Katy's Men

by Irene Carr

  Matt did not stay long in the Docherty house. His bed was comfortable and the food was good, but little Beatrice, Joe’s three-year-old daughter, was spoilt by her father out of over-affection and Alice because of laziness — she let the child do as she wished. Added to this, Alice became more and more attentive to Matt. Joe grinned amiably, seeing nothing wrong with the match, but Matt was not ready for marriage at that time — or to Alice at any time. Nevertheless, he did not want to hurt her, so he left and moved into lodgings, making the excuse that he wanted to live nearer the yard. It was a poor excuse as the new lodgings only saved him another five minutes’ walk, but he was not good at contriving excuses.

  It did not fool Alice. She knew why he had left and cried into her pillow.

  Matt’s fate lay elsewhere. He had only jumped out of the frying pan.

  *

  ‘Have you reserved a table, sir?’ The head waiter in the restaurant of the Palace Hotel was respectful because Matt wore his dark grey suit with narrow lapels to the jacket and narrow trousers. His starched collar was high, his silk tie neatly knotted and his shoes gleamed with polishing. He looked a picture of a young gentleman. The head waiter was not to know that Matt had worked very hard for weeks and was in the mood to blow some of his savings on a meal and a visit to a theatre. Nor that the suit was the only one Matt possessed and the polish on the shoes was the result of his own efforts and not those of some valet.

  Matt answered, ‘I’m afraid not,’ and thought that he should have booked a table because he knew the rules. As a young soldier he had sometimes helped in the officers’ mess on the occasion of a mess dinner, and he had heard the young subalterns talking about booking a table for dinner at a restaurant. He had learned the etiquette, and that he was as good a soldier and a man as they. He was not overawed by the Palace or the head waiter.

  ‘There is one table free, sir.’ The head waiter inclined stiffly in a little bow, then the young woman appeared at Matt’s side. He asked, ‘Will you and the lady come this way, sir?’

  The young woman said coolly, without a glance at Matt, ‘We are not together.’

  ‘I’m sorry, miss.’ Her tone rankled with him. Besides, he wasn’t sure that it was a good idea to allow young women in unescorted. ‘Do you have a reservation?’

  ‘No.’ That was curt. She was angry because she had only wheedled the money from her mother at the last moment. If she had got it sooner she would have booked a table. The Palace was always full on a Saturday evening.

  ‘I’m sorry, miss, but this gentleman has the last vacant table.’ And he thought, And serve you right.

  Now she looked at Matt and saw what the head waiter had seen and came to the same conclusion: this was a young gentleman of means. She smiled and said bravely, ‘Oh, well, it can’t be helped.’ Her blonde hair was piled high and her blue eyes were wide and long-lashed. Her dress of taffeta reached down to her neat shoes of black patent leather and covered her bosom without concealing It.

  Matt looked into those eyes and volunteered, ‘You must have it.’

  ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly deprive you. But you are extremely kind.’

  Matt ventured, risking a snub, ‘Perhaps we could share?’

  ‘Well . . .’ She pretended to be unsure. ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘I’d be delighted.’ Then he introduced himself, ‘I’m Matthew Ballard.’

  She held out her gloved hand, ‘Fleur Ecclestone.’ Her birth certificate showed Fanny but she had early discarded that, before she became a pupil at her private school. Matt shook the gloved hand she extended then gestured to her to precede him. ‘Thank you.’ She followed the head waiter, who thought, I was afraid we were going to be all bloody night! Matt followed her and was conscious of the movement of her lithe body inside the thin dress.

  Seated at the table, Fleur set out to enchant him and succeeded. She was shy and soft-voiced, graceful and smiling, ate like a bird and took one glass of wine and no more. When dinner was over he suggested, hopefully, ‘I was going on to a theatre. Would you care to join me?’

  Fleur hesitated, looking up at him from under those long lashes. ‘We’ve only just met.’

  Matt coaxed, ‘Does that matter?’

  Fleur yielded as she had always intended to, and laughed, ‘I suppose not. Very well, I’d love to go.’

