The Tide of Life

by Catherine Cookson

  But the visit to the bank told her one thing, she needed clothes and badly. And she was going to have them, for at this moment she was greatly in need of something, anything to help alleviate the feeling that she was of no account. But, she told herself, she wasn’t going to pay the price they were asking in the fancy shops in Newcastle. No, she’d go back to that second-hand shop in Fellburn. This time she knew what she wanted and she wouldn’t come out dressed like a comedy actress. Moreover, the buying of clothes would take her mind off things and the strong desire in her now to give way to a paroxysm of grief, for she had the desire to cry as she had done when a child, with her body bent and her arms hugging her waist, and like that just cry and cry and cry.

  It was half past six when she returned to her Aunt Mary’s and she was taken aback when she entered the kitchen. It had seemed crowded when she had left it, with the small children on the floor, but now the whole family was gathered, with eight of them sitting round the table.

  Her cousin Pat, who worked with his father in the steelworks, was a big, hefty lump of a lad, almost a man, and at first he gaped at her, then grinned and said cheekily, ‘Well, well! By! You look a spanker.’

  Embarrassed, Emily passed her glance over them all, and they nodded at her shyly in greeting. Except her Uncle Frank who, getting to his feet, said, ‘Well, I’ll be damned! I haven’t clapped eyes on you for years, lass, an’ I’ve still been thinkin’ of you as a bit of a girl. But by! I was bloody well wrong, wasn’t I?’ He held out his hand and she took it, but almost instantly he was pushed aside by Mary who, standing in front of Emily, looked her up and down a number of times before exclaiming, ‘Aye, lass, now that’s something like it! By! Talk about steppin’ out of a bandbox. Where did you get that lot?’

  ‘At the old firm.’ Emily now made a slight face at her Aunt, and Mary cried, ‘Fellburn, the second-hand shop? Aye; my, she’s done you proud!’

  And so thought Emily; but more so that she’d done herself proud, for on having asked to see something of good quality and quiet, and then been shown a mauve-coloured costume, she knew instantly that this was the kind of thing she wanted. The coat was slightly flared and of three-quarter length and was trimmed with narrow fur, not only on the collar but round the cuffs too, and the skirt hem had a thick silk dust fringe attached to it. It buttoned right up to the neck; and the buttons themselves were imposing, being made of fine black plaited cord.

  Then the hat, a green velour, with one single small feather lying on the right side of the brim. And that was not all; for on her feet she was wearing a pair of shoes buttoned at the side by five pearl-studded buttons, and as Mary exclaimed about them, she lifted her foot and said, ‘And you’d think they were made for me, they fit like a glove.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ Mary was now pointing to a large brown case.

  ‘Oh, it’s…it’s a travelling case,’ Emily said; ‘it isn’t real leather but it looks like it. I’d bought a few other things, an’ then there were me own clothes, and so…well, I bought it.’

  Mary now stood gazing at Emily, as did her entire family; and then she said quietly, ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Very well, Aunt Mary.’

  ‘Good, good, lass…Well, now, come on. Here, you move your backside out of that!’ She thrust one of her offspring off the end of the form that flanked the table. ‘You’ve stuffed your kite long enough.’ Then turning to Emily, she said, ‘Sit yourself down there, lass, and have a bite.’

  Before Emily sat down she took off her coat and hat, and Mary, taking them from her, said, ‘Give them me here afore this squad gets their fingers on them an’ clags them up.’

  After she was seated at the table and Mary had put before her a plate of broth with mutton bones sticking out of it like the skeleton ribs of a ship, her Uncle Frank, sucking at a similar bone that he was holding in his hands, said, ‘Hear you’ve been in the wars, lass.’

  She gulped on a spoonful of broth before she said quietly, ‘Yes, you could say that, Uncle Frank.’

  ‘Well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, you know that. It’s a pity though, as Mary just said afore you came in, that we couldn’t sleep you, but you’ll be all right across the road in Mrs Pritchard’s.’

