The Harbour Girl

by Val Wood

  Jeannie clung tightly to Jack. ‘I’m – thank you, I’m all right. I just heard …’ She felt as if she could hardly breathe. ‘I just heard somebody say there was a Scarborough smack missing.’

  The woman’s eyes creased sympathetically. ‘Know somebody on it, do you? There’s allus sorrow for somebody.’

  ‘Do you know the name? I’m from Scarborough, you see. I might know them.’

  ‘You’re Harry Carr’s wife, aren’t you?’ Enlightenment lit the woman’s expression. ‘My husband was a shipmate of his da years ago. He didn’t go on that last trip, thank God.’

  ‘But do you know the name of the Scarborough smack?’ Jeannie desperately tried to get the woman back on track. ‘Where were they sailing?’

  ‘Somewhere near Shetland, I heard,’ the woman said. ‘They’ve been missing all weekend.’

  Relief flooded through Jeannie. She wanted to weep. To cry as she had done when she returned home on Sunday afternoon after finishing her dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, carrots and turnip and thick onion gravy which, hungry though she was, she had to force down, so edgy and overwrought was she after seeing Ethan again.

  Jack had been asleep in her arms, and although Rosie had walked part of the way back with her they had spoken little, both lost in their own thoughts. The fire had gone out in her room and it was very cold; Jeannie had put Jack into bed and then taken off her boots, slipped out of her skirt and shawl and climbed in beside him and wept and wept.

  How, she sobbed, how could I have not seen how kind and loving he would have been? How could I have been so stupid as to have been taken in by Harry’s show of charm and superficial words of love which meant nothing, as he’s admitted?

  Her sobs racked her body but they didn’t wake Jack, who, tired out by the attentions of Dot and Rosie and a full stomach of beef gravy and mash, slept on oblivious of her anguish. Eventually she fell asleep to a restless night of dreams, waking early the next morning feeling washed out and exhausted.

  Now, after hearing the dreadful news of the missing Scarborough smack and then nearly being overwhelmed by the relief that it wasn’t Ethan’s, she left the shop and walked along the road, intent on taking her small purchases back to her room, after which she would take Jack out for a walk. The weather was cold and dreary but she would walk simply to pass the time and shorten the day, which stretched as empty and lonely as all the others.

  She thought that Harry might be home soon, but felt so apathetic towards him, knowing she could rely on him for nothing, that she hardly dared let him enter her thoughts in case her anger swamped her. Her main aim was to get through each day with enough left from her dwindling money to buy food for Jack and coal to heat the room. She herself ate little, taking only a few mouthfuls of soup. Her milk was dwindling, and she put Jack to her breast purely for comfort and not nourishment.

  ‘Jeannie! Jeannie!’

  She turned slowly. Dot Greenwood was on the other side of the road, waving frantically.

  Jeannie crossed over, her legs feeling heavy, as if they didn’t belong to her. ‘Hello,’ she murmured, and Dot looked at her questioningly.

  ‘Are you all right? You don’t look well.’

  ‘I’ve had rather a shock.’ Her voice was low, barely a whisper. ‘I heard a Scarborough smack had gone missing over the weekend, and’ – she swallowed – ‘I wondered if anyone I knew was on it.’

  ‘Ah!’ Dot’s manner was perceptive. ‘And was there?’

  Jeannie shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I see. Poor souls,’ Dot said. ‘And you thought it might be that young fellow’s ship?’

  ‘Just at first I did,’ Jeannie admitted. ‘But it wasn’t, because he left here on Sunday and the missing ship had been up to Shetland.’

  ‘A blessing for you but sorrow for somebody,’ Dot said softly. ‘Listen, Jeannie. I was just coming to see you. I’ve had an idea. I had to talk to Sam first but I knew he wouldn’t mind. He’s not at home much anyway. Will you come back home wi’ me for a bit o’ dinner?’

  Jeannie gazed at her. More food! She licked her lips; she could save the soup she had made for another day. And what was Dot’s idea? She nodded. ‘Yes, thank you. If you’re sure.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have asked you if I hadn’t wanted you to come, would I? There’ll just be us – Rosie’s at work and Sam’s gone to see ’bank manager and won’t be in till later. Shall I tek Jack for a minute?’ Dot lifted Jack from her without waiting for a reply. ‘You’re a fat lump, aren’t you?’ she told the child. ‘I’ll not be carrying you far. I know somebody who’s got a perambulator. They’ve no use for it now. I’m going to ask if they’ll sell it.’

