Catherine nodded and sidled over, curiosity quickly roused. She took the paper bag Kate offered her and ripped it open. The ribbon fell to the floor. Catherine bent and grabbed it, running the shiny material through her fingers.
‘What you go spending money on posh ribbon for?’ Rose complained. ‘Cotton rags will do.’
‘Do you like it?’ Kate ignored her mother.
‘Aye,’ Catherine smiled. ‘Ta, our Kate.’
‘Let me tie it in your hair,’ Kate offered. The girl held it out. In defiance of her mother, Kate untied the tight plaits that bound her hair and combed it free with her fingers. Then she slid the ribbon under the girl’s hair and gathered it in a large bow at the back.
‘That looks bonny,’ Kate said. But as soon as she had finished, Catherine ran to Rose and stood between her knees as if she sensed they were fighting over her. Kate felt a spasm of jealousy. Suddenly she wished she hadn’t bothered to come home. She was better off staying in Chester-le-Street where at least the Slaters treated her like family and no one gave her pitying glances in the street or whispered behind her back as she passed.
She wouldn’t come back so eagerly again. Kate got off her knees and straightened out her lavender skirt. Before she could make her escape, Mary appeared.
‘Are you ready, Kitty?’ she called, then saw Kate and gasped. ‘What a fright you gave me! Didn’t expect to see you so soon.’
‘No,’ Kate said, ‘you weren’t easy to find.’ She watched Catherine skip across to her aunt and hold out a hand. ‘Where you ganin’ with the bairn?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Promised her a trip to the pictures,’ Mary preened. ‘There’s a Charlie Chaplin on at the Crown.’
Kate felt suddenly defeated. How could a piece of ribbon compete with a matinee show at a picture palace? She should give up trying to win Catherine’s affection. She would never be more than the big sister who provided; the one who was good for a laugh when she wasn’t arguing, or drinking, or absent. She would be happier if she gave up the battle, went back to the Slaters and got on with life there. It was not such a bad one.
Kate watched Mary fuss over Catherine’s appearance and adjust the ribbon in her hair.
‘Just as well you’ve come home,’ Mary said, clutching her niece’s hand. ‘Isn’t it, Mam?’
‘Why’s that?’ Kate asked dully.
‘Haven’t you told her, Mam?’
‘Not had a chance,’ Rose wheezed. ‘Came in here like a bull in a china shop.’
Kate felt nervous at the look of glee on Mary’s face. ‘Tell me what?’
‘Father wants you back.’ Mary was blunt. ‘Mam can’t manage the house any more - not with Kitty an’ all. It’s up to you.’
Kate stared at her. ‘Me?’
‘Aye, it’s true, isn’t it, Mam?’
‘But I’ve got a canny job.’ Kate was indignant. ‘Why can’t you help around here more?’
Mary was dismissive. ‘I’m working too - and I’m courting. I’ll be married soon with a place of me own.’
‘Has Alec asked you to wed?’
‘Not yet,’ Mary said, colouring, ‘but he will. Anyways, it’s you that has to keep house; Father said so. Look at Mam,’ Mary pointed, ‘she can hardly walk across the room, let alone to the shops.’
Kate looked at her mother in dismay. Her face was puffy with fatigue, her breathing laboured and she wasn’t even standing up. It struck Kate that she hadn’t seen her mother move from the chair at all. Glancing about, she could see now that the room looked messy and neglected. Nothing was polished or scrubbed and clothes were draped over chairs unironed. It was Catherine’s birthday, but there was no tea spread out; no table laid.
Rose’s dark-ringed eyes looked sad. ‘I’ve tried me best, hinny, but the bairn’s worn me out. You have to come home and help us.’
Kate saw the defeat on her mother’s face and realised it was true. For six years Rose had looked after the lively Catherine, as well as the men, and it had left her exhausted. Kate had been so absorbed in her own worries that she had not thought how the past hard years had taken their toll on her mother’s failing health.
