The Tide of Life

by Catherine Cookson

  It had been a strange weekend. Her position in the house had changed from Saturday night. It was because of Sep’s manner to her she supposed. He acted towards her like a young lad might. He’d put his arms around her waist, or around her shoulders, and when he did things he rushed at them, as when he brought in the coal, or took the ashes down the yard; and he went round the house talking about the alterations he was going to have made. He said the backyard wasn’t of much use, but a bigger scullery would be, a scullery big enough to be classed as a kitchen. He even talked of bringing the lavatory inside.

  Yet although he acted like a lad it didn’t seem to make him any younger.

  On Monday morning she did the washing, and when she hung it in the backyard and saw the sheets billowing in the wind it gave her a kind of joyous feeling in her stomach.

  There was a cold dinner as always on a Monday, and when it was over Sep put his arms about her and kissed her. He kissed her gently, because she had struggled last night when he had kissed her rough. She felt funny when he kissed her but she supposed she’d get used to it in time.

  As soon as he had gone back to work she washed the dinner dishes; then started to clean the two bedrooms, polishing everything from the windows to the floors; and she was still at it when Lucy came at quarter past four.

  After placing before her three thick slices of new bread and butter and a plate of cold meat and pickles, she herself sat down thankfully and sipped at a cup of tea, saying, ‘Eeh! look at the time, the afternoon’s just flown.’ Then, the cup halfway to her mouth, she stared at Lucy for a moment, realising she was even more quiet than usual, and asked, ‘What’s up?’

  Lucy swallowed on the mouthful of bread, then the tears gushing from her eyes she said, ‘I…I don’t want to go back there, our Emily, I don’t want to go back there. I tell you I don’t.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s him, that Tim Pearsley.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘He…he’s always trying to catch hold of me.’

  Emily sat back in the chair and drummed her fingers on the table. Something would have to be done; she knew Tim Pearsley and his type, oh aye. There were a lot of them about.

  Suddenly leaning across the table, she grabbed Lucy’s wrist, saying, ‘You go on back home. Now listen, go on back home and I’ll be along later. I’ll talk to Se…Mr McGillby, and I think he’ll let you come now. But I can’t keep you here off me own bat, you understand. Just you eat that up, then get off back. I should be there around seven. Now don’t worry, you’ll be all right.’

  ‘You’re sure, Emily?’

  ‘Aye, I’m sure this time. We’ll be sleepin’ together again the night.’ She grinned at her now. ‘Come on, buck up.’ She pushed Lucy’s chin upwards. ‘You know what I say.’

  ‘Aye.’ Lucy blinked back her tears, then wiped them off each cheek with her forefinger and she grinned in return as she said, ‘Never say die.’

  ‘That’s it, never say die.’

  When Lucy had gone, Emily decided she’d finish her bedroom in the morning; now she must wash herself and do her hair and put on a clean pinny before she got his tea; he liked to see her nice, and she’d not only have to look nice, but be nice when she asked him if she could have Lucy here…No, not ask, but stress the fact that she’d have to have Lucy here…now.

  What was it he had said when he told her about his life and marrying Mrs McGillby? That everything must be paid for. Aye, well, she would pay for Lucy living here. She had given him a promise and she would keep it.

  Sep usually came in about twenty past five, but it was now quarter past six and he still hadn’t put in an appearance. She went and stood at the front door.

  Over the wall edging the river bank she saw the funnel of a ship passing; it was going out on the high tide. It was a nice evening, a bit chilly and the twilight fast approaching, as one would expect in early October. She had kept her gaze directed towards West Holborn, from where he would come; then she happened to glance the other way and saw him in the far distance coming from the direction of Coronation Street. She was surprised at the relief she felt at the sight of him, it was so great that she almost ran along the street to meet him.

  When he eventually reached her he grinned widely at her, saying, ‘Sorry, lass, did you think I’d gone out on a banana boat?’

  ‘Eeh! I didn’t know what to think; you’ve never been late like this afore.’

  ‘No, I haven’t, but who knows, in the future I could be late like this again…Emily, I’m on to a good thing, the night’s only the beginning. Now you can get me tea, while I get me wash ’cos I’ve got to get out again, and quick.’

