Feeling that she had aged ten years in as many moments, Kate sank into the chair opposite and studied her daughter, as if seeing her for the first time. Then, as if dragging the words up from a long way, she said, still in the hoarsest of whispers, so as not to disturb the sleeping forms in the two beds: “So your dear friend Lizzie, who would appear to be something of an expert in such matters, told you that the pills and the booze would do the trick. Dear God in heaven. Do you know what it is exactly that you’re saying? There’s a very ugly word for what you’ve done.”
Unable to restrain herself a moment longer, Kate got to her feet and, stretching across the table which lay between them, she grabbed hold of her daughter by the scruff of the neck. Then, with the girl’s face close to her own, she whispered: “God Almighty, Jenny. Do you know exactly what you’ve done? And oh, my God. The shame of it. To think a man has brought you to this. That you would steal from your own mother. Steal the very bread from our mouths. And then enlist the help of ... a trollop like that common Lizzie ... and procure an ... an abor...”
The hated word stuck in her throat, so that Kate who, in impotent fury felt that she must lash out at something, finally vented her spleen on the cause of Jenny’s fall from grace.
Her face contorted with anger, Kate said: “Well, I don’t think much of you, Jenny. I think even less of your pal, Lizzie. But that bloody bastard Ross Cuthbert. That wee Glasgow nyaff that got you into this mess in the first place ... well, I say bugger him. May he rot in Hell. Bugger him to everlasting damnation.”
Jenny stared in disbelief at her mother, for seldom had she heard her mother swear in this fashion. And in a strange way, the very fact of her having of necessity to keep her voice low, somehow it made it seem that much worse. It would have been less disturbing if her mother had been able to give free rein to her fury and had actually shouted the words at her.
But shouted or not, as far as Jenny was concerned, the message was crystal-clear: her mother now knew exactly what had happened. As she looked into the white, careworn face of her mother, Jenny was totally unprepared for the next words which issued from the nerveless lips.
“Well, Jenny, and you’ve done it now. Believe me, the awful tragedy of it all is this; if only you had spoken to me, instead of to that bitch Lizzie. But even apart from that, dear, I already suspected. No, I knew in my heart of hearts what had happened. And you can believe it or not, and you’ve only my word for it but I waited up specially tonight to tell you ... tell you ...”
Choked with emotion, Kate collapsed back into her chair.
“Mammy, what is it ? What were you going to tell me?”
Kate bit at her lower lip as she pondered the advisability or otherwise of confiding in her daughter what she had had planned for earlier that evening, now in experience and sorrow a whole lifetime away. When eventually she did open her mouth and relate to Jenny what she had had in mind, the news was the final straw for the unhappy girl. With the cry like that of a wounded animal, she raced from the room and out into the darkened hallway.
Kate knew better than to follow her daughter, for what more could be said that had not already been told? With a long sigh, she got to her feet and automatically started getting undressed. And all the while, her mind was racing. Unless she was very much mistaken, and although she had no experience of such matters, there would be no new baby for which to plan ahead. She knew instinctively her own most immediate job would be to clear away and wash blood-soaked sheets on the morrow. And then, having done that, to nurse her shamed daughter back to health, and all in the short space of time available, that of a single Sabbath day.
That way, the stupid and hopelessly naive girl could at least get back to her work at the mill on Monday morning, as usual, and with nobody except the famous Lizzie any one whit the wiser.
Chapter 17
As Kate had predicted, she managed to get Jenny back to the mill, certainly looking like death warmed up, but no-one except Lizzie knew what had happened. Jenny no longer went out with Lizzie, indeed she scarcely went out at all except to the dreaded job at the mill, and would spend long hours at home sitting in the kitchen, silent and sullen, retiring early to the sofa bed in the hall.
After nearly two years of depression, Jenny started to brighten and with a new girl friend again ventured out of a Saturday evening to the soiree hosted by a local church.
“Don’t worry, Mammy,” she said to Kate, “Lizzie doesn’t seem to be around any more. At least she’s left the mill and I don’t see her or want to see her. I’ve learnt my lesson.”
