No Greater Love (9 page)

Mabel snapped, ‘She wouldn’t be so daft in the head! Our Maggie’s worked hard to get her job at Pearson’s. She’s always had more brains than the rest of you put together, she’s not going to fling it all out the window.’

Susan could see her mother was growing agitated, sweat breaking out on her putty-coloured skin.

‘Maggie says they torture lasses in prison,’ Jimmy continued in fascination. ‘I think she’d be brave to gan to gaol - just like Joan of Arc.’

‘She’s not going to gaol!’ Mabel shouted, her breathing laboured. ‘Your head’s always full of such nonsense, Jimmy.’

‘Of course she’s not, Mam,’ Susan said soothingly, alarmed to see her mother so upset.

A knock at the door brought the argument to an abrupt end and Jimmy leapt up to answer it, glad to escape his mother’s anger. He did not know what he had done to upset her but as usual he had succeeded in doing so.

‘Richard! ‘Jimmy beamed with delight at the surprise visitor. ‘You’ve just saved me from a clout around the lugs,’ he grinned.

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ Richard smiled and stepped into the kitchen, ‘but I can’t believe these delightful ladies would do you any harm.’

Susan flushed and stood up, her sewing dropping to the floor. Mabel waved him in.

‘Come in, hinny. We could do with some company. So where’ve you been hiding?’

‘Business, business,’ Richard replied with an evasive smile. ‘But all work and no play makes for a dull life, don’t you think, Mrs Beaton?’ He glanced around the room as he spoke, noting the absence of the others. Susan was too flustered to see the glint of disappointment in his eyes.

‘When are you going to take me and Tommy to the pictures, Richard?’ Jimmy asked eagerly. ‘You promised, remember?’

‘Did I?’ Richard asked with a vague smile.

‘Aye, you did!’ Jimmy was adamant ‘You said—’

‘Stop whingeing, lad,’ Mabel scolded. ‘Can’t you see he’s a busy man? Susan’ll fetch you a sandwich, Richard.’ She pushed him into a chair beside her.

‘I’ll make a pot of tea,’ Susan said breathlessly.

‘No.’ Mabel stopped her. ‘Get out a couple of glasses.’ She winked at Richard. ‘Tich, take the coppers in the tea caddy and gan to the corner for a jug of beer.’

Jimmy did so with a resigned sigh, being used to such errands for his mother and Mrs Smith downstairs. They knew him well at the Gunners where their landlord was the proprietor and Jimmy had long since got used to the ribald remarks about serving Widow Beaton and her haughty daughters.

‘That’s more like it,’ Richard laughed, rubbing his hands together. ‘Make it three glasses, Susan. You’ll join us for a little taste, won’t you?
^’
he winked.

Susan curbed her disapproval and looked at her mother for guidance.

Mabel wagged her finger. ‘Just a taste now.’

‘Aye,’ Susan giggled, not wanting Richard to think her boring. What was the harm of a little drink behind closed doors?

‘That’s my girl,’ Richard grinned and patted the stool beside him, making Susan’s heart leap with excitement.

Half an hour and a jug of beer later, the merry group at Gun Street had started to sing and Richard was delighting them with sentimental variety hall songs.

Susan, mellow and slightly tipsy from the bitter-sweet ale, watched him in smiling adoration. Tonight, she thought contentedly, Richard Turvey had come here to court her. It was a new beginning. Despite Granny Beaton’s muttered forebodings, 1913 was going to be a lucky year for the Beatons, a year of romance and prosperity. Finally, life was going to get better, Susan thought, flushed with optimism and alcohol.

It was in this state of semi-inebriated sentimentality that Maggie and Granny Beaton found the family on their return from Daniel Park. Granny tutted in disapproval but Maggie did not want to spoil Susan’s happy state and good-naturedly joined in the singing. She began
The Women’s Marseillaise
until the others shouted her down.

‘No politics, Maggie!’ Susan protested.

But Maggie did not care, for she was bubbling with news that she found hard to keep to herself. In the park she had met Rose Johnstone.

‘Come round to my house on Sunday afternoon,’ Rose had told her in that light, unconcerned voice that suffragettes used to convey their messages in public places. ‘I have a friend coming to tea.’

The look of understanding that had passed between them confirmed that Emily Davison wanted to meet Maggie at last.

‘It’s not fair!’ Helen complained for the umpteenth time. ‘I bet Richard came to see me, not our Susan.’

‘Button that mouth of yours or I’ll skelp you,’ Mabel hissed sharply, arranging a man’s overcoat on the rug spread out at her feet. Around them, other stallholders were arranging their wares on the worn cobbles.

