by Val Wood
‘Not that far.’ Billy Norman’s face dropped, and they all guessed that he had been looking forward to a pre-nuptial drink. ‘Twenty minutes, mebbe.’
‘Then we’ll walk slowly,’ Mary said. ‘It’s a nice day and you can tell us about Hull and the fishing and the church where they’re to be married.’
Billy Norman gazed at her in astonishment. Beneath his hat his hair was greased for the occasion and he was wearing what looked like his Sunday suit; beneath his jacket he sported a bright waistcoat.
‘It’s ’fishermen’s church,’ he said. ‘St Barnabas. That’s where all ’fisher folk get married or go when they die.’
‘Good,’ said Mary positively. ‘Well chosen, seeing as we’re all fisher folk.’
‘Aye,’ he agreed. ‘It’ll be Nan Carr that’s chosen it, I reckon. She’s ’one who says what’s to be done in that household.’
Jeannie glanced at her mother. Tom and Billy were walking in front of them and they could hear Tom asking about the ships in Hull. They heard Billy reply that many of them were built in Beverley and Hessle.
‘Don’t be browbeaten by anybody,’ Mary told Jeannie. ‘Stand up for what you believe in. Be your own self.’
‘I will, Ma.’ Jeannie’s eyes gleamed. The sun was shining and it was a warm pleasant autumn day and she suddenly felt a lurch of happiness. She was going to marry Harry and she was going to have his child. She’d be patient with his grandmother and try to be accommodating towards her. It was her house, after all, and she was inviting a stranger to come and live with her.
Granny Marshall had only been told that Jeannie was to be married to a fisherman from Hull and was going to live in that town, and she had replied that the girl was going back to her family roots. Fiona had written with her good wishes and sent her a fine grey wool shawl which she was wearing now, draped over her bodice.
It was going to be all right. Her only regret was Ethan’s misery, for Tom had told her that he’d said he would never look at another woman. But I can’t help him, she thought. There’s nothing I can do. I’m going to marry Harry, who loves me as much as I love him. I know it’s so, because he told me and Ethan never did. Not until it was too late.
They walked slowly up Hessle Road and saw that some of the houses were in a dilapidated state of repair; they gazed at the long rows of shops: butchers, bakers, fishmongers, cobblers and a post office. There were several churches and many public houses and alehouses. Horse trams trundled along picking people up and dropping them off, which was a good thing, Jeannie thought, as it was a very long road.
It was just striking eleven o’clock as they arrived at the church of St Barnabas which was situated at the junction of a wide avenue. Waiting at the door were several people, including Harry’s grandmother and Harry himself. Jeannie took a deep breath. Here then, like it or not, for better or for worse, was the start of her new life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE CEREMONY WAS short and soon over, but as Jeannie repeated her vows she lifted her eyes to see the sun shining through the stained-glass windows of the chancel, filling the church with rainbow colours.
‘Happy the bride the sun shines on,’ her mother had whispered to her before she took Tom’s arm to walk down the aisle, and as she stood by Harry’s side she did feel very happy.
But the rain began as they left the Wassand Arms after their wedding breakfast. Nan Carr had arranged a good spread of beef and chicken and roast potatoes, with apple pie to follow and copious jugs of tea, and ale for the men, to wash it all down, but when they emerged from the public house they all had to run their respective ways to avoid getting soaked. Mary and Tom took a horse cab to the railway station, while Jeannie, Harry – whose best man had kept him well supplied with ale – Nan, and two young women, one of whom turned out to be Harry’s sister, went back to Nan’s house.
Mary had hugged Jeannie before they left and Tom had pecked her cheek and whispered, ‘Let me know if there’s any sort of trouble,’ but her mother had said, ‘I think it’ll be all right, Jeannie, and you’ll have a ready-made friend in your sister-in-law.’
Jeannie had doubted that, although she didn’t say so, for Harry’s sister Rosie had eyed her up and down on meeting her and then murmured something to her friend, who had lowered her eyes and pressed her lips together in a smile.
Rosie would have been pretty, Jeannie reflected, with her fair hair and blue eyes, if it were not for her sulky mouth, but as for her friend Connie Turnby, Jeannie had never seen such a plain girl, with her bony face and sharp protruding chin above a long thin neck. Her only redeeming features were her large brown eyes and long lashes.
