her. She was standing on the middle of the mat and there was a funny look on her face. She spoke to me quietly, words that I didn’t really understand, enigmatic words. ‘It’s no use, you know, hinny. It’s no use,’ she said.
What was no use I didn’t enquire but I went down the yard and I stood at the backyard door. And there I waited. I waited a long time, and presently my patience was rewarded. They came out of their backyard doors, around the top corner and around the bottom corner, all the girls who were going to the party.
One of the girls in Philipson Street was having a birthday party. I hadn’t been invited but I knew I would be. I knew I was going to that party because hadn’t all my playmates been invited? There they were now, all going towards this particular backyard door. But the funny thing about it was that they all passed me without even looking the side I was on. I might have been a brick in the wall for all the notice they took of me. They had their best dresses on; some had pinnies over the dresses. They all wore nice hair ribbons, and each carried a little parcel.
When the last one had gone in I still hadn’t moved, but when I thought I heard Kate’s voice calling me I went swiftly down the back lane, keeping close to the wall, past the low lavatory hatches, past the higher coal hatches, until I came opposite this back door. And there I stood looking towards the upstairs window. And as I stared there came into my body a riot of feelings, anxiety, disappointment, urgency, all churning round a sort of breathless desire. I stood with my mouth open panting. I had to get into that party, it was imperative that I got into that party, because I had never been to a party, except once when I was five when I went to a birthday party in Mrs Lodge’s in Leam Lane. But I only remember that occasion because my Aunt Mary had put some pearl beads on me, her own beads and I had snapped them, and I got a spanking for my pains. We had parties, I have described them, but this party was different. It had been talked about for days, even weeks. There were going to be lovely cakes on the table, all kinds of lovely cakes, and then games and carry-on. I had to get into that party.
Our Kate Page 13