Letters From a Patchwork Quilt

by Clare Flynn

  ‘Born here. Before the railway came.’

  ‘Your father too?’

  She looked away, staring across the river. ‘No. He came over from Ireland. For the work. He was an iron man too. Like my husband and most of the men in this town.’ Her voice had an edge to it but before he could ask her anything else she turned her gaze back to him. ‘What about you, Mr Brennan - you said you came from Derby?’

  ‘Born and bred there.’

  ‘And Mrs Brennan?’

  ‘Bristol.’

  ‘Is that where you met?’

  Now it was his turn to look away. As though she sensed his reluctance to talk about Mary Ellen, she said, ‘I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. It’s just I have so little chance to talk.’ She laughed, a brittle, ironic laugh. ‘My husband’s not much for conversation.’

  Before he could stop himself, he blurted, ‘Nor is my wife.’

  They were silent for a pregnant moment, then she spoke again. ‘I had a feeling we were kindred spirits, Mr Brennan. I think we will be friends.’

  ‘Friends?'

  Friendship between a man and a woman, each married to other people was unthinkable - and yet he knew he wanted nothing more.

  ‘Why not?’ she said.

  He looked down at his feet. He was wearing his good shoes – the leather was stained with mud. He mentally cursed his stupidity for wearing them today.

  ‘It’s just that…you know… people would talk.’

  ‘Let them. We’ve nothing to hide, have we?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s just… the other time when I saw you…you asked me not to tell your husband.’ He felt his face reddening.

  ‘It’s just that he doesn’t like me walking out alone. The beach is a lonely place in winter. He worries I might fall and hurt myself and no one would know. He’s a powerful imagination has Bill. Must be all those penny dreadfuls.’

  ‘So you’ll tell him you met me?’

  ‘Of course I won’t. I told you. He’s got a powerful imagination. No point in encouraging him to use it. You’ve spoilt those nice shoes, Mr Brennan.’

  31

  Friendship

  They began meeting two or three times a week. They would walk on the beach, along the banks of the Tees or cross over the river on the steam ferry to walk on the sands or beside the salt marshes. On these walks they saw no one, except for the odd fisherman, all the men of the town being occupied inside the foundries or shipyards and the women working in their homes.

  When the weather was fine they would sit side by side on a sand dune or a stone wall to watch the oystercatchers wading in the shallows and dipping their long orange bills to pick up cockles. Sometimes they would sit quietly as the grey seals basked on the sandbanks, soaking in the sunshine at low tide. Gertrude encouraged Jack to listen to the birdsong and taught him to distinguish between the different species. It reminded him of the afternoons spent with Eliza when she had painstakingly pointed out the names of wild flowers.

  ‘When I was a little girl it was so different here. Every year it seems there’s more furnaces and smokestacks, more noise, more stink, fewer birds, fewer seals. Soon there’ll be nothing here but machinery and ugly buildings to house it.’

  ‘It’s progress, I suppose. Means jobs. Means money. You can’t stand in the way of progress, can you?’ he replied.

  ‘You sound like my Bill. He’s blind to anything that’s not to do with iron and steel. He doesn’t look. Doesn’t see. Doesn’t care.’

  ‘I care,’ he said.

  She didn’t answer and they walked on in silence. Jack liked the way it didn’t matter whether they spoke or not. There was no awkwardness between them.

  ‘They’re reclaiming most of the river. They’ve run out of land to put their ugly buildings on. All that over there,’ she pointed across the river, ‘that was once water. They dumped tons of slag from the blast furnaces to fill it in. Gets rid of the waste and creates new land to build on. Kills two birds with one stone, they reckon.’

  ‘They’ll have killed more than two birds before they’re done. Some days I wonder how the birds can fly through the smoke and fumes – you can’t even see the other side of the river,’ he said.

  ‘I long to be free of this place. Of this whole life,’ she said. ‘It’s why I like coming out here by the sea where I can still breathe. In the town and at home there’s no escaping it. The dust gets everywhere. On every surface. Inside your clothes. Up your nose. Ingrained in your skin. In your eyes and your food. Inside you. The machinery throbbing away till you think your brain is going to burst with the sound of it, the clanging of the trucks shifting the pig iron, the stink of the sulphur and the smoke from the coke ovens. Smoke and dust burning your throat.’

