The Harbour Girl

by Val Wood

  He frowned, a crease appearing above his nose. ‘Is no one else at home with you?’

  ‘Connie Turnby’s been staying,’ she began, and saw his eyebrows shoot up. ‘She – she needed a refuge,’ she faltered, dropping her voice.

  ‘Ah!’ Mike nodded. ‘’Word out on ’road is that Des Turnby has been warned to stay away from her.’

  Jeannie put her hand to her mouth. Had Des Turnby exaggerated her mother’s warning?

  ‘What?’ Mike said.

  Jeannie shook her head and tried not to smile. ‘Nothing. But I must tell Connie that she can stop looking over her shoulder.’

  Mike surveyed her for a moment. ‘Is Mrs Norman there now, did you say?’ Jeannie said she was. ‘Then shall I come back with you? I might be able to help. Fetch ’doctor or do summat anyway. It’ll not be easy for you trailing about wi’ a new bairn. And you must be careful of yourself.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ she said in relief. She was sure he’d be able to make the right decision over Nan; he’d known her for a long time. A lot longer than she had.

  He walked by her side towards Walcott Street, and it was a comfort to have a conversation with someone. He knew that Harry had gone on the trawlers and thought it good for him to be with a bigger company than his and his son’s.

  ‘Harry will be fine once he’s settled down into regular work,’ he told her. ‘And especially now he’s got a son. It’ll give him ’incentive to do well.’

  Jeannie thought that everybody knew more about Harry than she did. He’d been part of this community all his life. Mike had known his father and probably his mother too, as he would have known Connie’s and all of her family. She felt like an outsider. I’m the stranger here and it’s going to take years and years before I’m one of them. Is this what it was like for people coming to Scarborough? she wondered. Did we make them welcome?

  What’s the matter with me? she chastised herself. I’m already part of the community because I’m Harry’s wife. Nan has accepted me, so have Connie and Mrs Norman, and Mike Gardiner is walking beside me to find out if he can help. She suddenly felt lighter in spirit and smiled up at Mike.

  ‘I think you’re right about Harry,’ she said. ‘He just needed some encouragement and the offer of work, and you did that for him.’

  But Mike didn’t answer. They’d turned into Walcott Street and he was looking towards the house, where Mrs Norman was standing with a bundle in her arms. He quickened his steps. ‘I’ll hurry on,’ he said. ‘Don’t you rush.’

  But Jeannie caught her breath. Jack! It was Jack in Mrs Norman’s arms. Was he ill? What had happened? She saw Mike reach Mrs Norman and their glance towards her. ‘Oh, God,’ she moaned. ‘My baby.’

  She hurried down the terrace and Mike came to meet her. ‘There’s no hurry,’ he said softly. ‘Not now, and your babby’s all right.’

  ‘It’s Nan,’ Mrs Norman said quietly. ‘I’m sorry, lass, that sorrow has come so fast after joy. Nan died, not ten minutes since, just after you’d gone out.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  JEANNIE WONDERED AFTERWARDS how she would have managed without Mike Gardiner and Mrs Norman. Mike went immediately to fetch a doctor and Mrs Norman ushered Jeannie and the baby upstairs and told her to get into bed and wait there until everything was seen to. Presently she brought her a cup of cocoa and said that Mike was back, the doctor was on his way and that all would be taken care of.

  She clutched the cup with trembling fingers and looked down at Jack as he slept beside her, and felt sad that he would never know his great-grandmother. ‘She was all right, was Nan,’ she murmured. ‘Though I didn’t like her at first. She was so fierce, not just with me but with everybody; but she had a softer side and she would have spoiled you, Jack, I know that for sure. I don’t know what I’m going to say to Harry.’ Tears blurred her vision. ‘He’ll be devastated.’

  She thought later that Mrs Norman must have dosed the cocoa with something for she fell asleep and didn’t wake until dark and saw Connie leaning over her.

  ‘Are you all right, Jeannie?’ Connie whispered. ‘You can come downstairs now if you want.’

  Jeannie sat up. ‘Nan?’ she said. ‘Where …’ She couldn’t bear the thought of coming down and seeing Nan still sitting in the chair.

