‘It ain’t manly?’ Now it was Katie who was losing her grasp of what they were meant to be arguing about. ‘What d’yer think he should do? Stick her in a home because his old woman’s dead?’
Pat didn’t answer. He walked over to the sink, turned on the tap and, without even bothering to take off his cap, he ducked his head under the stream of cold water.
Katie went to stand behind him. Pointing her finger at his back she yelled, ‘Tell yer what, I admire the way he’s managing, whether you think it’s manly or not. And I dunno how you can have the cheek to even talk about whether I should be helping someone. You’re the one who fetches home every passing waif and stray, just ’cos yer’ve heard some hard luck story off ’em. I’ve had more hungry strangers sitting down at that table over the years than I could count on the fingers of both me hands. And, as for looking after kids, how about the way you’ve always helped me look after our’n?’
Pat was beside himself. He ripped his soaking wet cap from his head and dashed it to the floor, then he snatched up the little jug of daisies that Katie had put on the window ledge over the sink and threw it as hard as he could across the room. It smashed into the drawer of the painted dresser, sending pieces of jug, flowers and water flying everywhere.
‘Don’t you understand nothing?’ he bellowed, twisting round to face her. Grabbing her by the tops of her arms, in a grip that burnt her flesh, he shook her as if she were a rag doll. ‘He’s a man, Katie. And you, you’re a woman.’
Jerking her head up, Katie looked him in the eyes and said very slowly and deliberately, ‘Take your hands off me, Pat. Now.’
He whipped his hands away from her, and held his tightly clenched fists stiffly by his sides. From the murderous look on her husband’s face, it would have been understandable if Katie had backed out of the room, made off hell for leather down the passage, and then run into the street screeching for help. But that wasn’t Katie Mehan’s way.
Instead, she stood there, slowly looking her husband up and down. ‘I’m not putting up with this, Pat Mehan,’ she said. ‘I love yer, yer know that, and yer should never doubt it. But I’m telling yer this for nothing, I ain’t having this performance no more. This is yer last chance. Yer very last chance. I know yer’ve got a lot on yer mind over work, but that ain’t no excuse. If yer don’t do something about this jealousy, I mean it, Pat, it’ll be the end of us. I’ll leave yer. ’Cos I ain’t gonna wind up a punchbag like yer mum did. Even Father Hopkins himself couldn’t stop me.’
The tension in Pat’s face crumbled away as he slumped back down into his chair and crashed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands. His big labourer’s shoulders began to shake. ‘I’m sorry, Kate. I’m sorry. I’d never hurt you, I swear.’ His words came in short bursts as though he couldn’t catch his breath. ‘Yer know what I get like. And, with everything else being the way it is, I just can’t help meself. I don’t mean to . . .’
With an exhausted sigh, Katie walked over to the table, sat down beside her husband and reached her arm around him. Pat turned to her and buried his face in her shoulder. As he wept noisily into her blouse, Katie patted his back and rocked him as though he were a huge overgrown child.
‘We’ll have to sort something out, Pat,’ she said, as much for her own benefit as his. ‘Yer do see that, don’t yer? This can’t go on.’
Pat lifted his face to look at her. His eyes were red and watery. ‘I know.’
Katie tried to smile. ‘Yer a great daft ’apporth. Come here.’ She brushed his hair away from his forehead and frowned at the deep blue bruise, wondering for a moment who he had been fighting and if it was anything to do with Frank Barber, but he looked so pathetic, she couldn’t bring herself to challenge him – not for the moment, anyway. She took his face in her hands and gently touched her lips to his.
With a careworn sigh of relief, Pat folded his arms round her, pulled her close and kissed her on the mouth.
Desire overcoming his anger, he stood up and took her by the hand. ‘Coming to bed?’ he asked her, his voice low and gruff.
Katie pulled away. ‘Not just now.’
His face hardened again. ‘Are you refusing me?’
