With it, she strove to transform herself into someone new, refining her speech and table manners and saving up part of her wages to spend on better clothes. She was very cautious with money, putting aside some of the two pounds and ten shillings a month into insurance for Kate’s life and her grandda’s funeral. She feared either of them dying penniless and suffering a pauper’s funeral. So while she prayed every week for their sins to be forgiven and Hell be avoided, she also insured against a shameful death.
Catherine took up French and drawing lessons as accomplishments fit for a lady. She put up with Hettie’s ridicule by ignoring her, which only goaded the woman further.
‘Look, here comes bloody Saint Catherine,’ she jibed in the staff hall.
‘You shouldn’t swear, Hettie,’ Catherine said, offended.
‘Ooh, hark at her! Thinks she’s better than us, doesn’t she? But we all know she’s just a common lass from East Jarrow with a mam who drinks in public houses, don’t we?’
Catherine went puce. Who had been spreading tales about her? Not Lily, surely? But she knew how easily scandal travelled in a close-knit town. If Hettie had determined to make Catherine’s family her business, there were plenty of gossips around the New Buildings happy to talk. The thought made her panic.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Catherine retaliated. ‘I come from a good Catholic family. We McMullens work hard and keep our noses clean.’
Hettie guffawed. ‘Keep your noses six feet in the air, more like.’
Hettie’s friend, Gert, gave her a sly look. ‘You’re related to old John McMullen, aren’t you?’
Catherine nodded cautiously.
The woman grunted. ‘Used to fight his way round the town, me mam said. McMullens lived near us when I was a bairn - Leam Lane. I remember him chasing us lasses with a fire poker, just for lookin’ his way.’
At the mention of Leam Lane, Catherine’s heart began to pound. That was where she was born and had lived for six years, until neighbours had grown suspicious of Grandma Rose’s attempts to pass Catherine off as her own child. Kate had once drunkenly told her they had moved to the New Buildings to try to escape the rumours.
‘Me life’s a misery ‘cos of you,’ Kate had accused. ‘Worked me socks off to keep you, then you all did a flit to the New Buildings without even tellin’ me! But nobody believed that rubbish about you being Mam’s bairn - I knew they wouldn’t. You’re the millstone round me bloody neck!’
‘Must be a different McMullen,’ Catherine said, sweating at the memory of Kate’s bitter drunken words. ‘Jarrow and Shields are full of them.’
‘Well, this John was a fightin’ sort - and a foul-mouthed drinker,’ Gert continued.
Hettie laughed. ‘I bet our holy Kitty here doesn’t stand for that.’
‘Aye,’ Gert joined in, ‘and his daughter Kate’s just as bad, so I’ve heard.’
‘Kate?’ Hettie needled. ‘Isn’t that your mam’s name, Kitty?’
Catherine stood up, her meal half-untouched. She walked from the hall with as much dignity as her shaking legs could muster. She thought of rushing to her room to cry, but Hettie might pursue her there with her hateful insinuations. How much did she already know about her past? She doubted if Gert had ever lived in Leam Lane for she did not remember her. She was probably just repeating tittle-tattle. Catherine could not bear to stay a moment longer.
Fighting back tears, she stumbled into the spring evening chill and found herself making towards the sanctuary of Lily’s. How often had she gone to the Hearns’ house for comfort and found refuge in its ordered nearness and warmth?
‘Kitty!’ Lily exclaimed. They stood awkwardly for a moment, then her friend pulled her in. ‘Thought you’d grown too grand to visit us,’ she teased.
Catherine tried to smile, then burst into tears.
‘I didn’t mean it,’ Lily said in consternation, putting an arm around her. Catherine sobbed into her shoulder, unable to speak. ‘Is it that bitch Hettie Brown again?’
‘Y-yes.’
‘Told you she was trouble. Haway in me bedroom and spit it out.’
They sat on Lily’s bed in the dying light while Catherine poured out her troubles.