  ‘She’s in ’front room.’ Connie kept her voice low. ‘Mrs Norman’s done her up real nice. She looks ever so bonny. Better’n she ever did afore. There’s been a few folk in to see her already. And Rosie’s been as well. She didn’t say much, though.’

  ‘I’ll get up.’ Jeannie threw back the blanket. ‘We’d better have something to eat.’ Her legs trembled as her feet touched the floor.

  ‘I’ve warmed up ’fish an’ taties,’ Connie said. ‘I’m not much good at cooking but Mrs Norman showed me what to do an’ Mike Gardiner has brought in a box o’ groceries. Bread ’n’ eggs, a string o’ sausages an’ bacon an’ things.’

  ‘Oh, how good of him.’ Jeannie was overcome. She draped her shawl around her. She’d got into bed in her day clothes, not guessing that she would spend almost the whole of the day there. ‘Are they still here? Mrs Norman and Mike?’

  Connie shook her head. ‘No, they’ve gone, but Mike said he’d come back in ’morning and Mrs Norman will send one of her bairns to see if there’s owt you want.’

  The kitchen had been tidied, and the chair where Nan had sat had been moved and another put there. Two places had been set at the table and the door into the front room was firmly closed.

  ‘I’ll go in and see her tomorrow,’ Jeannie murmured, as Connie dished up their supper. ‘Not tonight. I can hardly believe what’s happened. It’s all so unreal. You know what Harry said about you sleeping in my bed when he was away? Well, if you like, tonight you can; and then tomorrow, if you decide to stay that is, you could have Nan’s room. I’ll change the sheets and—’

  ‘Mrs Norman’s already tekken ’sheets and blanket off her bed an’ says she’ll wash ’em,’ Connie interrupted. ‘And yes, please, I’d like to come upstairs. I don’t fancy sleeping down here on ’rug – not tonight I don’t.’

  When Mike Gardiner came the next day, he told Jeannie that he’d enquired about Harry’s ship and the word was that it had been seen off the Faroe Banks and wouldn’t be home for at least three weeks.

  ‘’Funeral will have to go ahead without him. It’s not possible to wait that long. You won’t be expected to be there,’ he told her. ‘I’ll mek ’arrangements and Mrs Norman will put on a funeral tea. It’s what’s done round here,’ he added. ‘Folks will want to come and pay their respects.’

  ‘I – I don’t know about paying for it,’ Jeannie stammered. ‘I don’t know if she paid in for anything like that.’ She knew that Granny Marshall paid into what she called her funeral club, but she had no idea if Nan had done the same. How little I know, she thought.

  ‘I’ll pay, and when Harry comes home we’ll sort something out,’ Mike said. ‘I expect there’ll be a whip-round if there’s no money. Folk are usually very generous towards their own.’ He looked at her and then said quietly, ‘Have you been in to see Nan yet?’

  Jeannie shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I haven’t.’

  He reached for her hand. ‘Neither have I. Let’s go in together and then you can tell Harry about her.’

  Jeannie was astonished at the benevolence that surrounded her over the following week. She found a parcel of fish on the back doorstep, and people she didn’t even know appeared with a meat pie or a fruit cake. Mrs Norman told her how many neighbours had come to the funeral tea at her house.

  ‘Everyone’s been really kind,’ Jeannie said. ‘I don’t know what to say or how I can possibly repay them.’

  ‘They don’t expect to be repaid,’ Mrs Norman said. ‘It’s what we do.’

  But not everyone was touched by the hand of human kindness, as Jeannie was to discover a few days later when she answered a knock on the back door and found a shabby-looking man wear
ing a bowler, carrying a worn leather bag and clutching a thick black notebook in his hand.

  ‘I understand that Mrs Carr is deceased,’ he said without preamble. ‘I represent ’landlord o’ this property and I’m here to inform you that ’rent is overdue and has been for ’last six weeks.’ He gazed at her bleakly. ‘Are you a relative, and will you be tekkin’ over ’arrears?’

  Jeannie stared. Six weeks! That meant that Nan had been behind for over a month before she died. Why hadn’t she paid? Did she not have the money? And why didn’t she say?

  ‘Are you sure?’ she said hoarsely. ‘I thought she always paid promptly.’

  The man nodded. ‘She allus used to. Then she started coming up wi’ excuses why she couldn’t pay. Are you tekkin’ over ’rent book?’ he asked again.

