Kate Hannigan

by Catherine Cookson

Rodney nodded to him, and Davidson came round the foot of the bed to the wash-hand stand. ‘Afraid it’s going to be a bit of a job; I think it advisable to give her a whiff.’ He handed Davidson a bottle and a pad of cotton wool. Davidson nodded and walked back to the bed.

  ‘Two old boys nearly eighty and their sister about seventy, and only eight rooms. When they told me today their girl was leaving I thought of you right away, Kate; and it’s a lovely little house, down Westoe. If you go there you’ll be set up. Now just breathe steadily, Kate. That’s it, th…at’s it. Now we are all set,’ he addressed Rodney. ‘That’ll have eased her mind a bit; the main part of their worry is to get into a good place. Poor little beggar! She’s only a child herself.’

  ‘Do you know her?’ asked Rodney, pulling the prostrate form into position.

  ‘Yes. Watched her grow up. Everybody knows Kate Hannigan; she was too beautiful to miss. By! she was a lovely kiddy. It always struck me as odd how old Tim Hannigan could have a child like her. I didn’t know she had got into this mess until yesterday; it surprised me. Somehow she always appeared different; quiet, a little aloof, as if she didn’t quite belong around these quarters. Didn’t run round with the lads, either; kept them at their distance. And if she hadn’t, old Tim would have…And now this. Poor Kate!’

  Doctor Davidson gently lifted one of the long, nut-brown plaits off Kate’s face with his free hand, while with the other he felt her pulse. ‘Not as strong as it should be,’ he muttered. ‘How is it to time? Was it due?’

  ‘Yes, as far as I can gather. But I couldn’t get much out of her,’ said Rodney. ‘She didn’t come home until the day before yesterday. She had been working in some lodging house in Newcastle; the mother thought she was still in service. She hasn’t been home for months, having made one excuse after another. Then she turns up like this. Knowing that beast downstairs, you can’t wonder at her being terrified to come home; but I should have thought the workhouse would have been preferable to facing him. Yet she seems to have a horror of it.’

  The smile disappeared from Doctor Davidson’s face as he asked, ‘You don’t know much about the workhouse, do you?’

  But Rodney didn’t answer, he had started upon his job. His hands moved swiftly; he braced himself and pulled, gently pressing…easing…He worked for some minutes, and Davidson, who watched his every move, thought: Good hands, no quivers there. Yet he’s as strung up and as taut as a bow. Wonder what brought him this way…funny fellow. Why did he take old Kelly’s place when Anderson’s was going up Westoe end? Could have had a couple of titles on his books there. But still, apparently it isn’t money he wants; old windbag Richards says he’s got at least two thousand a year private income…Whew! Two thousand a year!…Davidson had a vision of a bright shining clinic, fitted with the latest appliances…Wonder what he does want; he’s certainly not the welfare type. Whatever his aim, I bet it doesn’t meet with his lady-wife’s…

  ‘No use,’ said Rodney, raising his eyes to Davidson; ‘it’s wedged…I’ll have to cut.’ He nodded towards his case.

  Davidson handed him an instrument. There was a sharp, snip, snip, a quick dabbing of spirits, and his hands were once more pulling, easing, pressing. He was no longer cold; beads of sweat ran down his forehead, falling from his brow onto his hands. His chin was drawn in, his beard lying like an arrow on his shirt front…A little more, a little more, he encouraged himself…Ah, the head!…Now then…now then…easy, but make it quick. She can’t stand much more; Davidson is anxious about that pulse…There, there…a little more…Oh, hell! don’t say it’s going to be obstinate now!

  Pulling, easing, pressing, it went on. The sweat was running into his eyes now and his shirt was no longer white.

  Davidson’s expression became pitying…Poor Kate! It was practically up. Still, this fellow was good; if she were paying hundreds she wouldn’t have had anyone better…But these things happened…

  ‘A…ah!’ It was an exclamation of triumph as much as relief. Rodney slowly withdrew the red body covered with silvery slime. For a second it lay across both his hands, a girl child - to be named Annie Hannigan, and who was to help make and to almost mar his career.

