A Safe Harbour (10 page)
Authors: Benita Brown
Tags: #Technology & Engineering, #Sagas, #Fisheries & Aquaculture, #Fiction
‘I’ll come and see you, Kate. He hasn’t forbidden that.’
‘That’s because he hasn’t thought about it. What will you do if he does forbid you to see me?’
‘Divven’t fret. I can keep me own counsel.’
Kate knew what her mother meant. To keep the peace Nan Lawson had learned over the years that sometimes it was better to lie to her husband; or at least not to tell the complete truth. There was a difference. Most of the time it was to protect her children when they were young – hiding from Henry things they’d broken, perhaps. Replacing a dish or a jug and hoping he wouldn’t notice. And, as they’d grown, the boys had learned to hold their tongues and keep out of their father’s way. It was only hot-headed Kate who ever openly defied her father. Her brothers despaired of her.
Kate rose and went over to the bed where the old lady was still sleeping. She was dreaming again. Her brow was pulled into an anxious frown and there were traces of tears on her wrinkled cheeks. Kate bent down and kissed Sarah’s brow. She cared deeply for her great-grandmother and she wondered if she would ever see her again.
‘You’ll let me know if . . . if . . .’ she said to her mother.
‘Of course.’
Kate had bundled her clothes into a shawl and now she picked it up and walked to the door. She hugged her mother and walked away from her childhood home.
Back Row was deserted, save for the black cat sleeping full length on the stone window sill. As Kate approached it opened one eye and then the other. It raised its head and stood up, stretching its lean body into an arch. Then it jumped down and approached her, purring loudly. She bent to stroke its head and then the sudden cry of a gull overhead made it skitter away with an angry yowl. But it crossed my path, Kate thought. And Jos had once told her that not only was it lucky to stroke a black cat, but if it crossed your path you could make a wish.
Kate closed her eyes. What I wish for most is impossible, she thought. I want to turn back time to the day before Jos drowned. I want the foolish prank that ended in tragedy never to have happened. Her brow furrowed. But what am I to make of what Thomas has told me about Jos’s plans? I’m beginning to think I didn’t really know the lad I’d promised to marry.
She looked down at the bay, its calm waters protected by the old stone piers. A safe harbour, she thought. That’s what I need now, not just for me but for Jos’s child. Then that is what I’ll wish for.
Not much later she sat on one of the wooden benches outside the Look-out House. Her bundle was on the seat beside her. From here she could see the slope that led down to the beach and almost all of the harbour. The sea shimmered in the light from the eastern sky. The scene below was busy. The men had set out not long after midnight and now most of the village’s eighty cobles had returned from the fishing, including her father’s. Kate watched as the crews unloaded the fish and began to sort it into boxes ready for the beach auction. As soon as that was over the men would go home to bed.
Some of the women, the fishwives, were making their way down to the beach ready to buy. Once the fish was bought and sorted it was packed into their creels, the deep wicker baskets which they carried on their backs. When they were loaded up they might catch a lift on a cart if they were lucky, otherwise they set off up the slope so heavily laden that the ropes that kept the creels on their backs left permanent marks on their shoulders and upper arms. Most of them had a regular round of customers, and not all the customers were local.
At the bottom of the slope horses waited patiently while carts were loaded with boxes of crabs and lobsters as well as the fish to be sold at Shields. The first to arrive at North Shields Fish market would get the best prices. On a normal morning Kate would have been helping to unload her father’s coble and then drag it up the beach. She wondered if he had told her brothers why she was not there. She wondered if they would miss her; dear reliable William and Thomas her impetuous twin. She would certainly miss them.
Kate shrank back against the wall of the Look-out House when she realized that she was not alone. Not far away, the artist Howard Munro was leaning on the wooden rail as he gazed at the scene in the harbour. Kate was glad that her seat was in the shadow of the overhanging roof. Mr Munro had been kind to care what happened to her, but would he be so concerned for her if he knew that, unmarried as she was, she was expecting a child?
