My eyes had been giving me great trouble. For years now I had been doing ledger work. Managing, I shouldn’t have had to continue with this task but I had, the result being that my eyes, which had never been good, began to get worse, and when I could no longer see the figures I went to the oculist. He took one look at me and said, ‘You had better go to the hospital.’
The specialist at the hospital, after a very short examination, said, ‘You must have glasses right away. You should have worn them from a small child. Come to my house tomorrow morning and I’ll see they are ready for you.’
This was indeed very good of the man and when I went to his house the next morning – a very posh affair – I realised that I was being treated as a private patient, and when I offered to pay for his services and he refused I thought, what a nice man.
‘You’ll have no more trouble now,’ he said, ‘except that things may appear on different levels for a time. But you must always wear glasses, remember that.’
Whereas I couldn’t see figures before, now I saw them not only enlarged but rising out of the page and almost hitting me. This distortion became worse when I was walking. The pavement moved, and steps disappeared from under my feet. I put up with this for he had warned me of it; but he hadn’t warned me about the spots.
These spots in my eyes became very painful. After a fortnight I went back to the hospital. The doctor – Mister he was called, which gave him an added distinction – seemed slightly surprised to see me but told me that this condition would pass.
After another fortnight, and it hadn’t passed, and I was in real distress, even more so than before I had been given the glasses, I again went to the hospital and sat on one of the wooden forms in the outpatients’ department. There were about ten patients before me but the doctor, when coming in, happened to catch a glimpse of me and sent the nurse to tell me to come into the surgery first.
‘What do you want?’
‘I’ve got these spots, doctor; they are very painful.’
‘Sit down.’
I sat down.
‘Now . . . Do you mean to tell me that you think you can still see spots?’
‘Yes, doctor, even at night.’
He stared at me for a long, long moment; then rising abruptly, he said, ‘Come here.’
In the dark room he almost took my eyes out and laid them on my cheeks. Then we returned to the office again, he marching ahead. Sitting down and facing me now he stared at me for another long moment before he remarked, ‘There’s nothing wrong with your eyes other than the need for glasses. But you are the kind of woman who, if you want to see spots, you’ll see spots.’
No-one had ever spoken to me like this before, least of all a doctor.
As I stood at the dispensary window waiting for some ointment, and feeling terribly low, I couldn’t control my tears and a man and woman came from among the waiting patients and spoke to me. When I told them what had happened they looked at each other, and then the woman said, ‘It’s a repeat of five years ago. I thought I was going blind. They sent me to London because of the spots and there they found out it was nothing to do with my eyes. I had stomach trouble, and once that cleared up I didn’t have the spots any more. My eyes are all right now but my husband’s need attention . . . I was always troubled with constipation,’ she finished.
The spots soon disappeared. But I always remember that man for he showed me a side of my character of which I hadn’t been consciously aware. My insistence and persistence annoyed him. If I wanted to do a thing I would do it.
To this day I say to myself, ‘If you want to see spots you’ll see spots. Go to it.’
At one period during my first year in Hastings I experienced a feeling of great loneliness. I was afraid of making men friends, and I couldn’t seem to get to know any girls of my own age with similar tastes outside the institution. Inside it I had two good friends in the Master and Matron who kindly looked upon me as a daughter, but as they already had one of their own, and of my age, this wasn’t actually a good thing. This also was a trying period physically, for I was bleeding from the right nostril almost every day and it sapped my energy, and what I needed most of all in my job was energy for I was trying to inoculate a phlegmatic staff with a northern approach to work.
One Saturday night, returning from the pictures to my current orange-box bedsitter, in the attic of a tall house on the West Hill, when the landlady was away, as were all the other tenants, I climbed the endless stone steps up to the house, and the four flights of stairs, saying to myself ‘I can’t stand it, I’m going home, I’m going home.’ I had been brought up among friendly people, people who would stop and speak to you in the street whether you wanted them to or not. Here you could die and no-one would even know; and this could have come about quite easily within the next few hours.