‘And she was drunk when I got in - stinkin’ of wallop,’ Helen ranted. ‘It’s disgustin’! And giving him the eye.’

Mabel whipped round and gave her daughter a hard smack across her cheek. Helen screamed in shock.

‘Don’t you dare speak about your sister like that again! She’s a better lass than you’ll ever be and you’re not going to spoil things for her. Richard’s taking her to the rowing this afternoon and you’ll keep out the way.’

Maggie watched the scene in dismay as the impact from her mother’s hand left livid red marks across Helen’s fair cheek. She wished she had not come to help out at the Sandgate market, there had been nothing but argument since arriving, but she had wanted to keep herself occupied to take her mind off the coming meeting with Emily Davison.

Helen was now sobbing uncontrollably, so Maggie put an arm about her shaking shoulders. She hated it when their mother’s weary frustration erupted into violence against them as it still frequently did.

‘There was no need for that, Mam,’ Maggie chided quietly. ‘Helen’s not a bairn anymore.’

‘Well, she’s behaving like one,’ Mabel snapped, her face haggard and sweating in the sunshine. She turned away from her daughter’s critical look and Maggie suspected she already regretted striking Helen.

‘Haway,’ Maggie shook her sister kindly, ‘you’re driving away custom with all your noise.’ She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped Helen’s streaming face. ‘The foreign sailors aren’t going to look twice, they’ll just think you’re one of the wailing cats around here.’

Helen sniffed behind the handkerchief, peering down towards the quay. ‘What sailors?’

Maggie grinned. ‘That’s more like it. There’s a pair coming towards us in yellow clogs, Dutch or Norwegian - big and blond anyway.’

Helen’s crying died away as she wiped her face dry and tossed back her ringlets, her eyes on the approaching merchantmen. Composed in an instant, she hurried to her mother’s side and began a busy arranging of the shoes in the barrow. ‘Let me, Mam,’ she insisted with a sweet smile, as if their tiff had never been.

Mabel exchanged a shake of the head with Maggie and they all settled to the business of bartering.

‘Come here, hinnies!’ Mabel cried at the curious sailors who had stopped at a nearby stall. ‘I’ve just the clothes for fine young lads like you.’

One of them laughed in understanding and stepped closer, eyeing the wares spread out on the ground. He pointed at the black coat.

‘Aye, a good choice, hinny,’ Mabel nodded. ‘Belonged to a bishop, very good quality – I’ll not have another one like it. Feel the thickness, gan on.’

Maggie watched in admiration as her mother coaxed the young man to try it on, clucking with compliments.

Helen beamed with encouragement too.

‘It suits you,’ she said coyly.

The young man was pleased and laughed, exchanging comments in his own tongue with his shipmate.

‘I know you’re not on a captain’s wage so it’s yours for sixteen shillings,’ Mabel said.

The sailor hesitated and shook his head. He pulled out some money from an inside pocket and laid it out on his palm: There were nine shillings. He shrugged to indicate it was all he had. Maggie saw her mother look disappointed, but Helen intercepted.

‘Let him have it, Mam,’ she pleaded. ‘He’s probably only a deckhand.’

Mabel relented. ‘Gan on and take it, hinny,’ she sighed, ‘but tell all your mates where they can buy a fine bargain.’

The sailor handed over the money, winked at Helen and walked off proudly wearing his purchase.

Maggie turned to her mother in amusement ‘A bishop’s coat, eh? Durham or Canterbury?’

‘It’s not a word of a lie,’ her mother said defensively. ‘It belonged to a Mr Bishop in High Heaton.’

Maggie and Helen burst out laughing. Soon the morning’s quarrel was forgotten as they competed for custom and tried to outdo each other’s wooing of passers-by.

Maggie loved the vibrant life of Newcastle’s quayside and the flotilla of merchant ships bobbing lazily in the sun on the silver Tyne. They had to shout above the din of cartwheels grinding over the cobbles and the calls of hawkers and tipsters. A man went past with a placard announcing that the day of judgement was nigh. ‘Repent! Repent!’ he shouted at them with a fierce look. At a corner cafe, traders and seamen sat smoking reflectively while the down-at-heel sunned themselves on the warming steps of a lodging house, turning pallid faces to the sky.

After a morning’s trading, the second-hand clothes merchants began to bundle up their wares and disperse. Mabel led her daughters to the nearby cafe for some tea and cake as a reward for their efforts. She flopped down exhausted and stretched out her aching feet, exchanging pleasantries with Stella the cafe owner whom she knew well from her years of trading. Stella brought them steaming tea in chipped mugs and chatted about the ships that had berthed the previous night. Just then, a gaunt-looking woman with dyed red hair and high black heels passed by the open door, smoking.