  ‘Oh!’ Jeannie was alarmed. People like her didn’t have perambulators. ‘I couldn’t possibly afford—’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of you buying it,’ Dot said briskly. ‘I thought I’d buy it. If I’m going to look after him I can’t be expected to carry him about and he’s not yet ready for walking.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Jeannie fell into step beside her, walking back towards the Boulevard. ‘What do you mean, look after him?’

  ‘It came to me after you’d left on Sunday. I took Rosie in when she was a bairn, you know, after her ma left home. She could have gone to Nan but I knew she’d end up being ’drudge, not like Harry who could do nowt wrong in Nan’s eyes.’

  Jeannie nodded. She’d already heard this from Rosie.

  ‘Well, I enjoyed having her; she wasn’t a bad little lass, but she doesn’t need me now, and I think she’s courting though she’s keeping quiet about it.’

  Billy, Jeannie thought. At least I hope so.

  ‘So what I thought was,’ Dot went on, ‘as you need to get a job to keep ’wolf from ’door, seeing as Harry’s so unreliable, you could get a part-time job at ’smoke house or fish house or mending nets or whatever you can find, and I’d look after Jack.’

  Jeannie felt her spirits lift. She sensed she could trust Dot with Jack as she’d trust no one else except her own mother.

  ‘And don’t ask me if I’m sure,’ Dot continued, ‘cos I wouldn’t—’

  ‘Say it if you didn’t mean it,’ Jeannie finished for her. ‘I can’t believe how kind you are to offer. It would mean that I didn’t have to rely on Harry for money.’

  ‘But you’re not to refuse it if he brings any,’ Dot warned. ‘He’s got to support you and Jack, and if he’s not careful he’ll be ostracized on ’road even more than he is now.’

  ‘Oh, thank you!’ Once more Jeannie began to weep. She was so full of tears; it was as if there was a hidden spring buried deep inside her. But now she had hope. She could buy food with the money she earned and that would make her feel well again and Jack would benefit from being with someone else instead of only her and her sorrow.

  Dot disregarded her tears. ‘If I can get that pram,’ she said, using the popular name of the perambulator, ‘we can tek a walk with him, me and Minnie. ’Girl who helps me, you know,’ she added. ‘She’s from a big family; she knows about bairns. Here.’ She handed Jack back. ‘You can tek him for a bit.’

  A week later, Jeannie started work on the fish quay for three days a week. Three days, she reckoned, was probably as much as Dot could manage, for Jack needed watching constantly. Another week and he would be a year old, and Dot was planning a party for him with cake and blancmange. She had also bought him two new smocks to replace the ones that Jeannie had made out of one of her own cotton shifts. These new ones were of a warmer material and fastened with tiny buttons down the front rather than ties at the back. She had also bought him a new bonnet to protect his head if he should fall.

  ‘You can pay me back when you’re earning if you’ve a mind to,’ she told Jeannie, when she saw her hesitation over accepting the gifts. ‘Or you can regard them as birthday presents.’

  Jeannie had smiled. Dot, she was sure, was gaining as much pleasure from buying Jack presents of much needed clothing as she was from accepting
them.

  She was at home with Jack in their room on one of her days off when there was a sharp rap on the door. Jack was in his old clothing, for Jeannie kept his new for when they went out on the road or when she was taking him to Dot’s. He was sitting on the floor next to her, grizzling with the pain of his raw gums; the damp coal in the grate wouldn’t burn but would only emit black smoke, no matter how she blew on it or wafted it with her apron.

  ‘Come in,’ she called from her kneeling position, and brushing her hair out of her eyes she looked up, wondering who it might be so early. ‘The door’s open.’

  Harry. He had his sea bag over his shoulder and he stepped inside, carefully wiping his boots on the mat. ‘How do, Jeannie!’ he muttered.

  Jack started to wail on seeing him and lifted his arms to his mother. Jeannie picked him up and shushed him, murmuring reassuring words, and he hid his face on her shoulder.

  ‘I reckon he doesn’t know me,’ Harry observed.

