The Harbour Girl

by Val Wood

  Jeannie put her hands to her head. ‘Of course we would! What sort of person do you take me for?’

  Connie gave a shrug. ‘Dunno.’

  Mike not only brought the stand but also erected it in the yard so that it was in place as soon as Jeannie was ready to use it. She didn’t ask him if he had any nets for her as she didn’t want to stretch their friendship too far or presume any favouritism; but a week later he brought a trawl net which was badly damaged and needed almost a week’s work to repair it.

  It was bitterly cold out in the yard and although she was wearing most of her outdoor clothes, her rubber boots, thick socks and a shawl wrapped around her head, she couldn’t work for more than an hour without coming in to warm herself by the fire. She also wanted to keep checking on Jack, who was wrapped in a blanket in a basket which she placed in the middle of the table away from any draughts.

  She and Connie practically lived on fish, boiled potatoes and cabbage, but the cabbage produced colicky wind in Jack and he kicked his little legs and screamed, so she had to stop eating it. She bought milk from a dairy two streets away and boiled it thoroughly before making semolina puddings. She had seen the thin and unhealthy-looking cows paddling about in their undrained stalls and the cowman with his unwashed hands and wasn’t prepared to take any chances. When Connie brought home her wages and Mike paid her for the mending, they shopped at the butcher’s for marrow bones for making broth, and, feeling relatively well off, bought a pound of scrag end of beef for a stew.

  There were a great many shops springing up, fronting the road and in the side streets which housed the mass of people who worked in the fishing industry, on the docks or on the railway; most of them, Connie told her, had come during the period when St Andrew’s Dock was being built. There were also new churches, banks and pawnbrokers to serve every need of the community. But this end of the road, as Mike Gardiner had said, was an area of great poverty, and Jeannie saw many barefoot and bedraggled children sitting at the edge of the footpath, hoping, she assumed, to beg a penny or a crust from a passer-by.

  ‘Saturday night is ’night to stop at home,’ Connie told her. ‘Especially when you’ve got a young bairn. ’Road is packed wi’ folks and all ’pubs and hostelries are full. Some of ’shops are open till midnight and you can hardly get through ’crowds.’

  They had been living in the house for nearly five weeks, and Jeannie was beginning to worry about Harry. She was also worried about paying the rent. She had kept back some money from the net mending, but hadn’t worked on any more since the one that Mike had brought.

  ‘Wives and mothers do them,’ Connie said, when Jeannie told her about her fears. ‘There’re not many fishermen who are looking to put ’em elsewhere. Course, you could allus get work on ’fish quay.’ She shrugged. ‘I dunno what other women do. Tek their bairns to a child minder, mebbe, if there isn’t a gran to look after them.’

  ‘No!’ Jeannie hugged Jack closer. ‘Never.’

  A few days later, Connie was about to leave to go to work and Jeannie was sitting feeding Jack when there was a hammering on the door. Connie froze. It seemed that she never got over the fear that her uncle would come looking for her.

  ‘I daren’t go,’ she whispered. ‘It might be Uncle Des.’

  ‘He doesn’t know where we are,’ Jeannie whispered back.

  ‘He does.’ Connie stared at her. ‘He’d mek it his business to find out.’

  The hammering got louder. Jeannie got up and handed the baby to Connie. She wrapped her shawl closer over her night shift. ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘He’ll get a piece of my mind if it is him.’

  She opened the door a crack and peeped out. It was still dark and there was no light outside; but a smile crept over her mouth as she recognized the size and shape of the man at the door.

  ‘Harry! Oh, Harry. At last!’ She opened the door wide to let him in, but drew back as she saw the anger on his face.

  ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ His voice was loud and furious. ‘I’ve been home and somebody else is living in our house! I’ve had ’devil’s own job to find you.’

  He stepped inside and saw Connie holding Jack. ‘What’s going on? Why’s she holding ’bairn? And where’s Nan?’

  Jeannie took Jack from Connie. ‘You get off,’ she murmured. ‘Don’t be late for work. Come and sit down, Harry. The fire will soon be ablaze.’

  He glared at her. ‘Don’t try and soft-soap me! What a fool I must’ve looked, not knowing where me own house was.’

