Tears sprang to Lily’s eyes. ‘But, please, miss, we’ve arranged to meet—’ She stopped herself as Catherine nudged her to be quiet.
‘Arranged to meet who?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Just friends,’ Lily stammered, ‘from the army camp.’
‘Soldiers?’
Lily looked away mutely.
‘This just won’t do,’ Mrs Stanway reproved. The guardians take a dim view of such fraternisation. Can’t have my girls bringing the place into disrepute.’
Catherine was indignant. ‘We’ve done nothing shameful. It was our day off and we can go where we like. We’re grown women, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
The mistress glared at her in astonishment. ‘There’s no need to be rude. I thought you were quiet girls, but it’s not the first time I’ve had complaints about you. I’m just trying to run an orderly institution. You will not be late back again.’
She dismissed them, but as they were going she called out, ‘And, Miss McMullen, you will please provide me with your birth certificate. The clerk is most insistent that he sees it.’
They went to work without the chance to talk it over and by the time Catherine next found Lily alone in the sewing room, her friend was in a deep gloom.
‘I don’t think I can bear this place if I can’t get out to see Bob.’
‘You will,’ Catherine tried to comfort her. ‘It’ll blow over by our next day off. Mrs Stanway’s not really that bothered - it’s just the fuddy-duddy old guardians she’s scared of.’
‘Why’s she ganin’ on about your birth certificate, anyway?’
Catherine shrugged evasively. ‘I bet old Atter’s stirring it up about us. You haven’t said anything about me to her, have you?’
‘Like what?’
‘About me home life,’ Catherine said cautiously.
‘Not really. Just that you don’t have any brothers or sisters. Didn’t believe me, of course. “Thought you Romans bred like rabbits.” ‘ Lily mimicked the old woman’s slow speech.
Catherine felt a jolt of alarm.
‘You shouldn’t have said that. Don’t tell her owt else,’ she ordered. ‘It’s none of her business.’
The moment the words were out, Catherine knew she had spoken too sharply. But it was too late. Lily stomped out of the room, her feelings hurt.
Chapter 24
Harvest came and the workhouse children fought for conkers under the chestnut trees around the church. Then strong south-easterly gales ripped away the tawny leaves and battered the gardens. Catherine and Lily hardly spoke for a fortnight, but when their next day off came round, they agreed to walk to Great Bentley and catch the bus into Colchester together. To Catherine’s dismay, Alf was on duty, and she felt awkward tagging along with the other two so took herself off to the library.
So absorbed was she that she arrived too late for the bus back and found a worried Lily waiting for her. They had to flag down a passing farm truck to give them a lift, and ended up walking the last five miles in the dark. They were in deep trouble with Mrs Stanway, who made it plain she did not believe Catherine’s story of being in the library all afternoon. The pair were forbidden to leave the grounds for a month.
‘Why didn’t you keep an eye on the time?’ Lily fumed. ‘It’s not fair, her taking it out on the two of us. I was only late ‘cos of you!’
‘Sorry,’ Catherine said feebly.
‘Now I can’t gan to see Bob for a month.’
‘If Bob’s that keen, he can come over here and see you,’ Catherine pointed out.
Lily gave her a withering look. ‘And do what? Talk to me through the railings in the rain? Don’t be daft.’
‘Well, I’m in the same boat,’ Catherine sighed. ‘Can’t get over to church or confession for weeks.’
This seemed to rile Lily the more. ‘Don’t come over all holy with me - I know what you’re like with lads. Just ‘cos Alf didn’t turn up you had to spoil it for me and Bob. Bet you missed the bus on purpose.’
Catherine gawped at her, astonished Lily should think such a thing. But before she could protest, Lily was gone.
For over a week, Catherine kept out of Lily’s way, hoping that her anger would fizzle out and they would soon be friends again. But one day, in early October, she found her in tears in the storeroom. Lily shook a letter at her fiercely. ‘He’s being moved, my Bob. Ganin’ to India!’
