The Jarrow Lass Read online

  Putting down her burden, she rested a moment in the blackened shadow of the ancient ruined monastery, St Paul’s. Once this had been the home of St Bede in a golden age of Christianity, her Sunday School teacher had told her. Even at the time when Queen Victoria had come to the throne, in Granny’s lifetime, it had still been a place of fields, small boat builders and sail-cloth makers. Now it was hard to imagine it had ever been anything else but this hellish landscape.

  The sulphurous smell from the chemical works was overpowering, and the sky was an oppressive grey haze from the belching chimneys of chemical factories, paper-mill, coke ovens and steel mills. The leaden horizon was peppered with steaming salt pans, jutting coal staithes and a forest of rigging and cranes on the river’s edge. Even from this distance, the clatter from the docks and the thump of giant hammers in the rolling mills carried loudly over the blackened rows of houses.

  Rose felt the metallic taste on her tongue that soured her mouth whenever she drew near to the ironworks. Below her the Don oozed its way into the muddy Slake where the ebbing tide had left its flotsam of seasoned timbers stranded like a shattered vessel after a shipwreck. In the gloom she saw children playing on the precarious network of planks, jumping from one to another and daring each other to follow. She would never allow her future children to play in such a dangerous place, she determined. When she married the kindly man of her imagination, she would live well away from this sinister part of the river, with its uneasy ghosts.

  She knew from her grandmother that this part of the riverside was haunted. Apart from those who had slipped and drowned in the fetid waters of the Slake, it had been the site of the last public gibbeting. Granny had told her about the miner Jobling who had been hanged for his part in the murder of a magistrate during a terrible strike. They had brought his body from Durham Gaol, smeared it in black pitch and trussed it up in an iron gibbet for all to see.

  ‘Stuck it right there in the muddy waters where the tide comes in,’ Granny had told her, ‘to be a lesson to the pitmen and their families that they can’t take the law into their own hands. They say Jobling’s widow could see him swingin’ there, from her very doorstep. Aye, and people came from all over to see the terrible sight. Soldiers guarded it night and day,’ Granny had continued in an eerie voice, ‘but there was something devilish about that pitman. One day it disappeared - the whole lot - body, gibbet an’ all! Nobody could have cut it down - it was solid iron - and anyone who tried was threatened with seven years’ transportation! Some say it were his pitmen friends who risked their lives to do it - buried him out at sea. But I think it was witchcraft. On windy nights you can still hear Jobling’s ghost moanin’, and see him swingin’ there when there’s a full moon. That’s what I’ve heard. So you stay away from that place!’ Granny had warned. ‘He’ll get you like the bogeyman if you stray down too close to the river.’

  Rose felt familiar fear weaken her knees. Many nights she had lain awake thinking she could hear the groaning of Jobling’s unhappy ghost carried to her on the wind. ‘Will he be in Hell or Purgatory?’ she had asked her mother, deeply troubled that the pitman had not had a Christian burial.

  ‘That’s not for us to judge,’ her mother had answered shortly.

  ‘But he was a murderer, Ma, wasn’t he? And he never got properly buried. That’s why his ghost still haunts the Slacks when there’s a full moon, isn’t it? Granny says witches must’ve carried off his body.’

  ‘Stop talking daft,’ her mother had said impatiently. ‘And don’t go repeating such tales to the priest, or he’ll think we’re a family of heathens.’

  Rose glanced up at the sky now, but there was no way of knowing if a full moon was on the rise or not. She took a deep breath in the acrid air and told herself not to be so fanciful. It was just one of Granny’s stories that she liked to tell over a winter fire, and Ma had told her not to believe half of what Granny had said. Besides, the moon was her friend. Why should she be frightened on such a night?

  All the same, Rose decided to go the long way round and doubled back up the hill, skirting the banks of the Don until she could cross it higher up near the turnpike road that led all the way from South Shields to Newcastle.