  ‘We – we didn’t know when you’d be home. Mike Gardiner was going to try to catch you when your ship docked – to tell you.’

  ‘Mike Gardiner!’ he bellowed. ‘What’s he bin doing sniffing around while I’m away?’

  ‘Helping,’ she said weakly, knowing how pathetic that would sound when he didn’t know the circumstances.

  ‘Where’s Nan? I can’t understand her allowing you to move. She’s lived in that house for years; brought me up there. What happened?’

  He seemed a little calmer. Taking off his coat, he sat abruptly in the chair nearest the fire. She took the one opposite him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry. I’ve got some really bad news and you’re going to be upset, but I have to tell you.’

  Harry stared at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Nan was taken ill. She died, Harry.’ Tears trickled down her face when she saw how shocked he was. ‘It was very sudden. I asked Mrs Norman to come in and look at her because she seemed unwell. I thought she might know what was wrong, and Nan died whilst she was there. We had to have the funeral. We couldn’t wait. Everybody said how nice it was and – and there were a lot of people there. I couldn’t go because of the bairn, and …’ Her words trailed away. There really wasn’t any more she could say.

  Harry put his head in his hands. ‘No. I don’t believe it. Not Nan. Nan’s allus bin there for us.’ He fished in his pocket for a handkerchief and brought out a grey rag. He blew his nose. ‘Did you fetch ’doctor?’

  Jeannie shook her head. ‘There wasn’t time,’ she said softly. ‘It was too sudden. Mrs Norman had come to see how she was, and she stayed with Nan whilst I went to be churched.’ Harry looked at her with a question in his eyes and a frown on his forehead, and she hurried on. ‘I had to do it, Harry, otherwise it meant that I couldn’t go out to do the shopping or anything if Nan wasn’t well, and when I got back – I was only ten minutes – Nan had died and Mrs Norman was waiting to tell me.’

  She wiped away her tears and decided that she wouldn’t tell him how helpful Mike Gardiner had been, in case he took offence. But she told him that Mrs Norman had put on a funeral tea and that people she didn’t even know had come round with parcels of food for her.

  Harry sniffed. ‘I still don’t see why you had to move,’ he said. ‘Specially to a place like this. You shouldn’t have made that decision yourself. You should’ve waited for me to come home.’

  ‘It was because of the rent,’ she explained. ‘It was in arrears and I had no money to pay. Connie had been paying her board, but that wasn’t enough for the rent as well. Then there was the chance of this house,’ she rushed on. ‘And it’s less rent and quite big enough; we don’t really need a front room.’

  He sat silently, just looking into the fire. ‘You mean that Nan hadn’t been paying ’rent?’

  She nodded, and then said, ‘I think she’d been struggling, but she never said. She’d always managed before, I suppose, and didn’t like anybody else interfering with her affairs.’ Especially somebody like me, she thought.

  ‘All right,’ he muttered grudgingly. ‘I expect you did what you could. Who paid for ’funeral?’

  She swallowed. ‘Mike Gardiner. He said he would sort it out with you when you came home. I didn’t know if Nan paid into a subscription club.’ She saw the fury in his face when she mentioned Mike’s name. ‘And I knew you wouldn’t want her to have a pauper’s funeral.’

  His mouth dropped open as the possibility dawned
on him. ‘No I wouldn’t,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’d onny ever want ’best for her.’

  ‘That’s what she had, Harry, and it was because of your friends being there when they were needed. Mrs Norman, Mike Gardiner and Connie. I don’t know how I would have managed without them.’

  He got up from the chair. ‘I’ll go and see them,’ he said. ‘So Connie’s still living here, is she?’

  ‘Yes. Is that all right, Harry?’ she asked in a small pleading voice. ‘It’d be very lonely for me on my own when you’re away.’

  ‘Aye.’ He appeared to consider for a moment. ‘I expect it would. An’ she’ll be glad to stop, I expect.’ He glanced round the room and saw the familiar furniture, though it was cramped in the smaller room. ‘This’ll do for ’time being, till we get on our feet, but then I’ll decide whether we flit or not. Now then. Give us hod of ’bairn and you can cook me breakfast.’

  ‘There’s nothing to cook,’ she said. ‘No bacon or eggs, I mean. I can make you some porridge; that’s what we’ve had.’