All the loneliness in the world was wedged inside me, it had to come out. It swelled, and swelled, threatening to choke me. I began to cry as I’d never cried before; the tears seemed to gush out of every pore in my body and the blood flowed from both my nostrils. Reaching my room, I threw myself onto the bed just as I was. I couldn’t stop my crying, I couldn’t stop the bleeding. Sometime in the night I fell asleep, and when I awoke at twelve o’clock on the Sunday morning I thought I was dead and had gone to Hell. Eventually I got on my feet but I couldn’t recognise myself, or the bed. Everything was covered with blood.
The following week I saw a specialist, whose main question was, did I pick my nose. He kept using the word epistaxis. So that’s what I had, epistaxis. But what was epistaxis? The dictionary said – bleeding from the nose.
I was told I must go into hospital. I waited weeks. I waited months. When at last I received the notification it was dated for December 23rd. I had made arrangements to go and spend Christmas with Elsie, my northern friend. She had relations in Hull and we were going to have a grand time. I went to Hull. What was a nosebleed or two compared to being with friends.
During this lonely period I made a friend of a temporary worker in the laundry. She was eleven years my senior, Irish and full of blarney and charm; she was married but had left her husband and child in Ireland. I was breaking a rule here, for I had made up my mind never to make friends with members of my staff. It just wouldn’t work. But once again I took this happening as an answer to a prayer. In my loneliness I had prayed for a friend; and God said, take your pick and pay for it. But I hadn’t to pay the price for Annie for some years.
And now I come to the other reason why I took ‘The Hurst’, the reason that concerns Kate.
It was in August 1931 that I went home for my first holiday. The house seemed strange and empty. Me granda was no longer in it; he had died on Holy Thursday of the previous year. I had not come home for his funeral. Logic told me it would be putting the money to a wrong use. Far better send it to Kate with the twenty pounds I’d saved to bury him. This I did. I felt guilty about not going to me granda’s funeral, and I knew really that the logic concerning the money had nothing to do with my absence, the truth being I was afraid to witness how the money would be spent, and its effects on Kate – I remembered me grandma’s funeral. My fears were well-founded, as my Aunt Mary piously informed me later. ‘She was rotten with it,’ she said, ‘and she only paid half the bill.’
The last thing me granda said was, ‘Is there word from her?’ I had written home at least twice a week, and until he took to his bed he had always met the postman. And it was because he was no longer in the kitchen that I knew a phase of my life had ended.
Of course I spoke glowingly about Hastings, and my flat.
‘Oh,’ said Kate, ‘wouldn’t I just love to see it!’
At this particular time she had been married to David McDermott for eight years. The slump was at its height in the North and he had been out of work for over a year and they had been living on the dole. And she said to me that they had lived better, and happier, on the dole than at any other time of her life. The dole was regular, at least
for a period, and they had passed the means test.
Anyway Kate knew that if she got into debt it would be fatal, so for about the only time in her life she planned her spending, and a good fifty per cent of it went on food. Then there was the rent and the gas and the coal, which left very little out of a pound for drink.
At this time she looked happier than I’d ever seen her. Davie and she had the house to themselves, life was quiet. But as I talked of Hastings and my flat she expressed an urge to get away from the mucky North and all it held, and kept saying, ‘Aw, lass, I’m glad you made the break!’ So why should I not say to her, ‘You must come for a holiday.’
She looked at me and her eyes clouded as she said, ‘Aw, Katie! I would love that. I’ve had but one holiday in me life and that’s when I went to the Lake District when I was looking after the Patterson bairns in me teens.’
So Kate came to Hastings for a holiday and she charmed everybody she met. The day I took her round the laundry she was dressed in black silk and lace. It was a dress she had come by in a second-hand shop and it suited her to perfection. She looked a regal figure; her skin was still good, her nose at this time was not red and blotched, for being deprived of spirits had benefited both her figure and her looks, and she could carry herself well.
In the eyes of my staff, right down to the most mental defective of the inmates, my stock went up.