  By the time she reached the long rows of pit cottages, she could hardly see to pick her way over the stagnant pools that collected in the rutted, uneven lanes. Rose pulled her shawl over her nose to try to deaden the stench of rotting household slops and sewage that leaked out of the earth closets and oozed into the yards and through the walls of the ancient cottages. They had been abandoned long ago by mining families when the Alfred Pit had closed, and no landlords had bothered to spend any money on these hovels that now housed Jarrow’s poorest. Whole streets were taken over by Irish labourers, their wives hooded in thick shawls that they pinned under their chins.

  Several of these hardy women were now lined up patiently at the standpipe at the top of the street, waiting to fill kettles and pails of water. Their quick chatter and sharp calls to their scampering, barefoot children rang through the murky twilight.

  ‘Is that you, Rose McConnell?’ one of them shouted.

  ‘Aye, missus,’ Rose called back. ‘I’m going to Mrs McMullen’s. But I’ve a few eggs spare. Fresh as they come. They’ll be a treat for your man’s tea.’

  ‘Give me three, Rose - the babies can have the tops, so they can. Call by when you’re done at McMullen’s.’

  ‘I’ll pop them in on me way down, Mrs Kennedy,’ Rose said quickly, thinking she’d have nothing left to sell if Mrs McMullen saw them first.

  It was a long way to the end of the row, and the further downhill the houses, the more they were sunk below the level of the road. The McMullens’ could only be reached round the back of the house, for at the front only the roof tiles showed above ground level. A candle was already lit in the window and as she slithered down the bank to the back gate, Rose was greeted by a cacophony of voices.

  A horde of boys were chasing a tin can or pot up and down the back lane, whacking it with sticks and bits of old fencepost. They screamed and bellowed at each other, cursing and encouraging in language that made Rose blush.

  In her hurry to get past them unnoticed, she slipped in the mud and her basket of cabbages toppled to the ground, bouncing across the filthy lane and into the open gutters. Rose gave a shriek of alarm.

  One boy tripped over a runaway cabbage and went sprawling, face down in the mud. He cursed foully as the others laughed and pulled him to his feet. The tall youth threw them off and rounded angrily on Rose. She sat on the ground, still winded with shock.

  ‘What you do that for, you daft bitch?’ he shouted.

  Rose flushed with humiliation and offence at his words. ‘I didn’t mean t-to,’ she stuttered.

  He came to stand over her, glaring. ‘Bloody lasses!’

  The other boys began to crowd around her too. Rose tried to scrabble to her feet, feeling threatened by their closeness. Her dress and hands were covered in filth and her shawl had slipped from her head. She pulled it around her defensively.

  ‘It’s not my fault you don’t keep a decent path to the house,’ she replied, almost in tears.

  The tall boy lunged at her and grabbed her arm. ‘Are you blaming me for you landing on your arse? Eh? It’s you that tripped me up, you stupid little cow!’

  His angry face was so close to hers now that she could see him clearly for the first time. His dark hair was shorn close to his head and there was the beginnings of a moustache on his snarling upper lip. His thick eyebrows were drawn together like storm clouds, but his glowering eyes were startling. They were a vivid green, like the sea at South Shields on a summer’s day, belying the aggression that marred the rest of his face.

  Something about those eyes lessened her fear of him for a moment. Indignation ignited inside her. She threw off his hold.

  ‘You tripped yourself
up by not watching your step! And what about me cabbages?’ she cried. ‘They’re all ruined! There’ll be hell to pay from me da if they don’t get to Mrs McMullen’s.’

  He gawped at her, dumbfounded by her answering him back. The crowd around them began to snigger and jostle, sensing trouble.

  ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ he shouted.

  ‘I don’t care if you’re the Pope,’ Rose replied with spirit. ‘I just care about me cabbages.’

  ‘I’m John McMullen! And nobody - least of all a skinny lass like you - makes a fool out of me.’

  He moved as if to grab her again.

  Suddenly, a voice cracked behind them like a whip. ‘What’s the meaning of all this noise? John, is that you there? Mary, Mother! What in the name are you doing with that girl?’

