THE JARROW TRILOGY: all 3 enthralling sagas in 1 volume; The Jarrow Lass, A Child of Jarrow & Return to Jarrow

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

‘Wake up, Kate,’ Catherine whimpered, until finally her mother stirred. Befuddled confusion quickly turned to panic, as Kate tried to push the man off her. She hissed at him and struck out. There was tussling and swearing, then Kate was out of bed and groping for the door. With a blast of cold air she was gone. The back door banged and Catherine heard her feet slapping across the backyard into the privy.

  She was left, crouching under the covers, heart hammering while the dark man swayed above her. She held her breath, waiting for him to move, until her lungs nearly burst. Finally he went and she was left shaking in the bed, all alone. She kept awake, waiting and waiting for Kate to return and warm up the space beside her. But she never came. Catherine lay for the rest of the night, listening out for noises, for her mother’s return or the thud of the man’s big feet and praying, praying for the dawn ....

  Remembering the menace of it now, Catherine lay once again sweating with fear, yet shaking with cold. This was how celebrations ended. Just the sound of her mother’s singing and the whisky-fuelled laughter was enough to set her insides churning. How could she ever explain this? Not even fun-loving Bridie would understand. Her friend had stayed below; she thought Catherine was spoiling the fun too. Burying down under the covers, Catherine wished she could share in their light-heartedness.

  Boxing Day broke with pale sunshine and a sea becalmed after days of storms. Catherine’s spirits lifted at once to see the light glinting through the bare branches, and she determined to put the upsets of the previous day behind her.

  She got up and went to cook breakfast for everyone. In the kitchen she found empty whisky and rum bottles on the hearth. The sitting room was littered with dirty glasses and plates, and none of the furniture had been pulled back into place. She was annoyed to think that Bridie would leave everything in such a state. As she set to, Mrs Fairy came wheezing through the door, tutting at the mess.

  ‘I’m sorry—’ Catherine began.

  ‘Not your doing,’ the old lady replied, and helped her clear up.

  Kate and Davie did not appear for breakfast. Bridie sat bleary-eyed, drinking large cupfuls of tea. Sensing Catherine’s disapproval, she made no mention of the night before, but talked of the major’s plan to take them to the hotel dance that evening.

  ‘Proper dance band,’ Bridie enthused, ‘and supper served halfway through. I think you should wear that green dress we bought in the sale - with the velvet collar and cuffs. They’ll be queuing up to fill your dance card, with you dressed like a princess.’

  Catherine laughed, eager at the thought of getting dressed up. The lodgers would begin to return after Boxing Day, so she was going to make the most of her trip out.

  She hardly saw Kate or Davie during the day. They disappeared out at lunchtime and only came back as the threesome were on the point of leaving for the dance at The Imperial. Maisie was rushing about feeling their dresses and twirling her own pleated woollen skirt.

  Mrs Fairy said, ‘Let them go, dearie. We’ll have ourselves a bite of supper and a game of snap.’

  Kate just stared at them with glassy eyes and said nothing. Catherine picked up her coat and let Major Holloway put it on, eager to be gone. She could not read her mother’s mood. Maudlin or belligerent? Certainly not the desperate cheerfulness of Christmas night.

  As soon as they got to the hotel, glittering with lights and warmth, Catherine forgot about Kate’s look and determined to enjoy every minute of the evening. She danced with the major several times and another man she knew from the tennis club. He invited them over to share a supper table with several others.

  They teased her good-naturedly. ‘Well, if it isn’t the lady of the manor!’

  ‘Where have you been hiding all year?’

  ‘We’ve missed you, darling.’

  Catherine laughed and joked with them about life at The Hurst, and promised she would play more tennis come 1934. She was enjoying herself so much that she hardly noticed how quiet Bridie had become, sitting at her side. It was only when her friend complained of a headache and rose to leave that she realised something was wrong.

  ‘No, you stay and enjoy yourself,’ Bridie said, pressing fingers to her brow. ‘I’ll make my own way home.’

  Catherine got up in concern and followed her. ‘You can’t go back on your own - it’s too dark. Can’t you just stay a little longer? I’ve promised the next dance to the major.’

  Bridie closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘A walk in the fresh air might clear it.’