But coming home would mean saying goodbye to the Slaters and her small degree of independence. Gone would be the little freedoms of chatting to the shop customers and occasional visits from her friend Suky on market day. She would be at the beck and call of her sick mother and domineering stepfather. Kate fought the panic rising in her chest.
Then suddenly Catherine piped up. ‘Please come back, our Kate. Mam’s legs don’t work any more. You can put me hair in ringlets and walk with me to school.’
Kate felt her eyes smart. It was the first time Catherine had shown that she wanted her and it made her heart swell. She stepped over and put a hand on her daughter’s head.
‘That would be canny.’ Kate smiled at the child. She turned to her mother. ‘Course I’ll come back and give a hand, Mam.’
Rose nodded, but there was no smile for her. Her mother seemed past caring.
‘That’s settled then,’ Mary said brusquely, yanking the girl away from Kate’s touch. ‘Haway, Kitty, or we’ll be late for the film.’
Catherine ran to the door without a backward glance. ‘Ta-ra, Mam,’ she called from the door.
‘Ta-ra, pet—’ Kate began.
‘Ta-ra, Kate,’ the girl added as an afterthought.
Kate felt a stab of disappointment. The closeness she had felt a moment before had not been shared by the child. Soon she would see her daughter every day, live together cheek by jowl, yet have to keep up this pretence of being her sister. How could she do it? How long would they all have to live this lie?
Chapter 37
1913
Raking out the fire and carrying the ashes to the midden, Kate stopped to look at the pale dawn light bleeding into the half-dark sky. Midsummer again. She had been home a year, yet it seemed like ten. She stretched her stiff limbs, feeling the familiar ache in her back that throbbed even before she filled the hod with coal and humped it back into the kitchen.
Her mind ran ahead to the long day’s tasks. Slops to empty from the bucket by her parents’ bed, Jack to turf off the settle, breakfast to make, Catherine to get ready for school, her mother to wash and dress, a midday meal to prepare and leave on the stove. All this before traipsing into Tyne Dock to her cleaning job at the Penny Whistle. Kate felt tired just thinking of it.
Later there would be tea to make, floors to scrub, more coal to fetch, dishes to wash and baking to be done for the following day. Rose to help to bed. Then maybe a sit-down with a piece of mending, her swollen feet plunged in a pail of cold water. Or maybe a small jug of beer to quench the thirst, a tot of whisky to numb the aching. If she took in a bit of extra washing for the Simpsons in Phillipson Street. ..
At least she had resisted taking in lodgers, Kate thought with pride. Her daughter had not had to share with rough seamen or transient workers as Kate had had to do after her father had died. She remembered her childish fear of brawny men smelling of fish and talking in strange accents taking over their kitchen. She still recalled her mother falling to her knees sobbing when it was discovered the lodgers had stolen the housekeeping and the precious bone-handled cutlery and disappeared back to sea.
Sometimes Jack would bring home men he had been working with down the docks, men away from home. Kate would be expected to feed them too, but she did not mind, for some of them brought bottles of beer to wash down their meal and often they would end up with a song or two, calling on Kate to sing. How careful she had to be. She had to gauge her stepfather’s mood, keep a careful balance between pleasing him with her singing and provoking his wrath if any of the men showed a spark of interest in her. For she would always get the blame.
‘Don’t you give him the eye,’ John shouted drun
kenly when one of Jack’s friends pinched her cheek. He was a cheerful Scot called Jock Stoddart and Kate found him good company. He and his quiet friend, Davie McDermott, were stokers off a ship Jack had been unloading. Davie was married to Stoddie’s sister and they had come three nights running, spending their pay freely on whisky and beer.
‘Such bonny eyes,’ Stoddie teased, not realising the trouble he caused.
‘Whore’s eyes!’ John snapped, staggering out of his chair and lunging for Kate. She tried to dodge out of his way, but the beer had dulled her movements and his fist caught her on the side of the head.
She toppled backwards off her stool and landed in an undignified heap on the floor, head spinning. The men looked on in astonishment, Stoddie half rising to help her.
‘Leave the slut alone!’ John roared, swinging a punch wildly at the Scotsman.
He fended it off easily. ‘Sit down, man. I meant nothing by it,’ Stoddie said calmly.
