you? Actually thinking I’d do a thing like that?’
‘You’re a man and they all do. Me grannie . . .’
‘Blast your grannie! Blast her to hell’s flames! She’s old. Things were different in her day.’
‘Not that. That wasn’t any different. Never will be. It’s the only thing a woman’s really looked down on for. Even if you were to steal you wouldn’t have a stamp put on you like you would have if . . . if you had a bairn.’
‘You won’t have . . .’
‘Rory, no. I tell you no. We’ve waited this long, what’s a few more months?’
‘I could be dead, you could be dead.’
‘We’ll have to take a chance on that.’
‘You know, Janie, you’re hard; there’s a hard streak in you, always has been about some things . . .’
‘I’m not.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘I’m not hard.’
‘Yes you are . . .’
‘I’m not. I’m not.’
‘All right, all right. Aw, don’t cry. I’m sorry, I am. Don’t cry.’
‘I’m not hard.’
‘No, you’re not, you’re lovely . . . It’s all right. Look, it’s all right; I just want to hold you.’
When his arms went about her she jerked herself from his hold once more and going to the window, stood stiffly looking down on to the river, and he stood as stiffly watching her. Only his jaw moved as his teeth ground against each other.
She drew in a deep breath now and, her head turning from one side to the other, she looked up and down the river. As far as her eyes could see both to the right and to the left the banks were lined with craft, ships of all types and sizes, from little scullers, wherries and tugs to great funnelled boats, and here and there a masted ship, its lines standing out separate and graceful from the great iron hulks alongside.
Rory now came slowly to the window and, putting his arm around her shoulders and his manner softened, he said, ‘Look. Look along there. You see that boat with a figurehead on it—there’s a fine lass for you . . . Look at her bust, I bet that’s one of Thomas Anderson’s pieces, and I’ll bet he enjoyed makin’ it.’
‘Rory!’
He hugged her to him now and laughed, then said, ‘There’s the ferry boat right along there going off to Newcastle . . . one of the pleasure trips likely. Think on that, eh? We could take a trip up to Newcastle on a Sunday, and in the week there’ll always be somethin’ for you to look at. The river’s alive during the week.’
She turned her head towards him now and said, ‘You said the rent’s three and six?’
‘Aye.’
‘You won’t get anything from Jimmy, not until he gets set-in.’
‘I know, I know that. But we’ll manage. I’ll still be workin’. I’ll keep on until we really do get set-in and make a business of it. I mightn’t be able to build a boat but I’ll be able to steer one, and I can shovel coal and hump bales with the rest of them. I didn’t always scribble in a rent book you know; I did me stint in the Jarrow chemical works, and in the bottle works afore that.’
‘I know, I know, but I was just thinkin’. Something the mistress said.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Well—’ she turned from him and walked down the length of the room—’she doesn’t want me to leave, I know that, she said as much.’ She swung round again. ‘Do you know she even said to me face that she’d miss me. Fancy her sayin’ that.’
‘Of course she’ll miss you, anybody would.’ He came close to her again and held her face between his hands. ‘I’d miss you. If I ever lost you I’d miss you. God, how I’d miss you! Oh, Janie.’
‘Don’t . . . not for a minute. Listen.’ She pushed his hands from under her oxters now and said, ‘Would you demand I be at home all day?’
‘I don’t know about demand, but I’d want you at home all day. Aye, of course I would. Who’s to do the cooking and the washing and the like? What are you gettin’ at?’
‘Well, it was something the mistress said. She said she had been thinking about raising me wage . . .’
‘Ah, that was just a feeler. Now look, she’s not going to put you off, is she?’
‘No, no, she’s not. She knows I’m goin’ to be married. Oh, she knows that, but what she said was, if . . . if I could come for a while, daily like, until the children got a bit bigger and used to somebody else, because well, as she said, they were fond of me, the bairns. And she would arrange for Bessie to have my room and sleep next to them at night and I needn’t be there until eight in the morning, and I could leave at half-six after I got them to bed.’
He swung away from her, his arms raised above his head, his hands flapping towards the low roof, and he flapped them until he reached the end of the room and turned about and once more was standing in front of her. And then, thrusting his head forward, he said, ‘Look, you’re going to be married, you’re going to start married life the way we mean to go on. You’ll be me wife, an’ I just don’t want you from half-past six or seven at night till eight in the morning, I want you here all the time. I want you here when I come in at dinner-time an’ at tea-time.’
‘She’ll give me three shillings a week. It’s not to be sneezed at, it would nearly pay the rent.’
‘Look. Look, we’ll manage. A few more games like last night, even if nothing bigger, and I can spit in the eye of old Kean . . . and your master and mistress.’
Don’t talk like that!’ She was indignant now. ‘Spittin’ in their eye! They’ve been good to me, better than anybody in me life. I’ve been lucky. Why, I must be the best-treated servant in this town, or in any other. She’s kept me in clothes. And don’t forget—’ she was now wagging her head at him— ‘when things were rough a few years ago with their damned strikes and such, she gave me a loaded basket every week-end. And your own belly would have been empty many a time if I hadn’t have brought it. Meat, flour, sugar . . .’
‘All right, all right; have you got to be grateful for a little kindness all your life? Anyway, it was nothing to them. The only time that kind of charity has any meaning is when the giver has to do without themselves. She likely throws as much in the midden every week.’
‘We haven’t got a midden, as you call it.’
‘You know what I mean.’
Both their voices were lowering now and in a broken tone she replied, ‘No, I don’t know what you mean. There’s things about you I don’t understand, never have.’
He didn’t move towards her but turned his head on his shoulder and looked sideways at her for some seconds before saying, ‘You said you loved me.’
‘Aye, aye, I did, but you can love somebody and not understand them. I might as well tell you I don’t understand how you’re always taken up so much with cards. It’s a mania with you, and I shouldn’t be surprised that when we’re married you’ll be like the rest of them; the others go out every night to the pubs but you’ll go out to your gamin’.’
‘I’ll only go gamin’ when I want money to get you things.’
‘That’ll be your excuse, you’ll go gamin’ because you can’t stop gamin’, it’s like something in your blood. Even as far back as when we went gathering rose hips you wanted to bet on how many you could hold in your fist.’
They were staring at each other now, and he said, ‘You don’t want to come here then?’
‘Aw yes, yes. Aw Rory.’ She went swiftly towards him and leant against him. Then after a moment she muttered, ‘I want to be where you are, but . . . but at the same time I feel I owe them something. You don’t see them as I do. But . . . but don’t worry, I’ll tell her.’
He looked at her softly now as he said, ‘It wouldn’t work. And anyway I want me wife to meself, I don’t want her to be like the scum, gutting fish, or going tatie pickin’ to make ends meet. I want to take care of you, I want a home of me own, with bairns and me wife at the fireside.’
She nodded at him, saying, ‘You’re right, Rory, you’re right,’ while at the same time the disconcerting mental picture of Kathleen Leary flashed across the screen of her mind. Mrs Leary had borne sixteen children and she was worn out, tired and worn out, and she knew that Rory was the kind of man who’d give her sixteen children if he could. Well, that was life, wasn’t it? Yes, but she wasn’t sure if she was going to like that kind of life. She drew herself gently from him now and made for the trap door, saying, ‘I’ll have to get started on some sewing, I haven’t got all that much in me chest.’
As he took her hand to help her down on to the first step she looked up at him and said, ‘The mistress is