‘India?’ Catherine cried, going at once to put an arm round her. ‘Oh, Lily...’
But Lily shook her off. ‘Now I’ll never see him again and it’s all your fault!’ Her sobbing increased.
Catherine flinched. ‘How’s it my fault he’s going to India?’
‘If you hadn’t missed the bus, I’d be able to see him Saturday,’ Lily wailed. ‘Now he’s leavin’ within the week and I’ll not get to kiss him goodbye.’
‘Go anyway,’ Catherine dared her. ‘I’ll cover for you - give you money for a taxi.’
‘Taxi?’ Lily said, startled out of her misery. ‘Where we gan to find a taxi round here?’
Catherine looked at her helplessly. ‘Why don’t you get him to meet you somewhere closer, like Great Bentley?’
Lily was cheered by the suggestion, but after a few days of feverish correspondence, it transpired that Bob would get no time off to come to see her. She sank into depression and Catherine could do nothing to cheer her. Her friend’s subdued silence was harder to bear than her previous ranting.
‘You can still write to him, keep in touch.’
‘I’m no good at letters like you are,’ she answered despondently. ‘In a month or two he’ll have forgotten me.’
So wrapped in misery was Lily, that Catherine did not dare ask her if Alf was being posted abroad too. She had no home address for him and he had not written to tell her of his departure. He left a gentle ache when she thought of him.
Autumn turned to winter and raw winds swept in from the north and east. Catherine wrote to her Uncle Alec to tell him he was right about the weather and how she was thankful for Aunt Mary’s shawl. The only news she had from home came from her aunt, for Kate seemed incapable of writing even a note. Mary reported that Davie was back from sea and was doing odd jobs. Kate was borrowing off the neighbours more than ever and John was poorly in bed with a head cold and complaining of pains in his legs.
Dull as life had become at Tendring, Catherine was thankful not to be cooped up in William Black Street all winter. Yet the short days and bad weather further curtailed any trips outside the workhouse walls, as if winter was slowly besieging them.
Some November days, the grey mist that seeped in from the marshlands never lifted. These windless days were the coldest Catherine had ever experienced, the damp penetrating her very bones. Mrs Stanway had relented and lent the young women the bicycles once more, but Lily was no longer interested in going about the countryside and the dark came early. She waited in vain for a letter from Bob.
‘Maybes he’s still at sea,’ Catherine tried to comfort, ‘and letters take weeks to come from India.’
But Lily refused to be cheered. She went about her work listlessly, throwing accusing looks whenever Catherine was near. ‘I hate me life. Hate it here. Wish I’d never left home.’
Occasionally, Catherine would take off into the wind and battle her way to the coast just to get away from the stifling world of Tendring.
The marshlands and desolate empty coast drew her like a siren, yet she found the low, monotonous skyline dreary now. Lines of geese flew over, crying out mournfully, and echoed her own growing unhappiness with Essex. She thought back to the bright days of summer and wondered how the adventure had turned sour so quickly.
Strangely, as Catherine’s melancholy deepened, Lily’s spirits rallied. She began talking to the other staff again, chatterin
g on about South Shields at Christmas time.
‘I’m ganin’ home for Christmas,’ Lily told Catherine. ‘Don’t care what it costs, I’m not sittin’ round here watching this lot stuffin’ themselves with plum puddin’ and pretendin’ to have a bit fun. Are you comin’?’
Catherine was torn. She did not relish the holidays at Tendring, but neither could she face going home. It would be an admission of defeat. To assuage her guilt, she sent Kate money to pay for Christmas dinner and presents for the family.
On a dark, wintry morning, she walked down to the gates with Lily and helped lift her bag into Vines’s truck. The porter held a lantern aloft and her friend looked flushed and happy in the pale light.
‘Why don’t you come back, Kitty?’ she said impulsively. ‘There’s still time.’
Catherine shook her head. ‘You have a grand time and I’ll see you in a week. You can tell me all about it.’