‘No, Pat, I ain’t. And, if yer’d have given me a chance before yer jumped down me throat, yer’d know that I was gonna say I’ll wait down here for Molly, Danny and Sean to come home, before I come up. But you, of course, have to jump in with both feet. And, if yer think we can sort this out by just falling into bed together, then I don’t reckon yer thinking straight. Don’t you realise that’s the last thing I feel like?’
‘What, got yer mind on someone else, have yer?’
‘Do you really think that, Pat? D’you really think I’d even dream of looking at someone else?’
‘When yer acting like this, why shouldn’t I?’
Katie’s mouth fell open; she genuinely didn’t know what to say.
But then neither did Pat.
They had rowed over his jealousy plenty of times before, but it had always been Pat complaining that she didn’t realise how her good looks and her friendliness could give men the wrong impression if she wasn’t careful; he had never gone as far as accusing her of actually being interested in someone else.
After what seemed like an eternity of silence with the two of them staring at one another, Pat stormed out of the kitchen, along the passage and stood, panting at the bottom of the staircase. Michael and Timmy were sitting halfway up the stairs, stuffing themselves with greasy chips and pieces of vinegar-soaked crackling from a cone of newspaper.
Timmy smiled at him. ‘Wanna chip, Dad?’
‘Get into your nanna’s. Go on. Now!’ Pat bawled at the top of his voice as he shoved his sons out of the way, and took the stairs two at a time.
The boys didn’t need telling twice. They launched themselves off their backsides, scarpered out into the street and dived into the safety of their nanna’s house before their mother had a chance to come after them as well.
But the whereabouts of her two youngest sons was, unusually, the last thing on Katie’s mind that evening, as she sat at the kitchen table, listening to Pat crashing about above her head.
When he had quietened down and all she could hear was the occasional creak of springs from the bedstead, she got up and filled the kettle. The evening was still warm and, with all the bad feeling, the kitchen felt like it was closing in on her, but she couldn’t face sitting out in the street with her mum, not knowing that all the neighbours must have heard every shaming word of what had just gone on. So, after she had made herself a pot of tea, Katie unlatched the back door and propped it open with the chalk model of a Scottie dog that Sean had so proudly presented to her after winning it on the hoopla at the Blackheath fair last August Bank Holiday.
He had always been such a good kid, she thought to herself, as she dragged one of the kitchen chairs out into the little yard. She just didn’t know what had got into him lately. All she wanted was for her kids to be happy, but as much as she hated to agree with the snipe-nosed old harridan from round Upper North Street, Sean was getting himself a reputation – but only for being a bit sullen and having a bit too much lip at times, she was sure. He wasn’t a bad kid, not deep down. She wouldn’t have anyone say that about him.
She sat there smoking and drinking tea, looking up at the cloudy night sky, wondering when her three oldest children would eventually get themselves home. According to the clock on the mantelpiece, it was getting on for a quarter past ten and she had told them not to be in too late because of Mass in the morning. She tried to convince herself that she had nothing to worry about, that Molly and Danny were old enough to make sure the three of them got in at a decent hour, but it was no good. She had to admit things weren’t as wonderful as she had tried to kid herself. Fretting about what Sean was up to wasn’t the half of it; what was on her mind more and more nowadays was being short of money, not knowing whether she could make ends meet and panicking if one of the littl
e ones grew out of yet another pair of boots before his older brother was ready to pass his down.
As she drained the first cup of tea from the potful she had made, and went in to get a refill, Katie stared down at the worn patch of lino in the kitchen doorway. She had scrubbed it so often that there was practically no pattern left; but she knew it was no good even thinking about buying any more. She’d just have to carry on keeping clean the raggy bit that she already had.
She stirred a spoon of sugar into her cup.
Women’s work, she thought to herself, they say it’s never done. Well, whoever they were, they had got it just about right as far as she was concerned. Cup in hand, Katie examined herself in the sparkling glass of the overmantel. Thirty-seven years old. She supposed she didn’t look that bad for her age, not too bad at all, considering, but the lines were beginning to show, and the red hair that had always been her glory was definitely starting the gradual sad fading away to what she knew would one day be like her mother’s now dull auburn, a colour that always made Katie think of a red lampshade with its bulb turned out.
