The Harbour Girl

by Val Wood

  She turned round and walked back through the open walls of the castle, tracing her hands over the rough stone and remembering the last time when she had been here, with Harry. So much must have happened between these walls, but we know nothing of the human emotion, only the history we are taught at school. In a hundred years’ time, she thought, no one will know of me or of the anguish I’m suffering now.

  She sat on a low wall and deliberated. But if I carry this child safely, then in another century there could be some other person connected to me who’ll walk on this grass and look at the view below and wonder how they got here. Just as I do sometimes. She thought of her mother coming from Scotland; of her father’s grandmother coming from Hull to live in Scarborough and marrying a Scarborough man; and now here am I, carrying the child of a Hull man.

  And it was this thought which had decided her. She would go to Hull and seek him out, and if he rejected her she would return to Scarborough, brave the scorn and contempt, and bring up the child alone, or at least with her mother’s help, for she knew in her heart that her mother wouldn’t fail her. And if Harry did indeed honour his promise, then she would stay with him and live with him wherever he wanted to be.

  ‘Will you go alone, bairn?’ her mother asked anxiously. ‘Or shall I come with you?’

  Jeannie shook her head. ‘I’ll go by myself,’ she said. ‘And I’ll decide what to do when I get there and if I find him.’

  ‘Do you have his address?’ her mother said practically.

  ‘Hessle Road,’ Jeannie said. ‘I don’t know whereabouts it is, but if it’s where the fishing community live, then anyone will know it and him, just as we do in Scarborough.’

  Mary was doubtful. Hull was a very large town, much bigger than Scarborough, but she didn’t say so. Jeannie had enough problems to contend with without her adding to them.

  ‘When will you go?’ she asked, and then added, ‘Will you return the same day?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Jeannie said, ‘but I don’t know when I’ll come back. That’s why I want to go by myself. I might have to stay awhile. Harry could be away at sea and I’ll have to wait for him. But I will see him,’ she said determinedly. ‘I have to know his intentions.’

  ‘You’re a brave wee lassie,’ her mother said, and put out her arms to enfold her. ‘And you know, don’t you, that come what may I’m always here if you need me. But you must tell me, Jeannie. Don’t leave me in the dark. Don’t let me worry that something has happened to you.’

  Jeannie hugged her mother tight. ‘I won’t, Ma. If I don’t return straight away then I’ll write as soon as I can. You understand, don’t you? I have to do this. I have to know one way or another. I can’t live a half life, wondering constantly if he’ll come back and if he really meant what he said.’

  Early the next morning Jeannie set out for the railway station. She had waited until Tom had left for work, and her mother had told her that she would tell him about the child when he returned that evening and swear him to secrecy.

  As Jeannie climbed the hill from their cottage to reach the main street she was appalled to see Ethan coming towards her.

  ‘Hello, Jeannie. Where are you off to? Are you not mending this morning?’

  ‘Erm, no. Not today.’ She saw a small frown crease above his nose and worried that he would ask her why. But he just gazed at her from his blue eyes, and she added, ‘Did you not sail out last night?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ He was almost as uncommunicative as she was until he said, ‘The ship’s gone in for repair. Didn’t Tom tell you?’

  She was anxious to be off. ‘No. You know Tom. He doesn’t discuss much.’

  He continued to look at her. ‘You know I named the boat after you, don’t you, Jeannie?’

  The Scarborough Girl! No, she didn’t. She gave a nervous smile. ‘Lots of Scarborough girls about, Ethan.’

  ‘Not for me there aren’t,’ he said steadily. ‘There’s only one.’

  ‘Ethan, please!’

  ‘Has he been back? He’s no good for you, Jeannie. You must know that.’

  ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’ll be here when you change your mind.’

  She nodded and turned away. You won’t be when you hear, she thought. When you hear that I’ve behaved like a harlot and am carrying a child. You’ll run away as fast as you can. You won’t want to hear of me then. And who’ll blame you? Not me and that’s a fact.