  ‘Aye, the bugs’ll keep you company.’ Pat was leaning towards her across the table now with an impish grin on his face.

  ‘She has no bugs.’ Mary’s hand came out and gave her big son a clip across the ear, and he cried back at her, laughing, ‘Well, has she got rid of them then?’

  ‘I chased a bug around a hill, I’ll have his blood ’e knows I will,’ chanted one of the children who was sitting on a cracket near the fire, and Mary cried at him, ‘I’ll have your bloody nose right off by its socket if you don’t watch out.’

  Pat was again leaning across towards Emily and in what was supposed to be a whisper, he now said, ‘You might have the privilege of meetin’ Polly.’

  ‘Our Pat!’

  ‘All right, Ma, all right; I’m just tellin’ her, preparin’ her like. You see’—he pulled a mock-solemn face at Emily—‘Polly Pritchard’s very special, well, everybody in the street knows she is, ’cos she’s a fully paid-up member of the Provident Society for the Protection of Practising Prostitutes.’

  As his father spluttered into his soup and almost choked, Mary cried, ‘I’ve warned you, our Pat! Mind, I’ll bring me hand across your lug so hard a steel hammer’ll be nothin’ to it.’

  ‘Oh! Ma, I’m only tellin’ Emily what to expect.’

  ‘And I’m tellin’ you what to expect, me lad.’

  There were titters all round the table now. Frank kept his head down and attended to another bone, while Pat, still solemn-faced and still giving his attention to Emily, who was finding it impossible not to be amused by him, although she wondered if he wasn’t getting a sly dig at her through this Polly Pritchard, went on, ‘She’s really a good girl, Emily, that’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. She goes to confession every Saturday night—she’s often there afore me—but sometimes mind she’s in so long I’m half sorry for young Father Clapham, ’cos listenin’ to what she has to tell him must make the young fellow sweat as if he were sittin’ bare arsed on a fire lighter.’

  The explosion at the table resounded round the kitchen. Some were bent double, some had their heads back. Even the very young ones who didn’t know what the laughter was all about joined in.

  Emily had her head down and her hand across her mouth. She had never thought to laugh again, but she warned herself not to let it have rein, for just as it had done once before her mirth could change to bitter anguish on the catch of a breath.

  When Mary’s hand, in a resounding crack, came across the side of her son’s face, almost sending him to the floor, the laughter increased. Frank turned from the table choking as if the bone he had been sucking were stuck in his gullet.

  ‘Get yersel up out of that an’ away to your wash.’

  Still laughing, but now holding the side of his face, Pat said, ‘Ma, you want to let up on that, you’ll knock me deaf one of these days…or daft.’

  ‘That would be impossible, you’re already as daft as a brush. Get yersel away.’

  A few minutes later, when the kitchen had sobered down, Pat’s voice could be heard singing from the scullery the chorus of a bawdy song that Emily had heard often in Creador Street.

  ‘I’ll be up your flue next week,

  I’ll be up your flue next week,

  Aye, Mrs Flanagan, I’ll be up your flue next week.’

  During the rest of the meal and for the rest of the evening Emily pondered the happiness and good humour that pervaded this family. The lads were coarse, especially Pat; but then, weren’t all working men coarse? Didn’t they all come out with things like that?…But Sep hadn’t…Yet in this house it was like God bless you. In this house where there wasn’t a stick of decent furniture, where there was no privacy, no books to read, and where even the crockery wasn’t very clean, that ther
e should be this feeling of warmth and closeness, and all threaded with laughter and good cheer, always amazed her. But even as she appreciated it she knew that she wouldn’t be able to live long in such an atmosphere. She knew the kind of life she wanted from now on. She wanted something to keep her busy, but she also wanted time to read and think, but most of all she wanted a place to call her own, a house to call her own, a place where she could lay her head down and cry her heart out. Oh, this need to cry that was on her now …

  She slept at Mrs Pritchard’s, and she left her Aunt Mary’s early the next morning and made her way to Shields. She was going to rent a house and she wanted it to face the sea. She had decided to go to the Lawe, even while she knew there was little chance of renting one of the houses there because they were mostly occupied by sea captains and well-to-do people and such. And although she knew too it would be like opening an old sore she meant to approach the Lawe going by the waterfront. So she got off the train again at Tyne Dock and went down the bank, past the dock gates, then along Thornton Avenue until she came to Pilot Place.

