The Harbour Girl

by Val Wood

  She asked Nan to help her and the older woman seemed pleased and flattered by the request. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘I’ve mended many a net for my husband, and my father too. We’ll get started in ’morning.’

  Jeannie shook her head. This was her work. She would decide when they started. ‘Today, after dinner,’ she said. ‘Otherwise I’ll have all on to get it finished in time. But tomorrow’s fine for you, Nan. Whenever you can, when you’ve finished whatever else you have to do.’ She gave a little laugh and added, ‘And you’re in charge of the house and the cooking so you have less time than I have,’ and was pleased to see that Nan, who had started to bridle, relaxed at that, mollified.

  Nan joined her with the mending the following day; she had in the meantime been to the butcher’s for some beef which was stewing in the oven with onions and potatoes, ready to make a pie for when Harry came back.

  ‘It won’t be long afore he’s home,’ she said. ‘And I allus liked to have some food ready for him when he’d been on a trip. Nowt like ’smell of home cooking to tempt a man to stop at home.’

  Jeannie looked up with a half-smile. Well of course Harry would be glad to stay at home after being at sea. Where else would he want to be but at his own fireside with his family?

  It began to rain heavily whilst they were in the yard and Jeannie went indoors to put on her rubber boots, another woolly jumper and the sou’wester which had once been Tom’s. She didn’t want to catch a chill and risk losing the baby. When she came out again, Nan said she would make them a hot drink.

  Jeannie’s fingers were cold and she thought that she must buy some wool to knit fingerless gloves now that the weather was turning colder. Another few weeks and winter fogs would be here. She turned her head as she heard the sneck lift on the back gate. If it was Mike Gardiner with another net, she would have to tell him that she was busy for the whole of the week.

  It wasn’t Mike, but Harry, standing there with a puzzled expression. Jeannie opened her arms wide, and then quickly hooked her needle into the net.

  ‘Harry! Oh, you’re back!’

  ‘Jeannie! Is it you? I didn’t recognize you with that gear on. Let me look at you.’

  Jeannie took off her waterproof hat and her hair fell about her face. ‘It’s me! I’m net mending. I’ve got work!’

  She put her arms round him, but he took a step back, and then leaned forward and kissed her cold cheek. ‘You’re wetter than I’ve been at sea,’ he said. ‘Come on inside and let me tek a look at you.’

  Jeannie gazed at him. Was she mistaken or had she smelled ale on him as he’d bent to kiss her? Surely he would have come straight home from the ship?

  Nan was making cocoa when they went inside. She looked up, and although Jeannie saw a gleam of relief in her eyes she merely said, ‘Oh, you’re back then. Had a good trip?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Nan.’ Harry dropped his bag and bent to kiss her cheek, and as usual she dashed it away with the back of her hand.

  ‘Daft beggar,’ she muttered. ‘How was it?’

  Jeannie had taken off her wet coat and he put his arm round her and squeezed her. ‘It were all right. By heck, Jeannie. You’ve put some more weight on.’

  She smiled as she looked up at him. He was joking, wasn’t he? ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s going to be a big strong lad like his da.’

  Harry put his head back as he considered. ‘Oh, yeh, mebbe it is. Give us a cuppa tea, Nan, and then I’ll be off to see ’lads. I won’t be long.’ He glanced at Jeannie. ‘Just going to see if owt’s happened down on ’road while I’ve been away.’

  ‘Nowt much has happened,’ Nan told him. ‘You’ve not been gone five minutes.’ But she made a pot of tea anyway and poured it into a large mug and put a spoonful of sugar into it.

  He didn’t sit down but drank standing up, casting a glance first at one and then the other. ‘By, that were good,’ he said, draining the last dregs. ‘I’ll fetch a parcel o’ fish back wi’ me.’

  ‘Nan’s making a meat pie,’ Jeannie said. ‘The meat’s cooked. Don’t be too late or it’ll spoil.’

  His eyes flashed and she thought she saw anger, but then he said, ‘No. I just said: I’m off to see ’lads an’ I won’t be long. There’s some wet gear in me bag. It’ll be stinking if it’s not hung out.’ He headed towards the door. ‘Shan’t be long.’