  As she hurried into the scullery he called over his shoulder, ‘I’ll have you decked in diamonds yet, lass.’

  As she squeezed past him in the scullery, she said, ‘Is it that thing you were talking about on Saturday night?’

  He didn’t answer her immediately for he was swishing the water around his neck and over his face and spluttering and puffing the while; but in the middle of drying himself he held the towel to the side of his face as he looked at her and said, ‘Aye it is, and by, it’s bonny, nearly as bonny as you. But come on, no time to waste; I’ve got to see this fellow at half past seven. There’s got to be a bit of bargaining to and fro afore things get settled.’

  She put a sizzling mixed fry before him, but when she didn’t put a similar helping down for herself he stopped eating and said, ‘Where’s yours?’

  ‘I don’t want any the night, Sep.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  She stood by his side looking down at him. ‘Our Lucy’s been, she’s in a state.’

  He now turned his head to the side, saying, ‘Ah now, Emily, another time, the morrow, but I’ve got this business the night.’

  She moved from him now and, taking a seat opposite him, she placed her hands in her lap and said quietly, ‘This is important to me, Sep. There’s a fellow there, a lodger, I…I think he’s tryin’ to interfere with her.’

  ‘What! She said that?’

  ‘As much.’

  ‘Well, well’—he rubbed his fingers across his greasy lips—‘this puts a different complexion on it.’ He looked hard at her now. She was sitting straight-faced; her body, too, was straight. Like this she appeared a young woman, not a young lass of sixteen. She had a look of someone nearer twenty, and if he knew anything about it she was thinking like someone nearing twenty, for it was a kind of ultimatum she was putting to him: ‘You have Lucy or you’re not getting me.’ Well it was turning out tit for tat, for hadn’t he himself used the youngster as a lever to bring this bonny bit permanently into his life?

  Slowly he smiled at her. She had a head on her shoulders had his young Emily and he liked that; he liked a woman to have something up top. And by! When she became a woman she’d not only have something up top but all round. By, she would that! His smile widened into a grin; he winked at her and grabbed up his knife and fork as he said, ‘Go ahead, lass, bring her when you like; the place is yours and all in it.’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Sep. Ta, thanks. I’ll go as soon as I’ve washed up.’

  Twenty minutes later he was bidding her goodbye, saying, ‘Now, I don’t know when I’ll be back, I could be gone an hour or two, or it might be nearer eleven when I fall in through the front door.’ He laughed loudly at this, adding, ‘And it’s more than likely I’ll have a drop on me.’ He put his finger out and tickled her chin. ‘But I won’t be drunk, I promise you. Goodbye, lass.’

  After he had kissed her she closed the front door and stood for a moment wiping the moisture from around her mouth before dashing into the kitchen and up the stairs for her hat and coat.

  The last thing she did after locking the back door was to put the large iron key on the wooden shelf attached to the back of the iron mangle in the wash-house. Sep insisted that one key must always be left in the wash-house. At one time he’d only had one key, and whenever he lost it he�
��d break a window to get in.

  There seemed to be twice as many children at play in Creador Street than anywhere else in the town. When she came to No. 18 the door, as usual, was open, and, also as usual, there were children on the stairs, but only the two girls Kate and Annie, and Jack. The girls were dressing a clouty doll; Jack was standing leaning against the staircase wall. He’d had his hands in his pockets idly watching them until Emily made her appearance; then he sprang upright, saying, ‘Oh, hello, Emily.’

  ‘Hello, Jack. Where’s our Lucy?’

  When he simply looked back at her without giving her an answer she bent and peered at him in the dimness of the staircase and demanded, ‘Where is she?’

  He merely jerked his head back on his shoulders, and she stared at him before saying, ‘What’s the matter, what’s happened?’

  He now strained his face towards her as he whispered, ‘Me ma’s out; there’s only our Tommy up there an’…an’ Tim Pearsley. He…he made us come out.’

  ‘Who did, Pearsley?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And Lucy, she’s still in?’