But Jack chose that moment to pick a fight with his father.
‘You leave the lass alone,’ he snarled, rising from the settle and knocking Catherine awake as he lurched round the table. The child had curled up and gone to sleep there without Kate noticing.
‘Watch the bairn,’ she slurred, nursing her thumping head.
‘Come on then, nancy-boy,’ John taunted, raising his gnarled fists at his son, ‘let’s see you fight for the bitch. She’s the only lass you’ll get. Not even the whores in Holborn look twice at you!’
Jack threw himself at his father, enraged by his words. Kate rolled out of the way as the two of them went at each other with fists and boots flying. Stoddie and Davie tried to intervene, but there was little room among the press of furniture and they ended up getting thumped in the melée too.
Catherine screamed and Kate struggled to her knees, flinging her arms out to protect her. The girl buried her head in Kate’s shoulder, squeezing her eyes tight shut.
‘It’s all right, hinny,’ Kate tried to calm her. But Catherine refused to show her face, even after the fight died down.
John had a bloody nose, Jack a swollen eye. The seamen departed with a wink at Kate and a ruffle of Catherine’s hair.
‘Sorry, lassie,’ Stoddie said, and was gone.
They sailed the next day and Kate had not seen them since. But John made her life hell for weeks afterwards, berating her about her whorish behaviour and threatening her with his belt if she so much as looked at another man.
When in drink she never knew if he would lash her with his foul-mouthed tongue or make lewd gestures and suggestions. Sometimes he would lunge at her breasts and squeeze them with a crude laugh. ‘No milk left for me, eh?’
Once, when she had dozed off on the settle waiting for him to come back from the pub, she was woken by his hand thrust up her skirt. She had cried out in shock and scrambled beyond his reach. He had taken offence and started to smash the pictures off the wall with the fire poker. In desperation Kate had run to the bedroom and woken Catherine in the bed they shared.
‘Get up, hinny,’ she hissed, ‘your da needs puttin’ to bed. You can stop him raging, I know you can. Tell him one of your poems. Quick, Kitty.’
The sleepy girl had got out of bed, befuddled but alert to Kate’s fear. She had crept into the kitchen and up to the ranting drunkard, pulling on his arm.
‘Lavender’s blue, dilly-dilly, lavender’s green, When you are king, dilly-dilly, I shall be queen.’
She sang it over and over until the words calmed him and the fury drained away. Between them, they managed to coax John to bed. Afterwards, when all was quiet, Kate snuggled close to Catherine, wrapping her in her arms. After the violence, it felt so good to touch her and draw comfort from her warm young body.
‘Ta, pet,’ she murmured, ‘you’re me little helper.’
But Catherine had turned her face away and wriggled out of her hold.
‘No I’m not,’ she said. And Kate was left with the feeling that her daughter blamed her for what had just happened. She felt diminished and overwhelmingly alone.
Certainly, Rose seemed to think all the wrangling at Number Ten was her fault.
‘Jack and his da never used to fight like this before you came home,’ she told her once, when Kate had complained that John wouldn’t leave her alone.
Kate did not believe her, but she saw it was fruitless to argue. Rose had given up caring about anything this past year. She seemed content to play the invalid and let Kate do all the work. Kate was sure her mother could do more for herself than she did, but just didn’t want to. She also knew from the sharp words through the bedroom wall that Rose used her ill health to keep John at bay in bed.
‘You’ll kill us,’ she protested. ‘Leave us alone.’
‘I’ve a right to it, woman! I’ll tell the priest.’
‘And I’ll tell him he’ll be readin’ me the last rites, if you don’t leave off us!’
So there was little point going to Rose with her troubles, Kate realised. Her mother’s sympathy for her had shrivelled up like last year’s leaves.
As Kate staggered back indoors with her load of coal and set about building the fire, she thought bitterly how differently Mary was treated. Her younger sister was married now and living in an upstairs house in the same street, at Number Thirty. Poor Alec. He had been tricked into marriage. Mary had been jealous of the way Alec would linger at Number Ten, chatting to Kate.