  Jeannie picked up her cocoa and sat down by the fire. She didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

  Nan sat opposite her. ‘It’s ’way it is,’ she said. ‘I’ve nivver known owt different. Just be thankful that he’s safe home.’

  ‘I am,’ Jeannie murmured. ‘But I didn’t think he’d be going out again as soon as his feet were inside the door.’

  Nan shrugged. ‘Like I said …’

  They sat drinking their cocoa and saying nothing until there was a knock on the back door; they heard it open and someone come into the scullery.

  ‘Are you there, Nan?’ It was a man’s voice and Nan called back for him to come in. Billy Norman put his head round the door.

  ‘Has Harry got home?’ he asked. ‘I heard his ship had come in.’

  Nan nodded. ‘You’ve just missed him. Not five minutes since.’

  Billy nodded at Jeannie. ‘You all right, Jeannie?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Billy,’ she said and thought that at least he had asked about her well-being, unlike Harry, who hadn’t. ‘If you see Harry, will you remind him there’s a meat pie waiting for his dinner?’

  ‘Oh, aye. I certainly will. My ma’s cooking fish. Brought a nice parcel of haddock and turbot home. Not enough turbot to sell so I said I’d have it.’

  Jeannie smiled at him. ‘By the way, Billy, thank you for making the frame. It’s been really useful. I’m mending nets already.’

  He flushed slightly. ‘Oh, you’re all right, Jeannie. It didn’t tek any time at all. I’ll be off then.’ He seemed to hesitate.

  ‘Did you have a good trip?’ Nan asked. ‘Who were you with?’

  ‘Usual crew.’ He half stepped into the kitchen.

  ‘Like some cocoa?’ Jeannie asked. ‘The kettle’s still hot.’

  He glanced at her and then Nan. ‘If it’s no bother,’ he said. ‘It’ll warm me up, then I’ll be off, catch up with ’lads.’

  ‘I’ll mek it,’ Nan said. ‘Sit down and warm thysen,’ she told him. ‘So who did you say you were with?’

  She seemed persistent, Jeannie thought, and Billy’s comment about catching up with the lads echoed Harry’s remarks. It must be tradition, she thought. Perhaps they check up on each other, making sure they’re all safe home after a trip.

  ‘Jock Hall, Bill Clark, Tony Swift, all ’usual lads,’ he said in answer to Nan’s question. ‘Mark Fowler … Des Turnby.’

  He paused before uttering the last name and Nan grunted at it. Billy gave a slight shrug in Jeannie’s direction and lifted his eyebrows, but she didn’t understand what it was supposed to mean.

  ‘He still gets work then?’ Nan muttered.

  ‘Aye, he’s a strong chap. Good pair of hands.’

  ‘Troublemaker.’ Nan handed him the steaming drink. ‘You’d be as well to keep away from him, and his family.’

  ‘He’s no trouble to me, Nan.’ Billy blew on the cocoa and took a sip. ‘Never has been.’

  Jeannie pondered the conversation after Billy had hurriedly finished his drink and left. There were many things she couldn’t possibly know about, but she idly wondered why Nan was so set against the Turnby family. Nan seemed to have quite fierce likes and dislikes, and she thought about meeting Connie on the road that day, when Nan had all but ignored her.

  The meat pie was cooked and the crust turning brown and crisp when Harry arrived home. He was quite drunk but amiable and sat down immediately at the table and picked up his knife and fork, holding them in his fists.

  ‘Right then, where is it? Fetch it to ’table. Billy said it were ready. I’m starving; been looking forward to
some good grub.’

  Jeannie held her tongue. Meal times had been important in her old home. Her mother had always said that if she took the effort to cook it then Jeannie and Tom should be there to eat it when it was ready. Harry, it seemed, didn’t abide by those rules and she wondered if he would have been here at all if Billy hadn’t reminded him.

  They were halfway through the meal when Jeannie broke the silence. ‘So did you get a good catch? Was it a strong sea?’

  Harry licked his lips. ‘Aye. We got plenty o’ cod and haddock. Hard, though. I was at ’beck and call of everybody cos I was third hand. Fourth was just a lad, fourteen or fifteen. I was packing boxes as well as trawling ’nets and helping him cook. He’d not been at sea afore. ’Skipper – Aaron, Mike’s lad – said they’d be fleeting next time rather than single boating. He said there was more money in it and they could stay out longer.’ He took another mouthful of pie. ‘Not sure if I’ll do that even if I’m asked.’

