Jarrow Trilogy 03 - Return to Jarrow

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Catherine said in disgust, grabbing the cup from Kate. She sniffed it. ‘It’s more whisky than tea.’

  ‘Give it back!’ Kate cried, lunging forward. ‘My house, I’ll do as I please.’

  As they grappled over the cup, Tom walked in.

  ‘Please, don’t fight,’ he said with a look of horror.

  The cup dropped between them and smashed on the unswept floor, splashing Catherine’s best shoes.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ Kate accused them both.

  Tom bent down and began to pick up the pieces.

  ‘You’ll have to buy me a new one,’ Kate ordered. ‘Wouldn’t have been arguing if it hadn’t been for you, Tom Cookson. Everything was champion till you came.’

  Catherine waited for Tom to answer back, give Kate a mouthful. If she had been spoken to like that, she’d be marching out of the lodgings there and then. But Tom said nothing, just carried on sweeping up the mess.

  Suddenly Catherine was angry with him. ‘Stop, Tom! Let her do it.’

  He looked up puzzled. ‘I don’t mind—’

  ‘Well, you should do!’ she blazed. ‘Why do you put up with it? You let her treat you like dirt. Bridie’s right: you’re not man enough. How can I expect you to stand up for me if you won’t even stand up for yourself!’

  Catherine stormed out of the house. Later, after she had calmed down, she was filled with remorse at her outburst. Tom did not deserve her sharp tongue; she was hateful for taking out her frustration with Kate and Bridie on him.

  She wrote him a note of apology, but heard nothing back. She felt wretched all week.

  It was May, and Tom had started coaching cricket. On Saturday afternoons he umpired games. Catherine went along to the school grounds and hung about outside, summoning the courage to go in.

  She slipped in the gates behind a couple of schoolboys and followed them. Standing under a large canopy of cherry blossom away from the other spectators she observed the game. Tom was umpiring at one end, serious with concentration. She sat in the grass and watched. This was where he was happy, she could see that. The tranquillity and order of the cricket pitch, the athleticism and endeavour of young people. Tom looked at one with the scene. When they broke for tea, she saw how he smiled and chatted to the boys and how they gravitated towards him. He was their role model.

  Catherine felt a deep pang of longing and regret. How could she compete with this other world? She was too ill-educated to fit into his circle of academics. And what could she offer him? A life of turmoil among those who resented him for being young and intellectual, for not being Catholic. Catherine walked away, tears stinging her eyes.

  ‘Kitty!’

  She turned at the gate, heart leaping at the sound of Tom’s voice.

  ‘You came to watch.’ He smiled quizzically.

  ‘I wanted to say sorry,’ Catherine said, swallowing tears.

  ‘I thought you’d had enough of me, when you didn’t answer my telephone calls.’

  ‘What calls?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘Bridie took them.’

  ‘Oh, Bridie!’ Catherine said crossly. ‘She never said.’

  ‘No, I was stupid to think she would.’ Tom looked forlorn.

  Catherine stepped towards him. ‘No, you’re too trusting,’ she corrected. ‘You always think the best of folk - that’s your trouble.’

  ‘Is there any hope for us, Kitty?’ he asked quietly.

  Catherine threw her arms around him. ‘Yes, yes there is. You must believe it.’

  ***

  Stubbornly, they went on seeing each other throughout the summer term. It provoked Bridie into open war on Tom. She put about a rumour that Catherine was seeking to make her and Maisie homeless, in order to move Tom in. Some of the lodgers were openly disapproving, believing Bridie rather than Catherine, who was seldom there to defend herself. Bridie embarrassed Tom with tales of Catherine attracting married men. ‘Always goes for the unsuitable ones - can’t help herself. It’s me who keeps her on the straight and narrow. Has she told you the scandal she caused at the tennis club?’

  When Tom asked her about Maurice, Catherine forced out of him what Bridie had said. She was furious and hurt at the attempts to ruin her reputation.

  ‘Maurice wasn’t married - and the other men resented me for being successful and a woman.’

  Tom insisted it made no difference, but Catherine knew once doubts were sown it was difficult not to dwell on them. Catherine hardly trusted herself to speak to Bridie and made up a bed in the billiard room rather than be near her at night. She was not going to let her ruin things with Tom.