Something about Lily’s expression made her heart jolt. She grabbed her friend’s arm. ‘You are coming back, aren’t you?’
Lily said nothing, her eyes full of regret.
‘You’re not, are you?’ Catherine whispered.
Lily said, ‘I never really wanted to gan away - just did it for you, Kitty. Not sure I can do it twice.’
Catherine was gripped with panic. ‘It’ll get better - once winter’s over. We’ll have a good laugh again - gan to Clacton - meet new lads.’
Lily’s look hardened and she shook her head. Catherine knew then that she had lost her. Vines coughed and muttered he did not have all day to wait.
‘What will you do, Kitty?’ Lily asked in sudden concern.
Catherine said defiantly, ‘Anything but gan back to Jarrow.’
Briefly, Lily threw her arms about her and they hugged tight. ‘Tak care of yoursel’,’ Lily said, pulling away.
Catherine swallowed her tears, unable to speak. She watched Lily climb into the truck and waved her away. For a long time she stood shivering, peering into the dark at the vanishing taillights, then numbly tramped back up the drive.
Later that day, Mrs Atter cornered her.
‘Why you not going home like Miss Hearn?’
‘Can’t afford to,’ Catherine said tersely.
‘Don’t get on with your mother,’ I heard.’
‘Who told you that?’ Catherine was startled.
‘Still, it’s not surprising in the circumstances,’ Mrs Atter said, her eyes narrowed in disapproval. ‘In Mrs Kettlewell’s day, your sort would never have been taken on. This place isn’t what it used to be.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Catherine said in agitation.
‘You didn’t fool me for a minute,’ the woman continued. ‘No birth certificate, no brothers or sisters, no talk of a father, gallivanting round the county after men. Tainted with the sin of the mother. I saw it from the beginning.’
Catherine felt faint. ‘You’ve no right to say such things,’ she gasped. ‘It’s a pack of lies!’ But even as she said it, she knew her burning cheeks gave her away. She barged past and out of the laundry, aware of the other women staring at her.
Fleeing across the drying yard and into the kitchen garden, she crouched down behind a potting shed and retched into the soil. How many of the workers had overheard Atter’s poisonous accusations? Had she gossiped to anyone else already or, worse still, gone with her suspicions to Mrs Stanway? Who had told her such things? Catherine hugged herself in misery. Only Lily knew about her lack of a real father. Only she could have told such things. A sob caught in her throat. Lily! How could she have betrayed her?
Catherine howled and wept in hurt and anger that her best friend could have done such a thing. It was petty revenge for losing Bob. But Lily had wronged her far more; the wounds she had inflicted might never heal. Shakily, she got to her feet. Well, she was glad she had gone. Good riddance! She would get on in this world without the likes of Lily Hearn!
Catherine splashed her face with freezing water from the standpipe and went back to the laundry, glaring her defiance. Later that day, she sought out the mistress and told her she wished to transfer to another institution. Mrs Stanway did not try to dissuade her.
‘You northern girls are too rebellious for a quiet country place like ours,’ she commented. ‘You’d do better to find somewhere in the town.’
January came with icy rain and, before the month was out, Catherine had secured a position at the workhouse laundry in Hastings, on the Sussex coast.
A few days before she left, a cheerful letter came from Lily saying she was back working at Harton, and wondering why Catherine had not written to her. Catherine felt a momentary pang for her lost friend, then tore up the letter and threw it on the fire in the dining hall. She would not reply. With bleak satisfaction, she thought how, in a matter of days, she would be living further away from Tyneside than ever - and from those who had let her down.
Chapter 25
1930-Hastings
‘Don’t worry, it might never happen,’ the woman smiled. Catherine recognised the Irish accent that she had often heard ringing through the streets of Jarrow.
‘Beg your pardon?’ she asked, startled from her reverie on a park bench. It was too early in the year for boats to be out on the lake, but there were plenty of people walking under the newly budding trees in the mild spring sunshine.
