Katy's Men (13 page)

Katy
smoothed a hand over Beatrice’s hair. She noted that it needed brushing — badly — also that Beatrice’s face had not been washed since her last meal. Remembering her own feelings when her mother died, she sympathised with the child: ‘How awful for her. But she’s lucky to have you.’

Matt
replied drily, ‘She doesn’t think so.’

Katy
heard the wry humour in his voice, could guess at his difficulty with Beatrice but also thought there was kindness. She pressed her case, because she had to: ‘I need a job where I can keep the baby with me because I’ve no one I can leave her with. My husband is at sea and I don’t know when he’ll be home. I haven’t had any money from him for a month now.’ Matt shook his head unhappily but she went on, desperate now, ‘I could look after the little girl, Beatrice, for you. As well as working in here.’

‘
One of the reasons I’m in this mess is because my partner was paying the wages of a nurse.’ Matt could hide his poverty no longer and admitted, in a voice savage with anger and bitterness, ‘It’s no good! I’m sorry, but I can’t afford to pay you. I haven’t the cash. I was left this yard but it’s on a long lease, I don’t own it. I’ve sold everything I can and I’m still left with a pile of debts. So will you get out of here and leave me alone.’

Katy
flinched but could not obey. Louise was there to remind her of that. For her sake . . . She said, ‘You don’t have to pay me.’ She let the shawl fall from her shoulders and shook out her hair. ‘Give us a roof over our heads, board and — and bed, and I’ll — I’ll do anything you want.’

Matt
whispered, ‘Dear God! You’re not that sort o’ lass.’

Katy
whispered in her turn,
‘Please
!

He
stared at her, then said, ‘Come up here.’ He started up the stairs leading to the floor above. Katy took the child from Beatrice and followed him.

Chapter
Eleven

MONKWEARMOUTH. DECEMBER 1910.

Katy
numbly followed Matt’s broad back up the stairs and into the room at the head of them. She saw, in the glow from a heap of embers in the grate, that it was a small kitchen-cum-sitting-room with space for just a table at its centre and four straight-backed chairs set around it. Two sagging armchairs stood either side of a black kitchen range where the fire glowed. Katy did not see more because Matt led on to the room beyond. He pushed the door wide and gestured to her to precede him. She entered and saw in the dimness a room no bigger than the kitchen, with two single beds and a chest of drawers. His shoulders now framed in the doorway behind her blocked out what little light spilled into the room from the kitchen. She could sense his presence, close to her.

He
said, ‘You can stay up here with the two bairns. I’ll be all right downstairs. When do you want to move in?’

That
was an easy decision to make, but first Katy drew a deep breath of relief as she realised she was grasping salvation not straws. She had found a home of sorts for her child. She could have shed tears of gratitude but she held them in and said, ‘Thank you.’ She had not known what to expect at the hands of this stranger, but just to confirm what she believed now she asked: ‘You only want me to work in the office?’

‘
No!’ Matt stumbled over the words, embarrassed. ‘I mean yes! I mean, I don’t want you messing about in the office. I do all that. You just live up here.’ He finished vaguely, ‘You can keep the place tidy and maybe cook me some grub.’

Katy
saw he did not trust her to ‘mess about’ in his precious office, but she only asked, ‘Can I move in tonight?’ Then she admitted, ‘My rent is due to be paid tomorrow and I haven’t the money. If I leave tonight I won’t be owing anything.’ And making light of the task: ‘It will take me about an hour or so. I only have to fetch a pram and a suitcase from where I live now, in Bishopwearmouth.’

Matt
stared at her and tried to picture her shoving the pram, probably with the baby inside and a suitcase balanced on top. Instinctively he offered, ‘You can’t cope with all that lot. Go back and pack your things. I’ll get something to eat then come over with the cart and fetch you.’

So
it was arranged and Katy set off for her lodgings. Matt heated up some broth left over from the previous day. As he and Bea ate and she complained he watched the

rain
rattling on the window panes. The meal over, he dumped the dirty dishes in a bowl of water and told Bea, ‘Get your coat. We’re going out.’

She
pouted, ‘I don’t want to go out. It’s raining. I want to stay in and play with my dollies.’

‘
We have to go out. Bring one of your dolls with you.’ ‘We’ll get wet. My dollie will get wet.’ Bea started to wail.

‘
No, you won’t. Get your coat or I’ll—’ Matt bit off the threat as he remembered Bea’s absorption not so long ago. ‘We’re going to fetch that lady.’ And he coaxed, ‘Do you want to see the baby?’