  She hurried off but ducked into a shop doorway in case Ethan should turn round as he had done on a previous occasion; she peered out and sure enough he looked back, hesitated and then walked on, and she rushed on up Eastborough in the direction of the railway station.

  But there was no hurry. She had a twenty-minute wait for the next train, and as she sat on the platform she thought that if her journey hadn’t been so vital she might have enjoyed the outing. She had been on a train only once before, when she had been taken with a party of other school children to Seamer Fair. They hadn’t enjoyed it, for it had rained and their clothes had got damp and their boots muddy. Their teacher had told them that it was St Swithun’s Day, and tradition had it that if it rained on that day it would rain for forty more.

  She taught them a song which they sang all the way back to Scarborough. ‘St Swithun’s Day if thou dost rain, for forty days it will remain / St Swithun’s Day if thou be fair, for forty days ’twill rain no more.’

  Jeannie sighed as she remembered. It was not so very long ago that she had been that child and now she was grown up expecting a child of her own. How stupid I’ve been, she thought. How could I have been swayed so easily? And yet she knew that if Harry really did mean to marry her she would follow him and love him and be happy.

  On the train she watched the passing scenery with only mild interest, though she craned her neck when they arrived at the seaside and fishing towns of Filey and Bridlington. The sunny day turned cloudy as the train reached Hull, and when she stepped outside the concourse the rain was coming down steadily. She looked about her. Which direction should she take? She could see a theatre building and a row of shops and a huge amount of traffic: carts and carriages, broughams and traps, omnibuses and waggonettes. A horse cab for hire drew up but she turned away. She’d no money for such luxuries.

  A man carrying a bag was coming out of the station and glanced at her. She summoned up the courage to speak.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Can you tell me the way to Hessle Road?’

  He waved a hand vaguely across to his right.

  ‘Do you happen to know a man by the name of Harry Carr?’ she asked. ‘He lives on Hessle Road.’

  The man frowned and looked at her as if she were mad. Then he laughed. ‘Is this ’first time you’ve been to Hull?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I can tell you this,’ he said brusquely. ‘Hessle Road is a long road, and no I don’t know anybody down there. It’s where all ’fishing folk live, and I’m from East Hull on ’other side of ’river and that’s as different as can be!’

  He went off in a great hurry and she wondered what he’d meant by the other side of the river. If he meant the Humber, then surely the land on the other side was Lincolnshire not Hull.

  She turned right as he’d suggested and walked to the end of the road, where she asked a woman for directions. The woman looked her up and down. ‘You a stranger here?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jeannie said. ‘I’m looking for a friend. She … she was supposed to be meeting me. She lives on Hessle Road.’

  The woman gave her general directions, then said, ‘You’re going to get wet. It’s a fair walk.’

  Jeannie thanked her and set out again. The town was much bigger than she had imagined, with tall buildings and many roads which criss-crossed each other. She asked someone else for directions to the docks, but when she was asked which one she couldn’t say.

  The woman shrugged. ‘There’s so many docks: Humber Dock, William Wright, St Andrew’s … Why do
you want to be there?’

  Someone else asking her a question instead of a direct answer. ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for somebody – he’s a fisherman and lives on Hessle Road.’

  The woman looked at her pityingly, she thought, but suggested she went on to Hessle Road and asked in a shop. Again she was given directions, and after traversing Great Thornton Street and Walker Street eventually found the road she was looking for, but was aghast when she saw the length of it.

  There had been huge growth in Hull in the last forty years, especially on the west side, and an immense housing project had been built to accommodate the families of those who worked in the successful trawling industry, and those who had come to work on the railway.

  Jeannie stood at the bottom of the long straight road and then, taking a breath which she immediately regretted as she drew in the stench of fish oil, began to walk. She passed streets with names that sounded strange compared with those she knew in Scarborough – Strickland Street, Wassand Street, Walcott Street – and noticed that some of them had other streets and terraces running off them.