  They drove to the Empire in a cab and afterwards he took her home in another. She lived with her mother in a good class rented apartment near Mowbray Park. Matt was not surprised because he had concluded that she came from a monied background. Nor was he put off: ‘Faint heart never won fair lady.’ They parted with an agreement that he should pay his respects to her and he strode back to his digs humming the tunes from the show.

  ‘Did you enjoy your evening, dear?’ Fleur’s mother had been dozing by the fire and woke as her daughter entered.

  ‘I’d have enjoyed it more if you’d given me the money sooner,’ Fleur replied curtly. She was remembering the embarrassing scene when the head waiter told her there was no table for her — and blaming her mother for it.

  Mrs Ecclestone said anxiously, trying to ward off the tantrum she could see was coming, ‘Did you meet any nice people?’

  ‘Yes. Just as well I did. I can’t face my old friends as a pauper.’

  Her mother winced, ‘We’re not paupers, dear. Your father left us provided for, as best he could. We can manage if we’re careful.’

  ‘Careful!’ Fleur shouted in rage and frustration. ‘Scrimping and scraping! And he left you a pension but nothing for me!’

  ‘It was all your poor father had,’ wailed her mother.

  ‘What did he expect me to do? Get a job in a factory?’ Her father had sent Fleur to a private school when his business had been doing well. The friends she had made there now spent their days in wealthy idleness and pastimes she could not afford. When her father’s business failed he had scraped together enough to buy an annuity for his wife in the event of his death. That came soon afterwards, from overwork and stress.

  Mrs Ecclestone tremulously suggested, ‘It need not be in a factory. Possibly in an office—’

  ‘And have one of those friends find me banging away at a typewriter? I have my pride! Oh! You just don’t understand!’ And Fleur stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Matt paid his respects with flowers and walks in the park. They sometimes repeated that evening at the Palace Hotel and then a show, but not often because Matt could not afford it and said so. Fleur was only slightly disappointed. She wanted a man who would give her a home, income and a place in society and was sure Matt would do. She easily got him to talk about his work, listened to his eager talk and deduced, rightly, that he did most of the work at Docherty’s. He was a young man who was going somewhere. She would trust her instinct and there was no hurry. She calculated cold-bloodedly that her mother would not make old bones, but believed she would live long enough. That was important, because when Mrs Ecclestone died her annuity would cease and Fleur would be penniless.

  Chapter Eight

  SUNDERLAND. NOVEMBER 1909.

  ‘Take your baggage and get out!’ Vera Spargo squawled and it echoed round the yard. Katy winced, remembering her father bawling a similar order at her. She looked up from her work and out of the window of the office and saw Vera standing in the doorway of the house. In the early dusk of autumn she was silhouetted against the gaslights in the hall. The men had mostly returned from their day’s work .and were putting away the carts, steam wagons and lorries, feeding and watering the horses. They stopped work and turned at the eldritch screech. Vera held Betsy, the young maid, by the hair at the back of her head and now thrust her out of the house and down the steps so she sprawled in the dirt of the yard.

  Betsy shrieked and got up onto her knees. She cried out, ‘It was your Ivor made me do it! Always after me, he is!’

  Vera said contemptuously, ‘It takes two, and from what I saw when I caught you at it, you were as much to
blame as him!’ Rita appeared beside her now, carrying a suitcase, obviously hastily packed; it bulged and scraps of garments stuck out here and there. Vera snapped, ‘All there?’

  Rita nodded, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Vera snatched the case from her and threw it after Betsy. She followed it with a handful of coins. ‘There’s what’s owing you! Now take yourself off!’ She reached behind the front door and brought out the walking stick. Betsy shrieked again, but scrabbled for the coins, picked up the case and ran. The men working in the yard guffawed and their hooting laughter followed her out of the gate. Katy saw her tear-streaked face as she stumbled past with the case clasped against her body.

  Katy was sorry for her and sorry to see her go, though not surprised. She had guessed long ago at the affair with Ivor; Betsy had dropped some coy hints. But the giggly girl had been about Katy’s own age, and though silly, she was nevertheless someone to talk to and laugh with. Katy was lonely in this house and hungry for companionship.