  2

  The Kitchen

  The kitchen was bright and gleaming. From the open fireplace the coal glowed a deeper red in contrast with the shining blackleaded hob, with the oven to its right and the nook for pans to its left. It sent down its glow onto the steel-topped and brassrailed fender, where its reflections appeared like delicate rose clouds seen through a silver curtain. The fire glinted on the mahogany legs of the kitchen-table and on the cups spread on the white, patched cloth. It shed its glow over the red wood of the chiffonier standing against the wall opposite, and over the brass-knobbed handle of the staircase door. The hard, wood saddle, standing along the wall to the left of the fire-place, took on an innocent deception from the glow; its flock-stuffed cushions looked soft and inviting. Even the sneck of the door that led to the front room had glints of white along its black handle. But it was to the window that the fire lent its most enchanting grace. With its six red earthenware pots of coloured hyacinths, and framed in the dolly-tinted lace curtains, starched to a stiffness which kept their folds in perpetual billows, it looked like a startling, bright painting. Never had that window-sill upheld such beauty.

  Hyacinths at any time of the year were things one just dreamed of. But at Christmas! and in her kitchen! they made Sarah Hannigan feel that life was changing, that it was becoming easier, and that before she was really old she would know peace…she didn’t ask for happiness, just peace. And she asked herself, as she looked out over the bulbs to the tiny backyard and to the backs of the houses opposite, hadn’t she had more peace this last year than she had had for the previous seventeen years…

  She had thought life would become unbearable when Kate had come home like that last Christmas. And it was unbearable for nearly a month after Annie was born. But when Kate got that place in Westoe things had seemed to change. It wasn’t only that Kate gave her four-and-six a week out of her five shillings and God alone knew what a difference that had made - it was that things had seemed to happen to keep Tim off her, that his eighteen years’ persecution of her was easing at last.

  First, the baby had been fretful, and for most of the winter she had had to keep it downstairs in the warmth of the kitchen. So she had slept, thankfully, on the saddle. Then she had been covered with that rash, and the smell of the ointment the doctor had given her had been nauseating to Tim. He had sworn and raged, and she had thankfully left the feather bed and her husband’s side for the hard comfort of the saddle again. But a rash doesn’t last for ever, although she had lengthened its stay by weeks, until he had begun to get suspicious. When she had returned to the feather bed the old nightmare began again. Sometimes she would wait a week, or even two, until, blind with rage at his own impotence and the caducity of his passion, he would repeat the old cry, ‘She isn’t mine! Tell me, or I’ll throttle it out of you. Is she? Is she? She’s the artist’s bastard, isn’t she? Tell me!’

  Sarah knew that it was only the fear of hell as painted so realistically by Father O’Malley that had saved her life on more than one occasion. Three times, when Kate was but a few months old, she had flown with her into Mrs Mullen’s, next door. Things like that soon got around the fifteen streets, and one day Father O’Malley came and had a talk with Tim up in the bedroom, and an equally long talk with her down in the kitchen. The result, in her case, had been that she never went to confession again without a dire feeling of guilt, whereas, up till then, her great sin, as it would be called, had been something between God and her alone. She could not put it into words, for the result of it was the brightness of her life. But Father O’Malley’s probing had reached her very soul, only some instinct, not yet beaten into submission, warning her to risk hell’s flames rather than entrust it to any human, even though he be an agent of the Almighty.

  The effect on Tim was to make him attend mass reg
ularly, even Benediction on a Thursday night. He could get sodden drunk on a Saturday and beat her up, but he’d go to mass on the Sunday. There were worse things than having your eyes blacked and being kicked around the room, as Sarah knew; and when he was drunk, strange as it may seem, he made no futile demands on her.

  So, taking things all in all, she didn’t mind him getting drunk as long as she could get the money out of him beforehand for the rent. And he usually let her have that; for she knew he had the fear of being turned out on to the street and of having to go to the workhouse. To provide their food she could always do a couple of days cleaning or washing. She had managed somehow up till last year. But then things in the docks became worse; sometimes he would only get one shift in in a week. When he returned from his twelve-hour shift, his moleskins red and wet up to the thighs, she had it in her heart then to feel sorry for him…unloading iron ore all day, and only bone broth, thickened with pot stuff, to set before him. And the three-and-six he got for the shift to go for the rent, not even twopence for baccy, let alone a pint. With Kate’s four-and-six a week and what she could pawn they had existed. They hadn’t yet gone on the parish, for they both knew that, before they could get a penny, they’d be told to sell the chiffonier, the saddle and the spare iron bed upstairs that was kept for Kate.