  I’ll never find him without asking, she thought. I’ll have to pluck up the courage to go into a shop. But there was no help forthcoming from the first one, a fishmonger, nor the second, an ironmonger; it wasn’t until she went into a bakery that the woman behind the counter said, ‘I know his gran.’ She laughed. ‘If you want Harry you’d best call in at ’Wassand Arms. They’ll know where he is, unless he’s gone to sea.’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’ Jeannie asked. ‘Or where his gran lives?’

  The woman huffed out a breath and shook her head, but then called out to the queue of women waiting to be served. ‘Anybody here know where Nan Carr lives?’

  There was muttering among the women. They were all dressed in similar fashion in dark skirts and shawls round their heads and shoulders and without exception they all looked careworn; then a child piped up, a boy of about seven wearing a cap that was too large for him, a torn shirt and ragged trousers.

  ‘I might know,’ he said, and wiped his runny nose on his sleeve.

  ‘Yes?’ Jeannie’s hopes were raised.

  The boy gazed at her. His face was pasty and he was breathing with some difficulty through his mouth.

  ‘He’ll want a copper for telling you,’ the woman standing next to him said. ‘He’ll not tell you owt for nowt, not Stan.’

  Jeannie nodded. ‘Can you take me?’ she asked him. ‘I’ll give you a penny if you will.’

  The boy licked his lips. ‘Tuppence an’ I’ll tek you to ’door.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ Jeannie said, and added to anyone who might be listening, ‘Thank you.’

  She heard a chorus of muted laughter as she went out and wondered what they were laughing about. Was it because the boy had got the best of the bargain, or was it because they all knew Harry’s whereabouts but were unwilling to share the information with a stranger? In Sandside they would have done the same if a stranger had asked about a local resident. They were loyal if nothing else, and she thought that the Hessle Road residents were probably the same. Everyone looked after their own.

  She’d noticed the public house, the Wassand Arms, as she’d walked along the road, but she dared not go in. Such places were not for women or girls like her.

  The boy came out of the shop and muttered, ‘I’ve gotta tek ’bread home first or me mam’ll bray me.’

  Jeannie nodded and followed him further up the road until he turned off into a narrow terrace.

  ‘Wait ’ere,’ he said. ‘Don’t follow me or it’ll cost you more.’

  She waited as instructed and watched as he raced up the terrace and turned into a gateway. All the houses had a patch of soil in front of them but none as far as she could see were cultivated. In the nearest one, weeds flourished among decayed cabbages. She waited what seemed an interminable time and wondered if perhaps his mother wouldn’t let him come out again. She thought of what her mother might have done if a stranger had asked Tom for directions when he was a child. Jeannie knew for certain that she would have come out to inspect the enquirer before letting him go anywhere with someone she didn’t know.

  Presently the boy came out again. He walked nonchalantly, biting into an apple core.

  ‘Is it all right?’ she asked. ‘Your mother doesn’t mind you taking me?’

  He stared at her, his mouth half open as if to bite the apple. ‘I didn’t tell her,’ he breathed nasally. ‘She’d’ve wanted more’n tuppence and she’d’ve kept it.’

  They walked away from the terrace, and when out of sight of the houses he turned towards her. ‘I’ll ’ave ’money fost.’

  Jeannie felt in her deep skirt pocket, brought out a penny and held it out to him.

  ‘I said tuppence!’

  ‘A penny now,’ she said firmly, ‘another when we get there and I know it’s the right house.’

  He grabbed it from her. ‘It is ’right house. I know ’lad who lives next door.’

  Jeannie nodded. ‘That’s all right then, but you’ll still have to wait for the other penny. Are we going or not?’

  He seemed to hesitate, as if wondering whether to scarper with the unearned coin or make an effort to earn another. ‘Yeh!’ he said at last. ‘Come on then, it’s not far.’

  She followed him back in the direction from which she had come until he turned off down the road marked Walcott Street, which had a large church on the corner. She was encouraged to believe that he probably did know the house and the family, for it was close enough to his home for him to have a friend in the vicinity.