She tipped her head to one side and examined her profile. Her chin was still firm and her skin as clear as someone’s ten years younger might be, but, whatever she looked like, tonight Katie Mehan felt like an old woman.
She raised her eyes to the ceiling, imagining her husband lying there, his arms flung above his head as usual, his handsome face dark against the snowy white cotton of the pillow slip. He was a good-looking man all right, she thought. And, while her looks might be on their way to getting past their prime, he was getting more beautiful every day; if anyone should be jealous . . . She checked herself, that wasn’t a sensible way to start thinking; but no one ever said that life made any sense, or that it was fair.
Settling herself back down on her chair in the back yard, Katie wondered what her mother had looked like when she was younger. Katie could only remember her as looking almost the way she did now, and she was, what, in her late fifties? She was still a fine woman, there was no denying that, but some women of that age, or rather ladies, Katie corrected herself, the ones she saw in the papers and on the newsreels, those with their fur coats and their shiny earrings, and, servants to run around after their every whim, they looked years younger than Nora, almost as young as Katie, in fact. But then they never had the worries that the likes of her or her mother had had to contend with lately.
As she sipped her tea from the thick-rimmed china cup, Katie found it hard not to wonder what her life would have been like if she had been born to money, privilege and ease, instead of to the stress and the work that made up every minute of every day of her life recently.
She hated letting herself think that way – it wasn’t like her to be self-pitying, she had always been such a contented woman, happy with her life and her family. But just for a moment she wondered, crossing herself hurriedly and flicking her eyes heavenward for forgiveness as soon as she had, what her life might have been like had she stayed single, and not had a husband or kids to drive her to distraction.
4
AFTER THE FEW hours of sleep she finally managed to snatch, Katie Mehan could barely rouse herself when the alarm went off at nine o’clock the next morning. She reached out from under the covers and groped around before finding the button on top of the offending clock and gave it a good solid smack to shut it up.
She flopped back on to the bolster and groaned: Sunday morning. Why didn’t she just turn over and go back to sleep? No, she argued with herself, she had always gone to eleven o’clock Mass in the past and there was no good reason for her doing otherwise today. A late night spent rowing first with her husband and then with the three supposedly most grown-up of her five children for getting in late wasn’t any excuse.
Anyway, in not much more than an hour’s time, her mum would be standing on the street doorstep all ready and eager to get off to church, not only to worship but also to catch up on the chat and news with all her friends in the neighbourhood. And then there were Katie’s two youngest – they’d be standing there with their nanna, all scrubbed and polished ready to face their mother’s neck and ear inspection. And, of course, there were Molly, Danny and Sean; after her stern words to those three last night, they would be sure to be ready soon after the little ones, if not before. And even if it weren’t for all of them, there would be Father Hopkins expecting her . . .
This time Katie groaned more loudly. Everyone expected so much of her; sometimes it made her feel worn out just thinking about all the responsibilities that people seemed so keen to heap upon her, never once asking whether she could do with a bit of a rest herself. Not that she would want to sit about doing nothing, but a bit of consideration would be nice now and again. She sighed, wondering how it had ever come to this. It wasn’t five minutes ago that she was a young woman, now here she was, thirty-seven years old and feeling more like a hundred and seven.
Still half asleep beside her, Pat moaned softly and slung an arm out over his head. ‘What time is it?’ he murmured.
‘It’s nine o’clock,’ Katie answered stiffly. ‘I’ll make us some tea.’
Pat rolled over on to his stomach and threw his arm across her. ‘Don’t get up yet, Kate,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘How about a little cuddle first?’
Katie pulled away from him and the smell of stale beer that soured his breath. ‘There’s no time for that,’ she said, turning her back on him and throwing off the covers.
Pat rolled on to his side and moodily dragged the sheet up over his shoulders.
Katie could feel the tension building between them again. ‘I’ll go and make that tea,’ she said. ‘And boil some water for yer wash and shave.’