Nan Carr was dressed in black and Jeannie wondered if it was because she considered the marriage a cause for mourning rather than celebration, but then she checked herself as she thought that the old lady was probably wearing her best and didn’t feel the need or couldn’t afford to buy something new.
Harry offered Jeannie his arm as they walked back and gave her a sideways glance. He was well oiled, she realized as he turned to the friends who had been present at the wedding. ‘Are you coming back?’ he slurred. ‘We’ll get some jugs in.’
‘No you won’t,’ Nan called sharply. She was walking in front, striding out in her black boots, umbrella held high. ‘Party’s over,’ she added. ‘They’ve had their fill at my expense.’
‘Aw, Nan!’ Harry said. ‘It’s my wedding day!’ He turned to Jeannie and gave her a wet kiss. He had aimed for her mouth, but she moved her head to receive it on the cheek.
‘Aye, well, happen it is,’ Nan said brusquely. ‘But now we get back to normal and we need to talk and I’m not doing that wi’ your drunken pals listening in.’
Jeannie doubted whether even if his friends listened to the conversation they would remember much of it the next day. They accepted what Nan said, however, and all of them, with the exception of Billy, turned about at the top of Walcott Street and staggered back in the direction of the pub. Billy would have gone with them but for Harry’s grabbing his arm to stop him. Harry tapped the side of his nose and said in a loud whisper, ‘You’ll be all right, Billy. She don’t mind you.’
They walked in procession back to the terrace and Harry responded with a wave as people called out, ‘Good luck, Harry.’ Some of them came over to meet Jeannie, or rather, she thought, to take a look at her.
‘Thish is my wife.’ Harry grinned. ‘Ain’t she a bonny lass?’
And they nodded and looked her up and down and agreed that she was.
When they arrived back at the house and crowded into the small kitchen Nan immediately swung the kettle over the fire.
‘Can’t we have a fire in ’front room, Nan?’ Rosie moaned. ‘There’s too many of us for in here.’
‘Aye, if you fetch a bucket o’ coal and mek it,’ Nan snapped. ‘I’m not made o’ brass, you know!’
‘It’s supposed to be a special day,’ Rosie retaliated, and then, glancing at Jeannie, said, ‘Have you got money for coal, Harry?’
‘No, I haven’t.’ He pulled out his empty trouser pockets. ‘Nowt.’
Rosie ran her tongue over her teeth and looked again at Jeannie. ‘Nobody else got any?’
Jeannie said nothing. She had a little money, which her mother had given her, but she would use that for necessities and not for warming the toes of someone she didn’t know who had been barely civil to her.
‘Do you live here?’ she asked Rosie. She was conscious that she knew nothing about Harry’s relations, for he had never mentioned them.
Rosie stared at her. ‘No. I live wi’ me Auntie Dot. Didn’t you see her at ’church?’
Jeannie shrugged. ‘I might have done, but I wouldn’t have known who she was.’
‘She’s me daughter, Harry’s da’s sister,’ Nan broke in as she took cups and saucers out of a wall cupboard. ‘She took Rosie in and I took Harry when their ma left ’em an’ jiggered off wi’ a foreigner when Harry was ten. She took ’two youngest ba
irns wi’ her.’
‘Oh!’ Jeannie said. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Did you tell her nowt?’ Nan asked Harry, who had taken the easy chair and lay sprawled in front of the fire.
He shook his head. ‘Not much.’ He grinned. ‘There weren’t any time for history. I had a train to catch.’
Jeannie blushed to her hair roots and felt that everyone was looking at her. Billy, who was standing by the window, snorted a laugh which he turned into a cough.
‘Get ’milk jug out of ’scullery,’ Nan said to Rosie. ‘Don’t stand there doing nowt. And there’s some sweet biscuits in ’cupboard. Fetch ’em out – and put ’em on a plate,’ she bellowed after her. ‘Don’t want folk thinking we’ve no manners,’ she muttered, and Jeannie realized that, in spite of everything, Nan Carr was trying to do her best in a situation not of her choosing.
‘Can I do anything?’ she offered. ‘Shall I make the tea?’