  She had to move off the pavement when she passed the warehouse for men there were loading up a dray. She walked round the horse and cart, then onto the pavement again; and a few steps farther on she stopped; There it was, number six.

  She saw immediately that the step was filthy and the sight made her sad. When she came up abreast with the front door she stopped. The paint had all peeled off. Now her eyes moved to the window of the front room. The curtains on it looked filthy too. But what caught her attention next made her take a few quick steps to Mrs Gantry’s window where there was a notice which read: ‘This house for sale. Apply Barratt and Flynn, 8 Bright Street.’

  She turned quickly about and looked towards the wall that bordered the river; then she actually ran across the road and, straining her neck to see over it, she looked at the boats, big and small, moored against the bank, and a tramp steamer making its way towards the docks. And straining further still, she saw the men working in the repair yards, and the sight filled her with excitement.

  Swinging round again, she stood with her back to the wall and gazed across the road to what had been Mrs Gantry’s house. She could buy it! She could buy that house. What would it cost? She had no idea…8 Bright Street. She knew where Bright Street was.

  Ten minutes later, she entered the office of Barratt and Flynn.

  Could they help her?

  ‘Yes,’ she said; ‘she wanted particulars about number eight Pilot Place.’

  ‘Oh’—the agent nodded at her—‘Eight Pilot Place,’ he said. ‘Yes, it’s for sale, but it goes with the other one.’

  She narrowed her eyes towards him questioningly. ‘The house next door is for sale an’ all? Is it empty?’

  ‘Yes, and has been for some time.’

  ‘Did Mrs McGillby’s nephew not come and live there?…You see I knew the people who once owned the house.’

  ‘Oh…well, no; he never lived there, he’s got a nice place in Westoe. And when he sold it, the buyer bought the old lady’s place next door an’ all, because he thought she wasn’t long for the top. And she wasn’t, and when she died he had the idea of knocking them into one to make a sort of small boarding establishment. Then he himself goes and dies about three months ago and it’s his wife who now wants to sell them.’

  Forcing herself to suppress her excitement, she thought, Eeh, it’s odd, strange. I had to come down that way, I had to come back.

  ‘How much does the owner want for them?’

  ‘Well, she’s asking a hundred and twenty pounds each if they’re sold separately, but I think she would come down to two hundred if they were sold both together. I might as well admit they’ve been hanging a bit because she wanted to get them off her hands together. And what’s more, there’s a number empty round that quarter; it’s no use closing one’s eyes to it.’

  She pressed her knuckles against the front of her coat between her breasts, and as she swallowed deeply her head moved slightly to the side before she said, ‘Tell…tell her I’ll give her two hundred for them.’

  ‘Don’t you want to see inside them? I’m…I’m bound to tell you they’re both in a bit of a mess; not a thing’s been done to them for years.’

  ‘That’s all right; I know the houses. When will I know if she accepts?’ There was a touch of authority in her voice.

  She felt she was talking like a woman of means. At another time she might have been amused by it.

  ‘Well, I’m off round that quarter shortly; I could call and see her. I’ll be back by two.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll call again at two…’

  The agent showed her out, and very respectfully.

  She called again at two o’clock and was told that the owner would accept two hundred and ten pounds for the two houses. At this she made herself ponder for a moment, then as if coming to a decision, she said, ‘Very well.’ She would pay what was asked.

