The Harbour Girl (5 page)

Mary had gone to see her mother-in-law, who was fretting that she couldn’t get down to the shoreline to see what was happening.

‘You don’t need to go down,’ Mary told her. ‘It’s enough that you know how it is. No sense in bringing back sad old memories.’

‘Aye,’ Aggie sighed. ‘You’re right. Fifteen years since Herbert was lost, four since Bob, and two since our Jack. It’s not summat you ever forget. I don’t need another great storm to remind me.’

Jeannie, watching and listening, noticed that her grandmother’s tongue was never sharp with her mother in the way it was with her. It seemed that she held back her caustic opinions when speaking to Mary.

On the way back down the Bolts, one of the narrow sets of steps which led to Sandside, she questioned her mother on this issue.

‘Gran doesn’t shout at you the same as she does at me,’ she said, clip-clopping down. ‘I’ve heard her telling off other grown-up folk, but never you. Why’s that?’

Mary hid a wry smile. ‘Once she did,’ she told her daughter, ‘when I first came to Scarborough and met your da. But I told her straight that I was going to marry her son and if she was going to cause trouble I’d persuade him to leave town and come back to Scotland wi’ me.’ She laughed. ‘That did it. She’d lost one son already and didn’t want to lose another, although of course’ – her voice dropped – ‘she did eventually. But you’re onny a bairn, Jeannie. You must be polite to her and not answer back. She doesn’t mean half of what she says in any case, so don’t mind her too much.’

And, Mary thought, the old tyrant would be lost without me, which is why she’s careful not to cross me. She sighed. I never thought that she’d become so reliant on me. And she remembered Aggie’s comment when they spoke of Josh Wharton’s losing his wife and eldest son on the same day.

‘He’ll be looking for a wife to look after his bairns,’ Aggie had said. ‘His eldest girl is hardly old enough to take on the household, not when there’s another mouth to feed.’

‘The babby’s being looked after until he’s able to take a bottle,’ Mary told her, ‘and Susan is doing a grand job with the other bairns. He’ll not want a wife yet a while.’

‘Aye, well you watch out,’ Aggie had warned her. ‘Don’t get yoursen drawn in there. You’ve enough on wi’ your own bairns to clothe and feed.’

Mary had said nothing, but she knew what the old woman was thinking. If Mary should marry again into another family, she was afraid that there’d be no one to look after her. But she needn’t have worried. The fisher families always looked out for each other.

‘Can I play out for a bit, Ma?’ Jeannie asked. She’d spotted Ethan sitting on a bollard by the harbour.

‘Aye, for a wee while,’ Mary said. She turned towards the quay on the West Pier to collect some fish for supper and called back, ‘If you see Tom tell him to come home with you.’ Tom had once again played truant from school.

Jeannie walked up to Ethan, who was gazing out into the harbour. He looked up but didn’t speak.

‘You all right, Ethan?’ she asked softly.

‘Yeh. Why wouldn’t I be?’

Jeannie shrugged. ‘Just asking, that’s all.’

Ethan gave a big sigh. ‘Folks keep on asking me all the time.’

He didn’t seem cross, Jeannie thought. Just fed up, and rather miserable. ‘It’ll be because of your ma and Mark, I expect,’ she said. ‘And because you nearly drowned.’

He turned to look at her. ‘But I didn’t, did I? It was our Mark that did.’

She nodded silently, and then murmured, ‘I’m glad you didn’t. I think I would’ve cried if you had.’

‘Would you?’ He gazed at her. ‘I know my ma would have cried. She’d have cried for Mark as well, but she didn’t know cos she’d died already.’

She let a moment elapse before asking, ‘Were you scared? On the ship, I mean? I would have been.’

He let his gaze drift seawards again. ‘When I was on my own I was,’ he answered softly. ‘It was exciting until Jed and Sammy went over and then it was just me and Mark. I was scared then. Mark helped me tie myself to the mast. It was that what saved me. If it hadn’t been for him—’ He broke off.

‘He was a hero then, wasn’t he?’ she said. ‘He saved your life.’