  Jeannie took in a breath, but Nan said, ‘That’s ’way that things are going from what I hear. Single boating’ll soon be finished. Fleeting is going to be ’onny thing to do unless you go on ’trawlers.’

  Harry gave a belch. ‘Beg pardon. Well, I’ll see.’

  ‘Did – did you get a bonus this time?’ Jeannie ventured. ‘If you got a good catch?’

  Harry turned to look at her. He blinked and it was as if he wondered who was asking.

  ‘I was hoping that you would – for the bairn, you know?’ she added quietly.

  He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

  ‘She’s asking if you brought some money home,’ Nan said sharply. ‘We need to pay ’rent.’

  ‘I’m not home five minutes and you’re asking me to turn me pockets out!’

  Jeannie said nothing but held his gaze.

  He stood up, crashing back his chair. ‘Well, as a matter of fact …’ He put both hands in his pockets and drew out a cache of coins which he threw on the table. He grinned. ‘There you are! Plenty o’ money there.’ But he gathered up several coins again and put them back in his pocket before patting the side of his nose. ‘Need them to pay off ’slate at ’Wassand.’

  ‘Aye, do that,’ Nan agreed, rather sourly. ‘You don’t want to be turned away from there, do you?’

  ‘By heck I don’t,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll slip along now and settle up.’ He burped again. ‘I’ve left a parcel o’ fish in ’bucket at ’back door. Shan’t be long.’

  He didn’t come back until late and Jeannie was in bed and almost asleep when he crashed into the house. She heard the back door open and then his grunts as he took off his boots before climbing the creaking stairs. Nan called out to him from her bedroom.

  ‘Did you lock ’back door?’

  ‘Aye. I did.’ He stumbled into the bedroom. ‘Like I allus do.’

  Jeannie held her breath. She wondered whether to feign sleep but she wanted to talk to him; ask him how the voyage really went and if next time he might get a skipper’s post, but as she heard him struggling to take off his belt and his trousers and unbutton his shirt, she realized that her questions would have to wait until the morning when he was sober.

  He fell into bed next to her and put his stubbly cheek next to hers. ‘It’s good to be home,’ he slurred. ‘I missed you, Jeannie. I thought about you all ’time I was away.’

  ‘Did you, Harry?’ She snuggled up close to him and wondered if it was the drink talking; but even if it is, she thought, it’s what I want to hear.

  ‘Aye.’ He yawned. ‘I’m glad we got married. It was what Nan wanted as well. She was allus on at me to find somebody else. Somebody who’d be strong for me.’

  ‘What do you mean, Harry?’ She leaned on her elbow to look at him.

  He gave a deep sigh. ‘I’m dead beat, Jeannie. Come here, give us a kiss. We’ll talk in ’morning. We don’t have to be up early. No early rising, thank God.’ He turned over with his back to her. ‘Night!’

  Jeannie lay back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. ‘Good night, Harry.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  HARRY DIDN’T GET up until midday the following day. Jeannie excused him, for he must have been tired after the trip. But she was disappointed when, after eating bacon and sausage and two eggs and swilling down two mugs of tea, he put on his coat and said he was going out.

  ‘Going to fix up another trip?’ she said hopefully. ‘Is there one in the offing?’

  He gazed at her. ‘Might be,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what ’news is out on ’road.’

  At the Wassand, you mean, she thought resentfully; when do I get to talk to you? And she considered, for the first time, how lonely her life would have been if Nan hadn’t been there. Though she wasn’t much of a conversationalist, at least she was another presence in the house.

  ‘Nan,’ she said as they worked on Charlie’s net. ‘Harry said last night that you’d wanted him to get married. Why was that? He doesn’t spend much time at home.’

  Nan concentrated on her braiding and joined up the knot she was making. ‘Aye, I did. I thought he’d settle down and not get into bad company.’

  ‘Was there a chance of that?’ Jeannie asked. ‘And he said you wanted him to marry someone strong.’

