A Child of Jarrow (39 page)

Kate felt sick to the core. For all his hardness and vicious tongue, Catherine was closer to the old devil than she would ever be to her. She felt overwhelmingly alone.

‘Oh, Mam!' Kate wailed in distress. ‘How can I bear it all on me own?'

Chapter 45

As Kate predicted, John's behaviour towards her grew unbearable. He belittled her every day with callous remarks about her looks and slovenly ways, ordered her around like a servant and blamed her for everything from the lack of food to the bitter weather. He came home reeking with drink and was all too ready to make fumbling grabs at her late at night. He alternately threatened and pleaded.

‘I'm a poor widower without me wife,' he whined. ‘I've needs. Just give us a little cuddle, lass, that's all I ask.'

Kate pushed him off in disgust, grabbing Catherine to her in the bed.

‘You'll keep away from me or I'll leave you for good - and I'll tak the bairn with me.'

She knew even in drink John could not bear the thought of being left to fend for himself or to do without Catherine's uncritical company. But Kate never carried out her threats, despite Mary's goading.

‘Don't know why you stop in that house any longer now Mam's gone,' she said with disapproval. ‘The lass deserves better.'

‘That's as maybe,' Kate protested, ‘but where else could I gan? Are you offering to tak us in?'

‘We haven't the room,' Mary said at once.

‘No,' Kate eyed her squarely, ‘and I've not two pennies spare. The only reason I stay is for the roof over our heads.'

But Catherine was anything but grateful for her sacrifices. She grew increasingly rebellious, finally refusing one Monday morning to stay off school to go to the pawnshop.

‘I'm not doing it,' she declared. ‘Miss Coulthard will strap me if I'm late.'

‘You'll do what I say before that old witch.'

‘No I won't.' Catherine glared back. ‘It's wrong what you're asking. It's against the law and it's a sin for me to miss me schooling and tell lies about being sick.'

‘Don't you preach to me!' Kate went to grab hold of her, but Catherine dodged out the door, running off to school in defiance of her mother. That day, Kate had to make the shameful trip to the pawnshop.

To get through the days Kate found solace in drink. She drank more heavily than she had ever done, blotting out John's abusive words and Catherine's defiance for blissful short hours. She would invite anyone in who might like to share a glass of beer or two and have a sing-song around the fire, to ease the drudgery. No matter how drab the day or great the cares that weighed on her, Kate never lost her love of singing and music.

It was this that gave her an idea, one spring day in 1918, when she had gone with a bundle of clothes to the pawnshop in Tyne Dock. She heard the sound of piano playing in the back of the shop and stopped to listen.

‘ “Linden Lee”,' she gasped in delight. ‘Me da used to play that when I was a bairn.'

‘My daughter takes lessons,' the pawnbroker told her proudly.

Kate was seized with a sudden thought. Catherine was musical - why should her daughter not have lessons too? It would take her out of herself. She was so moody and distant when she wasn't being defiant, and deep down Kate wanted to please her daughter. She sensed how much the girl missed her grandmother and wanted her to feel better. Kate felt guilty that Catherine had to witness the fights between her and John. Perhaps that was why the child withdrew into her own thoughts so much. All she wanted to do was scribble in that book Jack had given her, filling every inch with indecipherable writing.

But piano lessons were an accomplishment for a young lady. How grand it would be to have piano music fill her home, just as it had in her childhood.

‘Where does she have her lessons?' Kate asked boldly.

‘At Mrs Dalton's in Hood Street. Her charges are very modest,' he smiled. Kate felt grateful that the man did not scoff at her question. Her daughter had as much right to lessons as the families of the well-off.

But back home again, Kate thought how ridiculous was her ambition. Where would she get the money for lessons, let alone a piano to practise on? Then suddenly she remembered the five pounds. It was still there, sewn into the underside of the feather mattress. This would be the moment to use it. Rose would have approved. It would go towards securing a better future for Catherine.