To her relief he didn’t stay long. Kate watched as he strolled away along the headland to meet another well-dressed gentleman. Kate thought it looked like Richard Adamson. She had observed that Mr Munro and Mr Adamson often walked out in the morning together, accompanied by Mr Adamson’s dog. The two men were striding out and they soon vanished in the direction of the old priory with the dog bounding along ahead of them.
And then Kate saw the person she was waiting for coming up the slope. Her Aunt Meg was bent almost double under the weight of her fishwife’s creel. Her father’s older sister must be in her mid-fifties, Kate guessed, but she was tough and wiry. She worked hard on her round and asked help from no one, not even her brother. Kate’s father did not get on even with members of his own family. But Aunt Meg had always been friendly with Kate’s mother and had loved Henry’s children, Kate and her brothers, as if they were her own.
When she reached the top of the slope Aunt Meg saw Kate and came towards her. She eased the creel off her back and lowered it on to the bench. Then she sat down. Her cheeks, naturally rosy, were even rosier than usual and she was out of breath.
‘You could hev gone straight round to Belle Vue,’ she said. Belle Vue was the name she had given her cottage. Her breathing slowly steadied, but Kate saw how strained she was. ‘I left the back door open. I was going to call by before setting off on me rounds.’
‘I didn’t know that. And I wanted to be sure of seeing you. Make sure it was all right.’
‘Of course it’s all right. When your mother came to see me last night I telt her not to worry, you’d be fine with me. Didn’t she say?’
‘Yes. But you know my mother . . . did she tell you everything?’
‘Yes, she told me why yer da wants to pack you off to the workhouse. Well, we can’t have that.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What are you apologizing for?’
‘For the trouble I’m going to cause you. After all, me da – well, he’s your brother, and—’
‘And he’s a tyrant. Well, divven’t fret. I’m not afeared of him; I never have been. Now, hawway, our Kate, we canna sit around talking. These fish won’t sell themselves . . . What are you looking at?’ She turned her head to look in the same direction. ‘Oh, yer da. Divven’t fret, him and yer brothers’ll be down on the beach a while yet.’
Kate pushed herself forcefully up from the bench. ‘I wish me da was dead!’ she said, the emotion roughening her voice.
‘That’s wicked. And you don’t mean it.’
‘Yes I do. He’s violent and cruel and he’s made our lives a misery. I don’t know why my mother married him.’
‘I warned her that Henry was a bad bugger,’ her aunt said. ‘But she wouldn’t listen. Oh, you should hev seen him when he was a stripling, Kate. Yer da was easily the best-looking lad for miles around. He could hev had any lass he wanted . . . well, mebbe not, not the sensible ones. And yer ma as well. She was right bonny but she had no sense at all, bless her. She was dazzled by him and, to be fair, his drinking was under control in them days. You know it’s the drink that makes him bad, don’t you?’
‘Only too well.’
‘It’s like a disease, I think. He can’t help himself.’
‘Disease or not, no man should ever hit his wife and bairns the way our da has hit us.’
‘Aye, I’ve seen the bruises on poor Nan. I know what she’s had to bear for the sake of her bairns. I telt her many years ago that when you were all grown she could leave him and come and live with me, but I don’t suppose she ever will.’
‘Why not?’
‘Pride. Her own family begged her not to wed Henry Lawson but she was determined to have her own way. Does that remind you of anyone? It should. You’re very like her, Kate. Oh, I know you get that stubborn streak from your father, but your ma’s a proud woman and you’re the same.’
Kate was speechless. The idea that her parents were once young and passionate was disturbing. And was that why her mother had been so supportive of her when she’d announced that she wanted to marry Jos? Because Nan herself had once been in the same position? She was suddenly overcome with anguish for her kind and loving mother. She had followed her heart and it had not brought her happiness. But I could have been happy, Kate thought. It would have been different for Jos and me, or at least I thought so . . .
Aunt Meg rose from the seat and began to strap on her creel.
‘Here, let me help you,’ Kate said, and she was surprised and dismayed to discover how heavy the basket was.