  Her mind wandered back and forth over the past, as she stared out into the dark day. Eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve, and you really needed a light, the sky was so low and heavy. Christmas had always brought trouble; she had never known a happy one, and you always seemed to remember your troubles more at Christmas. She and Tim had been married in Christmas week. She couldn’t remember why she had married Tim; perhaps because he was big and quiet. And she had taken his quietness for kindness…never had she been so mistaken. Or perhaps because she had wanted to get away from Mrs Marris’s, where she worked for sixteen hours a day for seven days a week for the sum total of half a crown. She hadn’t known Tim very well when she had married him; it was difficult to get to know a man when you had only half a day off a month. She was then eighteen and Tim twenty-seven. Now she was forty-two and he was fifty-one; and of all her life she’d had only three months happiness…stolen moments of ecstasy and terror; but no-one could take them from her…no-one. She’d kept them for over eighteen years; she’d manage to keep them till she died…And now things were changing, she could feel the change. It wasn’t that Tim had been a prisoner upstairs for six weeks, or that there was a baby in the house; it was rather a premonition…

  She’d better mash some tea and take him up a cup. And she’d ask Maggie in for one; they’d be quiet, he wouldn’t hear. She turned from the window and put the black kettle onto the centre of the red fire. Then, with a preliminary rattle of bars to cover her signal, she gave two sharp taps on the back of the grate. After a short pause it was answered by a dull thud. Sarah put the poker down and went to the cupboard at the right-hand side of the fire-place and took from one of its scalloped-edged newspaper-covered shelves the brown teapot. After placing it on the hob, she went quietly through the front-room and gently opened the door, leaving it ajar. She returned to the kitchen and, drawing up the wooden chair near to the clothes-basket at the side of the hearth, she sat smiling wanly down on the sleeping baby lying therein. Presently her gaze wandered around the kitchen. It was all beautifully clean for Kate’s coming. Any minute now Kate would come in, and for a whole week she’d be here with her in the kitchen…No Tim; just her and Kate and the baby. Her hands, as they lay one on the other in the lap of her white apron, relaxed, her body relaxed, and she slumped, staring unseeing at Tim’s armchair on the other side of the hearth. Never had she known such a Christmas Eve; there was nothing to dread.

  Sarah started slightly when a little dumpy woman with grey hair and twinkling eyes stepped noiselessly into the kitchen from the front-room. Mrs Mullen came to the improvised cradle and nodded, smiling down on the baby.

  ‘By! she’s lovely, Sarah,’ she whispered. ‘How’s he?’ She jerked her head sharply towards the ceiling.

  ‘He’s just the same. I’m expecting doctor today,’ Sarah whispered back. ‘Sit down, Maggie.’

  Mrs Mullen, making a wry face, refused the proffered arm-chair and pulled up a small cracket to the fire. ‘This’ll do me; I mustn’t stay long. I’ve just sent the whole bang lot of them out to draw their Christmas clubs. They’ve got twenty-five shillings on their cards between the six of them; God knows what they’ll buy. But I say, let them buy what they like, they’re only young once. But it’ll be hell let loose when they bring all their ket back; so I won’t stay long, Sarah, for we’ll have him’ - she nodded again to the ceiling - ‘banging on the wall and cursing like old Harry.’

  ‘The kettle’s boiling, I’ll mash the tea now,’ said Sarah. ‘Tell me, what are you putting in their stockings?’

  ‘Oh, all kinds. Mick’s had a few good weeks. And the things he’s bought! You’d never believe. Come in the night, when we’re filling them, and see. By! you’re all done,’ she said, looking around the room. ‘And don’t your window-sill look grand! I’ve never seen owt like them flowers; they weren’t in bloom when I was in last.’

  Going to the window, Sarah lifted two pots. ‘I want you to have these for a Christmas-box, Maggie. I can’t give you anything else, but I’d like you to have these.’

  ‘No, lass. No. Kate brought them for you.’

  ‘Sh!’ said Sarah warningly. ‘Take them, Maggie; they’re so little for all the kindness you’ve shown me.’

  ‘Well, thanks, Sarah…I do like a flower. By! they’re grand.’