‘
Can I?’ The tears ceased and Bea moved to wipe her nose on the back of her hand.

Matt
used his grubby handkerchief instead and promised, ‘You will. Now get your coat — and the dollie.’ As he led Bea through the rain across the muddy, pool-bespattered yard he cursed himself for his soft-heartedness. The strange woman was proving to be a bloody nuisance already.

Katy
broke the news to Mrs Gates as soon as she entered the house. She had prevaricated too long and thought the old lady deserved the truth. ‘I’m leaving tonight, Mrs Gates . . .’ She explained that she had lied about having a husband and had done so because of the child. Katy told the whole story, too tired to be ashamed or defiant, as she sat by the fire, her rain-soaked skirts steaming, and fed Louise.

Mrs
Gates listened as she prepared a meal for Katy and herself. It was what she called ‘Panacklety’, bacon, onions and sliced potatoes, cooked in a frying pan on the fire. At the end of Katy’s tale she said slowly, ‘Well, you’re not the first lass to be caught like that and you won’t be the last. And that’s a bonny little bairn you’ve got there, anyway. You’re right that I couldn’t cope with her all day long at my age, or afford to keep the pair o’ you, but I wouldn’t have turned you out because of the rent. We’d have managed somehow.’

Katy
ate and packed her case. She had barely finished when someone knocked on the street door and she opened it to find a drenched Matt standing on the pavement. He loaded the pram and the case into the tarpaulin shelter on the cart where Bea sat clutching her dollie. She asked eagerly, ‘Is the baby coming?’

‘
Aye, in a minute.’ Matt wondered what the hell the woman was doing now.

Katy
held the sleeping Louise in one arm while the other was around Mrs Gates and both of them were crying. Then Katy kissed her: ‘Thank you.’ She ran across the glistening wet pavement to climb up onto the cart. Matt’s hand on her arm steadied her while half-lifting her into her seat.

The
cry followed her, ‘Come and see me sometimes!’ ‘I will,’ Katy replied.

‘
Good luck!’

Matt
thought, I’ll need it. Then he twitched the reins and the horse set off, nodding his head and pulling the cart through the driving rain.

At
the yard, Matt carried the pram and case upstairs to the flat, while Katy took off her coat and Bea’s and hung them up to dry. Matt saw with relief that the little girl had attached herself to Katy. He also glanced at Louise, now lying in the pram, awake and watchful. From her his gaze shifted to the dark loveliness of this stranger and he said, ‘With that blonde hair and those blue eyes she must take after her father.’

That
much resemblance was clear and Katy smiled, ‘Yes.’ But she could not believe her daughter could grow up like Howard Ross, not her child.

Matt
said, ‘I’m going to bed down the Sergeant.’ And when Katy looked at him blankly, he explained, ‘The horse.’

‘
Oh! I see.’ But she did not. Why Sergeant?

Katy
spent the rest of the evening unpacking and settling in. She expected Matt to return before long but while she soon heard him below in the office, he did not come up to the flat. At the end of two hours she had put Louise into her pram to sleep. Then she told a story to a chattering Bea until she had finally yielded and was silent in one of the two beds. Katy washed up all the dirty dishes and also investigated the cupboards, established her resources and made some plans.

She
made a pot of tea and ran lightly down the stairs. Matt sat at the desk, head bowed over a small notebook and writing on a scrap of paper. Katy asked, ‘I’ve made some tea. Would you like a cup?’ And as he looked up from his work, blinking, she offered, ‘Shall I bring it down?’

‘
No, thanks.’ He glanced down at the paper then closed the notebook and stowed it in his jacket pocket. ‘I was just making up my route for tomorrow from the order book, but I’ve finished now. I’ll come up.’

He
followed her up the stairs and they sat on opposite sides of the table, sipping the tea from thick china mugs. Katy was aware of his eyes on her. Assessing? She was aware that she had not put up her hair again, that the dress she wore was a good one, donned that morning to impress potential employers but now damp and creased. She wished she could look at herself in a mirror — but then was glad she could not.

Matt
was abstracted, wondering how this woman and this new arrangement would affect the business — and his life. He thought she might help a little in the office but was not impressed by her qualifications because he had a poor opinion of the Spargos — when he had seen their yard it had been a mess. Still, if she could care for Bea and take the little girl off his hands so he could get on with his work . . . He remembered then and asked, ‘Where’s Bea?’

‘
In bed and asleep, with Louise alongside in her pram,’ Katy answered.