  Visits from the priest and nuns from the convent became ever more frequent as Bridie whipped up opposition to Catherine’s consorting with a non-Catholic. But when none of this put a stop to the romance, Bridie set aside her resentment of Kate, and went to enlist her help in wrecking it.

  ‘We can’t have Catherine throwing away her career and independence for a pipsqueak like him,’ Bridie declared. ‘She wants me out of the house, I’m sure of it. She’d throw me and Maisie on to the street for that man.’

  ‘It’s the same for me,’ Kate fretted, her fear fuelled by Bridie’s alarmist words. ‘Doesn’t care what happens. Said she’ll not support me any longer - and I’m having trouble managing such a big place. All I need is a little help with the bills. It’s not much to ask.’

  ‘It’s up to you to put him off,’ Bridie challenged. ‘Only you can tell him things about Catherine - show him she would never fit in at his posh school. If you do, I’ll make sure Catherine stumps up the money you need.’

  The next time Catherine was out with Tom at a school concert, he was unusually subdued. Walking home, she tried to discover what troubled him.

  ‘Is it something I’ve said?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing.’

  ‘Yes it is. Talk to me Tom. Has Kate been at you again?’

  His look gave him away.

  ‘Tell me,’ she pleaded.

  He stopped and stared back at the sea, rattling the change in his pockets in agitation.

  ‘She told me about - about you not having a father.’

  Catherine felt punched in the stomach. She could hardly breathe. It was the one thing she had kept from Tom, fearing it would mar his love for her. How could Kate have done such a thing? The look on Tom’s face told her how shocked and disappointed he was. He was a devout man of strong principles. How he must despise her now!

  ‘She had no right,’ Catherine rasped. ‘You must hate me.’

  Tom swung round. ‘No, of course I don’t. It doesn’t matter to me how you were born.’

  ‘It must do,’ Catherine said in confusion. ‘That’s why you’ve been so quiet all night. You can hardly bring yourself to speak to me.’ She began to walk on. Tom came after her.

  ‘Stop, Kitty, it’s not that.’ He pulled her round. ‘I feel so sorry for you - I understand now all your hatred of bigotry. It must have been terrible. Why didn’t you tell me? I thought there was nothing we couldn’t say to each other.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to look at me like others do,’ Catherine said, ‘the ones who know. I didn’t want you to look down on me - pity me!’

  Tom dropped his hold.

  ‘What else did my interfering mother tell you? How many failed love affairs I’ve had?’ His silence and wary look frightened her. ‘She did, didn’t she? Well, you hardly get to my age without having been out with other men. Not that any of them wanted me except for one thing. But that’s what people expect from bastards!’

  ‘Stop it!’ he said. ‘Don’t say such things.’ He clenched his fists. ‘The only one pitying you round here is yourself!’

  ‘Well, at least I know what you really think of me.’ Catherine was stung.

  ‘Listen for once, Kitty!’ he demanded. She had never seen him so angry. ‘I know why your mother says such things - to try and put me off you. She’s been against me from the start - sees me as a
threat because I love you as much as she does.’

  ‘She doesn’t love me!’ Catherine cried indignantly.

  ‘Yes she does and you’re blind if you can’t see it. She can’t bear the thought of losing you to me. She’s a frightened old woman, lashing out. She needs you, Kitty.’

  Panic gripped Catherine; she felt faint. ‘But I need you.’

  ‘Do you?’ he challenged, his look fierce.

  ‘Yes, I do!’

  He seized her hands. ‘Then marry me.’

  ‘Marry?’ she gasped.

  ‘Yes, before they drive us apart for good.’

  Catherine stood, clutching his hands, head reeling with the idea. She heard Father John’s censorious words about jeopardising her soul; she saw Bridie’s face contorted in hatred; Kate wailing at her desertion.

  She looked in desperation at Tom’s eager face. ‘W-would you - could you convert to being a Catholic?’ she whispered. ‘Father John and Sister Marguerite say it’s impossible for me to marry an Anglican.’