  ‘I’ll take this up first,’ said Sarah, filling a pint pot with tea, and adding four heaped teaspoons of sugar. She disappeared up the dark stairs, leaving Maggie Mullen sitting on the cracket comparing the seeming spaciousness around her with her own cramped quarters next door. Ten of them in four box-like rooms, and two of the eight children nearly young men; it was such a crush. But still, please God, give her her lot any day before Sarah’s, with her four rooms for two people and a baby. By God, yes; any day!

  Sarah re-entered the kitchen, closing the stair door softly behind her. She poured out two cups of black tea and handed one to Mrs Mullen.

  ‘Thanks, Sarah,’ said Maggie. ‘By the way, did you hear Big Dixon’s got her other one?’

  ‘No! When?’

  ‘Eleven o’clock last night. Another boy. That’s the sixth; she’ll be all right for money later on. By! The place won’t hold her when they all start working; you can’t keep her down now since she’s got her Mary in place at the doctor’s. Do you know she bought a gramophone only last week?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes, with a horn on it the size of a poss tub; you’d think she’d have plenty noise with six wee’ns round her, wouldn’t you, now?’

  ‘Who has she got looking after her?’

  ‘Oh, Dorrie Clarke, of course! She can’t afford a gramophone and Nurse Snell!’

  Here the two women chuckled and sipped their tea.

  ‘Very few people are having Dorrie Clarke now,’ continued Mrs Mullen. ‘Can you blame them? She reeks of gin. And how she has the nerve to go to the altar rails every Sunday morning, God alone knows - and He won’t split!’

  ‘Oh,’ whispered Sarah, ‘don’t make me laugh, Maggie.’

  ‘Laugh!’ said Maggie; ‘I wish I could. I’d like to see you laugh until you split yer stays.’

  Sarah’s weary face took on a sudden glow, and she smiled across the hearth at her friend. ‘I’ve got a funny feeling today, Maggie; as if life was going to change for the better. That is, as if something was going to happen…perhaps it’s only Kate coming home; I don’t know…Oh, here she is!’

  The back-door opened and Kate came in, carrying a heavy suitcase. She put down the case, closed the door, and then stood looking at her mother and Mrs Mullen who had both risen and were staring back at her, with eyes wide and mouths agape.

  Kate lifted her arms from her sides an
d smiled at her mother. ‘Do you like them, ma?’ she asked.

  ‘Name of God, Kate, where did you get them clothes?’

  ‘Do you like them?’ persisted Kate.

  ‘Hinny…you look…oh, Kate!…’ Sarah could find no words.

  ‘Aye, Kate, you do look luvly. My, I’ve never seen owt like them before!’ put in Mrs Mullen.

  Sarah went to her daughter. They didn’t kiss, but stood for a second cheek pressed against cheek. Then Sarah stepped back. ‘Where did you get them, lass?’ A trace of anxiety showed in her voice.

  ‘Miss Tolmache gave them to me for a Christmas box. Aren’t they lovely, ma?’

  ‘Lovely,’ murmured Sarah, ‘lovely.’

  ‘By! lass, you look like a real…’ Mrs Mullen had been going to say ‘lady’, but, on the face of what had happened last year, felt it would be a little out of place; so she added, ‘toff’.

  ‘Miss Tolmache had the costume and hat specially made for me, and she took me out yesterday and bought me the shoes. Look at the fur round the bottom of the coat?’ Kate held up the bottom of the three-quarter-length mole-coloured coat for her mother to inspect the trimming of darkbrown fur. ‘And feel how thick the material is, ma. And look at my hat; she had it made to match, and trimmed with fur too.’

  For the moment Kate was not the mother of a year-old child, she was an eighteen-year-old girl, wearing the first new clothes of her life. ‘She’s sent you a Christmas box, ma, but you’re not getting it until tomorrow. And material to make dresses for Annie; oh, and heaps of other things!’

  ‘Ee, Kate!’ was all Sarah could utter, for the tears were choking her…her Kate to be dressed so…like…like the class: and she’d never seen any of the class look half so lovely as Kate did. Oh, she was beautiful, beautiful…Thank God Tim was upstairs.

  ‘You won’t half make the tongues wag in the fifteen streets when they see you in the rig-out, Kate…I think you’ve fallen on your feet in that place, lass.’