As she swung her legs on to the now threadbare rug that she and Pat had been so proud of making together when they were first courting, Pat circled his arms around her waist and held her back. ‘Please, Kate,’ he whispered urgently, ‘not yet.’ He buried his head in the back of her hair. ‘Yer waist’s as tiny as it was when yer was a young girl.’ He nuzzled into her neck. ‘I love yer, Katie.’
Katie twisted round and kissed him on the top of his head. ‘Yer soft, you are.’
Pat pulled her down on top of him. ‘I didn’t mean to upset yer yesterday, yer know.’ He was looking up at her, his pupils so wide that his already dark eyes looked black.
Katie smiled down at him, her expression gentle and loving, hiding her troubled thoughts. Last night had scared her. Usually the kids being a bit late wouldn’t have mattered that much – she’d have given them a good tongue-lashing, they’d have behaved like angels for a few days, and it all would have been forgotten. But things were different last night. The kids were getting wilful, less easy to control; and what with Pat’s outburst . . .
Katie, always so strong and capable, hated to admit it, but last night she had actually begun to feel sorry for herself and that made her panicky, scared, as though she were no longer in control of things. Maybe it was just being short of money that was getting to her, like it was getting to everyone lately. But no, it was something else, much as she tried to deny it, even to herself.
Still outwardly smiling, Katie smoothed her husband’s hair back from his forehead. ‘Look, Pat, I wanna say I’m sorry and all, about what happened between us last night. But we’re both tired out and what with yer work being the way it is, and the kids playing up like they was two-year-olds . . .’ Katie paused, she didn’t know quite how to say it but she knew she had to, it couldn’t be avoided any longer, the one thing that, if she were to have any peace of mind, she had to get off her chest.
Seeing the concern in her face Pat pushed himself up on his elbows and gently stroked her face. ‘What is it? Tell me, love, what’s up?’
Katie let out a long slow breath. ‘Yer see,’ she began.
What? Has someone said something to yer, or done something to one of the kids? Katie, tell me.’
Katie shook her head. ‘No, it’s nothing like that, Pat.’ It was now or
never. ‘Look, I know it shouldn’t be on me mind all the time, Pat, but when I wouldn’t, you know, come upstairs with yer last night—’
‘Katie?’
She closed her eyes and said it: ‘Pat, I’m still young enough to get in the family way again and I don’t reckon that’d be such a good idea at the minute.’
‘Would it be such a terrible thing if yer was to have another child with me?’
Katie threw up her hands in exasperation. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have said nothing. I knew it. Now it’s come out all wrong.’ She rubbed her face with her hands. ‘Yer know I didn’t mean it like that, Pat.’
‘Do I?’ Pat dropped back on to the pillows and threw his arm across his face.
‘It’s knowing we wouldn’t be able to afford—’
‘Don’t bother with no tea for me,’ he interrupted her loudly. ‘I ain’t gonna go to Mass. I’m going back to sleep.’
‘Can’t we try and talk to each other without rowing, Pat? Please?’
He ignored her.
‘Pat,’ Katie was pleading with him, ‘can’t yer see? This is where it’s all going wrong. We’ve gotta talk. But what with everything else on our plates we’ve just stopped having time for each other.’
Pat sat up with such force that Katie backed away. ‘No time for each other? Yer having a joke, ain’t yer? Every time I try and get near yer, yer just make another stupid excuse.’
‘Forget it,’ shouted Katie, and stomped off downstairs to make herself some tea.
Katie ducked down to check her hat in the dressing-table mirror. As she adjusted the pin, sticking it more firmly through her thick wavy hair, she caught Pat’s reflection in the glass as he lay there, still as a slab of marble. Pulling on her cotton summer gloves, Katie sat down on the edge of the bed and leant forward to kiss her husband on the cheek. But Pat pulled roughly away from her.
‘There’s a cup o’ tea for yer there on the side,’ she said, determined not to let Pat hear she was upset. ‘Make sure yer drink it before it gets cold. I’ll be back straight after Mass to see to the dinner. The veg is all peeled ready and the meat’s in on a low light so yer’ll have nothing to complain about there, will yer?’ She stood up. ‘I’ll see yer later on.’
Just Around the Corner Page 7