  She stared back at the town which was under a pall of smoke. ‘It’s like living inside hell. The furnaces never go out. Just keep on burning, day after day, night after night, week after week. For ever. Burning away. Melting iron ore into money. Money that stays in the pockets of the rich men in their big fancy houses while the rest go hungry, get sick, work till they’re so tired they drop. Then all that’s left is to die.’ She sighed. ‘You think I’m wrong to complain, I expect.’

  ‘Of course I don’t. I find it hard living here too. And I have it easier than most with living above the pub. We have space. I don’t have to work in the foundries. I can’t imagine how hard that must be.’

  ‘You never get used to it. I’ve lived here all my life but it’s got worse in that time. Much worse.'

  She stopped and looked at him, studying his face intently. ‘Why did you come here, Mr Brennan?’

  ‘What?’ His voice was full of surprise. ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘You look sad. Sometimes it feels like you’re not really here. Like you don’t want to be. Like you’re far away in another place.’

  He shook his head, uncomfortable that she had switched her attention to him.

  ‘Is it very beautiful in Derby? Or in Bristol? Do you miss those places? Is that why you’re sad? Being stuck up here in the middle of these filthy steel mills and furnaces?’

  ‘I don’t like to dwell on what’s past.’ He spoke with a hard edge to his voice, wanting to stop her line of questioning.

  ‘You are sad then? You don’t have happy memories?’

  ‘I told you. I don’t like to think about the past. Good or bad. The past is dead. Gone. Buried.'

  ‘You’re not the only one to want to forget, Mr Brennan. The past can be painful for a lot of us. I married Bill Logan for one reason only. I’d no idea it would be out of the frying pan and into the fire as my mother used to say.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My father was a violent man. He’d come in late on the night he was paid. Blind drunk and he’d have spent most of his wages in the ale house. He thought my mother and I were blaming him, criticising him for leaving us short. We never said a word of complaint, but we didn’t need to. It was his own guilt I suppose. My mother had to take in washing and I had to help her when I wasn’t at school. The pair of us lugging buckets of water in and out of the house, the kitchen full of steam so you couldn’t see in front of you. Washing hanging everywhere. Hurrying to get one load out of the way so we could start on the next. It never ended. Back-breaking work. No wonder she went to an early grave. When my father was sober he’d feel bad about striking her but it didn’t stop him getting drunk and doing it again the next time. When she died and he switched to hitting me I’d go to bed early on pay day and pretend to be asleep in the hope he’d go straight to bed when he got in. Sometimes it worked but other times he’d come home full of beer and bad temper and drag me out of bed just to give me a thrashing.’

  ‘Oh God, Gertrude, that’s terrible.'

  Neither of them noticed he had used her given name for the first time.

  ‘You get used to it. Doesn’t stop it hurting though. Hurting in your body, and hurting even more in your head – that your own father hates you so much he
wants to beat you night after night. Although the truth is I think he hit my mother and me because he hated himself even more. Hated his miserable life and the way he’d never amounted to anything. He missed Ireland too. Came from a small village and when he was sober he’d talk about how beautiful it was, how green and with the coast all wild and rocky.’

  ‘How long did the beatings go on?’

  ‘Until I left home to marry Bill Logan. And then after a while it all started up again.’

  ‘Your husband let your father beat you?'

  ‘No. It was Bill. He started hitting me after we were married a couple of years and I’d given him no children. Not that he’d have wanted the extra mouths to feed - it would have meant less money for him to spend in your tavern. No, it’s his pride. He doesn’t like that people might gossip about us having no children. He thinks people would say he wasn’t man enough, so he takes it out on me. Calls me a shrivelled old fruit.’

  Jack said, ‘I’m sorry I never thought to ask. I suppose I presumed you had children.’

  ‘Don’t feel sorry. I never wanted children. Not with him anyway.’

  ‘Does he still hit you?’

