When the lamp was lit he said, ‘Well, there you are now, home sweet home.’
Janie stood and looked about her. ‘I’ll have to get stuck in here at nights,’ she said.
‘Well, if you will go working in the day-time, Mrs Connor.’ He pulled her to him again and they stood pressed close looking silently now into each other’s face. ‘Happy?’
She smiled softly, ‘Ever so.’
‘It’s not going to be an easy life.’
‘Huh! what do I care about that as long as we’re together. Easy life?’ She shook her head. ‘I’d go fish guttin’ if I could help you, an’ you know how I hate guttin’ fish, even when we used to get them for practically nowt from the quay. Do you remember walkin’ all the way down into Shields and getting a huge basketful for threepence?’
‘Only because they were on the point of going rotten.’
‘Ger-away with you . . . Do you want something to eat?’
‘No.’
‘You’re not hungry?’
‘Not for food.’
Her lips pressed tightly together; she closed her eyes and bowed her head.
He now put his hands up to her hair and unpinned her hat and throwing it aside, unbuttoned her coat.
‘I’ll have to get these bundles unpacked and . . . and tidied up.’
He went on undoing the buttons. ‘There’s all day the morrow and the next day and the next day and the next, all our life to undo bundles . . .’
‘Hie! what’re you doin’? That’s me good coat. Look, it’s on the floor.’
‘Leave it on the floor; there’s more to follow.’
‘Rory! Rory! the bed isn’t made up.’
‘The bed is made up, I saw to it.’
‘Oh Rory! . . . An’ I’m cold, I’m cold, I’m cold. I’ll have to get me nightie.’
‘You’re not going to need a nightie.’
‘Aw, Rory! . . . Eeh!’ She let out a squeal as, dressed only in her knickers and shift, he swung her up into his arms and carried her through into the bedroom and dropped her on to the bed. She lay there just where he had dropped her and in the dim light reflected from the kitchen she watched him throw off his clothes.
When he jumped on to the bed beside her she squealed and said, ‘Eeh! the lamp.’
‘The lamp can wait.’
They were pressed close, but she was protesting slightly, she didn’t want to be rushed. She was a bit afraid of this thing. If she could only make him take it quietly—lead up to it sort of. Her grannie had said it hurt like hell. His lips were moving round her face when she murmured, in a futile effort to stem his ardour, ‘Oh Rory, Rory, I’ll never be happier than I am at this minute. It’s been a wonderful day, hasn’t it? . . . They were all so good, an’ they enjoyed themselves, didn’t they? I bet they’ll keep up the jollification all night.’ She moaned softly as his hands moved over her; then, her voice trailing weakly away, she ended, ‘If-only-John-George-had-been-there . . .’
His hands ceased their groping, his lips became still on her breast and she screamed out now as he actually pushed her from him with such force that her shoulders hit the wall as he yelled at her, ‘God Almighty! can’t you give him a rest? What’ve you got to bring him up now for, at this minute? You did it on purpose.
In the silence that followed he listened to her gasping. Then she was in his arms again and he was rocking her. ‘Oh lass, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Did I hurt you? I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It was only, well, you know, I’ve waited so long . . . And, and . . .’
When she didn’t answer him, or make any sound, he said softly, ‘Janie. Janie. Say something.’ What she said was, ‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’
‘I love you. I love you, Janie. Aw, I love you. If I lost you I’d go mad, barmy.’
‘It’s all right. It’s all right, you won’t lose me.’
‘Will you always love me?’
‘Always.’
‘You promise?’
‘Aye, I promise.’
‘I’ll never love anybody in me life but you, I couldn’t. Aw, Janie, Janie . . .’
Later in the night when the light was out and he was asleep she lay still in his arms but wide awake. It hadn’t been like she had expected, not in any way. Perhaps she wasn’t goin’ to like that kind of thing after all. Her grannie said some didn’t, while others couldn’t get enough. Well she’d never be one of those, she was sure of that already. Perhaps it was spoiled for her when he threw her against the wall because she had mentioned John George.
It was most strange how he reacted now whenever John George’s name was mentioned. She could understand him not wanting to go to the prison, him having this feeling about being shut in, but she couldn’t work out in her own mind why he never spoke of John George. And when the name was mentioned by anybody else he would remain silent. But to act like he had done the night just because . . . Well, she was flabbergasted.
Her grannie, as part of the advice she had given her on marriage last Sunday, had said, ‘If he wants any funny business, out of the ordinary like, and some of them do, you never know till the door’s closed on you, you have none of it. An’ if he raises his hand to you, go for the poker. Always leave it handy. Start the way you mean to go on ’cos with the best of them, butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths afore they get you in that room. But once there, it’s like Adam and Eve racing around the Garden of Eden every night. An’ if you cross your fingers and say skinch, or in other words, hold your horses, lad, I’ve had enough, they bring the priest to you, an’ he reads the riot act. “Supply your man’s needs,” he says, “or it’s Hell fire and brimstone for you.” So off you gallop again, even when your belly’s hangin’ down to your knees.’
She had laughed at her grannie and with her grannie. She had put her arms around the old woman and they had rocked together until the tears had run down their faces, and the last words she had said to her were, ‘Don’t worry, Gran, nowt like that’ll happen to me. It’s Rory I’m marrying, and I know Rory. I should do, there’s only a thin wall divided us for years.’
But now they hadn’t been hours married afore he had tossed her against a wall, and tossed her he had because he had hurt her shoulder and it was still paining. Life was funny . . . odd.
3
Septimus Kean died, and Rory continued to take the day’s collections to the house for some four weeks after Mr Kean had been buried, and each time Miss Kean received him in what she called the office. But on this particular Friday night she met him in the hall and said to him, ‘Just leave the bag on the office table, Mr Connor, we’ll see to that later. By the way, are you in a hurry?’
He was in a hurry, he was in a hurry to get home to Janie, to sit before the fire and put his feet up and talk with Jimmy, and hear if he had managed to get an order, and to find out if any of the Pitties had been about again . . . The Pitties. He’d give his right arm, literally, if he could get his own back on the Pitties. There was a deep acid hate in him for the Pitties. And it would appear they hadn’t finished with him for they had been spying about the place. He knew that to get a start on the river Jimmy would have to take the droppings, but if it lay with the Pitties he wouldn’t get even the droppings. They were beasts, dangerous beasts. By God he’d give anything to get one over on them.
He answered her, ‘Oh no, not at all.’
‘There is something I wish to discuss with you. I’m about to have a cup of tea, would you care to join me?’
Old Kean’s daughter asking him to join her in a cup of tea! Well! Well! He could scarcely believe his ears. Things were looking up. By lad, they were.
In the hall she said to the maid, ‘Take Mr Connor’s coat and hat.’
Then he was following her to the end of the hall, and into a long room. There was a big fire blazing in the grate to the right of them. It was a fancy grate with a black iron basket. It had a marble mantelpiece with, at each end, an urn-shaped vase standing on it, and above the mantelpiece was another large oil painting of yet another past Kean.