Aye, they said, didn’t she look a lady, every inch a lady. But she wasn’t stiff, not like you’d think of Miss Mac’s mother at all, if you know what I mean, because Miss Mac was straight-faced, Miss Mac hadn’t that pleasant kind look her mother had. Oh, she was a real lady, you could see that.
I kept close to Kate all the time and guided her through the departments, being careful that she didn’t stop to chatter to anyone, for I dreaded her starting to joke. More still, I dreaded her bringing out a malapropism, which as likely as not she would do once she got going. She liked to impress company, did Kate.
The visit was a success; everybody thought she was wonderful – with one exception, the Matron. The Matron had taken me under her wing. Matrons had a habit of doing this with me. By this time she knew about my birth, because she had asked for my birth certificate and I had told her I hadn’t one, and she had said it wasn’t any surprise to her. And when she saw my mother she said to me, ‘You have nothing of her in you, and you should thank God for it.’
Kate did not take to the Matron either. I had written to her earlier telling her that I had to explain the circumstances of not having a birth certificate. It was then, for the first time, in a long letter, she told me that I had a birth certificate. What made me think I hadn’t? And my father’s name was on the birth certificate. She was angry that, as she said, I should have given myself away.
I had always been under the impression that because I hadn’t a known father I wouldn’t have a birth certificate. It was as if I’d decided that the law which labelled me as illegitimate, which state, as everybody knew, was a bad thing, was not likely to give me anything to prove that I existed. Of course I had never dreamed of enquiring into this matter. The subject was one to steer clear of. It was taboo except in the depths of my mind where it was continuously active, forever churning itself in a morass of shame.
Anyway the holiday was a success. Kate took a liking to Hastings, a greater liking to the flat and my way of life. She didn’t once go near a bar during her visit and when I got her a bottle of beer in and she said, ‘I don’t want it, lass. I don’t need it any more,’ I think that was the happiest moment of my life. She didn’t need it any more.
Annie was absolutely charmed with Kate and she said to me, ‘Fancy having a mother like that and living apart. She has no ties in the North, why on earth don’t you have her to live with you? She’s a wonderful woman, and a wonderful cook, and so cheerful, so good, so kind.’
Annie knew nothing whatever about Kate’s drinking or the trials of my early life, so I suppose I must not blame her, but she it was who said to Kate in front of me, ‘Why don’t you come and live here, mam?’ And she it was who first called Kate, Mother. And Kate turned to me, I can see her look now, beseeching, as she said quietly, ‘It’s up to Katie.’
What could Katie do?
When we were together I said to her, ‘You know I can’t stand the drink; it nearly drove me mad before,’ and she answered, ‘Aw, lass, that’s in the past. I’ve never touched a drop since just after fathar died, not until you bought it for me.’
‘Is that true?’
‘Honest to God.’ She blessed herself.
And so she came to Hastings.
I took a larger flat in the same house, a five-roomed flat. It cost me twenty-five shillings a week.
And then came the day that she was to arrive. I left work early to meet the five o’clock train, but she had arrived at four-thirty and was sitting outside the station on one of her cases, and I stopped dead some yards from her, petrified.
A great sickness was sapping the soul of me. I was crying loudly inside, ‘What have I done? What have I done? Oh, my God, not again, not in Hastings, not in this new way of life.’ The face I was looking at was bloated, the blue of the eyes almost opaque. I knew the signs, she had been on the bottle for some days, and, as always, she was aggressive with it. Where had I been? She sitting in a strange place all this time and nobody to meet her. Fine thing. Well, wasn’t I going to take a case?
Now began a period of strategy and cover-up, and Kate, being no fool, knew herself that this was necessary. There were, on the next floor to us in Westhill House, three sisters. They were gentlewomen of the first water. Their name was Harvey, and it was in their drawing room that a man rose to his feet for the first time in my presence. This was significant to me and it had happened before my mother came on the scene; it seemed all part of my new way of life. But they, too, liked Kate. ‘Oh, Miss McMullen,’ they said, ‘your mother has such a happy disposition. She is such a dear person.’