Matt
stared in surprise. ‘Already? She keeps on getting up when I put her to bed.’ Katy smiled but made no answer to that. His gaze went to the bedroom door and he murmured absently, half to himself, ‘I need to get some bedding out of the cupboard in there.’

Katy
said quickly, ‘I got some for you. It’s hanging on the clothes horse, airing.’ She pointed to where the horse stood by the fire.

‘
Then I’ll go to bed.’ Matt stood up from his chair.

Katy
asked, ‘Is there anything in particular that you want me to do tomorrow?’

Matt
ran a hand through his hair and yawned, ‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve got the paperwork up to date.’

Katy
thought, You did it during the last two hours. And: He doesn’t trust me to do it. So when Matt picked up his bedding and made for the stairs she said only, ‘Good night.’

As
he replied he thought that she had sounded starchy. He made his bed under the counter in the office and turned off the gaslight. He wondered if he had made a terrible mistake, and thought that he was already in enough trouble before the woman came. Now he was committed to supporting her and her child, at least until she found a job and a place of her own. But he didn’t see what else he could have done. And he had work to do the next day. He turned over and soon slept.

Katy
lay in bed and listened to his movements in the office below. She sensed his antipathy and guessed he was uneasy about her being there. He was judging her when he did not know her and that angered her. But he had taken in her and Louise, when he was in dire straits himself. She could hardly blame him for having doubts. But tomorrow she would show him.

Louise
woke her early the next morning, a hungry mewing. Katy saw the weather had changed dramatically in the night. In place of the rain there was a clear, hard blue sky and there was frost on the windows. She pulled her coat on over her nightdress against the cold; she had no dressing-gown. Then she took her daughter into the kitchen where it was warmer. The fire that Matt had banked up with coaldust the previous night was just burning itself through and out, a bed of glowing embers. Katy put on more coal then sat down in one of the armchairs, changed and fed the baby and put her back in the pram. Beatrice still slept but Katy could hear sounds of movement in the yard below. She rubbed frost from a window and looked out. Matt was harnessing the horse and Katy thought, Why Sergeant? But then she scurried to wash and dress.

She
was just in time to answer Matt when he called from the foot of the stairs, ‘Can I come up?’ He kept his tone soft but there was an edge of impatience in it. He was eager to be on his way and it irked him to have to wait to climb the stairs because decorum had to be maintained. When he was on his own he could do as he liked . . .

Katy
answered, ‘Yes! I’m just cooking breakfast.’ And in truth, the bacon was in the pan and that was set on the fire. She whisked about the kitchen while Matt blew on his hands and held them out to the blaze. Katy said, ‘It’s cold out there, this morning. Haven’t you a pair of gloves?’

He
shook his head. ‘The old pair wore out and I haven’t had the chance to buy another.’

Katy
thought, Or the money? But she knew his pride would not let him admit that. And it must have been humiliating for him to have to confess his poverty to her the night before. She was getting to know this young man, so she dropped the subject. And at that point Beatrice emerged from the bedroom in her nightie, complaining, ‘I don’t want to go on the cart again.’

Katy
wrapped her in her dressing-gown and plumped her on an armchair. ‘You’re not going on the cart. You’re staying with me and looking after Louise.’ Then she served Matt his breakfast and started on that of Beatrice. She asked Matt, ‘Will you be coming in at dinnertime?’ By that she meant the main meal at midday.

He
shook his head. ‘I’ll take a sandwich with me and have my dinner when I finish tonight.’

‘
I’ll make some for you.’ And she did so, with bread and some rather hard cheese, then wrapped them in a clean tea towel; she had found a supply of them in a drawer.

Matt
noticed and said, ‘They were in Joe Docherty’s house. I brought them along to clean this place.’

Katy
reflected that she had found them just in time. As he stood up she asked, ‘Have you had enough?’

‘
Aye, I’ve fed well.’

Beatrice
put in, ‘We usually just have bread and jam.’

Matt
scowled at her but admitted, ‘What you’ve just cooked was for Sunday, but I can get some more.’ This was Friday.

Katy
said quickly, ‘No, I’ll see to that.’

He
bit his lip then said, ‘I think we need to buy some grub, for dinner and so on. I’ve been doing it when I could.’ Katy knew food was needed from her investigation of the cupboards, but held her tongue. Matt dug in his pocket and came out with some silver and copper. He counted coins out onto the table, two shillings and sixpence, then asked, ‘Will that be enough?’