Jarrow Trilogy 03 - Return to Jarrow

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

She’s full of anger because the other children won’t play with her any more. They say she’s a bully, too rough by half. She feels like a firework ready to go off. Danny, the Irish lodger, has gone, but she knows it’s her fault. Kate hates her for it. Danny was going to be her da. The idea made her sick. She has no da. She has no da! Roughly, she pushes scrawny Billy into the water.

  ‘Jump, you little waster!’ He misses the next plank and splashes into the brackish water. He comes up spluttering and thrashing for help. The other children won’t play with her; she’s not good enough for them, their parents say. She can’t go to their parties. But Kate says she’ll get her own back one day, just see if she doesn’t.

  She’ll have her revenge now. Billy the cry-baby will pay for all the hurt. She’s got power over him, at least. It flashes through her mind in the seconds it takes Billy to scream. She’s full of a red-hot feeling. She pushes Billy’s head under the water again. His hands are waving as if in goodbye.

  Hands seize her and shove her away. Billy is being hauled from the water by a big man in hoggers and work boots.

  ‘You nearly drowned him, you evil little bitch!’

  Catherine clings to the bank, horrified. In an instant, she’s scrambling up it and running away from the furious man and the gasping, sobbing boy...

  In the claustrophobic bedroom in Hereford, Catherine lay pinned in terror. For years she had denied the truth, too ashamed to think of it. Kate had beaten her when she’d found out. It was what she deserved. She had tried to drown an innocent boy. She was wicked to the core. No wonder God had taken away her babies - she wasn’t fit to keep them. She was a danger to children. Catherine was filled with fear to think how close she had come to stealing a baby that winter.

  ‘Help me!’ she screamed to the pulsating room.

  Trying to raise herself up, she caught sight of herself in the spotted mirror above the washstand. Kate’s puffy, drink-sodden face stared back at her. Catherine put her hands to her face and the woman in the mirror did the same. Who was she? She did not know any more. Some husk that looked like her mother. Her real self had done a flit, vanished away. Maybe she had never been a real person.

  Tom came back to find her sweating and cowering under the covers. The doctor was called and she was taken to hospital. A few days later, when she could walk a few shaky steps, she agreed to see a psychiatrist.

  She could not talk to Tom. They moved around each other like strangers in a silent film, while all the time her head burst with arguing, angry voices. After a week, she agreed to be admitted to St Mary’s mental asylum. She could no longer run from her past; it was time to turn around and face up to it.

  Chapter 49

  It could have been five days, five weeks, a life-time that she had been at St Mary’s; Catherine had no concept of time inside the large gothic asylum. It had echoing corridors and high-ceilinged wards that reminded her all too painfully of workhouse hospitals. In the next bed was a widow who would not speak, and on the other side a young woman who thought she was a film star. Every morning she packed her bag and sat waiting for someone to come and take her to the film set.

  During the day Catherine sat in a chair staring out at the leafy grounds, picking at a piece of needlework they had given her to do. At night she was kept awake by her own whirling thoughts and the crying of others. But the days she grew to dread were the ones she was taken down the stone steps to the basement for electro-convulsive therapy. She sat waiting her turn on a wooden bench in a dingy corridor like a pupil awaiting punishment. It was next to a lavatory that stank of urine and Catherine would have to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop herself being sick on the stone floor.

  By the time her turn came to be strapped to the hard bed by the white-coated medical staff and hit by the glare of harsh light, she was rigid with fear. White tiles, the clank of metal instruments, the bite of leather straps, and the sinister hum of machinery all compounded her terror. Was this what Nazi torture chambers looked and smelled like? Stark, clinically clean, devoid of human touch.

  Next, something hard and bruising was clamped to her head. A rushing sound filled her ears as the shock of electricity pulsated through her, drowning out her thoughts, lifting her body, possessing her. For a second, everything was the colour red. Then it was blackness, oblivion.

  Once Catherine knew what awaited her in the white-tiled theatre, she would alternately sweat and shake as she queued on the bench. While her fellow inmates sat in silent resignation, Catherine fought back nausea, convinced that she had stumbled into a living Hell.