Kate still worried, but was pleased to see Jenny regain her health and energy as the year wore on.
Christmas of 1897 was relatively happy. Kate had her usual pre-Christmas party with Mrs Scott, and, greatly daring, had bought a half bottle of good Irish whisky and presented it to Terence the week after he had given her a leather bound volume of poems. At the Hogmanay party Jenny had shyly introduced a young man to the family, Brian McCardle, a joiner who had just finished his apprenticeship.
“This time,” Kate said, “keep yourself pure, Jenny lass. Get that gold band on your finger before you give him any favours of a physical kind – you certainly know what I mean, Jenny darling. Take my word for it. Keep Brian dangling on a string till your wedding night. You’re really lucky, dear, for he doesn’t know anything about that other dirty business. Don’t forget, no man wants used goods and cast-offs from any other fellow. He’ll find out soon enough on your honeymoon, but by then it will be too late, for you’ll be safely married. Do you get my meaning?”
Jenny assured Kate that she had no intention of making the same mistake twice and that Brian was a nice lad.
He certainly seemed to be quite different from Ross Cuthbert. Soft spoken and polite, he even impressed Pearce, talking knowledgeably about his work in the shipyard.
One afternoon, rather than going straight home from Mrs Scott’s, Kate, thinking of the particularly upsetting row with Pearce that morning, again sought her usual solace of the book-barra and its cheerful, fascinating and – it must be admitted – handsome owner. As she picked her way carefully through the overcrowded streets with the ever-present smells, jostling humanity and screeching tramcars, she found herself thinking: Yes, a wee blether with Terence O’Neil. ’Tis just what the good doctor ordered.
And now here she was, not only with quickening step but with a heightened bit of colour in her cheeks and fluttering at her heart at the very thought of seeing Terence again so soon. Kate smiled.
Ah, yes, my girl. Seems to me that the handsome bookseller is of more importance these days than the books themselves.
Not that there was anything clandestine about their meetings – after all, how could there be, with half of the worthy citizens of Glasgow looking on? But the element of essential secrecy from her husband lent a certain excitement to the occasion and for a fleeting moment, she felt she could almost have sympathised with Jenny in her hopeless passion for the unsuitable and already much-married Ross. Not wishing to dwell too long on that particular problem, Kate started humming a haunting little Irish air to herself as she hurried along.
Perhaps things are starting to work out better for me. After all, I’ve never had a special man friend before. One I could talk to about books and the like. Imagine it, me, Kate Rafferty talking all knowledgeable-like about books.
A secret little smile softened her work- and worry-worn face and she was still humming the tune as she rounded the corner. She just couldn’t believe her eyes. True, the well-laden book-barra was there in its usual stance, but of Terence there was not a sign. Another man, a perfect stranger, was selling the occasional book and in a broad Glasgow accent trying to chivy up those browsers who’d obviously been there long enough without attempting to make a purchase or even to bargain with him. Kate, feeling as if a rug had been pulled from under her, hesitantly approached the barra and its new attendant. She went through the motions of lifting and looking at first one book, then anot
her, then finally, with a sigh of deep frustration, gazed at the barra boy, wondering how best to approach him.
Then a thought flashed through her mind: Perhaps Terence is off just for a few days – with this terrible cold germ? Yes, I’m sure that’s all it is. After all, if he’d been leaving surely he’d have mentioned it to me last week? Yes, I’ll bet he’ll be here, large as life, next week again. So, Kate my girl, say nothing to the barra boy, no need to make a damned fool o’ yersel.
On the point of turning away and back again homewards, she lifted up an attractively-bound book of poems which was wedged at the back of the cart and near to the man’s hand. It was a volume which she and Terence had discussed some weeks previously and he had promised that if he got a fair copy of it at a bargain price he would keep it for her. She riffled through the book and then, with a sigh, replaced it exactly where it had been. As she did so, the barra boy laughed. “A good job yer no’ wantin’ that yin, Missus. It’s reserved. Terry himself, before he went away like, told me to save that yin for some special friend of his, and ...”