  He stared at her, holding the child awkwardly on his knee. ‘No grub? You mean I’ve come home after being at sea all these weeks and there’s nowt to eat?’

  She shook her head. ‘There’s no money left. Not until Connie gets paid. If …’ She hardly dared ask. ‘If you’ve got your wages I’ll slip out and buy some food.’

  He stood up and handed Jack to her, then fished in his pocket and threw some money on the table.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll go and get myself a steak pie from ’Wassand.’

  ‘It’s no bother,’ she insisted. ‘I can go to the corner shop and get bacon and bread. It’ll be good to have a proper meal.’

  But he just looked at her and put his coat back on.

  ‘Harry,’ she begged. ‘Please don’t go out. I want to talk to you. I want to know how you’ve been, what sort of voyage you’ve had. And to tell you about Jack.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Well, how he’s thriving, and—’

  ‘That’s women’s stuff,’ he said abruptly. ‘Not mine.’ He pulled up his coat collar. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  IT WAS VERY cold on the Scarborough fish wharves and someone had lit a brazier for the women to warm themselves by. Most of them wore fingerless gloves as they braided but even so their finger ends became blue with cold.

  Mary was barely recognizable beneath her shawls and Josh Wharton laughed when he eventually found her.

  ‘I’ve peered into every braider’s eyes,’ he said, his mouth creased with good humour, ‘and been given a tongue-lashing for it.’

  She smiled back. ‘They wouldn’t mean it, Josh. Not with you. They all know which side their bread is buttered.’

  Josh was instrumental in bringing the women nets to mend, but that apart he was still an attractive man and many a single or widowed woman had him in their sights as a possible husband. Mary didn’t know whether or not he was aware of it, for he never showed interest in any of them, even though there was every opportunity.

  ‘You flatter me, Mary,’ he said. ‘Which is unlike you. Come on, come and take a walk. Stretch your legs and get the blood coursing through your veins.’

  She nodded. ‘I will. Just give me five minutes and I’ll meet you along the harbour side.’ Not only did she want to tie off what she was doing, but she did not want it to be too obvious that she was meeting Josh. Though she always said she was satisfied with her single life some of the women would read more into it than there was.

  She saw him standing by a soup stall which a former seaman had set up when he could no longer go out to sea. His wife made the soup and he sold it at a small profit mainly to the women braiders or the men who had just landed their catch and were ready for sustenance.

  ‘Here, Mary. This’ll warm you up.’ Josh handed her a bowl of vegetable soup, thick with potatoes and carrot.

  ‘Want some bread, missis?’ The stallholder handed her a thick slice to dip into the soup.

  They sat on the harbour wall as they ate and Mary’s nose began to run as the heat percolated through her.

  ‘Oh, that’s good.’ She sniffed. ‘It’s bitter cold this morning. But I’m glad to see you – I was meaning to catch you. I’ve had a letter from Jeannie.’ She pressed her gloved hand to her nose. ‘Harry’s grandmother has died and Jeannie’s had to move house. She said she couldn’t afford the rent and has gone to something smaller.’

  ‘She’s got a good head on her shoulders has Jeannie,’ Josh remarked. ‘She’ll manage all right, even though I know you worry about her.’

  ‘She has, but I do,’ Mary agreed. ‘She’s had a friend staying with her for company while Harry’s been away, though she says he’s home now. He’s working with a trawler company so the work is more regular. But it’ll mean he’s away for much longer at a time, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Josh looked thoughtful. ‘The steam trawlers are the ones which, in my opinion – and the owners can deny it all they like – are depleting the North Sea stocks. But they can go further afield now – they’ve got massive hauling gear and high pressure boilers, unlike the smacks. And it’s just as well, because they’ve been banned from some areas, like the Moray Firth.’

  ‘Which means what?’ Mary asked. ‘Where will they fish?’

  ‘Faroes. Ireland. Norway. As far as Iceland.’

  ‘Like the old whaling ships used to,’ she murmured.

  ‘Yes, but they relied only on sail,’ he said. ‘Now they don’t need to. And they can stay away for weeks on end.’

