Kate Hannigan

by Catherine Cookson

  Annie emptied the box and took out the folded newspaper. She picked up some sticks and went into the sitting-room and set about doing the hearth. She opened out the newspaper and crumpled it loosely, as Kate had shown her, and laid it in the grate. She was laying the sticks in a criss-cross pattern on it when a large black-printed word caught her eye. Something about it was familiar. She looked more closely. It said TYNESIDE. She knelt, her head bent sideways, drinking in the word. It was like a fresh breeze in this stuffy, cluttered room. She sat back on her heels, her head still bent sideways, and gazed at the word. She wondered, abstractedly, what the paper could have to say about Tyneside. She lifted two sticks away, and disclosed the word TRAGEDY…TYNESIDE TRAGEDY…Somebody had been knocked down, she thought; they always said that in the paper when anyone had been knocked down. She wondered who it was; would it be anyone whom she knew? Hurriedly she pulled away the sticks, and, lifting out the paper, smoothed it on the hearth. She was reading intently when Kate came in, saying, ‘Oh, my dear, haven’t you got it on yet? Get by, out of the way, and let me do it.’ She pushed her gently to one side and crumpled the paper again.

  Annie knelt for a second, as if dazed, watching her. Then she cried out: ‘No, Kate! No! Don’t burn it…Look at the paper…Look what it says.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, child, be quiet! What are you yelling like that for? Do you want her to come down?’

  For answer, Annie pulled the paper from Kate’s hands and spread it out on the hearth again, and pointed to it…‘Look!’

  Kate knelt back and read for a few seconds. Then her body jerked forward, and, with hands grasping each side of the paper, her eyes moved swiftly down the column.

  She sat back slowly and turned to Annie. They stared stupidly at each other. Annie suddenly shivered, the inward shiver of delight. Kate took her hand, and they both rose to their feet.

  ‘What are we going to do, Kate?’ whispered Annie.

  Kate just stared at her, with that dazed look still in her eyes. Then it seemed to lift like a curtain, taking with it the drawn, dead look that Annie had seen there for so long.

  ‘We’re going home,’ she said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now. Now.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘This minute!’ cried Kate.

  ‘Oh, Kate!’ They clung together for a second, their arms gripping each other tightly.

  ‘Come on. We’ll get packed.’

  They hurried upstairs, yet went softly, through habit; and in ten minutes they returned again, dressed for the street and Kate carrying two cases.

  In the kitchen Kate said, ‘I’ll take her a cup of tea, it will lighten the shock.’

  Annie, who still held the dirty newspaper in her hand, asked, ‘Kate, can I keep this?’

  Kate touched her cheek tenderly: ‘Yes, darling; you can.’

  As Kate hurried out, Annie opened the paper and read the report again. It was dated April 24th and read:

  DOUBLE TYNESIDE TRAGEDY

  ON DAY FOLLOWING DOCTOR SUING FOR

  DIVORCE NAMING ASSISTANT AS

  CO-RESPONDENT WIFE SHOT BY

  FORMER LOVER

  Stella Dorothy Prince, wife of Doctor Rodney Prince of Conister House, South Shields, was today shot dead by her former lover, Herbert Barrington, who afterwards shot himself. Only yesterday it was made public that divorce proceedings were pending between Doctor Prince and his wife, and naming Doctor John Swinburn, Doctor Prince’s assistant, as co-respondent. Barrington called at the home of Mrs Prince, and, after heated argument, overheard by a servant, shot her. The servant, Mary Dixon, stated…

  A blur of tears hid the print. It seemed awful that the doctor’s wife was dead; although she wasn’t nice she had been beautiful…But, anyway, they could go back home…Oh, they could go back home now!

  Kate came hurrying into the kitchen. She took some money from her bag and laid it on the table. She had hardly done this when the kitchen door burst open and Miss Patterson-Carey entered, her hair under a high night-cap and an old dressing-gown draped around her angular body.

  ‘You can’t go like this!’ she cried. ‘You just can’t do it!’

  ‘But I can,’ said Kate quietly. ‘There is the money in lieu of notice that you say you require.’

  ‘You’re a wicked woman to leave me like this.’

  ‘I have just read some news,’ said Kate, ‘which has altered everything for me, but had you treated me even once as a human being I should not have left you so suddenly. Anyway, you are neither old nor sick, and, as you have often quoted to me, idle hands are armchairs for the Devil. So it will be a change for him, in your case, to be made to stand this Christmas.’ Kate picked up the cases and motioned Annie to the door. Then she turned and delivered her Parthian shot: ‘This, Miss Patterson-Carey, is what is known as…retribution!’