  ‘We could get married in a registry office,’ Tom said wildly.

  Catherine shook her head. ‘I couldn’t marry if it wasn’t in church, you know that. To me we wouldn’t be married.’

  Tom pushed her hands away and plunged his into his pockets. His face looked resigned.

  ‘I couldn’t give up my faith, Kitty,’ he said quietly, ‘and I wouldn’t expect you to give up yours.’

  She looked at him, stunned. He was as good as saying it was over. They had come to an impasse that neither was strong enough to overcome. She felt sick with misery, yet even in that moment it was tinged with relief. To go on would have been purgatory, falling deeper in love with a man she could never marry. Better that it stopped now before her heart was torn in two.

  ‘Then I don’t think we should see each other again,’ Catherine said, her calmness belying her inner turmoil.

  Tom’s lean face was tense with regret. He seemed about to say something, then stopped.

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ he nodded. ‘Goodbye, Kitty.’

  He turned away and walked into the gloom. Catherine stood looking after him, gulping back the sob in her throat, the cry that would call him back. But she remained as still as stone, watching the man she loved walk out of her life.

  Only later, in the middle of the night out in the garden, did she curl up under an oak tree and weep out her sorrow.

  Chapter 41

  Catherine buried her hurt and plunged herself into work. She spent long days at the laundry, not hurrying home, and when she did so, took a notebook into the garden and wrote. On wet evenings she huddled in the leaking summerhouse. She filled notebook after notebook with stories and characters that transported her far from the drudgery and disappointments of real life.

  Bridie fussed around her, now that Tom was no longer calling.

  ‘You’re tired out, come inside,’ she would coax. ‘I’ve made you a hot cup of cocoa. You’ll ruin your eyes, scribbling in the dark.’

  But Catherine was still angry with Bridie for her part in spoiling the relationship with Tom. She would not be comforted. She spoke as little as possible and kept out of Bridie’s way. When one of the lodgers left, Catherine moved from the billiard room into the small spare room rather than go back to sharing with the older woman. There was no solace in being told that she and Tom were incompatible, even if it were true.

  She avoided Kate even more, refusing to call at Maritime Place for fear of running into Tom. She was furious with Kate for telling Tom too much about their past, and could not forgive her. Catherine neither knew nor cared how her mother was coping.

  Yet, as the summer wore on, Catherine came to the painful conclusion that Bridie and her mother had probably been right. She and Tom were complete opposites: she was extrovert and impulsive, he cautious and shy. She was older and worldly-wise, he young and idealistic. He was an Oxford scholar, intellectual and well read, while her education had stopped at thirteen. The more she knew him, the more ignorant she felt.

  Above all, Tom was Church of England and she Catholic to her very core. The two were not supposed to mix. Hers was the true faith, as the priest and nuns kept reminding her. If Tom was not prepared to convert then there was no future for them, however strongly they might be attracted.

  For a short time, Catherine stopped going to church, resentful of her situation. She railed against a God that would cast good men like Tom into the flames of Hell. But Sister Marguerite continued to visit. She was putting her own soul at risk by avoiding confession and absolution, the nun worried.

  While Catherine wrestled with her spiritual dilemma, another crisis erupted. A distraught Kate came round to The Hurst to seek her out.

  ‘It’s Davie,’ she sobbed, her face puffy and tear-stained.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Catherine said in alarm.

  ‘Has he had an accident?’ Bridie asked.

  Kate shook her head. She held out a letter with a trembling hand. Catherine took it and read the brief note. Her concern turned swiftly to annoyance.

  ‘What’s bad about this? He’s got a job working on a Shields ferry - and what’s more, he wants you back.’

  ‘I cannot!’ Kate cried. ‘Me home’s down here now. I don’t want to gan back to Jarrow.’

  ‘Well, write and tell him so.’ Bridie was blunt.

  Kate looked at Catherine warily, twisting her hands in her lap. ‘The thing is, there’s another reason - I can’t afford to gan back.’

  Catherine sighed. ‘I’ll pay your train fare if that’s what’s worrying you.’

  ‘It’s not just that,’ Kate said, on the verge of tears again. ‘I’m owing a bit on the house - got behind on the payments.’