Ethan pressed his lips together, and then spoke in a choking voice and she knew that he was close to crying. ‘Aye, he was. My brother a hero.’

Jeannie tentatively put her arm round his shoulder. It was what her mother did if she knew that Jeannie was upset about something and it always helped; it somehow made her feel comforted, but she wasn’t sure it had the same effect on Ethan for he suddenly stood up, gave a loud sniff and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

‘It’s my ma’s funeral on Monday,’ he said. ‘And Da says I have to go. He says I’ve to go and repor— erm, represent Mark, cos he was the eldest son and now I am. My da wasn’t Mark’s da,’ he added. ‘Mark’s da used to work on the railway. He was run over by a train.’ He turned to walk away. ‘Be seeing you then, Jeannie.’

And for some reason those few words made her feel warm inside and she smiled and nodded and went in search of Tom.

The Scottish herring girls were due to arrive the following week and Jeannie was hopping with excitement. She was fond of her Scottish grandmother, who always brought them shortbread and rich fruit cake and told ghost stories in bed; such scary stories that even Tom hid under the blanket.

‘Can I have a day off school?’ she begged her mother. ‘Like last time?’

‘We’ll see.’ Her mother was non-committal. ‘Your education is important.’

‘But if I’m going to be a herring girl, I need to watch what you do.’

Mary smiled. ‘Plenty of time,’ she said. ‘Don’t be in a hurry to grow up. Life is short.’

Jeannie wasn’t in a hurry to grow up. She didn’t object to school generally; she was quick with numbers and good at reading. What she didn’t like was to be indoors when the sun was shining and the golden sands and glittering sea beckoned and rock pools were warm and crawling with crabs; in the summer months and school holidays she and her friends used to race down the sands to see the fashionable visitors who had come to the Spa to take the medicinal waters, or peep at the ladies as they were driven down to the sea in bathing huts from which they would descend to dip their toes in the water, squealing at the coldness of the sea before quickly immersing themselves up to their necks and then rushing back to their huts to dry themselves. Jeannie and her friends, who were all perfectly at home in the water, would position themselves so that they could observe the antics of these strange creatures. The sight of the maid within the hut waiting with a large robe or towel to wrap the returning bather in sent the children into shrieks of laughter.

But now the town was preparing for the herring girls who followed the fishing fleet down the coast. They were not rich and they worked long hours for the money they earned but they were not afraid to spend it; bakers bought in extra flour and prepared to make large quantities of bread and cake and the hostelries polished their brasses, for where the girls were, so were the men. The girls took lodgings with the bottom-enders of the old town who opened up their homes for as long as they were there, usually about a month or until the fleet moved on to follow a shoal; then they packed up their possessions, their oilskins, boots or clogs, into their wooden trunks and moved down the coast to another port, to Lowestoft or Yarmouth.

Mary opened up her old wooden trunk and shook out her oilskin apron, and stood her wooden clogs by the door in readiness. Although she wasn’t on an official agent’s list, she was regularly employed by a local curer, who also took on her mother and one of her friends and put them to work as a team. Mary was going to ask them if she could do the packing of the barrels this time, as she thought she had lost some of her skill and speed with the gutting knife.

She walked Tom and Jeannie to school, making sure that Tom went through the door and didn’t sneak out when he thought she wasn’t watching. Then she went on to the railway station to await the train bringing her mother and the other herring girls.

The train steamed in and within a minute the platform was a seething hub of women and noise as they descended from the train, many of them carrying their trunks on their shoulders and others with packs on their backs, for these were strong and independent women. Mary craned her neck to seek her mother. She looked out for Fiona’s red hair, brighter and more fiery than her own, but greying, she’d noticed the previous year.

She heard her name called, saw an arm waving and then another, and at last made out her mother and her friends Nola and Nell coming towards her.

Mary gave her mother a hug, and a big welcoming smile and a pat on the shoulder to Nola and Nell, whom she had known since childhood. ‘Did you have a good journey?’

‘Aye, well enough, but I’m fair weary now,’ Fiona answered. ‘These two have blethered all the way here. A guid cup of tea is what I’m after, lassie.’