  Annie opened the door and they went out into the dark morning.

  The long journey from St Leonards was nearly over. Kate and Annie, with the compartment to themselves, sat close together in one corner. The reaction from almost hysterical joy had set in, and Annie was sobbing, long, shivering sobs that shook every bone of her slight frame. Kate soothed her, saying, ‘There, there. Come, darling; stop it. You’ll only make yourself ill.’

  ‘I can’t help it, Kate, I…I keep thinking, if I hadn’t seen that paper we might never have…’

  ‘Sh…h!’ said Kate. ‘Just let’s thank God you did see it. And there now; stop crying…Listen! We’ll soon be coming to the tunnel. Remember the tunnel?’

  In the dark of the tunnel they sat with their arms about each other, and Kate kissed Annie almost passionately.

  When they got out at Tyne Dock station, Kate stood for a moment on the dimly lit platform and looked around her. She was home…home! For years she had longed to get away from the north and never see it again, but now she felt it held all that she wanted in life. She did not know where she would find Rodney; she might have to move on again in search of him; but she knew that she would return here eventually.’ For this was her home; the people here were her people…good, bad and indifferent, they were her kindred.

  At the dock gates they took the Jarrow tram. And Kate felt she would not exchange the hard slotted seat for one in Paradise. After they got out of the tram at the fifteen streets, they passed a group of people standing at the corner of Slade Street, and Annie asked softly, ‘Did you see who that was, Kate?’ And Kate answered, ‘Yes, I saw. But she can do nothing more to us.’

  Kate’s eyes were dry and bright, and her hand trembled as she knocked on the Mullens’ door. It was opened by one of the younger children. He peered at them through the gloom, then darted away without a word, and they heard him yell, ‘It’s Kate and Annie Hannigan.’

  Before they could cross the threshold Mrs Mullen was there. ‘Kate lass! Kate! In the name of God where’ve you sprung from? Come in, lass; don’t stand there, come in…Oh, lass…where’ve you been?’ They were borne into the kitchen on her welcome and into a surge of the Mullens, all talking at once and clamouring about them. ‘Sit down. Sit down, Kate,’ cried Mrs Mullen. But before Kate could do so, she had gathered her and Annie into her embrace, and they all clung together for a moment, half laughing, half-crying.

  Annie turned to Rosie and they stood staring at each other, awkward and embarrassed, not even touching hands.

  ‘Oh, Rosie!’ was all Annie could murmur.

  ‘Ee, Annie, ye’ve come back!’ said Rosie.

  ‘All the way across the country in one day!’ Mrs Mullen was saying. ‘Why, lass, you must be famished! I’ll have you something to eat in a coupl’a shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

  Kate drew Mrs Mullen to one side: ‘Where is he, Mrs Mullen? Do you know?’

  ‘He’s at Doctor Davidson’s, lass; he’s been there all the time.’

  Kate stood silent a moment. ‘Do you think I could have a wash and do my hair, Mrs Mullen? I won’t have anything to eat, just a cup of tea.’

&
nbsp; ‘Well, just as you like, hinny,’ said Mrs Mullen. ‘Aw, lass’ - she squeezed Kate’s arm - ‘I’m glad to see your face again. And just wait till the father sees you,’ she said, referring to her husband, ‘he won’t half get a gliff.’

  Annie was saying to Rosie, ‘We lived in a place called St Leonards, with an awful woman…She reads tracts.’ Annie caught Kate’s eye and they both began to laugh. Kate laughed as she had not done for a year, and in a moment the whole of the Mullen family had joined in. And Rosie thought, It’s like that night in Kate’s kitchen when we all cried and me da was funny and old Tim died.

  Kate walked from the fifteen streets to the house on the Don. She had the urge in her to pick up her skirts and run. She felt her heart would burst through her flesh; her mind was crying, ‘In a few more minutes I’ll see him. In just a few minutes I’ll be able to touch him.’ She crossed the Don bridge, and thought, It all seems beautiful. But when she pressed the bell of the Davidsons’ door she felt faint and weak.

  The door was opened by Peggy, who said, ‘Yes?’ then stood staring in wonder at Kate. She had seen Kate only a few times before, but had never spoken to her.

  ‘I’m Kate Hannigan,’ Kate said. ‘Could I…Could I see Doctor Prince?’