  She saw Ivor come skulking around the corner of the house. He had run out of the back door to escape from his mother’s rage. That would not be directed at him for any immorality but because of his dallying with a servant, someone beneath him in Vera’s opinion. Now he waited by the side of the house, hidden from her there, until she swept back into the hall. She slammed the door behind her, probably gone to seek him. Ivor saw his chance then and ran to the gates. The men did not laugh at him, only grinned and that behind their hands, because a word of complaint from Ivor could get them the sack. Vera would castigate him but woe betide any worker who dared deride him. As he fled through the gateway he shot a look at the office before running away down the road. Katy did not laugh at him, either, but kept her head bent over her books. She was not sorry for him and did not see how the affair could affect her. She would learn in time.

  Ivor returned late in the evening when his mother’s wrath had abated but Katy still heard her shouting at him while she lay in her cold bed two floors above them, with a chill wind moaning about the house. Vera finished: ‘You’d do well to think less about lasses and more about this business! You take no interest in it! I’ve a mind to tell your father to sell up and let you make your own way . . .!’ Her voice tailed away into grumbling then, but that went on for some time. Katy fell asleep to the distant mutter of it.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ Katy hissed the words a few days later. Vera’s tirade and threat had borne fruit in that Ivor was more busy in the yard and working out of it for longer, but now that he had lost Betsy he returned to loitering around Katy. This morning, with its gas-lit grey dawn light, he had sidled into the office where Katy sat alone and attempted to fondle her. He backed off now when she warned, ‘I’ll tell your mother!’

  ‘Just a bit o’ fun.’ He licked his lips and smirked at her. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Talk to me through the window.’ Katy pointed to the door and Ivor shrugged and walked out of it, into the yard. A few minutes later he drove off with his horse and cart; Arthur would not trust him to drive a lorry as yet.

  When he returned that evening he reported to his father. Arthur stood just outside the office, so Katy heard all of the exchange. Ivor complained, ‘That feller in Monkwearmouth — Docherty — he’s started working on our side of the river, taking trade away from us.’

  Arthur scowled at the idea: ‘What trade?’

  ‘Shifting some woman’s furniture from Bishopwear-mouth to Millfield.’

  Arthur’s frown was now more puzzled than annoyed. ‘I didn’t know we had a job like that booked.’

  ‘We didn’t.’ Then Ivor pointed out, ‘But if he’d stayed his side of the river we might ha’ done.’

  Arthur shrugged, ‘We might, but we’re not the only hauliers this side of the river. One o’ the others could ha’ got the job. And what he’s done, well, that’s competition and you can’t do owt about it.’ He turned and waddled away.

  Ivor called after him, ‘I’ll do something!’ But Arthur either did not hear him, or ignored him. Ivor, disgruntled, saw Katy sitting in the office and snapped, ‘What are you laughing about?’

  Katy responded truthfully, ‘I’m not laughing.’ Though she had just stopped herself from grinning at his dismissal by Arthur. Now she bent over her books again.

  Ivor scowled at her bent head, but then muttered, ‘I will do something, you’ll see.’

  A week later Ivor bounced into the office late in the afternoon and boasted, ‘I told you I’d fix that feller from across the river.’ Katy had seen him rattle past the window sitting on his cart. His head had turned this way and that, presumably seeking someone to impress, but his father was out on a job and none of the men had returned at that time. So he had come to the office, and Katy.

  She looked up at him, saying nothing, and this spurred him into going on, ‘I saw him this morning, the feller driving a lorry for Docherty. He went into this house at the back of the High Street and came out a few minutes later and drove off. So I went in, saw the old woman in there, and said, “Have you asked Docherty’s to move some furniture for you? When is he going to do it and what is he charging?” And when she told me how much, and that he was coming back that afternoon after finishing a job, I said I’d do it right off for half the price. I told her Docherty was notorious for booking more work than he could handle and he might not be back for a week.’ Ivor grinned, ‘I got the business. I’d like to have seen his face when he found out.’

  It was at that moment that a lorry pulled into the yard. As it rumbled through the gateway the name on its side slid past the window of the office: J. Docherty. Haulier.

  Katy asked, ‘Is that the one you saw?’

