‘What in the world’s the matter with you?’ demanded Sadie. ‘I’ve asked you twice when you’re going back to Durham. Are you going deaf?’
Cath started and turned round from where she had been gazing out of the sitting-room window at nothing in particular.
‘Sorry. What did you say?’
‘I asked you when you were going back to Durham. Only I’m expecting Henry this afternoon and he won’t want you hanging around like a wet week.’ Sadie gazed critically at Cath. ‘An’ another thing, you’re losing weight. Your clothes are hanging off you. You are beginning to look like a refugee from Belsen.’
‘I’m all right. And I’m going back this afternoon.’
‘Good.’ Sadie’s eyes narrowed as she prepared to continue her litany of complaints. ‘You’re not having a bairn, are you? Sometimes people go very thin at first—’
‘I’m not having a bairn!’ The denial burst out of Cath. ‘Leave me alone, Mam, please.’
‘Well, all right. But before you go get yourself something to eat.’
‘Righto.’ Cath went into the kitchen and took bread and cheese from the pantry and cut herself a cheese sandwich. She mashed a pot of tea and called Sadie through for a cup. Sadie sat with her elbows on the table holding the cup to her lips and watched while Cath ate the sandwich.
‘You should have put some pickle on that,’ she observed.
‘Mam,’ said Cath, putting down her sandwich. ‘Mam, has anyone been hanging around lately?’
‘Hanging around? Don’t be daft, Henry would give anyone short shrift if they hung about here. Go on, eat your sandwich. You’re not going until you do. You’ve had nowt today so far.’
Cath was a bit surprised and touched at the show of concern; it wasn’t one of Sadie’s characteristics. Her mother had even noticed what she had eaten. She warmed to her.
‘Any road, what do you mean?’ asked Sadie.
‘Well, do you still get any resentment from the folk at Eden Hope?’
‘Of course not. I don’t see them often. I don’t go that way. Henry and me go to Newcastle when I want anything to wear and he sends me groceries down from the Hall.’
‘It’s just that Eric Bowron is back from the army—’
Sadie interrupted. ‘Oh, listen, that’s Henry’s car. I’ll go and let him in.’ She put down her cup on its saucer with a clatter and rushed out to the front door.
Cath heard their voices in the hall and then they went into the sitting room and closed the door after them. Well, a nod is as good as a wink to a blind man, Cath thought, as she took the pots to the sink and washed and dried them. She might as well go. In any case, it wasn’t likely that Eric would bother her mother, not when Sadie had Henry to protect her. Some good things came out of the relationship after all.
Half an hour later she popped her head round the door and said her goodbyes then let herself out in good time to catch the bus to Durham. As she turned the corner from the drive she saw Eric standing across the road. He was just standing, leaning on the fence with one leg crossed over the other and grinning. Fury erupted in her. She strode across to him, not even considering keeping a safe distance between them.
‘What do you want? What?’ she screamed at him. His grin grew wider.
‘By,’ he said, ‘you’re fair stotting, aren’t you? And here am I just minding my own business, taking a walk in the countryside on a nice Sunday afternoon. Everything’s not always to do with you, you know.’
‘I’ll have the law on you, I will, I will,’ Cath shouted at him. ‘And if I find out it was you bothered our Annie and made her—’
‘Bothered your Annie? She’s the loony, isn’t she? I never bothered your Annie in me life.’ He looked up the road. ‘Were you going for this bus that’s coming up the road? You’d best hurry or you’ll miss it.’
The bus was indeed coming up to the stop and Cath had to run and wave at the driver to catch it. She jumped on and took a seat, looking out of the window as she tried to catch her breath. Eric was still standing there. He was nodding and smiling and waving his arm as though he was seeing her off. Abruptly she looked away.
Yet her anger had somehow cleared her fear of him. She wasn’t going to let him get the better of her, oh no, she was not. As the bus moved away she turned back to him and smiled, a contemptuous sort of smile, she hoped. She did have the satisfaction of seeing his eyes shift before they lost eye contact.
Suddenly she felt ravenously hungry. She rummaged in her bag for the half-bar of chocolate she had left from the last time she’d been to the pictures and ate some of it. Then she allowed herself to fall into a doze, which was interrupted every few minutes as the bus pulled into a stop. She’d had next to no sleep last night. Tonight she would cook a proper meal and go to bed early.