  ‘Sometimes. Not so much these days. On pay nights I mostly leave a jug of beer and some food on the table and a fire lit so if he comes in hungry he’ll stop to eat and if I’m lucky he falls asleep in the kitchen in front of the fire without waking me. It works most of the time. Not always though.’

  ‘I’d like to clobber him.’ Jack squeezed his hands into tight fists, his knuckles white. ‘Hitting a woman. Hitting his own wife. It’s a dreadful thing to do. He’ll not be welcome at the Crown any more.’

  ‘No!’ She raised her voice and grabbed at his sleeve. ‘You mustn’t ban him. You mustn’t let him know that you know. It’d make it worse for me.’

  ‘But I can’t let him beat you. I can’t just stand by and let it happen.’

  ‘You’re not standing by. You’re not supposed to know. No one knows. Well, I suppose the folk next door know - but there’s many the night I can hear them screaming through the walls when their husbands have had a few too many and come home spoiling for a fight – or when cross words are exchanged when the rent money’s due. It’s a way of life in Middlesbrough. Probably half your customers go home and knock the stuffing out of their wives.’

  She reached her hands up to her neck and opened the top buttons of her blouse, to reveal an ugly bruise across her collar bone. Jack stepped backwards, his hand clamped to his mouth. Then he moved towards her, his fingers reaching out to trace the bruising on her skin but, anticipating him, she buttoned herself up

  She laughed a dry laugh. ‘Bruises fade. And so far he’s not broken any bones. I’ve got quite canny about it now. When I think there’s a likelihood of him wanting to thrash out I make sure the lodger’s around. He doesn’t like to hit me in front of him. I try to stay one step ahead of him and most of the time it works. But then something triggers him and he goes off like a roman candle.’

  ‘How long have you been married?’

  ‘Thirteen years. I was sixteen when I married him and he was forty-nine. He was a widower. Married to his first wife more than twenty years. He was my father’s friend. I should have known that they’d be as bad as each other, but I were that glad to get away from my father I didn’t think straight. I didn’t know then what marriage involved. You know. What women have to let men do to them. In bed. My mother never warned me. If I’d known I’d never have married him. Better to be beaten up by my father than have to put up with all that business as well as the beatings. On the wedding night I cried myself to sleep. I did a lot of crying at first. Then I realised there was no point.'

  Jack looked down, avoiding her eyes. Her frankness embarrassed him but at the same time moved him. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, feel her head against his chest while he smoothed her hair and comforted her. Instead he kicked at a clump of marram grass and looked at his watch. ‘Best be getting back. I have to open up in an hour.’

  That night in the bar he looked over at the corner table where Bill Logan was sitting with a group of foundry men. Jack’s fists clenched involuntarily. He wanted to stride across the sawdust strewn floor, pick up the tankard in front of Gertrude’s husband and throw the contents in his face before beating seven bells out of him. Logan was short and stocky, with a beer-gut straining his work clothes at the seams. His face was pinched – narrow eyes and a sullen slit for a mouth. Why would any man pick a fight with a woman? Jack clenched his teeth and swallowed. He hated the thought of that brute climbing on top of Gertrude in the darkness and forcing himself on her. It was strange. When he looked at the woman he didn’t find her attractive at all, but their afternoons together were the high points of his life. There was a vulnerability about her that made him want to protect her, to be with her. He told himself it wasn’t love. That would be impossible. He could only love one woman. As his thoughts switched to Eliza he felt a stab of pain and guilt.

  ‘What’s up with you, Jackie lad? Look as though you’ve the cares of the world on your shoulders.’ The speaker was a regular, Paddy Flanagan, a voluble Irishman, who propped up the bar of the Tudor Crown, night after night.

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just wondering if I need to get another barrel up.’ Jack nodded over towards Logan. ‘You know that fellow, Paddy? Bill Logan - what’s he like?’

