The White Empress (11 page)

‘You’ve got too much to say for yourself, that you have! Isn’t a man entitled to some respect from his own daughter?’

‘Respect! Respect!’ she yelled, not caring if the whole street heard her. ‘You have to earn respect and you’ve never done
anything to make me respect you! And I don’t want to hear about “honouring Thy Father and Thy Mother”. I honour, love and
respect Ma but I’ll never be able to say the same about you! I despise you!’

With the attention diverted from himself, Eamon had slipped into the kitchen, leaving his father and sister in the lobby.

‘Eamon, is that Cat shouting at your Pa?’ his mother asked.

‘Yes, I think she’s tellin’ him ter gerra job,’ he replied, the picture of innocence.

‘Well, she’ll have no luck there, it’s like talkin’ ter the wall an’ I know!’ Maisey answered tartly.

The hot, sticky days of summer dragged on. Four postcards had arrived from Joe and with the arrival of each, she missed him
more and more. She was looking up Algiers on the big globe of the world, mounted on its polished wooden stand, when Mrs Travis
quietly entered the room.

‘It’s in North Africa, Catherine, and from what I remember of Captain Travis’s description, it’s not a very
nice place at all. Hot, dirty, swarming with flies, wretched beggars and thieves.’

She turned, her cheeks flushed.

‘You look feverish, have you a headache?’

‘Just a bit of one, it’s probably the heat.’

‘I know you miss him – I do myself – but I did warn you. The sea is in his blood and you’ll never keep him ashore for long!’

‘I know, but it makes it harder when . . . when I get these.’ She held out the postcard that depicted an Arab bazaar.

‘What’s the matter, Catherine? For months you’ve been quiet and withdrawn. Is it entirely to do with Joe, or is something
wrong at home?’

The parlour was cool for the heavy drapes kept out the glare, but she did feel feverish. Suddenly, it all gushed out. A verbal
torrent that couldn’t be stopped. Shelagh, Eamon, her father, her mother’s declining health, Marie’s commitment to her exams
and the feelings of exclusion this caused. The pain, despair and humiliation of her visit to the shipping offices. When she
was finished she looked down. Unconsciously she had torn the postcard to shreds.

Mrs Travis sighed. ‘You can’t take the worry of them all on your shoulders, child. You’re too young! Obviously your father
is beyond all help and your sister, I’m afraid, will go her own way regardless of any attempts to correct her. Your brother
is your father’s responsibility – not yours! If he can’t control him and he gets into trouble, it will be your father and
not you, that the authorities will blame.’ She held out her hand and
Cat dropped the torn fragments of Joe’s card into it. Without being told to, she sank down on to the sofa.

‘What about Ma?’

The old lady neatly stacked the mutilated card, piece by piece, in her lap before she spoke. ‘All my life I have tried in
my small way, to help alleviate the sufferings of the poor familes in this parish, but it’s a drop in the ocean. Your mother
was ill when you first came to Liverpool, wasn’t she?’

Cat nodded.

‘This city, indeed this area, is not healthy. The air is damp and contaminated by the filth that pours into it from all the
factories. For someone with your mother’s constitution, it is not good, not good at all! But until there is full employment,
good housing and something done about the air we breathe, nothing will change. Nothing can change, for poor souls like her.
It’s hard to accept, very hard, but there is very little any of us can do.’

‘That’s why I went . . . I wanted to try to change things for her, help her! I . . . I was desperate!’

‘And do you really believe that she would have left your father, her husband of many years, her son and daughter to live most
of the time alone? Even with all the things you want to provide for her?’

‘Yes! Yes, I know she would!’

‘Then you have a lot to learn about people, Catherine. Especially about the vows of marriage.’

‘I have a lot to learn about everything!’ she answered bitterly for the old lady had planted the seeds of doubt in her mind.
She had never stopped to think what her mother’s reaction would be to the dream home she had
visualised. In fact she had never really thought about her mother’s feelings at all.

‘What can’t be changed must be endured, without bitterness!’

She wanted to cry out that she couldn’t accept that! That life was unfair! Instead she pushed a loose strand of hair behind
her ear and bit her lip.