In Gilesgate she went straight up to her room and closed the curtains to keep out the darkness of the late afternoon. Stripping off her clothes she put on an old nightgown and fleecy bedjacket and looked in the cupboard behind the curtain to see what supplies she had in. Not much, she saw: a tin of Heinz spaghetti and a couple of sprouting potatoes. Well, she’d just have a lie-down and worry about food later.
It was warm under the bedclothes and her legs, aching from all the walking she had done the night before, sank into the soft feather mattress. She thought about Mark with an aching sense of loss. Surely he would have come out to her if he’d thought about her at all? She couldn’t let her feelings for Mark run away with her. But she was too exhausted to think about it for long, let alone worry about it. Slowly her eyes closed and she slept.
There was a Christmas party at work. Not much of a one, just a few drinks and titbits, and it was held in the last hour of the working day so that anyone who lived at a distance from Durham could get home at a reasonable time. They crammed into the new manager, Mr Graves’s, room and he poured glasses of cheap fizzy wine or orange juice for them.
Joan, who had left the year before to get married, came in with her baby in a pushchair and everyone oohed and aahed at the tiny boy.
‘You’re not courting at the minute, then?’ Joan asked Cath.
‘Emm, well, not really,’ said Cath, thinking of Mark. But it looked like he’d finished with her.
‘Well, you did right to get rid of that Brian, he was a drip,’ said Joan. ‘Enjoy your freedom while you can. This party is likely to be the highlight of my Christmas. My Charlie’s not one for going out much.’ Joan had married a boy from the Surveyor’s Department. She had an air of discontent about her.
Cath took a limp sausage roll from the plate on Mr Graves’s desk and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘At least you’ve got Jimmy,’ she said. ‘He’s a little darling.’
‘You should hear him in the middle of the night,’ said Joan. ‘Charlie doesn’t get up, of course, he has to go to work next day. And for a little ’un, Jimmy can pee like a navvy with twelve pints of beer in him. I can’t wait to get him potty-trained. I’m sick of dripping nappies.’
‘Aw, Joan, cheer up a bit, will you? I tell you—’
She was interrupted by Mr Graves who came over to them and began chatting, asking Joan about Charlie and ogling Cath as he had taken to doing lately.
‘I tell you what,’ said Joan when he had moved on reluctantly. ‘He fancies you.’
‘A lot of good it’ll do him,’ said Cath. ‘Come on, let’s go down to the County, we can take the bairn in there, it being a proper hotel. I’ll treat you to something to eat.’
‘I don’t know, there’s Charlie’s tea …’ But Joan soon changed her mind. ‘Beggar Charlie’s tea,’ she said, laughing. ‘Howay then.’
By the time Cath got back to Gilesgate her own mood had lightened along with Joan’s. They had eaten spam sandwiches with a salad of tomatoes and cucumber, which was all that was available for it was too early for dinner. Jimmy sat in a high chair and made a right mess while Joan fed him bits of bread and cream cheese. They giggled a lot and even Jimmy crowed with delight and waved his tiny fists in the air and beamed at everyone around him.
Cath told Joan about Mark and his snooty mother and how she must have turned him off her.
‘If he lets his mother tell him what to do he’s not worth it,’ Joan counselled. ‘You’re a bonny lass. There’s plenty more fish in the sea an’ all.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’
‘Did you sleep with him?’
‘No!’ Cath looked at her friend, surprised she should ask.
‘Well, it’s not the end of the world, is it?’ And Cath realised it was not.
‘Well, I’d better be getting home,’ said Joan. She plucked the baby out of the high chair and pulled on his all-in-one suit. It was what they used to call a siren suit during the war, Cath thought, as she watched, invented by Winston Churchill. Come to think of it, Churchill had looked a bit like a baby when he was photographed in his siren suit. She smiled – the little outing with Joan had cheered her.