‘Don’t you turn my Alec’s head with your flirtin’!’ Mary had accused.
‘I just offered him a cup of tea,’ Kate protested.
‘You’ll not have him, he’s mine,’ her sister had hissed. ‘He’s not after spoilt goods.’
Kate was hardened to Mary’s malicious tongue, but she would give her no excuse to blame her if Alec tired of Mary’s bossiness and finished with her. So she ignored Alec when he came to the house and pretended she did not see the lingering looks he gave her across the table. Was it possible he felt something for her? Or did he just see what other men saw - a woman with a bad reputation who took her solace in drink when she could afford it?
Probably she would never know, for Mary had got herself pregnant last autumn and swiftly married. She knew her Alec would no more desert her than run off to Timbuktu. Kate stabbed hard at the fire with the poker. Life was so unfair. Mary had sneered at her for years for going with a man outside wedlock and yet she had done the same. The hypocrisy made her sick! And the others were just as bad. Mary never felt the sting of John’s belt buckle for her ‘sin’, because by the time baby Alec was born in the late spring, Mary had been respectably married and blessed by the priest.
She unbent from her task by the hearth and saw Jack eyeing her from the settle. She thought he had been fast asleep. Had she spoken any of her thoughts aloud? Kate worried.
‘Morning,’ she said.
He grunted in return.
‘Get yourself washed,’ she told him, ‘then I’ll wake the bairn.’
She busied herself with brewing the tea and setting the table for breakfast. Jack swung off the settle and padded into the scullery to douse his bleary eyes. A few moments later, Kate followed him in to peel potatoes in the bucket for the midday hotpot. Startled, she realised he was stripped naked. Since a young boy he had been painfully shy at his sisters seeing him undressed and they had often teased him.
But she stopped and stared at his broad back, the tightly muscled arms from labouring, sunburnt where his sleeves had been rolled up. In contrast his bottom was pale as milk, his legs thick with hair. Kate saw it all in seconds, the body of a fully grown man, and her pulse began to quicken. Then Jack turned and stared at her. She nearly fainted in shock. He was aroused.
Kate stifled a scream and grabbed a grubby towel from a nail on the door.
‘Eeh, put that round you!’ she cried. ‘The las
s might see.’
In a fluster, she forgot the potatoes and fled back into the kitchen, heart pounding. Hacking at the bread with a knife, she tried to rid her mind of the image, but could not. Despite the knowledge that Jack was twenty-two and had been a working man for eight years, she had never thought of him as anything more than a lad, her little brother. He might drink and fight like his father, but in many ways he was still boyish. The way he became tongue-tied and blushing whenever a girl spoke to him, his childish enthusiasm for playing practical jokes with his docker friends, his rough-and-tumble friendship with Catherine.
As far as Kate knew, Jack had never asked a girl out, let alone seriously courted one. His family and friends often teased him about his lack of interest. But here he was, bold as brass, showing her that he had manly urges. It was time he was courting. Then John’s crude drunken words came back to her.
‘Come on then, nancy-boy, let’s see you fight for the bitch. She’s the only lass you ‘ll get. Not even the whores in Holborn look twice at you!’
Surely he wasn’t aroused because of her? Please, God, no! Kate pushed such unwelcome thoughts away and rushed to get the bacon on. When Jack came back in the room, she barely glanced at him. She went to wake Catherine and her stepfather, plonked breakfast in front of them and escaped to the parlour to see to Rose.
By the time she emerged Jack and John had left for work. She sat down with a thankful sigh.
‘Come here, hinny, and I’ll untie your rags,’ Kate beckoned to her daughter. It was extra work binding up Catherine’s long hair every night, but worth it to see a beautiful cascade of ringlets on her shoulders in the morning.
But today, the girl seemed out of sorts. ‘Don’t want to,’ she complained moodily. ‘I want to stay at home the day.’
‘Well you can’t.’ Kate was firm. ‘Got to leave in ten minutes or you’ll be late for school.’
‘Don’t want to gan to school.’ Catherine’s look was mulish.
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