Kate’s face paled.
“Terence, away? Is he ill? A wee touch o’ the rheumatics, eh? Something like that?”
The man laughed and shook his head.
“Rheumatics did ye say, Missus? No a bit o’ it. Skipped away like a Spring lamb, off back tae his benighted Ireland – that’s what he’s done. Back to his Emerald Isle. All the same, these Paddies, if you ask me.”
Almost unable to believe her ears, Kate clutched on to the barrow’s shaft for much-needed support. Seeing this, the man peered closely into her face.
With typical Glaswegian humour and kindliness, he said: “Heh, lissen, hen. If yer gaun to be faintin’, away and do it some where’s else. Right? Bad for business. Folk might think it’s my prices is gein ye the heebie-jeebies.”
Despite herself, Kate laughed out loud and the man patted her shoulder.
“That’s mair like the thing, hen. Feelin a wee bit better noo? Or dae ye want to sit doon on that orange box for a wee while?”
Kate shook her head and hurriedly gathered her wits.
“No, no, I’m fine. But thanks all the same. Anyway, I’ll get away and not keep you from your good work.”
“Listen, hen, if yer a regular, maybe you could help me. Happen you might know who that book is reserved for. Terence wrote something on the fly-leaf. But Ah’m no’ that good at the readin’. Terence did mention something – the name o’ a song. But damned if I can remember it.”
He frowned in concentration
After a moment Kate murmured: “Kathleen Mavourneen? Would that be it by any chance?”
At once his face lightened and he grinned at her over the graveyard of his teeth. After first spitting on his hands, rubbing them together, and finally wiping them on his moleskin trousers, he stretched across the barrow and delved into the pile of books.
With the gold-tooled, leather-bound volume of poetry safely in his hands, he opened it at the requisite page with the inscription before handing it to Kate.
As she gazed at the words, she felt her eyes mist over.
As if unable to believe the witness of her own eyes, she read the inscription several times over. “Listen, Mister ... er ... sorry I don’t know your name. Mister?”
He raised his flat tweed bunnet, and with questing fingers, scratched his head before laughing.
“Mister, nothing. Listen, hen, nobody in Glesga ever cries me nothing but Shuggie. I wouldn’t know myself as a Mister.”
Kate laughed, already feeling very much at home with this kindly man, his beaming grin and his pawky, ready Glasgow wit.
She nodded. “Right then, Mister ... er ... Shuggie. I’ve read this wee message. It does say to ‘My dear Kathleen Mavourneen.’ And also ...”
Shuggie slapped his thigh in delight.
“Then it’s definitely meant for you, hen. You yourself said the name of the right song. And if ever anybody looked and sounded like a Kathleen Mavourneen, then ’tis yourself, Missus, with that lovely, soft Irish accent.”
Kate felt herself blush, something she hadn’t done in years. But it wasn’t so much the compliment which caused her confusion so much as uncertainty as to how to phrase her next words.
“Well, Shuggie. ’Tis like this. The rest of the message in the book ... it’s well ... it’s rather private and personal, you see and ...”
At this revelation, Shuggie grinned like a delighted schoolboy who had just been told a dirty joke.
“You mean, like, it’s a love letter, or what the Frenchies call a Billy-dux. Is that it, hen?”
By now Kate’s face was beetroot-red.
“Well, I don’t know that I’d put it quite as strongly as that.”
Shuggie waved her words aside.
“Listen, hen, a love letter’s the same in any language, even if it is written inside a book. But imagine, Terry O’Neil, a real hard-man, tough as nails. Him writing you a Billy-dux. The auld bugger. Mind you, hen ...”
Here he peered, in a highly confidential manner, into her face.
“That book must have cost Terry an arm and a leg – ten bob at the very least, or I’ll be far cheated. So, he must think real highly of you, hen.”
Kate’s eyes opened wide in amazement and she was about to speak, but Shuggie beat her to it.