  The street was lined with terraced houses, their front doors opening on to the pavement. Halfway down Stan stopped and pointed. ‘Next but one to ’bottom.’ He waved a finger to the right side. ‘That’s where they live.’

  ‘Who lives?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘Harry Carr. That’s who you said, wa’n’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘It was.’

  She gave him the other penny and he scooted off without a thanks or goodbye, leaving her to walk alone past the windows of the other houses, wondering if anyone was looking out inquisitively at her.

  She came to the house he’d indicated and timidly knocked on the door, waited a second and then knocked more firmly. She waited, shivering, wet and cold, and was about to knock again when she heard footsteps on wooden boards. The door opened a crack and she saw an eye peering out and a grey head.

  ‘Yes?’ It was a woman’s voice.

  ‘I’m – I’m looking for Harry Carr.’

  The door opened wider and an old woman stood there, and for a second Jeannie felt that she was looking at her own grandmother Aggie Marshall. The same iron-grey hair tied in a knot, the same thin lined face. But this woman’s expression was granite hard; her eyes were cold as steel and her mouth was set in a thin narrow line. Her voice when she spoke was harsh.

  ‘An’ who’s askin’?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JEANNIE SWALLOWED HARD and pushed her soaked hair away from her face. ‘I’m Jeannie Marshall, a – a friend of Harry’s.’

  ‘Oh aye.’ The woman gazed at her. ‘And what d’ya want him for?’

  ‘I – I want to speak to him, please.’

  ‘He’s not in.’ The woman made as if to close the door, but Jeannie moved forward.

  ‘Oh, but please, can you tell me where I can find him?’

  The woman narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re not from round here. How d’ya know him?’

  ‘I’m from Scarborough,’ Jeannie told her. ‘I’ve met him twice, last time in March.’ She hoped the woman wouldn’t add up the months and shut the door in her face.

  ‘In March? Where?’ The questions were harsh and the woman frowned. ‘He’s nivver been to Scarborough.’

  ‘He has,’ Jeannie said. ‘Twice, like I said. I just need to speak to him, please.’

  She was scrutinized severely and unblinkingly, and was
just beginning to think she ought to turn tail and run when she was told, ‘You’d better come in.’

  The outer door opened straight into a room which was clean but barely furnished and she was led through another door, past steep and narrow stairs leading up to another floor and into a kitchen where she saw a gleaming black cooking range with a shabby easy chair next to it, a scrubbed wooden table and two spindly chairs. Hanging from the ceiling was a lamp with a gas mantle. There was another door which she supposed led to a scullery and the yard. It was a much larger house than their old Scarborough cottage and she wondered who else lived there.

  ‘Sit down an’ dry yourself afore you get your death.’ The woman pointed to the easy chair.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jeannie said. ‘I am very cold.’

  A grunt was the only verbal response but tea leaves were put into a pot, the simmering kettle was swung round and hot water was poured on them. After what seemed to be an interminable time the old woman lifted the teapot lid and swirled the tea vigorously with a metal spoon, and Jeannie watched mesmerized as she produced two tin mugs from a cupboard and poured tea into them.

  ‘D’ya tek milk?’

  ‘Yes please, if you have it.’

  A minute drop of milk was poured from a brown jug and the mug of tea handed to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m very grateful.’

  ‘So you should be. I’m not in ’habit of pouring precious tea to folks I don’t know.’

  Jeannie nodded nervously and took a sip of the hot weak liquid; there was no answer she could give.

  One of the spindly chairs was placed across from her and the woman picked up her mug and sat down. She took a gulp of black tea, sighed and said, ‘So what’s this about? Lasses don’t usually knock on my door asking for Harry. They know I won’t stand for it.’

  Jeannie took another sip before replying; she could feel the warmth coursing through her, giving her strength.

  ‘Are you a relation of Harry’s?’ she ventured. She was fairly sure the woman must be his grandmother and not his mother; she looked much older than Fiona and even older than Granny Marshall. Perhaps the whole family lived together.