  Her hand was shaking as if with ague, she had written out her first cheque for a ten per cent deposit on the purchase. And now, here she was, standing in the kitchen of the house where she had known such happiness, unaware happiness, for in those days she hadn’t been aware of what unhappiness meant.

  The house, as the agent had said, was in a very bad state. The wallpaper was dirty and hanging off the walls; the stove that she had blackleaded religiously every Friday until it shone was rusty; the back window was broken and someone had taken the scullery tap and its lead pipe.

  But all this didn’t matter. Here she was, not only back in the house but soon to be the owner of it…not forgetting the one next door. It seemed quite unbelievable, and it all stemmed from Sep. Dear Sep…Dear, dear Sep, what she owed him…and dear Mr Stuart…No; she shouldn’t think of Mr Stuart as dear; kind, nice, but…but not dear. Yet why not? Because, despite Sep’s kindness, if it wasn’t for Mr Stuart she wouldn’t be here now.

  It seemed odd that a man about whom she knew so little, and who knew so little about her, had been willing to spend four hundred and twenty-five guineas on her and ask nothing in return. He had made her the gift knowing full well at the time that she had nothing to give him, and could never repay him, for she’d never be in a position to do so. Neither he nor herself had foreseen the bonfire.

  She looked back to the bonfire now as two years gone up in smoke, two long years, two long years during which she had been painfully forged into a woman. Every sixteen hours of the twenty-four that made a day had been long up on that hill. Was it just on forty-eight hours since she had burnt those years, and were they really burnt? Wouldn’t the ashes of them be like grit in her teeth for the rest of her life?

  All of a sudden she wanted to sit down. She felt weak and slightly sick. But there wasn’t a stick of furniture of any kind in the place.

  Hastily, she went towards the door that enclosed the stairs and, pulling it open, she sat down on the second step and the emotion that she had banked down on since walking from the hill two nights ago erupted. It began slowly, the tears just welling into her eyes and dropping from her lashes on to her cheeks; then like a swollen river, it became a torrent, and she turned and, leaning her elbows on the dirty stairs, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud …

  When the paroxysm was finally over she pulled herself to her feet, adjusted her hat that had slipped to the back of her head, dusted her skirt and the elbows of her jacket, then, unlocking the back door, she went into the yard and to the rain barrel that stood next to the wash-house wall. Wetting her handkerchief in it, she sponged her face, and as she did so she remembered the day she threw the back-door key away. It was the day she put her bundles on the cart to go up the hill.

  When, some little time later, she went next door she found it to be in an even worse state than Sep’s house—she would always think of it as Sep’s house—but she didn’t actually see the dirt and grime, for in her mind’s eye now she was imagining what they would both look like when she had finished scrubbin
g, painting and papering them and making them into a home, a real home, her home, a place where she hadn’t to wear a mob cap, nor bow and scrape to anyone, but what was more a place wherein if she had no-one to love she would certainly have no-one to scorn her, or at best treat her like an obliging whore.

  Two

  The agent had said she could go ahead with the painting and redecorating but she couldn’t live in the house until the deeds were actually signed, which would happen in about a month’s time. So every day she came down from Gateshead. During the first week all she managed to do was to strip the walls and scrub and rub down the woodwork ready for painting. She had engaged a man to paint the outside of both houses, back and front, but she was going to paint the inside herself…white.

  When she told the painter this he had simply gaped at her before saying, ‘Oh, miss, that’ll be a mistake; you could never keep anything white for five minutes around here; a nice light brown now with a grain to it, a combed grain, that would look fine and you wouldn’t need to touch it for a couple of years or more. But white; oh no; you’d have to have a pail in your hand washin’ down every week.’

  ‘I want it white.’

  ‘Aw well’—he had shaken his head sadly—‘you’ll live and learn, miss. You’ll live and learn.’

  The painter finished his work in a week, and afterwards she found she missed him—there was no-one to pass a word with—so she told herself the quicker she got the place ready for what she meant to do the better.