  ‘She was ill,’ she said vaguely. ‘That must have been why she forgot to pay.’

  He said nothing but just stood looking at her.

  ‘Erm, my husband is away at sea.’ Jeannie licked her lips. ‘Could you give us time? He’ll be home soon. We – we’ve only just had Mrs Carr’s funeral,’ she said, knowing even as she explained that he wasn’t in the least interested.

  He opened up his notebook and wrote something in it. ‘I’ll call again next week.’ He snapped it closed. ‘I’ve got plenty o’ folk wanting a nice house like this,’ he said sharply. ‘If you can’t manage ’rent I can offer you summat smaller for less.’

  He fingered his bowler and turned away, crossed the yard and was gone, leaving her shaking.

  I must start work on the nets again, she thought. Dare I ask Mike if he has any? I hate to be a nuisance when he’s been so helpful, but what else am I to do? The only money that was coming in was from Connie and that had been used to buy coal, milk and bread.

  When she told Connie about it that evening, Connie thought for a moment and then said, ‘We could do a moonlight – a flit,’ she explained when Jeannie looked at her blankly. ‘We don’t need a big house like this, not even when Harry’s at home. You don’t ever use ’front room.’

  It was true, they didn’t. Jeannie pondered. It had only been used the once whilst she had been living here and that was for Nan. She was heartened too that Connie had said we, which meant that she wanted to continue living with them.

  ‘It’s not your responsibility to pay ’arrears,’ Connie went on. ‘’Rent book was in Nan’s name, so if we did a flit nobody’d come after us.’

  ‘But what about Harry?’ Jeannie exclaimed. ‘He wouldn’t know where we’d gone. He’d come home and there’d be nobody here!’

  ‘Oh.’ Connie pooh-poohed her concern. ‘He’d soon find us. We’d not be moving far. Just further along ’road.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jeannie hesitated. ‘I’ll have to think about it. It seems dishonest somehow.’

  Connie shook her head. ‘Folks keep movin’ all ’time. It’s what ’landlord expects. ’Agent won’t bank on finding you here when he comes knockin’ next week.’

  She was still unsure about it, but when she tentatively mentioned to Mrs Norman that she was thinking of moving because she couldn’t afford the rent, Mrs Norman agreed with Connie that the present house was too big for her and Harry anyway.

  ‘When you’ve a few more bairns then mebbe you could look at summat as big, but I’ve heard of a smaller place that’s just come empty. It’d be just right, especially when Harry’s away. I’ll put in a word for you, if you like?’

  And Jeannie found herself saying, ‘Yes please.’

  Mike Gardiner offered the loan of his horse and cart and on the third evening after that Jeannie, with Jack strapped to her chest, Connie and all the furniture were in the back of the cart being driven to the other house. There wasn’t much furniture to be moved: chairs and table, the rickety chest of drawers, two beds and an old wooden chest which held spare bedding. It was when Jeannie took up the rug at the side of Nan’s bed that she discovered a small cache of coins that had been laid in a circle beneath it. It didn’t add up to very much, but it would have been enough to pay two weeks’ rent. She gathered it up and put it in her pocket, relieved that there would be sufficient to visit the butcher as well as paying the first week’s rent at the new house.

  ‘All old folk hide money,’ Connie said when she told her. ‘They think they’re saving it for a rainy day, but then when it rains they forget where they’ve put it.’

  Jeannie looked about her. They had driven further down Hessle Road towards the town before turning into Wassand Street and then on to a long road which Mike said was English Street and ran parallel with the docks; then he had taken several other turns until he reached a narrow terrace of houses surrounded by factories, a steam mill and a foundry.

  Mike began to unload the cart. He glanced at the terraced house. ‘It’s mebbe not what you’re used to, Jeannie,’ he murmured. ‘But you’ll manage till Harry comes home.’

  ‘We only had a small cottage,’ she said. ‘In Scarborough, I mean.’ She felt a sudden choking in her throat as she thought of it. ‘Ma never had much money.’ She pressed her lips together, hard, to stop herself from crying. ‘But we managed. At least she did.’

  Mike nodded. ‘I wasn’t thinking of ’size of ’place, more of where it is. This used to be all right – it’s just that it’s overcrowded. Folks round here haven’t any money or prospects of mekking any.’