‘Aye, you can. ’Kettle’s steaming.’
‘Where do you keep the tea?’ she asked, and picked up a teapot from the side of the range.
‘Don’t use that,’ Nan said. ‘Use ’bigger one that’s in ’scullery. Rosie’ll show you. Tea’s in yon caddy.’ She nodded towards the shelf over the range. ‘Be sparin’ wi’ it.’
The tea leaves were like dust, Jeannie thought. It was the cheapest tea possible, and she surmised that life and money were probably a struggle for the old lady.
‘I don’t want tea,’ Harry said. ‘Fetch us a jug o’ ale, Rosie.’ He crossed his legs, taking up all the space in front of the fire.
‘You can go ’n’ jump up,’ she retaliated. ‘I’m going to have a cup o’ tea. Fetch it yoursen – or send your wife,’ she added.
‘Nay, she can’t go. They don’t know her.’
‘Well, I’m not going. Anyway, you said you’d no money.’
‘I’ll put it on ’slate.’ He yawned, and turned to Connie. ‘You’ll go, won’t you, Con?’
Connie’s mouth opened as she pondered. She looked at Rosie, who turned her head away, then at Jeannie, who was concentrating on pouring the tea, and lastly at Billy, who just grinned and asked her to make it a large jug.
Connie slipped her wet shawl round her shoulders and, glancing at Harry with her limpid brown eyes, went out again, through the scullery into the yard, which Jeannie surmised was the everyday exit and entrance.
‘What about Connie’s tea?’ Jeannie asked. ‘Will she be long? Shall I pour it?’
No one answered her, so she poured it anyway, draining the teapot and then half filling it with more hot water.
A little later some of the neighbours called round, all of them using the back door which they accessed from the terrace by a narrow passageway, and all agreeing to ‘tek a drop’ from the jug of ale which Connie had brought back, to drink the health of the newly-weds. None of them were offered tea, which was just as well, Jeannie thought, for there was barely enough to make another pot. She resolved that the first thing she would do on Monday would be to go out and buy more, and keep it hidden just for her and Nan.
As the evening wore on, Rosie and Connie left, and Nan told Billy it was time he was making a move.
‘He’ll not be going anywhere tonight,’ she said, indicating Harry, who was snoring in the easy chair. ‘He’s had his fill, so you might as well hop it.’
‘Aye, all right then,’ Billy said compliantly, and Jeannie was astonished how everyone seemed to do Nan’s bidding, no matter how she spoke to them.
After Billy had left, Nan cleared away the crockery and the tankards from the table and took them into the scullery, then came back for the kettle of hot water.
‘Shall – shall I make up the bed, Mrs Carr?’ Jeannie said diffidently, wondering what had happened to her bag of belongings. Her mother had given it to Billy, who had said he would run back to the house with it before joining them at the wedding breakfast.
‘It’s done,’ Nan said. ‘And your things are up there as well. I took ’em up. You needn’t think anybody else has had their hands on ’em.’
‘Thank you,’ Jeannie said. ‘I’ll go up and unpack.’ She gave a nervous laugh. ‘It’ll not take a minute. I hadn’t a lot to bring.’
‘Nobody has,’ Nan muttered. ‘Not folks like us, though I thought at first you might be a cut above.’ She looked directly at her. ‘But I see now that you’re not. You’re just ’same even though you’re a Scarborough girl. We’ll talk in ’morning about how we’ll manage.’ She paused for a minute. ‘You can call me Nan.’
Later, in the narrow bed, Jeannie shuffled for space beside Harry, who not only took up most of it but tried to lie on top of her.
‘No,’ she whispered, conscious of his grandmother in the next room. ‘You’ll hurt the bairn.’
‘You’ll have to come on top then,’ he grumbled, and she could smell his beery breath. ‘You’re my wife. I want what’s mine.’
‘I’m not objecting,’ she said. ‘It’s just uncomfortable.’ She hadn’t realized that it would be like this; she had assumed that they would kiss and cuddle up for their first night, and just be happy that they were wed. After that … well, in truth she hadn’t thought any further than that, nor guessed that they would have to share this narrow bed.