  ‘Old Bill? Nasty piece of work if you get on the wrong side of him but a fair man if you work hard and look out for the rest of the crew. Saved the life of a young lad who slipped and almost fell into the furnace a few years back when they were doing maintenance on one of the bells. If Bill hadn’t been so quick off the mark the lad would have been roasted alive. Risked his own life to grab him. Another fellow wasn’t so lucky and slid right in. Hotter than the fires of hell itself inside a blast furnace.’ Paddy crossed himself. ‘They fished his remains out but there wasn’t much left of him to put in the coffin. Pretty hard on the wife and children. He’d ten little ‘uns. We had a whip round but she went and spent all the money on the wake. Ended up on the game, poor lass. Children in the workhouse.'

  The man swigged back his pint and handed the mug to Jack for a refill. ‘Have to feel a bit sorry for old Bill though. Married to his first wife for nigh on twenty years and no children. Everyone reckoned Gwen Logan were barren, including Bill himself. Used to slap her around all the time. Then when she kicked the bucket he married a young lass and either he’s the unluckiest man in the world to wed two barren women or else he hasn’t got what it takes. I know what I think.’ He chuckled and leaned forward speaking sotto voce. ‘My missus has given me seven children and she reckons Bill’s wife is no more barren than she is. No, you can’t blame his women. There’s no lead in his pencil.’

  The next time Jack met Gertrude she was quieter than usual. He asked her what was the matter.

  ‘I spoke out of turn, Mr Brennan. It was disloyal of me to speak of my family like that.’

  ‘You can trust me, Gertrude. I’ll never tell a soul what you told me, but I’d like to help you.’

  She gave him a forced smile. The wind caught her hair, blowing strands out of the loose bun she had pinned up on top of her head. She reached up and tucked it behind her ears.

  ‘You can’t help me. And I don’t need your help anyway. I told you. I’m no different from half the women in this town. Getting a bit of a slapping every now and then is no more than to be expected. I’ll survive. I’ve managed to put up with the beatings for the past fifteen years, ever since my mother died.’

  ‘Who does your father hit now you’ve gone?’

  She shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know. Whoever he has his way with at the back of the Three Dogs on a Saturday night.’

  They didn’t speak for a while. They were walking along the breakwater at South Gare and the wind off the North Sea made talking almost impossible. When they reached the end of the sea wall they sat down side by side in the shelter of the lighthouse.

&nbs
p; Jack reached for her hand but she snatched it away.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I was just…’

  ‘Please. Don’t touch me. I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want us to be like that. I want you to be my friend for talking, for walking, for just being together. Don’t spoil it, Mr Brennan.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without our meetings. If my husband found out he’d stop me and I couldn’t stand that. I count the hours until the next time I see you. Do you understand?’

  He looked at her, puzzled, confused. ‘I suppose so, but I thought…’

  ‘You are my dearest friend. My only friend. You are the only person I feel I can be myself with. The only person who has ever treated me as a friend, who cares for me. You do care, don’t you?’

  ‘I do care for you. Oh I do, Gertrude.’

  ‘The only other person I was close to was my mother. I feel peaceful with you. Do you understand?’

  He looked into her eyes, still confused. ‘Then why won’t you let me hold your hand? That’s not much to ask.’

  ‘Mr Brennan, Jack. How can I make you understand? I hate all that. It’s what he does to me. Touching me. Pawing me. Using my body. It’s horrible. I hate it. I don’t want it. I love being with you because we can just be. Just be! We don’t even need to talk. We’re just together. Besides, you’re married, and that should make it easier for us to have a friendship that is of the soul, not the body. You’re the brother I never had. Please say you understand.’

  He picked up a stone and threw it into the roiling sea. ‘I understand,’ he said. But he didn’t.

  32

  Temperance

  Mary Ellen and her eldest daughter, Marian became closer and, by the time Marian was eighteen, they had forged a strong alliance. Their solidarity stemmed from a shared purpose. In defiance of Jack’s occupation as a licensed victualler, mother and daughter embraced the growing Temperance movement with zeal. Where once Mary Ellen had stayed upstairs in the family drawing room, banging on the floorboards if the noise from the bar grew too loud, now she and Marian went out every evening to Temperance meetings. They became active members of the League of the Cross, urging total abstinence on everyone they met.