  ‘How behind?’ Catherine demanded, her heart sinking.

  ‘Couple of months - and the gas bill’s due and they’re threatening to cut me electric off.’ Her look was pleading. ‘I need a bit money to tide me over - till I find a couple more lodgers. It’s been quiet over the summer. But I’ll sharp pay it back, I promise.’

  Catherine eyed her mother, unable to hide her contempt. ‘Your promises aren’t worth a pinch of salt.’

  Instead of lashing back, Kate’s face crumpled. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry, Kitty.’

  Bridie patted her shoulder. ‘Maybe it’s for the best if you go back north. At least Davie can put a roof over your head.’

  Kate shot her a bitter look. Once she had thought her an ally, but the Irish woman had usurped her place in Catherine’s affections. Bridie no longer had a use for her.

  ‘Bridie’s right,’ Catherine said. ‘You’ve got no choice.’

  ‘Please, hinny, don’t send me away,’ Kate begged.

  ‘This isn’t my doing!’ Catherine gave her mother a hard look. ‘I’ll bail you out one last time, but it’s on one condition - you go back to Davie.’

  Kate bowed her head. ‘But what about me lodgers? I’d feel bad, putting them out.’

  Catherine tensed.

  ‘How many do you have?’ Bridie asked.

  ‘Two,’ Kate answered, almost inaudibly.

  ‘Two in the whole of that big house?’ Catherine cried in disbelief. ‘No wonder you’re up to your neck in debt.’

  Kate lifted her head defiantly. ‘And there’s Tom Cookson - said he’d come back after the summer holidays.’

  Catherine reddened at his name.

  ‘Where is he?’ Bridie asked, glancing between them.

  ‘Gone travelling on the Continent. Said there was nowt to keep him in Hastings.’

  Catherine swallowed. ‘We can take your lodgers in here if they can’t find anywhere else.’

  Bridie was suspicious. ‘But what about the schoolboy? What if he comes back to Hastings?’

  Catherine answered briskly, ‘He can take his chances like the rest of the lodgers. I really couldn’t care.’

  A week later, Catherine received a letter from Davie too. He was tired of living in lodgings apart from Kate. She
was his wife and he wanted her back to look after him. He was proud to have found the Shields job when so many were idle. He knew Kate would be pleased so it worried him that he’d heard nothing from her.

  Catherine went straight round to her mother’s, any half-doubts about making her leave Hastings gone.

  ‘If you haven’t written to Davie, you’ll do it right this minute,’ she ordered. ‘He’s worried about you.’

  Kate snorted. ‘Worried he’s got no housekeeper, more like.’

  Catherine did not know why things had soured between her mother and stepfather, and it was none of her business. She stood over her while Kate wrote a letter back, telling him she would be home by the end of August. Before she left, she spoke to the two lodgers, offering them accommodation at The Hurst, paid Kate’s overdue bills and agreed to dispose of the lease as soon as she could.

  Kate looked stunned by her quick businesslike handling of the mess. She did not try to argue or prevaricate with Catherine, who reminded her of Rose when faced with a crisis. Kate thought how her mother would have handled the situation with just as much tough-minded fairness as Catherine.

  A week later, a one-way ticket was bought, and Catherine arrived in a taxi to pick up Kate and her two bags of belongings. Bridie had offered to come too, believing Catherine might weaken at the last minute and allow her mother to stay.

  ‘I won’t change my mind.’ Catherine was resolute. ‘I can’t wait for her to be gone.’

  Kate sat in the taxi, white-faced and sober, clutching a handbag. They rode all the way in silence.

  At the station, Catherine bought a platform ticket to make sure she got Kate and her possessions on to the train. Kate, who had been mute since being collected, suddenly burst into tears at the carriage steps. She turned and threw her arms around her daughter.

  ‘I-I’m so s-sorry, Kitty!’ she wept. ‘It’s all a mistake. I didn’t mean to spoil things for you and your teacher. I’ll never stand in your way again. Just please don’t send me away. I cannot bear to gan away from you!’

  Catherine was horrified at the clinging, wailing woman. She looked around in embarrassment at the other boarding passengers.