“Listen, hen, whatever words the old lothario wrote are for your eyes alone, and just you remember that. The book is obviously a gift for ye. So take it and enjoy it, hen.”
If Kate had fallen into the Clyde and come up with a gold watch, she could not have been anymore delighted. And even though, as Shuggie had indicated, Terry had gone back to his native Ireland, the printed words he had left behind gave her hope for the future.
TO MY DEAR KATHLEEN MAVOURNEEN, DUTY CALLS ME TO IRELAND MEANTIME, BUT WE’LL MEET AGAIN. LOVE FROM TERENCE.
There was love and joy in her heart and a spring in her step as she headed home to Garth Street and whatever new family crisis awaited her there.
Chapter 18
Kate was sitting in the kitchen sewing, with Pearce dozing in his chair beside the fire, on a January afternoon. She was thinking over the events of the years since Danny had left home and wishing he had been present at the their last Hogmanay party when everyone had seemed reasonably happy.
She was startled out of her reverie by a series of sharp knocks at the door.
Now who can that be? It can’t be Granny Gorbals, she would just walk right in, and so would most of the neighbours with maybe one knock and a shout “hello”.
Sewing laid aside she hurried to the door.
A young man stood out on the landing smiling at her. It was Pearce as Kate remembered him from their first meeting at Laggan House.
“It’s me, Mammy.”
“Danny.” She threw herself into his arms, hugging and crying.
“Can I come in?” Danny said after their first greeting had calmed down.
Kate pulled the door almost closed behind her.
“Dadda isn’t quite the man he was, Danny. He’s sixty, going on sixty-one. He never really recovered from that melancholia and this last year, one morning when he woke his hands trembled something dreadful. They still do and he’s not too steady on his feet. He’s still sharp as a tack though.”
“What does the doctor say it is?”
Kate laughed. “You know your father, he won’t hear of seeing a doctor. Would you stay out here for a minute while I tell your Dadda? I wouldn’t want to risk shocking him with you just walking in.”
“That I will, Mammy. Take your time. I won’t run away.”
Kate went straight into the kitchen with the intention of speaking to her husband. But Pearce was dozing noisily in his chair. His steel-framed reading glasses had slipped halfway down his pinched beak of a nose. Taking her courage in both hands, Kate leant forward and gently tapped his cardiganed sleeve. It was her third attempt which finally aroused him when, with a start, he looked up into her eyes.<
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“What’s the matter? What’s wrong? I was sleeping, woman. Can’t a body even get to sleep in peace here?”
Ignoring this petulant complaint, Kate leant further forward and whispered into his ear: “Now just keep calm, Pearce. It’s nothing for you to get alarmed about. But ... well ... the thing is ... you’ve got a visitor.”
At this startling news, he immediately struggled to sit more upright in his chair. He frowned in perplexity.
“A visitor? For me? Who would want to visit me? Humph. The only person who ever comes to visit me is that old Granny Gorbals, and even that is because she’s looking for a free tea and pancakes. Yes, funny thing that, now I come to think of it. She always, but always, comes on your baking days. Yes, that’s the only ...”
Kate laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Now, Pearce, you know that’s not true. A real faithful friend and visitor, is Granny Gorbals.”
Pearce opened his mouth to protest, but, for once, mindful of Danny Boy still waiting out on the landing, Kate was too quick for her husband.
“No doubt about it, Pearce. You do have a visitor and believe it or not, it’s your long lost son. There now. What do you think of that? Danny Boy is out there on the other side of the door, waiting to greet you after all these years.”
For a second, Kate thought he was about to explode, so sudden was the rush of colour to his now normally pallid face. Then, just as suddenly, as if all the fight had gone out of him, he exhaled a long, whistling sigh of defeat. Then, looking at his wife, and in a voice drained of all emotion, he said: “Well then, if Daniel has now condescended to visit us, after all these years, you had best show him in.”
Kate felt a measure of relief at Pearce’s quick and apparently ready acceptance of the fact of Daniel’s return.
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