The very next day, Kate went into town and ordered a piano, using the five pounds as a deposit. It arrived at the end of the week and Kate preened at the astonished faces of the neighbours as the beautiful satinwood instrument was carried in and placed in the parlour. She had not felt so proud in years. But it was her stepfather and daughter's expressions that she could not wait to see.

After tea, she flung open the parlour door and showed them. At first John was speechless, his mouth opening and closing like a puppet's. Then he exploded. ‘You haven't bought it?'

‘I have,' Kate said with glee. ‘It's for you, Kitty.'

‘Me?' Catherine gaped. ‘But I cannot play...'

‘You'll learn. You're ganin' to Mrs Dalton's for lessons. It's all arranged.'

Catherine stared at her, wide-eyed in disbelief.

‘You're bloody daft!' John shouted. ‘You cannot afford it.' He turned on her suspiciously.

‘Where've you got the money for this? Been whoring down the docks or what?'

Kate flared. ‘No I have not! It's paid for good and proper. Well, at least the deposit's paid and I'll find the rest when the time comes.' She challenged him with a look. ‘Maybes some of Jack's pay could gan towards it?'

John snarled. ‘You'll not get owt of that for fancy piano lessons. What you want to gan filling the lass's head with ideas above herself?'

‘Our Kitty's got an ear for music. She'll pick it up in no time, then there won't be any need for lessons.' She turned to her daughter. ‘Isn't that right, pet?'

The girl gave her such a strange look, Kate thought she would burst into tears. She was obviously quite overcome with the gift.

‘Go on, have a bit play,' Kate encouraged. ‘Show your grandda.'

Catherine sidled over to the piano and lifted the lid. It was like the one at school that the hateful Miss Coulthard banged away on during morning assembly. It reminded her of hymns of repentance. How could they possibly afford it? She touched the keys tentatively. The notes rang out deep and discordant. Her fingers froze at the thought of all those lessons stretching ahead, all to be paid for. And Kate still in debt from the funeral.

Catherine felt bile rise in her throat and clamped a hand over her mouth to stop herself being sick. Her eyes watered as she stared in fear and resentment at her mother. How could she burden her with having to play this monstrous instrument? Just so she could have a sing-song round the piano and get full of drink of an evening! If she'd bothered to ask, she would rather have had a bicycle. That would have saved the tram fare to school and she would have been upsides with Belle and Cissy.

Catherine knew she could not speak without vomiting all over the parlour floor. Without a word, she fled from the room, out of the house and down the lane, throwing up in the stunted grass overlooking the Slake.

Kate was left puzzling her daughter's abrupt departure, vexed at her lack of gratitude.

John laughed at her. ‘Doesn't look a willing pupil to me.' He spat into the empty grate.

Kate pursed her lips. ‘She'll come round.' She banged the lid shut in disappointment.

Over the following weeks Catherine was sent down to Hood Street for lessons. But to Kate's huge disappointment and frustration, she showed no natural talent or enthusiasm. The noise from the parlour, when it came at all, was hesitant and laboured. Once the longer days came, Catherine was hard to keep in the house and Kate had many a battle trying to get her daughter to practise.

‘It'd come easy if you just sat down and played it for more than five minutes,' Kate complained.

‘I don't want to play it,' Catherine replied mutinously. ‘I'm no good.'

As time went on, and the payments on the piano lapsed, Kate sought increasingly desperate ways to pay for the lessons. Trips to the pawnshop doubled, and hearing that Mrs Dalton had several sons to feed, she offered to pay in pie and peas suppers. For some reason Catherine seemed to take offence at this, and would lock herself in the privy when the Dalton boys came up the hill to fetch the meals that Kate had prepared.

The more Catherine played up over the lessons, the more determined Kate was that her daughter would become accomplished at the piano. She coaxed and cajoled and bullied.