‘I notice that you’ve been reading.’ Seeing Cat’s quick, guilty glance, she smiled. ‘I can’t think that any of these old books
on navigation could make interesting reading. Why didn’t you ask for one of the books I keep in my room?’

‘I . . . I didn’t want you to think I was being forward or—’

‘Dickens, Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters would appeal to you more.’

‘I . . . I don’t understand so many of the words!’

‘Then I’ll teach you to use a dictionary. Go upstairs and bring me
Jane Eyre
and the Oxford Dictionary. We might as well start now, it’s the least I can do and I think you’ll find inspiration and an
escape from the worries of everyday life. I know I do.’

After that she read voraciously. She read anything and everything and Mrs Travis had been right, she could escape from life
through the pages of books, into the lives of the heroines. And, without realising it, she was learning, too. Her vocabulary
increased, she began to grasp the social changes that had taken place, to realise that life was better in so many ways.

Marie had passed her exams with flying colours and called one day bursting with excitement.

‘Oh, it’s such a relief! I never want to see another book!’

‘Oh, I’m so pleased for you! I really am! But how can you say that? I love books! Mrs Travis has lent me so many and helped
me so much.’

‘I’m sorry, Cat, I haven’t been much company have I, lately?’

‘Your exams were far more important, you know I realise that!’

‘I was terrified when the envelope came. I thought Mam was going to faint. You see, the other two did so well, but it was
so hard for me and I didn’t want to let her down, or Dad either. Not after all the money they spent on me.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘No, I didn’t and now Dad has promised to take us on holiday! He asked where I wanted to go, it was my choice, as a reward!
I know Mam didn’t want to go back to Ireland, she’s always gone on and on about Bournemouth, so that’s where we’re going.
To stay in an hotel for two weeks!’

Even though she was so very pleased for Marie, she couldn’t help the stab of envy. She had hoped to have seen more of her
only friend now she had finished at school.

‘Is Joe still away?’

‘Yes. But he is on his way back now. He said he hopes to be home some time in September.’

‘That’s not far off.’

‘When will you get back?’

‘A week before I start commercial college.’ She pulled
a wry face. ‘Mam had one of her “serious” talks with me. I’ve got to grow up now, she said. “Got to act more ladylike and
not romp around like a tomboy any more.” I’ve got this horrible feeling that everything is going to change! That everything
will be different.’

The thing Cat had dreaded since the day she had returned from her first visit to Yew Tree Road seemed about to happen. She
had thought then that things changed, people changed. Her face reflected these fears.

‘Oh, cheer up, Cat, I won’t change that much! You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, as the saying goes! I’ll always
be the same underneath, you’ll see! You’ve grown up. You’re quieter, more thoughtful, well . . . just older, if you know what
I mean!’

‘Am I?’ She had never thought about it before, but she supposed that she, too, had changed. It must have been gradual, something
that had crept up on her, without her noticing it.

‘We’ll always be friends, Cat! Even when we’re old ladies like Mrs Travis. I’ll write to you and send you some funny postcards;
on second thoughts, I’d better send the ones with “Greetings from Bournemouth” and pretty scenes. Mrs Travis might take offence
at the “naughty ones”.’

‘I’ll keep them with the ones Joe sent me.’ Then she remembered the one she had destroyed. Still, he would be home soon and
that was better than any postcard.

The first week in October saw the
Marguerita
back in the Mersey but to Joe’s disappointment, he was paid off. The trip hadn’t been so much of a success as her captain
had thought. He’d only just broken even, so he would have to lay up; besides, the old girl needed a rest, repairs, a coat
of paint, he explained as he counted the notes out into Joe’s hand. So he came back to work and both women were glad to see
him.

At first Cat felt strange with him. The way she had felt when she first knew him, not as close as they had been before he
had left. Sometimes she hestitated before she spoke, something she had never done before.

She had mentioned it casually to Mrs Travis with the words ‘It seems strange to have him home again.’

Her employer laughed. ‘It’s all part of the charm, like getting to know him all over again.’ And Cat knew she was speaking
about her husband and not Joe. She had noticed lately that the old lady was living more and more in the past. She kept referring
to things that had happened years ago as though they had only happened yesterday.