Harry had one foot on the floor, but she couldn’t lie on top of him either for she kept rolling off and after a few frustrating minutes he turned over and urged her to move up because he was dead beat, and going to sleep. Jeannie realized that he had had far too much to drink to attempt any lovemaking, and that he didn’t want to kiss her or hold her tight, but only to sleep. With her nose pressed up against the wall and Harry’s arm across her neck and his snores in her ear, her paramount emotion was disappointment, coupled with the sensation that she had just made the most enormous mistake.
She shoved his arm away from her and crawled over the top of him and he was too far gone to even notice. She threw the thin blanket over him, pulled her shift over her knees and padded across the cold floor out of the bedroom and into Nan’s room. The old lady was fast asleep on one side of the bed, both hands under her cheek and a gentle phut phut quivering from her parted lips. Jeannie shivered; then, hesitating no more, she carefully turned back the covers and climbed in beside her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NAN WAS UP first the next morning and made no comment on Jeannie’s presence in her bed. As soon as she had gone down the narrow stairs, Harry came through the door from the other bedroom.
‘What you doin’ in here?’ he said in a loud whisper. ‘I thought I was onny dreaming that we’d wed.’ He climbed in beside her and drew her close.
‘The bed was too narrow,’ she whispered back, putting her arm round him. ‘We’ll have to get a bigger bed.’
‘No money for that.’ He rolled on top of her and covered her mouth with his hand as she began to warn him again about the child within her. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he muttered. ‘Come on, Jeannie, mek some effort. We’re married now.’
But she didn’t need to make an effort. Although she wanted him too, he was in too much of a hurry to be gentle and tender or considerate; he gasped and rolled over on to his back without giving her as much as a kiss or a loving squeeze, and as she looked at him with his mouth open and his eyes closed she felt bruised and sore, frustrated and disillusioned.
She dressed in the small bedroom and went downstairs, leaving Harry still in Nan’s bed. She found Nan in the scullery.
‘I need to wash,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Can I – is it all right to …’
Nan pointed to a tin bowl. ‘If you fill that you can tek it upstairs. There’s some hot water in ’kettle, but fill it again before you go up and you can mek ’tea when you come down.’
‘Yes,’ Jeannie murmured, and wondered how long it would take her to get into the new routine. The kettle was in the kitchen, the tap in the scullery, but, she thought as she refilled the kettle, this was comparative luxury. At home they didn’t have an inside t
ap, only the pump over the sink which they sometimes had to prime and which froze if it was a very cold winter.
She went back upstairs to find Harry fast asleep. She had a warm wash and dried herself on the towel she had brought with her, dressed again and brushed her hair, made the small bed, and went downstairs with the bowl of water.
Nan looked up at her. ‘Keep yourself clean, don’t you?’ she said.
Jeannie gazed at her in astonishment. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Always.’
‘Good,’ was the terse answer. ‘I can’t be doin’ wi’ slovenliness. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Were you taught that?’
‘Erm, yes, something like that,’ Jeannie said, as she made the tea. ‘Ma always kept us as clean as she could. My brother Tom never liked getting washed when he was little.’ She smiled. ‘His toes were always full of sand.’
Nan nodded. ‘He looks like a fine lad. Works hard, does he?’
Jeannie was pleased to hear Tom praised. ‘Yes, he does. He’s doing a boat-building apprenticeship. He decided against being a fisherman like our father was. He was always sick when he went to sea.’
‘And what about you?’ Nan asked soberly, adding, ‘You can pour ’tea. No use waiting for Harry; he won’t be up till dinner.’
‘Until dinner time!’ Jeannie was astounded. Her mother would never have allowed that.
‘Aye.’ Nan sat down at the table and waited for Jeannie to pour. ‘And what about you?’ she asked again. ‘What do you do?’
‘I mend nets,’ she said. ‘Same as my ma. She’s Scottish, used to be a herring girl. I can gut and pack herring as well – I’ve done it every season since I was fourteen. Ma and my grandmother showed me how.’
Jeannie didn’t know if it was her imagination or whether she saw a visible sign of relief on Nan’s face.
‘I’ll be able to do it here until my time,’ she said. ‘And then, well, I was thinking that if Harry could fix up a frame outside, I could work on the nets here and look after the bairn.’