‘She makes me life a misery - puts things under me pillow to make me scream. She and Gert made the sheets so I couldn’t get into bed - and I know she messes it up for inspection to get me in trouble with Matron. Last week she stuck these pictures up on me wall of these muscle men - and I only got them down in the nick of time before Matron came round.’
‘Ooh, have you kept them?’ Lily joked.
‘Lily man, I’m serious. She’s trying to get me the sack, I know she is. Why does she hate me so much?’
Lily gave her a hug.’ ‘Cos you’re young - and you’re trying to make some’at of yoursel’. Folk like Hettie cannot stand that. Listen, why don’t you ask to move rooms?’
‘But what would I say? Matron will want to have a good reason.’
‘Say you need your own room to pray in.’
Catherine winced. ‘Don’t you start.’
Lily laughed. ‘Well, you must admit, you can be a holy Mary at times.’
How could she explain that telling her worries to Our Lady gave her comfort? She could not expect Lily to understand that she had to keep praying for her family, else all the guilt and fear that had lurked inside her since she was a child would rise up and swamp her. She was born in sin and would be thrown into the flames of Hell if she stopped praying or asking forgiveness for one minute - the priest had said as much. Her grandda and Kate would end up there too, with all their drinking and cursing, so it was up to her to save them as well.
When she said nothing, Lily tried to cajole her. ‘Show them your funny side, Kitty. You’re good company when you let your hair down. And you should get out more. Why don’t you come on the Easter outing to Morpeth?’
Catherine brightened. ‘I’d like that. Can I go with you - or - are you - will you be sitting with Tommy?’
Lily gave a dismissive laugh. ‘Tommy? I’m not courtin’ him no more.’
‘Oh, I didn’t know, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. He got drunk at Christmas and gambled away his wages - couldn’t afford to buy me a present. Don’t want to end up with a lad like that, do I?’
‘No,’ Catherine said ruefully.
‘We’ll gan on the outing and forget about lads,’ Lily declared, jumping up. ‘Do you fancy a bit of Mam’s currant loaf?’
‘Please,’ Catherine smiled gratefully.
By the time she left to go back to Harton, she was filled with a new determination not to let Hettie and the gossips hound her out of her job. She would take Lily’s advice and win them over by playing the clown and laughing at herself, however hurt she felt inside. She would show them Kitty McMullen the performer, just as she had as a girl. By playing the fool, she had made friends again with those children who had turned on her for having no da. Make them laugh, Catherine determined. People forgot to be cruel if you made them laugh.
Catherine went on the trip to Morpeth with Lily and enjoyed picnicking in the park and taking a boat on the river. Over the summer they became firm friends again, cycling the countryside on days off, visiting the picture houses and local fairs. Catherine worked hard at pleasing the staff at the workhouse and wrote a play for them to perform at the summer fete, giving Hettie the leading role.
The woman preened with self-importance and, although she forgot half her words, believed it a great success. Hettie was so pleased, she agreed to Catherine’s request to allow Jenny McManners to visit her son again. Catherine had seen Jenny’s anger fizzle into moroseness as she accepted defeat. The unhappy mother had only been allowed on the trip to the orphanage at Christmas time because Matron was in charge and Hettie did not dare prevent Jenny.
&
nbsp; Catherine was secretly triumphant at Hettie’s change of heart.
Shortly afterwards, Matron summoned her into her office.
‘You’ve worked hard, Miss McMullen,’ Mrs Hatch acknowledged. ‘And I’m glad to see you’re getting on better with Miss Brown and the others. I did fear that your opinion of yourself was a little high when you first came.’
Catherine bit back a retort that high opinions were Hettie’s problem, not hers. She simply nodded.
‘So I’m going to promote you to assistant head laundress.’
Catherine gaped at her.
‘Do you not want the promotion?’ Matron asked sharply.
‘Y-yes, of course I do,’ Catherine said quickly. ‘Thank you, Matron.’
‘It means you can have a room of your own.’
Catherine broke into a grin of relief. ‘Thank you.’