  Catherine sighed. ‘No, don’t worry, we’ll come back now. I’m sure Major Holloway will understand.’

  She returned to say goodbye to her friends. As she crossed the ballroom with the major to rejoin Bridie, he murmured, ‘You shouldn’t let her get her own way all the time. Runs rings round you.’

  ‘Who?’ Catherine asked, startled.

  ‘Mrs McKim, of course. Got to show her who’s boss. Otherwise you’ll have a dog’s life.’

  Catherine flushed. ‘I-I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  His look was pitying. ‘No, my dear lady, I don’t think you do.’

  Baffled by his words, Catherine dismissed them. He was just disappointed at having to go early.

  Back at the house, Bridie seemed to revive with a cup of tea. The major excused himself, waving aside Catherine’s attempts to thank him for the evening. The house was quiet, with no sign of anyone else still up. They took their tea into the sitting room, lit only by a flickering fire.

  With a start, Catherine saw a figure rise up from an armchair in the bay window.

  ‘What a fright!’ she gasped.

  ‘S-so the love-birds are back, eh?’ Kate’s voice was slurred.

  Catherine huffed with impatience. ‘If you mean me and the major, we—’

  ‘The major?’ Kate laughed harshly. ‘No, not him.’ She staggered forward and knocked over a small drinks table.

  Catherine fumbled to switch on the standard lamp before something got broken. Light fell in a pool around them. Kate clutched a chair to steady herself, her face blotchy and hair dishevelled. She was very drunk.

  ‘That one there!’ she snarled, pointing a finger at Bridie. ‘She’s your love-bird.’

  ‘Kate, sit down and stop your daft talk,’ Catherine said, trying to steer her to a seat. ‘How much have you had to drink?’

  ‘Not enough,’ Kate cried, throwing off her daughter’s hand. She barged forward to the piano. Catherine saw a row of bottles arranged along the lid. Kate picked one up and took a swig straight from it. It splashed down her chin.

  ‘I hope you’ve not marked the wood,’ Catherine said indignantly.

  ‘Why should I care about your bloody piano?’ Kate said savagely. ‘You never cared about mine! My little nest egg - all spent on you. Everything on you. Scrimpin’ and savin’ for lessons. Payin’ wi’ owt I had - makin’ pies for the teacher - jus’ for my Kitty. Threw it all back in me face.’

  Catherine answered back. ‘The piano wasn’t paid for - it was taken away. How could I have gone on playing?’

  ‘You never tried,’ Kate accused. ‘Just to spite me.’

  ‘You never asked me if I wanted to learn in the first place. Would have saved us all a lot of bother if you had.’

  ‘You hate me, don’t you? Always have done,’ Kate cried. ‘I can see it in your eyes - those damned eyes of his!’ She swung towards the piano again and seized a bottle in both hands. She took a swig from one and then the other.

  ‘Stop it, Kate—’

  ‘This is what I’m like,’ Kate laughed mirthlessly, ‘this is yer mother. Not good enough for you.’ She poured whisky into her mouth. It splashed down her front. ‘A whore and a drunk, that’s what your grandda called me. That’s what I am.’

  Catherine watched in horror as she did the same with the brandy.
Suddenly Bridie moved from beside the fire and wrestled the bottles out of Kate’s hands.

  ‘Enough,’ she decreed. ‘Do you want to kill yourself?’

  Kate fought back for them, staggered and lost her balance. She fell to the floor, raging.

  ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Kill mesel’. I’ll do it! Then you two whores can be together.’ She picked herself up, panting for breath, her eyes wild.

  ‘Don’t say such things,’ Catherine cried in disgust.

  ‘It’s true,’ Kate shouted. ‘Actin’ all holy to the priest - puttin’ on airs for your lodgers. But I know what you’re really like - worse than me -you and that creature!’ She spat out the words. ‘Sharin’ a bed. What d’you do in it, eh?’

  Catherine was livid. She bunched her fists. ‘How dare you! We do nothing but sleep - not like you when we used to share a bed!’

  Bridie said, ‘Don’t, Catherine, you’re making it worse.’

  But she was too upset to stop. ‘Was it with me grandda or one of the lodgers?’