  The treatment was gradually robbing her of thought, of emotion, of memory. Afterwards she could not recall what day it was, what she had eaten for breakfast or what her grandmother’s name was. Gradually, details would come back to her. But some things did not. She found it hard to remember large chunks of her school years or the names of her classmates that she had once summoned as easily as her own.

  Sometimes this forgetfulness was welcome. There was so much in her past she wished to obliterate. It was comforting to sit in a fog of confusion, unable to concentrate on the simplest tasks, her thoughts cocooned. But the fog robbed her of feeling. She felt no strong emotion for anything or anyone. She woke, dressed, ate, walked and sat. She didn’t smile, laugh, cry or love.

  At times she felt so detached that she struggled to remember who and where she was.

  ‘Mr Cookson’s here to see you,’ the nurse told her one evening.

  Catherine stared at her blankly. Who was Mr Cookson?

  ‘Your husband,’ she prompted, ‘he’s come to visit.’

  Husband. What a strange word. What did it mean? What did husbands do? She did not have the will or energy to find out.

  ‘Shall I tell him you’re too tired tonight?’ the nurse suggested. ‘He can come again tomorrow.’

  Catherine nodded. It did not seem to have anything to do with her. The nurse and the husband could sort it out between them.

  Later, in the middle of the night Catherine came wide awake. The husband was Tom. Tom had come to see her. He would have cycled miles only to be turned away again. She could visualise Tom on a bicycle, pounding along narrow lanes, whistling. It was like watching a film of another life. How strange to think of a world other than her own going on somewhere else.

  ***

  Sometimes Tom would arrive and sit with Catherine in silence the whole visit. He had given up trying to tell her about his work or current affairs, such as the build-up to a general election. She showed no interest, hardly seemed to notice that he was there. She was even less inclined to tell him what was happening to her in the hospital. He only gleaned that from questioning the staff. She was having regular electric shock treatment.

  Watching his once lively wife, sitting lank-haired and pinch-faced, Tom feared that she would never recover. Gone were their long conversations on literature and ethics, gone was her sudden infectious laugh and wry northern humour, gone the feeling of her arms around him in bed. After a month of cycling to the asylum every evening after a long day at camp, Tom almost gave up going.

  His presence made no difference, perhaps even harmed her recovery. She looked at him with suspicion or not at all. Then came the day that Catherine refused to see him. It was terrifying to think he might have lost his Kitty for good. The relief of not having a depressed and volatile wife to return to at night had been short-lived. Lying in their bed alone was a desolate experience. A life without her vibrant, loving nature was a life without colour or warmth. A life in monochrome.

  He must remind himself of the woman he had fallen in love with the instant he saw and heard her in Kate’s lodging house. She was the real Catherine, not the bitter, raging, hurtful woman who had told him she no longer loved him. His Kitty was ill - lost in a black storm of depression - and he must not abandon her as others had done.

  Tom forced himself back the following day. At once he found a different Catherine waiting for him. She was slow and weak on her feet, but there was a
glimmer in her sad eyes.

  ‘Would you like to walk in the garden?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘Very much,’ he smiled, holding out his arm.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she took it and clung on to it for the short walk along the drive.

  ‘They tell me I’ve been here five weeks,’ Catherine said.

  ‘Nearly,’ Tom agreed. ‘It’s a very short time really. You’ve been through so much, Kitty. You must give yourself all the time you need to get better. I’ll be based at Madley for some time yet.’

  She stopped and clutched his arm. ‘No! I have to get out of here. I know what they’re doing - making me fit for nothing but life inside. I’ve seen it happen before - in the workhouse. You get to the stage where you can’t cope outside even if they let you free. There’s a woman on the ward been here for fifty years - fifty years - and she won’t even leave the building. Hardly knows there’s been a war on - can’t see why she’s had no banana and custard for five years. I’ll end up like her if I stop any longer.’