  Jeannie glanced around. The area looked poor. There were small front gardens, not much more than dirt plots where once there might have been grass, which were now filled with debris. Some of the houses had no curtains, but only cardboard covering broken windows.

  ‘Not their fault,’ he said, heaving the table off the cart. ‘They do what they can to survive. Putting bread into their bairns’ mouths is ’priority. Have you got ’key?’

  Connie had it and she opened the door. A stale odour greeted them as they entered the house. Jeannie held Jack tight to her. Was the house clean? No, it wasn’t. It looked as if it had been abandoned. Somebody, in Connie’s words, had done a moonlight. Why, she wondered, would Mrs Norman think she would want to live here?

  ‘We’ll soon get it cleaned up.’ Connie peered about her, and then, going from the room they had entered from the street into the scullery, she called out, ‘There’s a tap and a sink, but nowt else.’

  Jeannie just stood there; she heard Connie open the scullery door and then shout again. ‘And a yard wi’ a privy, so we don’t have to share wi’ anybody.’

  But no cooking range such as Nan had, which I’d got used to, Jeannie thought, just a dog grate in the hearth like Ma has at home. I’ll have to boil the kettle and pan on there. She felt her shoulders drooping, but she turned and put on a bright face when Mike came in and said, ‘I’ll tek beds up first and get them out of ’way. Just watch ’cart, will you, Jeannie? I don’t want anybody running off wi’ my hoss.’

  Or the furniture, she thought. But surely nobody would be desperate enough to do that? She stood in the doorway; it had started to sleet and she realized that they couldn’t make a fire for they had no wood or coal.

  ‘Did you look in the coal house before we left, Connie?’ she called out when she heard her pottering about inside. ‘Was there any coal?’

  Connie grinned as she came through. ‘What would you do wi’out me?’ she said. ‘While you were upstairs stripping ’bed, I was shovelling coal. I got a good bucketful, and some firewood. It’s in ’back of ’cart.’

  Jeannie clenched her eyes tight shut and then heaved a deep breath. She put Jack in a chair and tucked a blanket at each side of him so that he couldn’t roll out, turned up her sleeves, and said, ‘Good. Well done, Connie: so first things first. I’ll light a fire and boil a kettle and we’ll get this place looking like home.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  IT WAS AS Mike was preparing to leave that Jeannie remembered that they’d left behind the frame that Billy Norman had made for her.

  ‘I’m so sorry to be a nuisance,’ she said to him
. ‘But I must have it. How can I work without it?’

  He sighed and shook his head. ‘Can’t resist a plea from a pretty girl,’ he said wryly. ‘I’ll go and fetch it now afore anybody goes nosing about and sees that you’ve done a flit.’

  Connie screwed up her mouth after he’d left. ‘I’d nivver be able to get any man to do owt for me. That’s a knack I haven’t got.’ She sounded like the old downtrodden Connie she had previously been.

  ‘If Harry had been here – but he’s not, so who else could I ask to fetch it? I have to have it, Connie, or I can’t work. I can do the smaller nets on my knee, but what about when Jack starts crawling?’

  ‘That won’t be yet for a bit!’ Connie exclaimed. ‘’Bairn’s onny a month old.’

  Jeannie knelt by the hearth and blew on the firewood to stir the flame. ‘I’ve still got to look ahead. Harry might not be home for a couple of weeks.’ She looked up at Connie. ‘How am I supposed to live in the meantime unless I do the mending?’

  ‘There’s my money,’ Connie said, suddenly pouty and sullen.

  ‘I know, and I’m grateful. I don’t know how I’d have managed without you, but I need to earn some money of my own. It’s not fair that you should have to provide for me.’

  Connie sat down and looked down at her hands. ‘Nobody’s ever needed me afore,’ she muttered. ‘I was quite enjoying that. My da didn’t want me with him and my ma couldn’t have cared less. I’ve felt useful for these last few weeks, but I should have known it wouldn’t last.’

  Jeannie rocked back on her heels. ‘Connie! You’ve been a godsend. All I’m saying is that whilst Harry’s away I need to earn some money. You’re a friend. I’m not asking for your friendship because of the wages you’re bringing in!’

  Connie gazed at her and then looked away. ‘Do you mean that if I lost my job and didn’t have any money, we’d still be friends?’