‘The kettle’s on the fire and the teapot’s on the table.’ Mary laughed, shouldering her mother’s box. ‘Don’t I know what you always want as soon as you get here?’

‘Aye, you do. Where are the wee bairns? I thought they’d be here to greet me.’

‘They would have been had they had their own way. They’re in school,’ Mary told her. ‘You can have a rest before they come home, for you’ll have none once they set eyes on you.’

‘School!’ her mother said benevolently. ‘Well there’s a thing. Tom too? Is he not too big for school now?’

‘No, Ma. He’s only nine. Three more years and then he can leave.’ She led the way down the hill towards her cottage. ‘He wants to finish and go fishing,’ she said. ‘Or at least he did,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘We had a big storm. A lot of boats were wrecked and he’s not mentioned it since. I think he got scared.’

‘Aye, and well he might,’ Nola chipped in. ‘Poor bairn. We heard about the storm. It ran havoc right along the coast. Held up the fishing – we were without work for nearly a week.’

Mary made them tea when they got home and Fiona drank hers down in seconds and then went to lie on the bed.

‘Ah dinnae ken why I’m so weary,’ she complained. ‘I’m pure done in.’

‘You’ll feel better after a rest,’ Mary told her. ‘Sleep now and I’ll keep Nola and Nell quiet; mebbe we’ll go out for a wee stroll. The bairns’ll wake you when they come home.’

Her mother heaved a sigh. Turning over, she tucked herself into her shawl and instantly fell asleep.

‘It’s hard on the old women,’ Nola said softly. ‘Not the gutting, they’re as fast as anybody, but the travelling gets them down.’

‘She’s not old!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘She’s not yet fifty. She’s got years of work in her.’ The thought of her mother giving up her work horrified her. Who would look after her? Mary’s father was dead and both her brothers had large families to look after. ‘She’d have to come and live here with me if she gave up work,’ she thought aloud, and her companions glanced at each other.

‘She’d never do that,’ Nell said. ‘Not in a million years.’

‘She’s tired, that’s all,’ Nola said. ‘We all are, but we’ll be fine in the morning. Come on now, let’s go out. I want to buy a present from Scarborough.’

CHAPTER FIVE

FEW OF THE children from the fishing families attended school during the first few days of the herring season. The boys positioned themselves as near as they dared to where the herring boxes would be deposited and shuffled about, nudging one another, ready to dart forward as soon as they saw any of the silver fish drop to the floor.

Jeannie cosied up to her grandmother. She was still sleepy, for they had been up since five o’clock and down at the harbour half an hour later, ready and waiting for the boats. Her grandmother, like the other herring girls, was decked out in her long rubber apron and boots, her head wrapped in a shawl which wound round her neck and fastened at the back leaving not a single red hair showing. In her hand she held her gutting knife.

‘Don’t come too close, lassie,’ she told Jeannie. ‘If I give you a nick with the blade you’ll bleed to death.’

Jeannie took a step back. Her mother was always warning her about the gutting knife, but her grandmother’s threat seemed especially grim.

‘I just want to watch how you do it,’ she said in a small voice. ‘So that I’ll know.’

‘We’ll teach you, have no fear,’ Fiona told her. ‘But not now, you skinny malinky, not when we’re about to start work. Look at my fingers. Why have I got them bandaged, eh? So that I don’t cut myself, that’s why.’

Jeannie nodded. She did know. All of the herring girls bandaged their fingers to avoid cutting themselves and to prevent the salt which was used for preserving the fish from entering a cut and stinging them or even turning them septic.

They were still waiting at half past six and everyone was becoming impatient.

‘Come on, laddies, where are you?’ Nola shouted. ‘We’re wasting the day.’

‘And money,’ another girl called. ‘We’ve to get our quota in before the day is out.’

‘Here they come!’ someone else called. ‘The lads are coming.’

All eyes turned to the fishing fleet, the Fifies and the Zulus, coming towards the harbour; a cheer went up and some of the girls broke into song.

‘Wha’ll buy my caller herrin’ / they’re bonnie fish and halesome fairin’ / Wha’ll buy my caller herrin’ / new drawn frae the Forth.’