‘It'll come in handy all your life,' she insisted. ‘It's a sign of being respectable. And if you get really good, you could be a music teacher or play with an orchestra or at the pictures.'

‘I don't want to be a teacher,' Catherine said sullenly. ‘They're old battle-axes and they wear terrible clothes.'

‘Well, I'll not have you being a skivvy like me.' Kate lost patience. ‘Is that what you want? ‘Cos that's all you'll be good for if you don't learn your lessons.'

Catherine glared at her in reply.

A date was set for her first examination, but even this did not spur her on to regular practice. The gleaming piano sat gathering dust and the parlour did not fill with the sweet music that Kate so desired. It was nothing but a source of argument or silent resentment between the two and she grew to regret her foolishly extravagant gesture. It had pushed her further into debt and it was only a matter of time before the prestigious shop where she had bought the piano came to reclaim it for non-payment. What had possessed her to buy such a thing? And at a time of such shortage when even meat, butter and margarine were now being rationed?

Kate had to admit that it was because life was so drab and sorrowful after so many years of war and then Rose's death that she had seized on the idea of cheering them all up. Music would restore their battered spirits and give Catherine an entry into a better world. But her contrary daughter had tossed her generosity back in her face and John made the most out of her mistake, by commenting daily on her stupidity and spendthrift ways.

Shortly before Catherine's dreaded examination, the wrangling household were distracted by a long-awaited letter from Jack. There had been no news from him for weeks during the spring offensive. The Germans had broken through at Arras and Ypres and taken thousands of prisoners. The doom-mongers talked of the British retreating to the Channel and the Germans marching on Paris.

‘He's safe!' Catherine cried, the first to read the letter.

‘Read it out, lass,' John ordered.

‘Dear Father,

I'm writing this behind the lines. We saw a lot of the action along the River Somme. I was on sniper duty. But it is quiet now. Some of the lads are low with influenza, but I'm champion. And this is the best news. I'm being made lance-corporal. Captain Scott says I am a crack shot. I hope you will be pleased with me for getting me stripe—'

‘Pleased?' John interrupted. ‘The daft bugger! He doesn't want a bloody stripe.' John picked up the poker and stabbed at the fire in agitation.

Catherine stared at him in astonishment. ‘But isn't it grand getting a stripe?'

‘No,' John exclaimed, ‘it's the quickest way to getting his head blown off.'

Kate could see that the girl was flummoxed. ‘It's an honour for him being a good shot,' Kate declared. ‘I thought you would be proud.'

‘I'd rather have him alive than dead with a stripe,' John growled. ‘There's nowt wrong with being Private McMullen.'

‘Well, there's nothing we can do about it.' Kate shrugged and went back to kneading suet into dumplings.

‘Aye, there is,' John replied, scraping the poker against the steel fender so that it screeched for her attention. ‘He can turn it down. You write to our Jack and tell him not to take it.'

Kate thought it would make little difference. Jack could be as bloody-minded as his father and more likely to seize the promotion if John was against it. They thrived on one-upmanship and now Jack had found something he was better at than his father. Kate wrote the letter - the first to her brother in two years - expecting the advice would be ignored.

At the beginning of August a postcard of a cheery uniformed soldier came for Catherine, telling her gleefully that her uncle now had a lance-corporal's stripe on his jacket. It happened to arrive on the day of the piano exam and Catherine tucked it into her pocket for good luck. No one expected her to do well and not even Kate wished her luck as she trailed down the hill to Tyne Dock.

It was a futile exercise as the piano had been repossessed the previous week. Catherine had bolted to the privy when the men had come to carry it out and Kate had been left to stand in the doorway, glaring defiantly at the curious stares of neighbours. Afterwards, she had sat at the kitchen table drinking from a secret bottle of rum Davie McDermott had left her and which she kept for emergencies, ruing the money she had thrown away on an impractical romantic whim.

‘Well then?' Kate demanded when Catherine returned from the examination.

The girl's expression was guarded. ‘It was all right.'