  ‘That’s hardly surprising, is it,’ she said sharply. ‘Seeing as you’re never here.’

  ‘Can’t help that, can I?’ he retaliated. ‘I have to earn a living.’

  ‘Everybody does,’ she agreed, getting to her feet ‘But he never sees you on your trips—’ She was going to say home, but changed it to ‘ashore’.

  Harry shrugged. ‘Any chance of a cuppa tea?’

  She hardened towards him. ‘Only if you’ve brought money for me to buy some. You must have realized that what you sent last time is long spent.’

  ‘So how’ve you been managing, then, if you say I didn’t give you enough?’

  ‘Managing? I haven’t. I’ve been surviving. Living on potato soup and beef broth from bones I begged from the butcher!’

  Harry gazed at her. ‘You’ve changed, Jeannie,’ he said. ‘You’re not ’girl I once knew. You seem to have grown bitter.’

  Jeannie’s mouth dropped. ‘You’ve not the slightest idea, have you?’ she said incredulously. ‘You haven’t given any thought to how I’d cope without money for rent or food, let alone clothes for Jack or boots for my feet. Would you have let us starve? Did you know that I miscarried our child? Our child, Harry. I might have died but for Rosie coming and finding me and fetching help.’

  ‘Oh, Rosie,’ he sneered. ‘She’s your best friend now, is she?’

  ‘Well, it was Connie,’ she answered quietly. ‘But not any more.’

  He blew out his lips. ‘I thought I was doing right by coming, but it seems that I’m not so I’ll go.’

  He half turned towards the door and Jeannie was seized by panic that he’d leave without giving her any money. Should she beg for her rightful dues? But he must have had second thoughts for he turned back, digging in his pocket to put money on the table.

  ‘Did you remember that it’s Jack’s birthday this week?’ she asked quietly. ‘His first.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ he muttered. ‘Course it is.’ He put his hand back in his pocket and brought out more coins. ‘Better tek a bit more then, although I don’t suppose he knows it’s his birthday.’

  ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘He doesn’t. But I do.’

  He nodded and turned for the door again. ‘This is onny a forty-two-hour trip home, then another short trip away. I’ll be back afore Christmas.’

  ‘Would you like that cup of tea?’ she asked, relenting.

  Harry paused as if weighing up his options. ‘Mm, mebbe not, thanks. I’d better get off.’

  Jeannie didn’t ask him where he was getting off to for she knew very well in which direction he would be going; but he hesitated with his hand on the sneck.

  ‘I’ll come by next time, Jeannie. I’ll fetch more money. I’ll not leave you short again.’ He looked her straight in the eye. ‘I’ll try and sort my life out. I’m sorry. Sorry that it’s turned out like this. I never meant this to happen.’

  She swallowed hard. She felt such sorrow, such misery, yet knew that there was no turning back for either of them. There was no love between them, nor would there ever be, not now, and although she retained some affection for the appealing, artless side of his nature, she knew they could never have a life together. And they were tied together for life.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  THE SNOW CAME down thick and fast and as Jeannie trudged towards the Boulevard with Jack in her arms she was glad that he would soon be safe and warm in Dot’s house. She would be very cold as she gutted and filleted on the fish quay, even though she was wrapped in all the clothes and shawls she possessed; she wore thick woollen socks inside her rubber boots and fingerless multicoloured gloves she had knitted from scraps of wool. On her head she wore the hooded woollen shawl like the ones the Scottish herring girls wore that her mother had knitted for her when she first started work on Scarborough quay.

  For Jack’s birthday, Dot, as she’d promised, bought him the second-hand perambulator. He loved it, and jiggled and rocked it with squeals of delight.

  Jeannie had proved herself fast and slick at gutting and boxing up and was given a slight rise in wages; the foreman asked if she would come in for the other three days a week. She had to refuse; she dare not infringe on Dot’s generosity too much, knowing how much of a handful Jack was now that he had started walking, taking his first proper steps on his birthday. She was managing reasonably well, and paid Mrs Herbert her rent before spending any money on food or coal, and although there was little left at the end of the week she felt a sense of satisfaction that she was coping.

  ‘You’ll come to us at Christmas, won’t you?’ Dot asked her one evening when she had gone to collect Jack after work. ‘Sam likes a house full of folk for Christmas dinner. We have a tree as well, wi’ candles and decorations.’