‘Divven’t worry’ – her aunt must have seen her frown – ‘I’m used to this. And I don’t carry as much as I used to. I think I’m getting old.’
‘Not you.’ Kate smiled but she was worried. She wasn’t sure of her aunt’s exact age but she had noticed how tired she had seemed of late. ‘I won’t be a burden to you,’ she burst out. ‘I’ll help you as much as I can.’
‘I’m counting on it. I’ve promised yer ma that you’ll be well looked after but you’ll hev to earn your keep while you’re with me. I hope you didn’t think you were going to be a lady of leisure.’
‘Of course not!’ Kate flared and then she saw that her aunt was teasing.
‘Eeh, Kate, you’ll have to learn to keep that temper in check if you’re going to bide with me. I’m a Lawson too, remember, and I dare say I could better you in a shouting match. Now then, we’ve gossiped long enough and Albert will be setting off soon.’
‘Albert?’
‘Albert Brunton. It’s Wallsend for me today and Albert will take me as far as the old milestone. Now hawway, we’ll take your bundle along home and pick up me crabs and lobsters.’
Before they set off Kate stooped swiftly and kissed Aunt Meg’s cheek. Her aunt’s skin was whiskery and Kate could smell gin and snuff. Snuff, her aunt’s secret vice. At least, she thought it was a secret, but the brown stain just below her nose gave her away. As long as Kate could remember Aunt Meg had smelt of gin and snuff, although there was also a very faint trace of her favourite rose and lavender hair rinse. Aunt Meg had the distinctive Lawson hair, and even though the colour was fading she was still proud of her abundant tresses. She started each morning by dressing it carefully, no matter that by the end of the day most of it would have escaped the tortoiseshell combs and be hanging down her back.
And Aunt Meg’s face, though weathered, still bore traces of her former beauty. Kate’s mother had told her that Meg Lawson had once been considered the bonniest lass in the village and all the lads had wanted to dance with her when the Scottish band played at the salmon supper.
Once back in her cottage Aunt Meg wasted no time. She took an empty wicker basket and put it down on the bench next to a large iron boiling pot. She lifted the pot into the sink and gently tilted it so that the cooked crabs and lobsters it contained spilled out. Soon they were packed neatly into the basket.
‘Here, take this,’ she said, holding the basket out. ‘You can start earning your keep straight away.’
It was only a short walk along a rutted dirt track to Albert Brunton’s timber yard, which backed on to the small Quaker burial ground at the end of Marden Lane. The yard was cluttered with assorted junk; bits and pieces of metal and off-cuts of wood. Sawdust was mulched into the dried mud underfoot and the sweet smell of resin hung in the air.
Mr Brunton must have been sawing and cutting since first light and the cart was loaded and ready to go. ‘Here, girl, here . . . steady now, steady!’ Kate watched as with practised gentleness the timber merchant manoeuvred the big, good-natured bay into the shafts. ‘Aye, you’re a good girl, Bess,’ he said as he patted the mare’s neck and then checked the bit.
Albert Brunton was a quiet man. The wags had it that his horse got more words out of him than his wife did, but Mrs Brunton smiled at him nevertheless as she crossed the yard to help him pull open the big wooden doors. Tilda Brunton said good morning to Aunt Meg and shot Kate a sympathetic smile. She didn’t question her presence, and neither did Albert. He simply nodded to Meg and then helped both her and Kate up onto the cart, lifting the creel and the basket up after them.
As her aunt settled herself she made a show of huffing and puffing. ‘Eeh, I’m getting on a bit for this kind of life,’ she said. ‘It’s a good job I’ve got my niece to help me. And she’s only too pleased to,’ she added after a slight pause. ‘It’ll take the poor lass’s mind off things.’
By this evening, Kate thought, everyone in the village will know that I’ve moved into Belle Vue cottage and my aunt, God bless her, has tried to provide a believable explanation. It will be months yet before the truth becomes plain for all to see. But before then my father will surely come and demand that she throw me out. I believe Aunt Meg is strong enough to stand up to him – so long as he is not drunk and violent . . .
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