I told Kate. It was a gentle warning not to let herself down in front of the Misses Harvey. For a period she didn’t; and for a period, too, she did all she could to help me. Davie was on a weekly boat at the time and nearly every week he would send her five pounds. This was a very good wage in those days, and constituted quite a lot of overtime. He would have been wise to send her half that amount, but Davie adored her and could see nothing wrong in anything she did. She bought the food and we lived well, and with my money I furnished the remainder of the two-floor flat. The idea was to take in summer visitors.
Every Friday night I would visit the antique shops of Mr Cracknell, Mr Reeves and Mr Papworth, in the High Street, and there pay on some piece of furniture I had put aside. I was learning that all second-hand furniture was not junk. Why, in those shops I saw pieces like those in the house of the lady in Harton, the one I had been companion to. It was enlightening.
As yet I steered clear of sale rooms. This was because of a bargain Annie had got me earlier. I had, when I furnished my little flat, everything but a small kitchen table. I would have to wait for that, I couldn’t run up any more bills. ‘Nonsense!’ said Annie; ‘I can get you one at Dunks for five shillings.’
One night I returned home from work, opened my door and fell back. I thought I had come into the wrong flat. I looked at the number on the door. It was my number all right. Annie had got me the kitchen table, plus the entire contents of the kitchen and hallway of a decrepit hotel. For eighteen shillings she acquired seventeen aspidistras in great china pots – one was two foot six across – two mighty gas stoves, in comparison with which the one in the kitchen of Number 10 was a pup, a seven-foot kitchen table, now upended in the middle of my lovely room, and three wash-baskets of filthy kitchen utensils, among which was a box holding forty corkscrews.
It was five years before I entered a sale room.
With one thing and another it’s no wonder my age was never believed. I was twenty-four at this time and looked every hour of thirty. I was holding down a tough
job, and managing the staff of that laundry was a tough job, for nearly all the women were married and much older than myself. Moreover I had my own ideas about how a laundry should be run and the finished articles appear. I was nothing if not efficient. I was known among my staff as a slave-driver, and among some as a bugger.
One happy period Kate and I did have, and this was her first Christmas in Hastings. Funds were low and I remember that together with Annie we went out shopping late on the Christmas Eve and managed to get a fifteen-pound turkey for seven and sixpence. And we laughed and we ate, and I relaxed for three whole days.
But this was too good to last. There was a public house at the bottom of the street, too near for anyone as weak as Kate to resist for long. She had managed to keep out of it for a longer period than I had thought possible, but now it became a daily occurrence to pay a visit to ‘The Hole in the Wall’.
The red light was shining brightly again and I was worried sick in case she would let herself go. There was only one thing for it, I should have to get her right away from the bars. It was at this time that I saw the advert: ‘Gentleman’s residence for sale’.
On the day the agent took me to view the place it was pouring with rain. But as soon as I saw this house beyond the big red gate I knew that it was for me. Here was the picture come down from the wall. Here was the setting I had dreamed since I was a small child. Here was the place I had bragged about in the school yard at Simonside. And here was the actual courtyard with the stables going off. Inside the house was a twenty foot half-panelled hall with a stained-glass window. A beautiful drawing room with skirting boards two feet high, and mouldings round the ceiling. A big windowed alcove leading into a domed conservatory completed the charm.
The house had a funny smell. I knew nothing about dry rot at that time and it wouldn’t have mattered if I had. I noticed here and there in the woodwork lots of little holes. I had never heard of woodworm. Again it wouldn’t have mattered. And had I hesitated one moment about taking that house that agent would have prevented me for he was a psychologist. There was a butler’s pantry going off the hall and during our excursion over the fifteen rooms, which included a glass observatory giving a magnificent view, he kept reminding me how handy that butler’s pantry would be, how near the kitchen – it was only thirty feet from the stove. But that man knew that a Katie McMullen from William Black Street could not resist a house that had a butler’s pantry.
Our Kate Page 21