The news was greeted with grumbles by some of the staff, who thought twenty was far too young for such a position.
‘You should have got it, Gert,’ Hettie said loudly to her friend.
Catherine’s insides churned at the jealous look on Hettie’s face. Shortly after she moved into her own room, the rumours about her started with renewed venom.
Chapter 10
Autumn 1926
‘Where do you think she gets her fancy clothes from?’ Hettie said in the hushed tone of the gossip. ‘I mean that winter coat with the fur collar - she couldn’t afford that on her wages.’
‘Aye, that’s true,’ another warder agreed.
‘She’s got a fancy man, that’s what,’ Hettie declared. ‘And we all know what men like that expect in return.’
Catherine froze in the doorway of the staffroom, hidden behind the half-closed door.
Gert joined in. ‘She got that bunch of flowers last week, an’ all. Delivered to the door, brazen as can be.’
Catherine flushed to think of Tommy Gallon’s impulsive gesture. He had won a game of pitch-and-toss, and had come round with an armful of chrysanthemums. He had meant nothing by it. They were just youth club friends and Tommy had given up trying to court her or Lily a long time ago.
‘No, that was from a pitman friend, she said so.’
‘And them on strike and supposed to be hard up? Shows they’ve more money than sense.’
‘Who is it then, this fancy man?’ another woman asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Hettie snorted. ‘She’s too high-and-mighty to speak to the likes of us any more. But there must be someone.’
‘Bet it’s a man she’s met at those Catholic dances she goes to,’ Gert speculated.
‘Aye,’ Hettie agreed. ‘She puts on this act of being all holy - but underneath she’s free and easy with her favours.’
They all began to join in.
‘And tries to sound all posh—’
‘As if she’s better than us.’
‘But she’s not - she’s common as they come.’
‘East Jarrow.’
‘With a drunk for a grandfather—’
‘And a mam who drinks.’
‘That’s terrible!’
‘Well, the da’s away at sea most of the time, isn’t he, Gert?’
‘I’ve heard that’s just her stepda.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ Hettie said breathlessly, ‘I don’t rightly know, but remember how upset she got over Jenny McManners and her bastard son? Takes one to know one, I say.’
There were gasps of shock.
‘Never!’
Catherine clutched the doorframe for support, fighting waves of nausea. She wanted to run away. They were hateful! But she had to go in, show them that she did not care. It was gossip and nothing more - they had no proof, just Hettie’s vile thoughts. She had done nothing wrong and there was no fancy man.
With heart pounding, she forced herself to walk in the room. The talking stopped at once. Two women returned to their knitting, the others stared at the jigsaw on the table.
‘I’ve brought some rock cakes from me Aunt Mary,’ Catherine said brightly. ‘Thought you all might like to share them.’
She smiled at each of them in turn, relishing the guilty looks on some of their faces.
‘That’s canny,’ mumbled one of the knitters.
‘No, thank you, they give me indigestion,’ Hettie said dismissively and stood up. ‘You coming, Gert?’ Her friend hesitated, then followed.
Catherine felt her mouth drying. If they all walked out, she would crumble like dead leaves.
‘Don’t worry,’ Catherine said with forced joviality, ‘if they’re too hard we’ll donate them to the stone-breakers’ yard.’
One of the women laughed. ‘Haway, I’ll try one. Like anything with raisins in.’
It broke the awkwardness and Catherine rushed to the table in relief, tearing open the greaseproof paper. She made a pot of tea and soon the talk was of the shortening days, the collapse of the miners’ lockout and whether Matron could afford to lay on mince pies at the Christmas dance.
That night, as Catherine lay in bed, it was not for herself that she worried, but Tommy. It was so easy in the enclosed world of the workhouse to forget what was happening outside. But the casual talk of the lockout by the miners’ bosses made her ashamed she had not thought of it more.