  He took the empty bowls back to the stallholder. ‘Shall we walk for five minutes before you go back?’ He teased his beard as he spoke, and Mary thought there was something he wanted to discuss. They walked towards the lighthouse and then turned before he said, ‘Ethan is thinking of buying shares in a paddle steamer.’

  She turned to look at him. ‘But some of the Scarborough companies have failed. Why would he do that?’

  Josh sighed. He was clearly uncertain about it. ‘He thinks it’s the only way to progress from a smack, and he can pick one up at a reasonable price because of the companies that have folded. He’s done quite well up to now. He had his smack converted to auxiliary power, as you know; if he buys a paddle steamer, then in a few years he says he’ll move on to a bigger horsepower.’

  ‘I thought the paddles were being accused of exhausting the local fishing?’

  He nodded. ‘So they are. But Ethan says that he’ll fish away from home waters.’ He shrugged. ‘He’s a single man. There’s no reason for him to stay around Scarborough. He can go to the Irish Sea and drop his catch at Milford Haven. He doesn’t have to come back here.’ He sighed again. ‘What a business to be in, eh! You lose one son to the sea, and then—’

  ‘You won’t lose him. And you’ve still got Stephen,’ Mary interrupted.

  ‘For how long?’ Josh muttered. ‘Stephen’s nine. Already he’s saying he wants to be a fisherman like Ethan, and Ethan says he’ll teach him; take him on as an apprentice, just as I did with him and Mark.’

  Gently she put her hand on his arm. ‘It’s what we have to do, Josh,’ she said softly. ‘It’s our way of life, and it isn’t as if you won’t see Ethan ever again. He’ll still come back to Scarborough.’ She frowned a little. ‘What happened to the girl he was walking out with – Pamela …’

  ‘Nothing.’ His lips turned down. ‘I think she gave up on him. She obviously realized that there’d be no wedding bells.’

  They continued walking back towards the fish wharves. The breeze was freshening; dark clouds scudded across the sky. Mary shivered. ‘I hope they’ve kept the fire alight.’

  ‘I’ll fetch some wood,’ he said. ‘But going back to Ethan – he told me that he wouldn’t be selling his first smack, but only the half share in the other one.’

  ‘Sentimental, is he?’ Mary smiled. ‘So where will he get the money for the paddle shares? A loan?’
<
br />   ‘He’s having a meeting with some of the other smack owners to find out if they’re interested in setting up a company. Then they’d all put in a share. And he asked me if I’d like to be involved.’

  Mary took in a breath. ‘Not to go to sea, Josh? Surely not!’

  He grinned. ‘I’m not too old.’

  ‘No. No, you’re not. But you said—’ She swallowed. ‘You said he’d fish away from home.’

  He grinned again, but kept his eyes on her face. ‘And would you miss me if I weren’t here?’

  She tilted her head and returned his gaze. ‘I might,’ she bantered. ‘But I was thinking more of Stephen and your daughters, and the fact that Susan is going to be married soon. Could you go away and leave them?’

  He smiled. ‘It won’t happen yet; and you know that I couldn’t. Scarborough is where I belong.’ He took her cold hand in his and gently pressed it. ‘Everyone I care about is here.’

  Mary lowered her eyes and eased her hand from his. ‘You still make a living, don’t you?’

  ‘Of sorts,’ he said. ‘And if Ethan kept the Scarborough Girl here then I’d use her and do some local fishing; enough to keep the wolf from the door. There’ll be fewer mouths to feed by then anyway.’ He continued to gaze down at her, his lips slightly parted as if considering, or waiting for her to make a comment or observation.

  ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘Soon we shall have only ourselves to think about – freedom!’ She gave a shaky laugh as she thought of Tom leaving when he married. ‘If that’s what it is! I must go,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I must get finished. It gets dark so early.’

  What? she wondered. Something else? Some unspoken question? A small frown appeared above her nose. Usually she could read Josh, but not this time. There was a hesitancy about him, an uncertainty, when he was usually so positive. Was he worried about Ethan and his possible departure? But no, this hadn’t seemed like worry over his son; it was something to do with her. It was as if he was trying to gauge her opinion, her reaction to something he wanted to tell her. Some secret, perhaps? But no, she was fairly certain she knew all there was to know about Josh; he was so open and sincere. He wasn’t taciturn, not with her. There was no mystery, of that she was certain; so what was it?