  Tom was astounded at the torrent of words, but worried at her agitation.

  ‘No you won’t - not after a mere month.’

  ‘I will.’ Catherine was adamant. ‘They can’t make me stay. I want to come home, Tom. Help me come home.’

  His eyes filled with tears at her sudden appeal. It was the first time she had used his name in over a month.

  ‘Course I will,’ he reassured.

  It was arranged with the doctors that Catherine would have a day out to Hereford that Saturday. If all went well they would consider a longer spell at home. She screwed up her courage to face the outside world, getting up early to dress and arrange her hair as meticulously as possible. Tom met the bus she came on but could tell straight away she was in distress.

  Catherine did not want to go to their lodgings, afraid of the faces and voices that might still lurk in its walls. Neither did she want to sit quietly in a church where her doubts and disbelief might swamp her. So they tried a cafe, but it was too crowded, and Catherine kept looking towards the door as if she would flee at any moment. Her cup of tea half drunk, she rushed into the street, Tom pursuing. She was trembling all over, her hands sweating in their gloves, her face clammy and grey. When Tom tried to hold her, she went rigid and couldn’t breathe.

  He took her back to the hospital in a taxi, explaining about her panic attack. Greatly dispirited, he left.

  The next day Catherine forced herself to walk the length of the driveway and peer beyond its gates. She breathed in the warm scented air, the smell of cut grass, listened to the chatter of wood pigeons. These were small pleasures she could learn to enjoy again. The world beyond the asylum walls need not be so terrifying. The fresh air made her feel heady and she reached and steadied herself against a large tree. An oak.

  In an instant she was back at The Hurst, pressing her back into the comforting strength of her favourite oak. How could she have forgotten that tree? It glowed like a talisman in her mind. Something good to cling on to, something to which to return.

  From that moment, Catherine was convinced that she must get back to The Hurst. Hereford held too much pain. Even if it meant being separated from Tom, she would go. Only there, in the shabby familiar surroundings of the creaking house and its beautiful garden would she have peace of mind. There she could recapture the feeling of being in love with Tom, of feeling passion for books and for life. The war was over; the soldiers who were billeted there would be moving out. Mrs Fairy was now in a nursing home, but even without the old cook’s help, she would reclaim The Hurst. While she nurtured it back into a home, it would nurse her back to life.

  On Tom’s next visit she told of her plan and brushed aside his concerns.

  ‘Someone should be there to help you,’ he said. ‘Can’t you wait till I get demobbed?’

  ‘No. I’m not staying here any longer - and I can’t bear the thought of being in Hereford either. The Hurst is our home, Tom. It’s the only place I can think of where I’ll have a chance of getting better - where we’ll have a chance of piecing our marriage back together.’

  Tom reddened at her blunt words. But she was right. Their marriage had been shattered by the upheavals of war, the loss of their babies and Catherine’s breakdown. He did not know if they could ever live peacefully together, or whether the wounds went too deep. Only time would tell.

  ‘I can try and get down at weekends, I suppose,’ he said doubtfully. ‘But I’d be happier if you weren’t alone. Perhaps your mother could come - just for a short while?’

  She gave him a furious look. ‘Kate? After all she’s done to me - to us! I can’t believe you’d even suggest it. That woman’s been the cause of all my grief. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that she’ll never live with me again.’

  A week later, Catherine signed herself out of St Mary’s and Tom travelled with her back to Hastings. A neighbour who held the keys had assured them that the house was empty and largely unscathed. They found that the tower had been damaged by an incendiary bomb and the conservatory had fallen in, but the rest was still standing. Inside, though, was a scene of decay and squalor. Wallpaper hung off the damp walls, carpets had been ripped up and wooden joists gaped through holes in the plaster.

  As they crept cautiously upstairs, Catherine was assailed by the overpowering smell of stale urine. She gagged and for a nightmarish moment thought she was back in the subterranean passageway outside the ECT theatre. It was proof she was mad and should never have been let out. She gripped the banisters and cried out for Tom.

  ‘That smell - can you smell it?’