  ‘Aye.’ He moved his head slightly as he muttered, ‘He wouldn’t let her come down.’

  She took the stairs two at a time and, thrusting open the kitchen door, she startled Tommy who was wielding the point of his knife around the edge of the table.

  ‘Where’s our Lucy?’

  When he, too, made no answer she turned her head and looked in the direction of the bedroom wall; then she almost leapt across the room, grabbed the poker from the fender, rushed out again onto the landing and, having glanced swiftly from one bedroom door to the other, she picked on the door of the smaller room and, turning the knob, she thrust it open.

  She had expected the door to be bolted or at least a chair stuck under the handle, which was why she had picked up the poker in the first place. But now she stood, her hand at shoulder height holding the poker, glaring through the flickering gas jet into the startled face of Tim Pearsley.

  As she had seen him before, his upper body was bare, but his trousers, now without a belt, were hanging slackly around his hips. He was half sitting, half leaning across the bed, an elbow giving him support while his other hand was gripping Lucy’s leg near the thigh. Lucy was tightly pressed against the wall at the side of the bed. She was making no sound, no whimper. Her face was the colour of fresh fallen snow and her features were like the same snow when frozen solid.

  ‘You dirty rotten pig of a man! Lucy, come out of that!’

  Startled as if from a dream, Lucy jerked herself upwards in the bed. But Tim Pearsley’s hand pulled her down again; and now he turned and grinned slowly at Emily, saying, ‘Nice to see you.’

  ‘Let go of her!’

  ‘Why should I? She likes a bit of carry-on.’

  She didn’t stop to think, the poker seemed to leave her hand of its own volition. When it found its target the room was filled with a great cursing roar, and she saw Tim Pearsley stagger back with the blood running from the side of his face near his ear.

  When Lucy sprang from the bed she grabbed her hand; and then they were racing down the stairs, past the astonished wide-eyed children, and into the street. And they ran and ran, not stopping until they entered the back lane of Pilot Place, and there, gasping, they both leant against the wall of the warehouse.

  After a time Emily pulled herself upright and Lucy with her, and they stumbled down the back lane and into the yard. Still gasping, Emily pushed open the door of the wash-house, took the key from behind the mangle, and entered the house.

  As she pulled her hat and coat off she looked at Lucy standing like someone lost in the doorway between the scullery and the kitchen, and she said as if clothes were the main concern, ‘Don’t worry about your coat and hat, I’ll get you another. Anyway, you can have me old one.’

  She continued to stare at the still dead-white face before her. All the running hadn’t put any colour into it, and so taking Lucy’s hand, she led her gently towards the fire and pressed her down onto a chair, she herself dropping onto her hunkers before her and looking into her face, and she asked, ‘Did…did he touch you?’

  Some seconds elapsed before Lucy shook her head slowly.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Emily took a deep breath as she straightened up, and smiling faintly now, she said, ‘You’ll be all right from now on. Never again will you have to put up with that because you’re not going back…Now, now, don’t start an’ cry.’ She lifted Lucy’s bowed head upwards and, gazing tenderly into her face, she said, ‘We’re set for life, you and me. I’m goin’ to tell you something, secret like as yet, but I’m going to marry Mr McGillby…Sep.’

  ‘Mr McGillby?…Marry him?’

  Emily could see that even Lucy was a bit shocked at the prospect, and so she put in quickly, ‘He’s not all that old.’

  ‘Isn’t he?’

  ‘No. And…and he’s young in his ways, like a lad at times. And he’s nice, Lucy; you know he’s nice.’

  ‘Oh aye, yes, I know he’s nice.’ Lucy now turned her head slowly and looked round the kitchen, and as if reading her thoughts, Emily said, ‘And this’ll be our home, our house. And it isn’t rented like others, he owns it. And you know something else?’ She now bent and leant her face close to Lucy’s. ‘He’s got a bank book, he’s got money in the bank. Now that’s something, isn’t it?’

  When Lucy made no reply Emily turned away and said aloud, as if to herself, ‘Never in me life will I need to worry where the next bite’s coming from.’