‘You look like you’re carrying the world on your shoulders - and you’re far too young and pretty to be carrying such a burden, Miss McMullen.’
Catherine blushed. ‘How do you know my name?’
The woman laughed. ‘I’m working at the laundry - have been for a month.’
Catherine squinted up at her. She was a handsome woman of about forty, with wavy red hair under a cloche hat. There were laughter lines around her blue eyes that for a second reminded her of Kate.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t. . .’
‘Don’t apologise,’ she laughed again. ‘You’ve dozens of women under your command - and you’re always rushing around as busy as a bee - and a worker bee at that. I’m glad to see you allow yourself a few minutes off at the end of the day. All work and no play makes for a dull life, don’t you think?’
Catherine gawped at her brazenness.
The woman clapped her hands to her face. ‘Me and my big mouth. Here you are enjoying a minute’s peace and along comes Bridie McKim and spoils it. I’m sorry, Miss McMullen, take no notice of me.’ She began to walk away.
Without thinking, Catherine jumped up and called after her, ‘No, please, don’t go. I didn’t mean to be rude.’
Bridie turned and smiled quizzically.
‘Miss McKim, did you say?’
‘Mrs McKim, if the truth be told - though the saints only know where the Mister is,’ she said ruefully. ‘Went out for a newspaper five years ago and hasn’t been back since. Wouldn’t you think he’d be sick of the waiting? And the racing results long out of date.’ She laughed at Catherine’s shocked expression. ‘But you can call me Bridie.’
Catherine abruptly laughed. It sounded strange in her ears. She had not laughed in months. After a moment’s hesitation, Catherine put out her hand.
‘Miss McMullen,’ she replied as they shook hands, then felt foolish because the woman already knew who she was. ‘Catherine McMullen,’ she added.
She was unsure why she should be telling this to one of her employees, for she had determined on arrival at the Hastings laundry that she would not become overfamiliar with its workers. It had only got her into trouble in the past. Since she had arrived in the seaside town, she had kept to herself, content to explore its hilly streets and quaint harbour and the long stretches of reddish-yellow cliffs alone. She had quickly moved out of the workhouse lodgings and rented a room above a greengrocer’s a fifteen-minute walk away.
She already loved Hastings for its smell of the sea and abundance of flowers so early in the year, for its grand hotels and bow-windowed terraces along the promenade. She enjoyed walking through its spacious parks and the tree-lined streets of large villas, snaking up the hill, secluded from onlookers by laurel and yew. Even in February, when winter storms saw the grey, fermenting sea crashing over the pier and promenade railings, she revelled in its gentility. The sea might be comfortingly familiar and the picturesque fishing fleet on the shingle beach remind her of Shields, but the place was a world away from the stench of the Tyne and its blast of hooters and thunder of goods trains.
After a long day’s work as head laundress, Catherine walked for miles, up the steep hills that overlooked the sea or along the strand from the fish quay to the bathing pool at St Leonards. She had not thought herself lonely, until now.
‘Can I sit myself down a minute?’ Bridie asked. Catherine nodded and sat down beside her. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but you looked that sad when I came by, and you were holding that letter. Is it bad news or something?’
Catherine stared down at the letter crumpled in her left hand. For a moment, Bridie’s arrival had taken her mind off its sad contents. She had felt detached from Kate’s news, not really believing it.
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘Grandda - my grandfather’s died. On Maundy Thursday. And there I was on Easter Day, praying for him and not knowing—’ She broke off as a sob welled up and choked her. To her embarrassment she wept openly in front of Bridie. But the older woman did not seem abashed. She squeezed Catherine’s hand quickly.
‘You poor girl. Had he been ill?’
Catherine nodded and fumbled for a handkerchief. Bridie whipped out one of her own. It smelt of lily of the valley, Kate’s favourite, which only made Catherine cry harder.
‘Maybe it was a blessing for him,’ Bridie comforted. ‘He’d not be one to linger on in pain, I wouldn’t wonder.’
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