They made vague promises to meet up more often in the future then Cath walked back to Gilesgate. It was a cold night and a penetrating damp filled the air and seemed to get through her clothes to her skin. Usually she walked all the way but tonight she caught the bus. She had thought she would go to her mother’s but changed her mind and stayed. Mark might ring, or there might be a message. Though why she should think that when it had been over a week since she had seen him, she didn’t know.
She didn’t love him anyway, she told herself. How could she love him and still be in love with Jack? If she didn’t love him why was she thinking about him? What did that make her? A flaming fool, that’s what. She spent the evening wrapping up presents and had yet another early night.
‘Mam, you want to watch out for that Eric Bowron from Winton,’ she said as she took off her coat in the hall of Half Hidden Cottage.
It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve and Cath had just arrived. She was lucky to get there at all, for a cover of snow had fallen during the night and a north wind blew down from the Arctic, creating blizzard conditions. She had had to walk some distance as the road by the end of the drive was beginning to block and the bus had stopped running.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ asked Sadie. ‘Come on in, there’s a good fire in the sitting room and I’ll make some tea. You must be nithered.’
But Cath was not to be distracted from what she had to say. She had been thinking of it all the way from the Great North Road.
‘Ronnie Robson’s cousin; I told you he was back from the army. He’s been away doing his National Service. He was waiting for me when I came home last time, waiting at the end of the drive.’
For a change Sadie was listening properly to her. ‘Are you sure he was waiting for you? I mean, he could have just been out for a walk, like.’
‘He was waiting for me. That wasn’t the first time he’s threatened me.’
‘He threatened you? The sod! I’ll give him something to think about. I’ll threaten him all right, I will.’
Sadie had gone red with anger. ‘Who the hell does he think he is? You’re not frightened of him, are you? I’d give him short shrift if he came near me. I’ve met his sort before, I have.’ She was working herself up into a real temper.
‘Mam, I’m not frightened. I just think we should be careful, that’s all. I think he probably got at our Annie that day at the bus stop, an’ all.’
‘That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it? By God, I’ll kill him, I swear I will, I’ll—’
‘Mam—’
Sadie was not listening. ‘I’ll tell Henry, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll tell him. He won’t stand for it, I know he won’t. He’ll turn him out of Winton, that I know. He’ll send him packing.’
‘Mam, he can’t.’ Cath was amused. ‘This is the second half of the twentieth century – the pits and the houses belong to the NCB. How can Henry turn him out?’
Sadie nodded her head. ‘Oh, he can, believe me he can,’ she said. ‘Henry has contacts.’ She had begun to calm down. ‘Howay in and I’ll warm some soup. I made a big pot for Henry coming tonight but there’s plenty.’
‘Henry’s coming tonight?’ Cath’s heart sank. When Henry came it usually meant she was banished from the sitting room. Henry liked to have Sadie to himself. Christmas was beginning to look as though it would be even bleaker than she had envisaged.
‘He is,’ said Sadie. ‘We have some news for you.’
‘What news?’
‘Never mind. You’ll find out tonight.’
Cath ate her soup, a thick mutton broth designed to keep out the winter’s cold and found it surprisingly good. She spent the afternoon helping Sadie prepare for the evening. Henry had sent over a large Christmas tree and included decorations so they had a good time making it look festive.
She kept glancing at her mother, wondering what the surprise was. Sadie was happy so it wasn’t anything bad. Was her mother having a baby? She wasn’t too old, not really. Cath’s imagination ran away with her. If Sadie had a baby and it was a boy perhaps she would give it away as she had the others. For a brief moment Cath thought of Timmy, her little brother. Had it really happened that they had gone into the Bishop’s park and Sadie had given away her baby? Cath pushed the thought out of her mind. It was so long ago and her mother must have had her reasons. Her mother was a weak woman and she wasn’t the first one to go wild when her man was away for years at a time.
They were sitting at the dinner table eating trifle made by Sadie with real cream (which did a good job disguising the runny jelly and custard), when Henry dropped his bombshell.
‘Catherine, your mother and I are going to be married next year. I hope you are pleased for us.’ He smiled at Sadie and put his hand over hers. ‘We wanted you to be the first to know.’
‘Married?’ Cath thought she had not heard right. When Sadie nodded and smiled the question popped out of Cath’s mouth almost of its own volition.
‘Are you having a baby?’ she asked.