The days lengthened into weeks and November came with its thick, choking fogs when it was almost impossible to see your hand
in front of you, when the clanging of the trams as they crawled through the eerie streets like giant beetles, was the only
sound on those streets. When for days and nights the mournful sound of the foghorns of ships trying to negotiate the river,
carried across the shrouded city.

The fog frightened her. Whenever she ventured out to the shops, with a scarf tied around her face leaving only her eyes exposed,
she felt as though she were walking in a nightmare world where there were no familiar landmarks. No familiar sounds, shapes,
colours. Shapes
would suddenly loom into view, taking on human form. There were no shadows to warn of their approach. No lights.

Mrs Travis, peering through the lace curtains into the cavernous gloom, summed up her feelings in a little rhyme:

At the end of the week it finally lifted, blown away by a howling gale that swept in from the Irish Sea. On Sunday she went
to see her mother. She looked a little better and for this she was thankful. Maisey had forbidden her to leave the house.
‘Them fogs is murder on the tubes!’ she had warned. Wasn’t half the street bad with their chests? She wasn’t going to Marie’s
that day for Doreen Gorry had just become engaged and her prospective ‘outlaws’, as Marie called them, were coming to tea.
She had been invited but she had declined, sensing that the occasion would be tense for Marie had made no secret of the fact
that Mr and Mrs Gorry did not really like their eldest daughter’s choice of future husband. A situation that was viewed in
the same light by Doreen’s fiancé’s parents!

She turned her collar up against the wind as she alighted from the tram. The rain had stopped but it was a raw night. Her
head had begun to ache. All day confined in the overcrowded kitchen in Eldon Street was enough to give anyone a headache,
she thought, as she turned her key in the lock. The house was silent –
obviously Joe was not back yet. Usually he was a bit later than her for he always bought the twopenny bundles of wood ‘chips’
used to kindle the fires, on his way in.

She stirred up the fire and held out her hands to the warmth. She’d better get the kettle on. Joe would be cold and no doubt
Mrs Travis would be waiting for her cup of tea and digestive biscuits. She hadn’t answered her call and Cat surmised that
she was dozing before the parlour fire. She took a lot of little naps lately, she thought. She set the tray and as there was
no sign of Joe, she carried it into the parlour.

‘I couldn’t wait any longer for Joe, he’ll have to make his own.’ She set the tray down on the polished buffet. Mrs Travis
sat in her usual chair, her eyes closed, her embroidery in her lap. Cat smiled. After the day she’d had, the sight of such
tranquility was balm to her soul.
This is how everyone should live
, she thought.
Surrounded by peace, security, warmth and luxury
. She bent down and gently shook Mrs Travis’s arm. ‘I’ve brought your tea and biscuits.’

There was no reply. No response. Usually she stirred at the sound of her voice. She shook her again and then snatched her
hand away as though she had been burnt! She started to tremble all over. The old lady’s skin was cold! ‘Oh, God! Oh, Holy
Mother! She’s . . . she’s dead!’ She stuffed her fist into her mouth to stop herself from screaming and her wild eyes darted
around the room. She was dead! Dead!

Somewhere a door slammed but she still stood frozen with shock. It wasn’t until she felt the hands on her shoulders that the
paralysis left her.

‘Oh, Joe! Joe! She’s . . . she’s . . .’

‘I know, Cat.’ He gathered her into his arms as she gave way to hysterical sobs, clinging to him.

‘Come on, let’s get you into the kitchen! There’s nothing we can do now and she . . . she went peaceful enough.’

‘But . . . she went . . . alone!’

Gently he drew her from the room and back into the kitchen where he eased her into a chair. ‘You need a drink. We both need
a drink!’ He went to the sideboard and opened the door, taking out a small, squat bottle and two glasses which he filled.
He held one to her lips. ‘Drink it!’

The brandy burned her throat and made her cough but he forced her to finish it. Then he tossed off his own glass.

She felt a little calmer, although she was still shaking.

‘How do you feel now?’

‘Better. It . . . it was . . . the shock.’

He held her tightly in his arms and some warmth and strength flowed back into her.