  ‘Did he?’ Nan said caustically. ‘That’d be ’drink talking.’ She paused, and then said, ‘Well, there was a – were some local lasses who had their eyes on him – undesirable types. I was a bit worried about that.’ She paused again and then said, ‘That day when you came to ’house – I was angry wi’ pair of you, but then I realized that for you to come all ’way from Scarborough to search him out took some courage.’ She gave what might have passed for a wry smile but was merely a sideways shifting of her thin lips. ‘And you weren’t scared o’ me, not like some folks are, so I reckoned you’d be able to handle Harry.’

  Jeannie was flabbergasted. Not only was this the longest speech she had ever heard Nan utter, she was also admitting, to some extent, that she approved of her. She hid a smile. ‘I hope you’re right, Nan,’ she murmured. ‘I really do.’

  She finished the net for Charlie in time and he brought another, equally old and tattered. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Seas were rough. I lost a lot o’ fish and had all on to get home. As soon as I mek a profit I’ll buy some new.’

  ‘Do you need any extra crew?’ she asked him. Harry hadn’t yet got the promise of another ship in spite of going out every day and asking around, as he put it.

  ‘I need a mate,’ he said. ‘It’s an old smack, lug rigged, and teks some handling. I want somebody wi’ experience if they’ll tek lower role and money.’

  ‘Harry might,’ she said. ‘But you’d have to ask him.’ She dared not suggest it and be accused of interfering. The offer would have to come from Charlie.

  ‘He’s got a skipper ticket, hasn’t he?’ Charlie said. ‘He won’t want to come on my old tub.’

  ‘Ask him,’ she said. ‘You’ll find him at the Wassand Arms.’

  When Harry came home that evening he announced that he’d be sailing in three days’ time. ‘I’m to be mate, and part-time skipper,’ he said, a slight note of conceit in his voice. ‘Charlie Hodge has been looking for somebody like me with all-round experience.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so pleased, Harry,’ Jeannie said, and she was. He seemed to have grown a couple of inches and taken on more confidence. ‘I knew there’d be somebody who’d see your worth.’

  Harry preened. ‘It was lucky I happened to bump into him. He’s tekken on his da’s smack – well, it were half owned by his da. ’Other owner doesn’t sail now; they’re both past it from what I hear. You never know, I could end up wi’ shares in it.’ He sat down by the fire and stretched his legs. ‘Charlie said you’d mended some nets for him.’

  ‘Oh, that Charlie! Yes, I did. I’m mending another for him as well. Three days?’ she said, smiling. ‘I’d better try to finish it before you sail, then you can take it with you; don’t want you losing any fish.’<
br />
  He took two more trips with Charlie. They were equally qualified, which meant that Charlie could rely on him, but Harry was less of a seaman than the skipper; though he knew his sails and rigging, the running gear and pumps, knew the tides, buoys and beacons, he was less proficient than Charlie in the keeping of charts and judging the nature of the fishing grounds. Nevertheless, they worked well together.

  The weather was getting bad. Winter was drawing in fast and the last trip they made was fraught with danger. They’d sailed to the Dogger Bank, which was as far as Charlie said he wanted to sail in the old smack; they’d come across stormy weather and the craft had taken in water.

  ‘’Young lad did well,’ Harry told Jeannie, speaking of the apprentice on his return home. ‘But he was dead scared. He was kept bailing for hours and then he was hit by ’boom and all but went overboard. I fastened him to ’mast in ’finish. Don’t know if he’ll come back, but in any case Charlie’s got to have some work done afore he can tek ’ship out again. Pity. There was loads of fish. You can tell by ’colour of ’water if shoals are about and herring were practically flying into ’nets.’ He gave a little grunt. ‘And yet to hear some folks talk they say we’re fishing ’seas dry.’

  Jeannie was only half listening. She thought of Ethan being tied to the mast all those years ago; and then thought of her mother and the herring girls. She’d had a reply to her letter in which Mary had told her that Susan Wharton was courting a butcher, a widower, and that there might be wedding bells. She’d also said that the herring fleet had been and she’d caught up with news from her old friends.

  I wish I could see her, she thought, but there’s no chance now. I can’t risk going, and besides I have to make as much money as possible. Maybe after the bairn is born I could go on the train. Ma will want to see it.

  She was beginning to feel tired, and standing on her feet all day mending the nets was taking its toll. Nan suggested that as Harry was at home he could bring the nets inside where she could sit down.

  ‘Don’t you mind?’ Jeannie asked her. ‘I didn’t think you’d want that.’