  Jeannie’s mother had never had a Christmas tree, saying that there was never enough money to pay for such luxuries. But Jeannie, Tom and their mother had always enjoyed Christmas, although there was no money for anything but simple presents, perhaps a knitted scarf or a hemmed handkerchief. Mary cooked a small chicken, its cavity stuffed with onion and sage, but her speciality was the cloutie dumpling her Scottish mother had always cooked at Christmas. It was made with flour and suet and packed with fruit, sugar and spice, wrapped in a cloth and boiled for two hours, and served with hot custard.

  When Dot had invited her, Jeannie wondered if she could contribute by making the dumpling; she’d never made one but had often helped her mother to stir.

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Dot said when she asked her. ‘But I’ll buy the ingredients. I don’t want you to be out of pocket. I’ll put the order in at the grocer’s.’

  Jeannie gratefully submitted. Buying the ingredients herself would have taken her last penny.

  ‘Should I ask Harry, do you think?’ Dot went on. ‘Or will he be eating elsewhere?’

  Jeannie shook her head. She didn’t know. He would be home in time, she knew that, but would he prefer to spend the day with Connie?

  ‘I’m going to ask Auntie Dot if she’ll invite Billy,’ Rosie whispered to Jeannie one day. ‘His mother allus has plenty of company and won’t miss him.’ She seemed pent up with eagerness and nervous excitement.

  ‘They’ll know it’s serious if you do,’ Jeannie told her. ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I do. Uncle Sam’s allus saying I should marry somebody in business. They know Billy but’ve never expressed an opinion about him. I don’t know if they like him or not.’

  Jeannie smiled. ‘You’re old enough to do what you want,’ she said. ‘Billy doesn’t have to ask permission.’

  Rosie gave a little shrug. ‘He doesn’t say much,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know if he wants to marry me at all.’

  ‘Maybe he’s not sure about you,’ Jeannie commented. ‘You sent him packing once, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeh,’ Rosie sighed. ‘That’s cos I was jealous.’

  At night when she returned home it was bitterly cold and Jeannie hugged Jack close to her. Dot hadn’t said she could use the pram fo
r the journeys back and forth between the two houses and she hadn’t asked, thinking that perhaps Dot wanted to keep it at her place for her own convenience.

  The shops along the road were brightly lit and there was nothing that couldn’t be bought or sold there. Grocer, butcher, draper, tailor and pawnbroker were all open for business, hoping to catch the fishing community, the railway workers, the tram drivers and the mill workers on their way home. The pubs, clubs and institutes were throbbing with customers and Jeannie heard the hum of conversation and an occasional shout of merriment as she passed by their open doors.

  Dot had pressed her to stay the night or at least leave Jack as the weather was so bad, but Jeannie didn’t want to, although she felt it was kind of Dot to suggest it. Her greatest and only pleasure was to have Jack with her, to feel his warm little body curled next to hers, to see his cheeky smile when he explored her mouth with his fingers or pulled on her hair. She loved him more than life itself and knew with an absolute certainty that he loved her.

  If there were times when she had fleeting thoughts of Ethan, she didn’t admit them even to herself. They had no future together, not now that she had made such a terrible mistake. An error that would last for ever, for while it was possible that Ethan might one day make a life with someone else she was tied to Harry whether or not he lived with her. Emptiness, bare and desolate, stretched before her, and although her circumstances had improved since she had found work she could see nothing but hardship and struggle ahead, lonely and alone.

  ‘I want to ask you something, Mary.’

  On a Sunday morning in Scarborough Josh had come to Mary’s door and been invited in. She was wearing a white apron which came to her ankles and her thick hair was tucked beneath a bonnet. On the table was a large mixing bowl, a bag of flour, a bowl containing dried fruit, a lump of suet and a grater. A pan was simmering on the fire, its lid rattling.

  He wrinkled his nose. ‘What are you making? Christmas pudding?’

  ‘Cloutie dumpling.’ She smiled. ‘My mother’s recipe. It’s something like Christmas pudding. I’m cooking one now to try and preparing another for Christmas morning. You can have a taste when it’s ready, if you like.’ She busied herself about the table, wondering what he was going to ask that was so important that it couldn’t wait for when they next met. ‘Will you be going to Susan’s for Christmas?’