Janie left the Infirmary around eleven o’clock to slip back to her place, and the look on her face checked the upbraiding from the cook and her master and mistress. The master and mistress were deeply concerned over the incident and gave her leave to visit the hospital first thing in the morning.
Fortunately it was not more than five minutes’ walk from the house, they said, so she was to go upstairs and rest, as she would need all her strength to face the future.
It was a term that ordinary people used when a man had died and a woman was left to fend for herself and her family with no hope of help but the questionable charity of the Poor House. It was as if Rory were already gone. Well, the family expected he would go before dawn, didn’t they? Men in his condition usually went out about three in the morning.
She asked politely if she could go back now because she’d like to be with him when he went.
Her master and mistress held a short conference in the drawing-room and then they gave her their permission.
Rory passed the critical time of 3 a.m. He was still breathing at five o’clock in the morning, but the night sister informed them now that he might remain in a coma for days and that they should go home.
Ruth and Paddy nodded at her in obedience because they both knew that Paddy must get to work; and Ruth said to Janie, ‘You must get back an’ all, lass. Don’t take too much advantage an’ they’ll let you out again.’ And Janie, numb with agony, could only nod to this sound advice. But Lizzie refused to budge. Here she was, she said, and here she’d remain until she knew he was either going or staying. And Jimmy said he’d stay too, until it was time to go to work.
So Ruth and Paddy nodded a silent good-bye to Janie when their ways parted at Westoe and walked without exchanging a word through the dark streets that were already filling with men on their way to the shipyards, the docks, and farther into Jarrow to Palmer’s. But when they had passed through the arches and came to where the road divided Paddy said, ‘I’d better go straight on up else I’ll be late.’
‘You’ve got your good suit on.’
‘Bugger me good suit!’
Ruth peered at him through the darkness before she said quietly, ‘If he goes things’ll be tight, think on that. There’ll be less for beer and nowt for clothes. I depended on him.’
‘Aw, woman!’ He swung away from her now and made for the Simonside road, saying over his shoulder, ‘Then stop skittering behind, put a move on. If they dock me half an hour it’ll be less on the mantelpiece, so think on.’
Think on, he said. She had thought on for years. She had thought on the pain of life that you managed to work off during the daytime, but which pressed on you in the night and settled around your heart, causing wind, the relief of which brought no ease. She had loved him in the early years, but after Rory was born she hated him. Yet her hate hadn’t spread over Lizzie. Strange that, she had always liked Lizzie. Still did. She couldn’t imagine life without Lizzie. When Nellie was born a little wonder had entered her life, yet she had actually fought him against the conception. Every time he had tried to touch her she had fought him. Sometimes she conquered because he became weary of the struggle, but at other times after a hard day at the wash tub and baking and cleaning, because she’d had it all to do herself then as Lizzie went out daily doing for the people down the bank, she would surrender from sheer exhaustion. When Jimmy came life ran smoothly for a time. She felt happy she had a son; that he should have rickets didn’t matter so much. As he grew his legs would straighten. So she had thought at first. Then came the day when hate rose in her for Paddy again. It was when he tried once more to take Lizzie. She had come in from next door and found them struggling there in the open on the mat and the bairns locked in the scullery. There had been no need for Lizzie to protest ‘I want none of him, Ruth, I want none of him,’ the scratches on his face bore out her statement.
From then on the dess bed in the kitchen became a battleground. Finally he brought the priest to her; and she was forced to do her duty in the fear of everlasting hell and damnation.
She had never asked herself why Lizzie had stayed with them all these years because where would a single woman go with a bairn? Anyway, it was his responsibility to see that she was taken care of after giving her a child.
And now that child was lying back there battered and on his way to death. What would Lizzie do without him? He had scorned her since the day he learned she was his mother. But it hadn’t altered her love for him; the only thing it had done was put an edge to her tongue every time she spoke to him. Funny, but she envied Lizzie. Although she knew she had Rory’s affection, she envied her, for she was his mother.
Rory regained consciousness at eight o’clock on the Monday morning. Lizzie was by his side and he looked at her without recognition, and when his lips moved painfully she put her ear down to him and all she could make out was one word, which she repeated a number of times and in an anguished tone. ‘Aye. Aye, lad,’ she said, ‘it is a pity. It is a pity. Indeed it is a pity.’
He would rally, they said, so she must leave the ward but she could come back in the afternoon.
Without protest now she left the hospital. But she didn’t go straight home. She found her way to the Catholic church, which she had never been in before; on her yearly visits she patronized the Jarrow one. She waited until the Mass was finished, and then approaching the priest without showing the awe due to his station and infallibility, she told him that her son was dying in the Infirmary and would he see that he got the last rites. The priest asked her where she was from and other particulars. He showed her no sympathy, he didn’t like her manner, she was a brusque woman and she did not afford him the reverence that her kind usually bestowed on him, nor did she slip anything into his hand, but she did say that if her son went she would buy a mass for him.
He watched her leave the church without putting a halfpenny in the poor box.
The priest’s feelings for Lizzie were amply reciprocated. She told herself she didn’t like him, he wasn’t a patch on the Jarrow ones. But then she supposed it didn’t make much difference who sent you over to the other side as long as there was one of them to see that you were properly prepared for the journey.
It was around half-past one when Lizzie, about to pick up her shawl for the journey back to the hospital, glanced out of the cottage window, then stopped and said, ‘Here’s John George; he must have heard.’
By the time John George reached the door she had opened it and, looking at his white drawn face, said quietly, ‘Come in, lad. Come in.’
He came in. He stood in the middle of the room looking from one to the other; then as he was about to speak Ruth said softly, ‘You’ve heard then, John George?’ and he repeated ‘Heard?’
‘Aye, about Rory.’
‘Rory? I . . . I came up to find him.’
‘You don’t know then?’
He turned to Lizzie. ‘Know what, Lizzie? What . . . what’s happened him?’ He shook his head, then asked again. ‘What’s happened him?’
‘Oh lad!’ Lizzie now put her hand to her brow. ‘You mean to say you haven’t heard? Jimmy was going to tell Mr Kean at break time.’
‘Mr Kean?’
‘Aye, sit down, lad.’ Ruth now put her hand out and pressed John George into a chair, and he looked at her dumbly as he said, ‘Mr Kean’s not there. Miss Kean, she . . . she came for a while.’ He nodded his head slowly now, then asked stiffly, ‘Rory. Where is he?’
‘He’s down in the hospital, John George. He was beaten up, beaten unto death something terrible.’
When John George now slumped forward over the table and dropped his head into his hands both women came close to him and Lizzie murmured, ‘Aye, lad, aye, I know how you feel.’
After a while he raised his head and looked from one to the other and said dully, ‘He’s dead then?’
‘No.’ Lizzie shook her head from side to side. ‘But he’s as near to it as makes no matter. It’ll be one of God’s rare miracles if he ever recovers, an’ if he does only He knows what’ll be left of him . . . Was Mr Kean asking for him?’
It seemed now that he had difficulty in speaking for he gulped in his throat a number of times before repeating, ‘He wasn’t there, won’t be; won’t be back till the night, his father died.’
‘Ah, God rest his soul. Aye, you did say he wasn’t there. Well, you can tell him when you do see him that it’ll