  Kate gasped in shock. For a moment they stared at each other, numbed by the hateful words. Then Kate’s face contorted in fury. In a flash, she seized one of Davie’s hobnailed boots, left on the hearth, and raised it above her head. With a scream of rage, she hurled it straight at Catherine’s head.

  In that split second, Bridie shoved Catherine. The boot caught Catherine on the side of the head as she turned away. Stunned, she gripped her ear, the pain flaring. Bridie had her arms around her in seconds.

  ‘Are you all right? Let me look. My God, you’re bleeding. Come to the kitchen, I’ll clean it up.’

  Catherine was too shocked to cry.

  Bridie steered her from the room. ‘You’re all right, pet lamb . . .’

  Behind them, through ringing ears, Catherine could hear her mother sobbing.

  Chapter 37

  The next morning, Bridie tried to persuade Catherine to stay in bed.

  ‘You rest,’ her friend urged. ‘I’ll ring Mrs Townsend, tell her you’re sick.’

  Catherine was tempted. Her head throbbed and she dreaded facing the world, especially Kate. But she knew if she did not, then it would be twice as hard later. She had hardly slept, kept awake by dwelling on their terrible row and the hatred on her mother’s face. Her feelings for Kate went beyond resentment and anger; now she feared her mother too. How could they carry on living under the same roof?

  She struggled out of bed, feeling weak and nauseous. For the sake of the residents, she must carry on as if nothing had happened. Carefully, she combed her hair over the cut on her ear and dabbed on extra foundation to cover up the bruising to her cheekbone, wincing at the pain.

  There was no sign of Kate in the kitchen. With Bridie’s help, Catherine made a hasty breakfast and left it in the dining room for the guests to help themselves.

  All day, she worried over what to do, but as she was preparing to drag herself home, she saw Bridie waiting for her outside the laundry gates.

  ‘It’s all calmed down,’ Bridie reported cheerfully. ‘Dorothy and Mr Hobbs are back and Kate’s been making up the beds. Tail between her legs and can’t do enough to help.’

  Catherine said indignantly, ‘She can’t just pretend last night didn’t happen. The things she said to me—’

  ‘She was very drunk. She won’t remember half she said - and probably never meant it.’

  ‘How can you defend her after the things she said about us?’ Catherine accused.

  Bridie shrugged, but Catherine was still filled with disgust at her mother’s poisonous words. ‘Well, I can’t forgive her. She could have killed me with that boot. I don’t feel safe in my own house any more.’ Catherine gripped her arms tensely, willing Bridie to take her side.

  Bridie touched her shoulder in sympathy. ‘It’s up to you, of course. But she’s still your mother. You can’t just throw her out on the street.’ She gave Catherine a wry look. ‘I think it’ll all blow over - once that useless husband of hers clears off to sea.’

  Catherine returned with a heavy heart. She could see no way out of the situation. Kate stood pasty-faced by the kitchen range, hands shaking as she poured Catherine a cup of tea.

  ‘Sorry, Kitty,’ she mumbled, handing over the cup.

  Catherine was still too upset to speak. She busied herself for the rest of the evening, serving supper and chatting to the returned guests, hiding her unhappiness behind a cheerful mask.

  It was Davie who waylaid her on the landing on the way to bed.

  ‘Kitty, can I have a word?’

  She nodded warily.

  ‘Kate’s feeling that bad about what she did - tossing me boot at you. She went too far.’

  ‘She always goes too far,’ Catherine said in agitation. ‘I can’t trust her. What if she took against one of the lodgers? You’ll have to take her back, Davie. I can’t cope with her drinking.’

  Davie gave her a desperate look. ‘I can’t. We’ve nowhere to go.’ He put his callused hands on her shoulders. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like back in Jarrow - ten times worse than when you last saw it. There’s hardly a man in work. It’s a ghost town. Don’t send her back to that, Kitty. It’ll kill her.’

  Catherine shrugged off his hold.

  ‘She’s doing a good job of trying that here - the way she’s drinking.’

  Davie struggled to say something. With alarm, Catherine saw tears welling in his eyes. He gulped. ‘Give her another chance, Kitty.’

  ‘The Hurst was to be her last chance,’ Catherine protested.

  ‘Please! Just one more. You’re the only one can save her.’

  She stood at a loss, the burden of his hopes pressing on her so hard she found it difficult to breathe.

  Finally she whispered, ‘She can stay.’