  Tom soon discovered the source. The bedrooms had been left with chamber pots full to the brim. The soldiers had left in such a hurry they had not bothered to empty them.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Tom said in distaste. ‘You go and see if they’ve left us a kettle.’

  They spent the weekend attempting to make the kitchen and a bedroom habitable. Before Tom returned to Hereford, he told Catherine that his mother would be arriving to help out for a couple of weeks.

  Catherine’s protests were half-hearted. Now that she was back in the vast empty house, she was afraid of being left alone to her thoughts. The company of the practical and friendly Mrs Cookson would be ten times more welcome than her own mother’s.

  On their final night together, Catherine and Tom made love. It had not been planned and both were surprised at their wish to come together and be intimate. They lay holding each other in the quiet of their musty bedroom, listening to the evening call of birds through a broken window. For the first time in many weeks, Catherine felt a twinge of contentment. Perhaps they had a future after all.

  Mrs Cookson arrived and helped her daughter-in-law tackle the huge task of making The Hurst habitable again. They cleaned, scrubbed and painted. They mended furniture, washed and ironed curtains, took carpets out and beat them. It was exhausting work that left Catherine aching and hardly able to climb the stairs at night. She tried to hide her nosebleeds from her worried mother-in-law, laughing off her attempts to make her rest.

  ‘I’ve had them for years. Doctors tell me it’s my nervous nature brings them on,’ Catherine said wryly. ‘It might as well be to do with the weather forecast - cold windy day, nosebleeds light and variable.’

  What Catherine could not tell Tom’s mother was that work was her reason for living. Hard graft kept the demons in her head at bay and rendered her so tired that she fell asleep as soon as she lay down at night. Work - hard physical work - and sleep. This was all she wanted.

  When Mrs Cookson had to go home to her own family, Catherine felt bereft. She had enjoyed their easy companionship around the kitchen table and on rare ventures to the shops. Only the presence of the older woman had stopped her running in a panic from the sight of a queue or a busy store.

  But it was more than just the fear of being left alone that preoccupied Catherine. It was the creeping knowledge that she was pregnant again. She could hardly believ
e it. One night of lovemaking with Tom had happened so quickly and unexpectedly that they had not even raised the question of prevention.

  It filled her with dread and excitement. She was nearly forty. Surely this was her last chance of becoming a mother. It was a final gift from an absent God whom she had rejected. But she dared not hope. She knew if she lost this fourth child, she would fall back into the pit of madness. Catherine doubted she could climb out a second time.

  She almost confided in Mrs Cookson, but didn’t. The loss of her babies was something they had never discussed, and Catherine was still awkward about that unhappy Christmas when she had fled from her mother-in-law’s house rather than hold baby Winston.

  Tom was due at the end of the following week. She would wait and tell him. A letter arrived from Kate asking if she could come and stay. Catherine threw it on the fire. The next one was more reproachful. She had not seen her for the whole of the war. They would be company for each other while Tom was away. Catherine tore it up, wondering crossly if it was Tom or his mother who had written to Kate. How else did she know of their circumstances?

  She was sweeping up the first pile of autumn leaves when she felt it starting. A twinge of pain and the gushing of blood. As Catherine hurried inside, she was struck by her own lack of surprise. She had been waiting for the dread moment, knew deep down she would miscarry. Women like her did not deserve to have babies.

  Catherine lined the bed with newspaper and crawled under the covers. She was not as far gone as the last time and by morning the bleeding had stopped. Numbly, she bundled up the paper and sheets and took them outside. Along with yesterday’s leaves she made a bonfire and lit the lot. She watched it smoulder then ignite, the flames licking higher, the smell pinching her nostrils.

  Back in the house, she pulled out drawings from the bedside cabinet, scraps of notebook with poems that she did not remember writing. She seized a bundle of letters from Tom and Kate, tore photographs out of an album, of Bridie and Maisie when they’d first moved to The Hurst. She took them and threw them all on the bonfire. A savage triumph lit inside to see her life go up in flames - her past and her future.