Tommy had been on strike for six months and she could imagine only too well how they were getting by on no money. His mother taking in washing or lodgers, trips to the pawnshop until their house was bare, scratching along the wagon ways for fallen bits of coal, risking arrest stealing timber. Children going to bed with stomachs aching, men tightening their belts, the women huddling over cups of hot water because the stores would no longer give them credit for tea. She had known times of hardship as a child, when there had been little work at the yards and what money came into the house was never enough to clear their debts.
Her eyes stung with angry tears. Why should working people be treated in such a way, when the bosses lived in huge mansions and never had a day’s worry over money? The world was topsy-turvy. There were people who slaved hard all their lives and never earned enough to live on - like some of the wretches who ended up in the workhouse. And there were those who never did a day’s work and had more money than they knew what to do with - like Mrs Halliday at Oakside Manor. Even in her short life Catherine knew of injustice, and it rankled.
And there was big-hearted, foolish Tommy throwing away precious pennies on a bunch of flowers because he knew how much pleasure it would bring. He was worth ten Mrs Hallidays.
Unable to sleep, Catherine sat up and pulled on her new winter coat that had caused such a stir. It was paid for with her own hard-earned money and she would wear it with pride. Pulling out a half-filled exercise book, she began to jot down characters for a story, pithy little thumb-sketches based on people she knew - members of staff, long-ago lodgers of Kate’s, characters around the docks, spiteful children. Maybe the story would never be written, but it helped calm her anger at the unfairness of life, and finally it helped her sleep.
***
The next time she saw Tommy, she slipped him half a crown that she had saved especially. He tried not to take it.
‘So you can buy your mam something for Christmas - and your little sisters,’ Catherine encouraged. She did not add that it was the worst feeling in the world to have nothing in your Christmas stocking. One year, Kate had filled hers with wrapped vegetables because she had nothing else to give, and Catherine had wept with fury and disappointment. It seemed even crueller than an empty stocking, to have a bulging one that turned out to be full of potatoes and carrots. She would not wish that on any child.
Tommy gave her a kiss on the cheek, but Catherine pushed him away with a quick laugh. They were standing outside church after
Mass and she wanted no one to get the wrong idea about them.
As she turned, she almost collided with a tall man behind. He raised his bowler hat and smiled.
‘Excuse me.’
‘No - it was my fault,’ Catherine stuttered, as she stared into his face. Her heart thumped. It was Gerald Rolland, the man with the deep, sensual voice who sang at the back of the church. The man she had watched for the past two years, who had not so much as returned a look. Here he was smiling at her and raising his hat as if she was a lady.
‘Lovely music today, wasn’t it?’ she said on impulse.
‘Indeed it was,’ he agreed. ‘This is my favourite time of year - all those carols, all those great tunes.’
‘Me too,’ Catherine enthused, aware how much she was blushing. ‘And you’ve such a beautiful singing voice.’
He shot her a look of surprise. She felt weak at the knees under his dark-eyed, scrutinising gaze. ‘How kind of you,’ he smiled again. He had a broad sensual mouth. Adjusting his hat, he added, ‘No doubt I’ll see you at church again. Good day.’
Catherine nodded and smiled and watched him stride away in his well-cut black coat. Her heart was jerking like a yo-yo. Tommy coughed and she turned to see him grinning with amusement.
‘ “You’ve got such a beautiful singing voice”,’ he mimicked.
She gave him a shove. ‘Well, he has.’
‘Kitty, your cheeks are on fire. Could this be love?’
She covered her face and told him to shush. ‘I was just being polite.’
‘You’ve never told me I’m a beautiful singer,’ he teased.
‘That’s ‘cos you sing flat as a pancake,’ she laughed.
‘I can tell when I’m well beaten,’ Tommy said ruefully. ‘Maybe all those French lessons and talking posh will pay off.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Catherine bristled.
Tommy grinned, ‘Well, you didn’t do all that to impress the likes of me, now did you, Kitty?’
THE JARROW TRILOGY: all 3 enthralling sagas in 1 volume; The Jarrow Lass, A Child of Jarrow & Return to Jarrow Page 92