  It was as if her mother or an older woman were expressing her thoughts; indeed at this moment she felt old, grown up. She had made a decision, a great decision, all by herself; she had made it in order to get herself and Lucy fixed for life. And she wasn’t cheating on it, she told herself; she’d pay her way, for by marrying Sep she wouldn’t be getting things on tick, she’d be paying her way.

  As he had foretold, Sep was late in coming in, and also as he had foretold he had beer on him; but he wasn’t drunk. Emily had kept Lucy up in order to meet him and when he saw her sitting by the fireside, a long coat over her nightie, he smiled at her kindly and said, ‘Well, you’ve come home, lass.’

  Lucy didn’t speak, and so Emily said, ‘She’s shy, but I’ve told her everything’s all right.’

  ‘What did you find when you got there? Did you have any trouble?’

  She nodded at him as she said, ‘It was as she told me, he was trying to get at her. He had her in the bedroom in the corner of the bed and’—she stopped and bit on her lip.

  ‘Well, go on.’

  ‘He had a hold of her leg an’ wouldn’t let go, an’…an I seemed to go a bit mad…I hit him with a poker.’

  ‘You what!’ His voice came small as if from someone of half his stature.

  ‘I picked it up to batter on the door but the door was open, the bedroom door, and there he was lying across the bed and her in the corner’—she thumbed now towards Lucy—‘screwed up against the wall. An’ she’s got bruises all over her backside…bottom, the lot, where he’s been nippin’ at her. She’s been scared out of her wits.’

  Sep looked down into the small white face of Emily’s sister. They didn’t appear like sisters. Emily was robust and bonny whereas this lass was puny. He feared she had the consumption on her. Was that why he didn’t want her in the house? No, because he wasn’t afraid of picking up anything; if you had to get anything, you got it was his philosophy. But what he said now was, ‘You hit him with a poker? Did you hurt him?’

  ‘Yes. Aye, I think…I think so; I saw the blood running down his face, and he fell back against the wall. But we ran. We just ran.’

  ‘Good God!’

  She was standing straight now, stiff, as she said, ‘I’m not sorry. I’m not a bit sorry. If you like I’ll go to the pollis the morrow and tell them what I did, ’cos look’—she now pulled the coat from around Lucy’s shoulders and pushed up the w
ide sleeve of the calico nightdress as she cried—‘Look at that!’

  And he looked. The top of the girl’s arm was almost black and blue.

  ‘And that’s not all. I’m…I’m gona show you this. ‘With a swift movement of her hand she had pulled up the bottom of the nightdress until it was halfway up Lucy’s side. ‘Just look at them! He stuck his fingernails into her. And there’s other places that I cannot show you.’

  As Sep looked down on the bruises and small weals on the child’s leg his face became grim and he said between his teeth, ‘The dirty bugger!’ Then bending down to Lucy, he asked, ‘What d’you say his name is, lass? Tim?…Tim?’

  ‘Pearsley. Tim Pearsley.’

  ‘Pearsley…Big fellow, reddish hair?’

  Lucy’s nod confirmed the description.

  ‘Pearsley? I know Pearsley, big Tim Pearsley. Oh, I know him, an’ I’ll have a word to say to Mr Pearsley the morrow. Now, lass, if you’ve had something to eat, go on, get up to bed, and from now on this is your home. There’ll be no more Pearsleys in your life if I’ve got anythin’ to do with it.’ He patted Lucy’s head and pushed her gently forward, and Emily called softly to her, ‘You know where to go. Go on, I’ll be up in a minute.’ And then they were alone together.

  Seating himself in the wooden armchair, Sep said, ‘You did the right thing, lass. Yes, you did the right thing. And with a poker an’ all! Though somehow I can’t see you throwin’ a poker.’ He put his head back and laughed. ‘You won’t try on anything like that with me, will you?’

  ‘No, Sep.’ She smiled, but her smile was weary, and he said, ‘You look tired, lass.’

  ‘It’s been a kind of busy night; I…think I’m just feeling the effect now.’

  ‘Yes, you would, it always sets in after. But you did right. Aye, you did right. The dirty swine. Just you wait till the morrow. But now I said I’d something to show you, didn’t I?’