‘Brazen hussy!’ Mabel tutted.

‘Aye,’ Stella agreed. ‘I’ll not have them in my establishment.’

‘Who?’ Helen asked innocently.

‘Wicked lasses like that’un,’ her mother answered, blowing vigorously at her hot tea. ‘She shouldn’t be out on the streets in daylight among honest folk. Now stop staring.’

‘How do you know her?’ Helen asked.

‘She doesn’t, she’s a prostitute,’ Maggie explained. She had seen them before when John Heslop, the Methodist lay preacher, had led a mission to the quayside and Maggie had volunteered to hand out soup and religious tracts. For a short while she had considered becoming a missionary, but then she had heard Emmeline Pankhurst speak and her life had changed. From that day she had determined that her mission would be women’s suffrage.

‘A prostitute,’ Helen gasped in fascination. ‘You mean that one gans with men for money?
^’

‘That’s enough,’ Mabel said. ‘We’ll talk no more about it.’

‘If lasses had more jobs and better pay, they wouldn’t need to serve men for a living,’ said Maggie.

‘Hush, our Maggie!’ Mabel said, scandalised. ‘I’ll not have you defending whores - they’re sinful.’

‘Jesus did,’ Maggie said dryly.

‘Don’t you get clever with me, young lady. We’ve been poor but we’ve earned a living off honest means, however hard.
^’
Mabel jabbed a censorious finger at the retreating prostitute and looked to Stella for support. ‘Her kind wouldn’t thank you if you gave her an honest job. That’s what comes of wicked living and a bad home.’

‘Aye,’ Stella nodded. ‘Sinners all.’

‘If a daughter of mine ever messed with men, I’d hoy them into the street where they belonged.’

Her friend agreed. ‘Hoy ’em oot, I say.’

Maggie decided not to challenge her mother further. She glanced at Helen, but her attention was still fixed on the red-headed woman as she strolled out of view in a halo of cigarette smoke.

***

‘You’ll come with us, won’t you?’ Susan pleaded with Maggie. She had dressed in her best pink birthday gown and her golden hair was neatly combed and pinned beneath a straw boater with candy-pink ribbons.

Maggie looked up distractedly from the book she was reading on her grandmother’s bed. It was an avant-garde novel, ‘The Story of a Modern Woman’, lent to her by Rose, and she wanted to finish it before seeing her friend the next day so they could discuss it. Maggie met Susan’s expectant gaze in the parlour mirror.

‘I’ve got newspapers to sell this afternoon,’ Maggie countered.

‘Oh, Maggie, you must come!’ Susan protested. ‘Otherwise Helen or Mam will have to chaperone us. Mam’s tired and would rather rest anyway, and Helen - well, you know what she’d be like.’

‘Tich can go with you,’ Maggie suggested half-heartedly.

‘He’s gone fishing with Tommy and old Gabriel.’ Susan’s eyes swam with sudden tears. ‘Please, Maggie.

This is a special day for me and I want it to be canny. I can’t go to the boat race if you won’t come with me. Me and Richard will just have to stop in the house with Mam and Granny.’

‘All right,’ Maggie sighed, giving up her plans of a pleasant read or going into town. ‘I’ll come.’

Susan rushed over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘You’ll have to put on something smart, mind. And you’ll brush your hair, won’t you? And please don’t wear that hat with the suffragette ribbons round it. You’ll not go on about women’s rights to Richard either? He doesn’t hold with that sort of talk.’

Maggie groaned and closed her book. She had no wish to spend the afternoon trailing around after Susan and the garrulous Richard Turvey, craning over the crowds to get a glimpse of a few rowing boats. But she could see how excited her sister was at the prospect of the afternoon’s entertainment and Susan certainly deserved a few hours’ respite from the drudgery of Gun Street.

‘Haway then,’ Maggie smiled resignedly. ‘I’ll play the meek little sister just this once. What do you want me to wear?’

Taking the tramcar to Scotswood, the party of three alighted close to the Ord Arms and followed the crowd of holidaymakers down to the riverside. Stepping past a group of children playing marbles in the street, they emerged from the uniform ranks of housing onto the banks of the Tyne where a thriving boat club was swarming with spectators.

‘Used to go boating a lot on the Thames,’ Richard was telling Susan who was clinging to his arm. ‘Rowed on most big rivers in Europe, as a matter of fact.’