  Peggy drew her inside and into a room off the hall before speaking. Then she exclaimed, ‘Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come! Oh, you don’t know how pleased I am to see you at this moment.’

  ‘I never knew what had happened until this morning,’ Kate said; ‘Annie, my daughter, saw the report in an old newspaper.’

  They appraised each other in silence for a moment; then smiled, as if each liked what she saw. ‘Really, I can’t believe it’s true that you are here!’ exclaimed Peggy. ‘Excuse me a moment. I must tell my husband.’ She darted into the hall and called, ‘Peter!’

  Peter’s voice came from the sitting-room, saying, ‘There! I bet I’m off again. Now do as I say, won’t you? Go to bed, and I’ll look in on you when I return.’

  With a finger on her lips, Peggy motioned him to silence. She closed the sitting-room door which he had left open, and whispered, ‘It’s Kate! She’s come.’

  ‘What! No! Where?’ Peter’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hair in surprise.

  ‘Ah!’ warned Peggy. ‘In there.’ She pointed to the door.

  ‘Well!’

  When Peter went into the room and saw Kate standing wide-eyed on the hearth-rug, whatever he had intended saying was never said. This was not the Kate he remembered; she had always appeared to him a very young girl, even when well into her twenties. But here was a woman, beautiful still, yet in a widely different way from the other Kate; more finely drawn, more poised, but strung up, at this moment, to breaking point, if he knew anything about it. His treatment of her was studiously casual: ‘Where on earth do you think you’ve been?’ He spoke as though she had left the house at seven o’clock promising to return at eight, and now it was nine.

  She smiled faintly.

  ‘Nice dance you’ve led everybody…haven’t you?’

  ‘Take no notice of him, Kate,’ Peggy said. She turned to Peter: ‘She found out about it only this morning from an old newspaper…Isn’t it strange?’

  ‘Strange!’ said Peter. ‘Of course not; you couldn’t expect her to act like a sensible person and read the daily paper. Anyway, Kate, where have you come from now?’

  ‘From St Leonards in Sussex,’ Kate said. She understood what his off-hand manner was aiming to achieve, and his efforts were succeeding, for her tense nerves were easing, even as he spoke.

  ‘When? Today?’

  ‘Yes; we left early this morning.’

  Peter’s voice became softly sympathetic as he said, ‘He’s in the next room, Kate; but you’ll find him somewhat changed. He’s never given up hope that you would return.’

  Kate said nothing. Now that the moment had come she wished she had more time, time to control the trembling of her body and the racing, whirling expectancy of her mind.

  Peggy took her arm. ‘Come, Kate,’ she said, giving an intonation to the name, which brought a flash of gratitude from Kate. ‘Let me have your hat and coat,’ she added.

  Kate took off her things in the hall, and Peggy, pointing to the sitting-room door, gave her arm a gentle pat and left her.

  As she opened the door Kate did not know what she expected to find. But when she saw Rodney looking to all appearances whole she experienced a slight shock; she had not expected him to look whole. He sat lost in brooding thought, his head bent and his hands lying idle on his knees. At the sight of him all her senses seemed to rush from her body. In the second before he looked up she experienced the acute pain of incredulity that accompanies any feeling nearing ecstasy; she was alive to the overlapping of the emotions, for this joy which filled her was also suffering. He lifted his head, and the remark he was about to make to Peggy died on his lips as he beheld Kate standing with her back to the door. The air between them seemed to vibrate; emotion winged back and forth; but neither of them moved. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again and Kate was still there he breathed her name…a small sound, so inadequate, expressing nothing of the wonder of this moment. He made a hasty and clumsy effort to rise, grabbing for his stick and knocking it out of his reach. His bad arm gave way under his weight as he tried to assist himself from the chair. He floundered back, despair and rage at his helplessness and inadequacy to meet this occasion tearing at him.

  In the second that it took Kate to reach him, she saw that he wasn’t whole, nothing about him was the same; his hair was grey at the temples and his face was unnaturally pale, with the bones showing prominent under the skin, and his body seemed broken.

  She was at his feet, and her arms were around him, straining him to her. As only one arm returned the pressure she was choked by a rush of feeling, so poignant that no words could express it…Love and tenderness seemed small parts of its ingredients; there was a protective and maternal urge mixed with her passion for him; all so intertwined that they were inseparable. And, as his lips gropingly sought hers, her whole being was transported, even while her heart was rent by his tears which were wetting her face.

  THE END