  ‘Kitty, thanks! You’re a lass in a million—’

  ‘But you have to promise me one thing,’ Catherine interrupted, steeling herself to tell him. ‘You have to keep away from here. You being on leave - it brings out the worst in her.’

  Davie gave her a long pained look. She knew how much it hurt him, but coping with the two of them together was beyond her.

  ‘That’s Bridie talking,’ he said dully.

  ‘No, it’s me.’ Catherine was firm. ‘Do I have your promise? You won’t visit till Kate’s proved she’s off the drink for good.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said hoarsely, and turned away.

  It was the last word they exchanged before he left The Hurst two days later

  ***

  The new year, 1934, was hardly underway, when Catherine was regretting her weakness in letting Kate stay. On the surface, her mother appeared normal, busying herself around the house and calling out cheerily to the guests. But there was a glint in her eye when she looked at Catherine that made the young woman nervous. Kate was seething at Davie’s forced departure and resentful at the watchful eye kept on her drinking.

  Despite Bridie being around the house and Mrs Fairy spying for Catherine, Kate was still managing to get hold of alcohol, though Catherine was baffled as to how. She could find no trace of it, but Kate’s mood seesawed and she was constantly staggering into furniture and breaking things as if inebriated. When challenged, she would laugh manically, or curse Catherine foully and burst into tears.

  Then there was a series of strange incidents. Tom Hobbs went to tune the piano one day and found two of the internal hammers had been snapped off. The following week the door handle of his room was smeared in jam and the contents of his chamber pot spilt on his bedside rug.

  ‘Someone’s got it in for me,’ he complained.

  Catherine confronted her mother. ‘Are you picking on Mr Hobbs for some reason?’

  Kate gave her a wounded look. ‘What on earth for?’

 
‘To get back at me about the piano,’ Catherine accused.

  Kate shook her head and walked off. A few days later there was jam on the piano tuner’s door again.

  ‘I’ve found other lodgings,’ he told Catherine at the end of the month. She tried to placate him, but his mind was made up and he left.

  Other bizarre happenings occurred throughout the spring. A mousetrap was found in the ventriloquist’s bed, soap was put in the butter dish at breakfast. By Easter, three more residents had gone.

  ‘Why are you doing all this?’ Catherine cried at her mother.

  ‘Doing what?’ Kate sniggered like a child.

  ‘Picking on the residents. They’ve done nothing to you.’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

  Catherine wanted to shake her till her teeth rattled, but did not trust herself to touch her.

  ‘We’ll have no business left if you don’t stop your carry-on.’

  Kate grew openly abusive to Catherine in front of the household.

  ‘A bossy little bitch she was as a bairn,’ Kate announced in the dining room one day when Catherine had asked her to fill up the salt. ‘And she’s just the same - for all her posh ways. I could tell you a few tales about our Kitty that would make your hair stand on end.’

  Bridie intervened. ‘Kate, the guests are waiting for the salt. You can keep your tales for another time.’ She steered Kate towards the door.

  ‘Gerr-off us,’ Kate snarled, turning on her. ‘You’re just as bad. Dirty, filthy things you get up to—’

  Bridie shoved her through the door and banged it shut behind them. Kate’s muffled shouting and swearing could still be heard, as Bridie dragged her down the corridor. Catherine was left, puce-faced with humiliation, not knowing what to say.

  The major cleared his throat. ‘Soup doesn’t need salt. Perfectly good as it is.’ He bent to eat. Catherine felt tears prick her eyes as she shot him a grateful look. After an awkward pause, the others began eating.

  Mealtimes became a battleground and Catherine dreaded them, not knowing what prank her mother would try, or what foul-mouthed ranting would ruin the conversation. She was a bundle of taut nerves during the day, but the long nights were even worse. She could not sleep, tossing and turning in the bed. Although there were now spare bedrooms, Catherine could not face the dark on her own. She was plagued with fearful memories of long ago: the hurtful teasing of playmates, her grandfather wielding the fire poker, Kate beating her for playing at the forbidden Slake. In the depth of the night she dwelled on her failure with men. You ‘re a bastard inside and out! - the words of a neighbour rang in her head again and again. That was why men did not want her. She was tainted, unworthy. She would always be Kate’s unwanted child.