  ‘Aye, it is,’ Ivor breathed. ‘Oh, Lord!’

  The lorry had stopped and a young man got down from the driving seat and strode towards the office. For a second or two he disappeared from Katy’s sight where she sat at the window, then he shoved open the door and stepped in. He was a very tall young man and broad-shouldered, seeming to fill the rectangle of the doorway, his thatch of black hair brushing the top of it. He paused there to look around and his dark eyes held a hard stare. They flicked over Katy and passed on, then settled on Ivor, but Katy found she had risen to her feet under that stare and backed away from the desk. She was angered that she had taken fright that way and now she challenged, ‘Who are you? What do you want in here?’

  The young giant answered, eyes still on Ivor, ‘I’m Matt Ballard and I work for Joe Docherty. I’m looking for Ivor Spargo.’

  Katy demanded, ‘What for?’

  Matt’s gaze shifted briefly to the girl, irritated by her interruption. ‘He played a dirty trick on me and I’ve come to square it up.’ He saw her staring back at him defiantly, but he also saw the swift glance she shot at the other man in the room. Matt pointed a finger at him and charged, ‘You’re Ivor Spargo! You fiddled me out of a job! The old girl described you to a T. Long and thin and that ‘tache.’ He started forward and Ivor ducked behind Katy. Matt found himself face to face with the girl and ordered her, ‘Get out of the way.’

  ‘No! Don’t come in here giving me orders!’ This was not one of the Spargos who could sack her and put her on the street. ‘And you’d better not lay a finger on me!’

  Matt glowered at her and knew she was right, that he would not lay a hand on her. He looked over her head and his eyes bored into Ivor. ‘You pull that trick again and I’ll settle your hash for good.’

  He turned and walked towards the door. Ivor whined, ‘If you touch me I’ll have the law on you!’

  Matt turned his head and eyed him sardonically. ‘The law won’t put you together again.’ The door slammed behind him, then he swung up into the cab of his lorry and drove it out of the yard.

  Katy, her knees suddenly weak, sat down at her desk with a bump.

  Ivor mumbled nervously, ‘He doesn’t frighten me.’

  Katy remembered the tall young man’s outrage and anger, the look in his eye as he l
eft. She warned, ‘I wouldn’t cross him again, if I were you.’ She did not want to face him again, either. He had included her among the guilty because of her presence here with Ivor. She had been breathless and frightened when he loomed over her. At the same time she had somehow known that he would not hurt her.

  Katy kept recalling the young giant over the next few days but Ivor soon forgot, or tried to. In a day or two he was as brash and leering as ever. There came a day when Vera Spargo addressed them all at the dinner table: ‘That carpenter — Howard Ross — he’s coming tomorrow to do some work to the floor in the hall, a few loose boards needing nailing down. It’s an easy enough job but I’ve been asking for it to be done for weeks and people are always busy.’ She glanced coldly at Arthur and his son but they kept their eyes on their plates, so she continued, ‘I don’t want to be here while he’s hammering so I’m going out for the day. Cook’s been given her instructions so you’ll eat all right.’ Now Ivor’s gaze flicked to Katy and she was suddenly uneasy. She remembered that Betsy was no longer there to engage Ivor’s attentions.

  Vera went off the next morning, dressed in her best of funereal black dress with choker collar and leg-of-mutton sleeves under a black raincoat, and topped with a black straw hat like a plant pot, held in place by a pin a foot long. She picked her way in her buttoned boots around the puddles in the empty yard — all the men had gone out to work by that time. She nodded curtly to Katy, a bob of the black straw, as she passed the office, a gesture that said plainly, ‘Don’t sit idle because I’m away.’ Then she was gone.

  Katy continued working but she did relax, knowing that there was no one watching her. But only a few minutes later she heard the rattle and clatter of a horse and cart and looked up to see it entering the yard. Ivor sat on the front of the cart and he reined in the horse, jumped down and sauntered into the office. He closed the door behind him and shot the bolt before advancing to stand behind Katy. He leaned over her and murmured, ‘I watched Ma until she got on her tram and it drove off.’ He had his hands on her shoulders and now he slid one forwards and downwards.