  In an instant a small terrier of a woman was amongst them, pushing boys aside like a prizefighter. ‘I’ll box your ears if you’ve laid a finger on her, so I will!’ She reached up and grabbed John’s collar, hauling him backwards with the strength of someone twice her size.

  At once Rose recognised the wiry figure and flushed face of Mrs McMullen. She was bareheaded, with her skirts hitched up and tucked into a thick belt to avoid the mud, revealing a coarse woollen petticoat and a pair of outsized man’s boots. She talked breathlessly, as if she could not get rid of her words fast enough, cursing the youth in her clutches and flaying out at any others who dared to get in her way.

  ‘You great big bully! What’s this you’ve done? Knocked over the lass’s basket? Is that you Rose Ann McConnell? By the saints, John, you’ll pick up every one of those cabbages if you have to crawl through your own filth to find them.’ She gave him a big push. ‘And the rest of you can help your brother instead of standing around laughing like loonies.’ She aimed a kick at a younger boy beside her. He howled in protest. ‘And if there’s so much as one damaged or missing, I’ll set the Fathar on to the lot of you. You’ll not sit down for a week.’

  Immediately the boys began to search around in the half-dark for the scattered vegetables, with barely a word of protest. Even the tall John did not challenge his mother, but bent to the unsavoury task. Rose just stood there mutely, amazed that this wild tribe could be so easily tamed. Within a couple of minutes the basket was full once more.

  ‘Now, take those cabbages up to the tap and give them a good scrubbing,’ Mrs McMullen ordered.

  ‘Who, me?’ John asked indignantly.

  ‘Aye you, you great big lump! And don’t twist your face at me,’ she added, swiping him with a dirt-ingrained hand.

  Rose winced as she heard the sharp smack on his jaw. She saw him tense but he did not answer back.

  ‘Rose Ann, come inside a minute while the boys wash those cabbages,’ Mrs McMullen ordered. ‘We’ll share a cup of tea before you set off home. And I’ve a bag of cinders that the boys collected - you can take that back for your mother.’

  Reluctantly, Rose followed her through the back gate and under the low doorway. She hated the McMullens’ overcrowded home, with its pungent smells of the midden and sweaty men. Usually she dumped her produce at the door and hurried on her way, not really distinguishing between the many faces that stared at her, just aware that they were all boys. She steeled herself to enter.

  There was hardly a bare inch of brick floor to be seen, for their one living room was taken up with a rough kitchen table surrounded by upturned boxes for chairs. In the corner was a large iron-framed bed with someone sleeping in it, while clogging up the hearth was a scattering of ill-assorted boots. Damp washing was strewn everywhere, hanging limp and steaming from lines of string. A ladder led up through a gaping black hole in the ceiling to the loft, where Rose supposed most of them slept.

  She looked at the bustling Mrs McMullen and noticed in the firelight how deep lines scored her face. Outside in the gloom, she had seemed young, with her quick movements and springy black hair, and a girlish flush on her cheeks. But now, as she reached for the big black kettle and poured into a handleless cup, her shoulders were stooped and her face was that of an old woman.

  ‘We don’t have a teapot since young Michael broke it,’ she explained, ‘so I make up the tea in the kettle. There! You get a bit of warmth inside you, Rose Ann. Sit yourself down, and tell me the news. How’re your mother and father? And those pretty sisters of yours? I’d like to think some of my boys might go courting the McConnell girls one day, eh?’ She winked and laughed at Rose’s startled expression. ‘No, I don’t blame you for looking so worried after that carry-on outside. But they’re grand boys at heart - hardworking like their father and good to their mother. Bit wild at times, but they’ll grow out of it, I’ll see to that.’

  Rose sipped at the flavourless tea, wishing the boys would hurry up with her basket so she could be gone. She felt a stab of pity for Mrs McMullen, struggling in this tiny cottage to provide for so many hungry mouths, and she wondered how her own mother could begrudge them a few extra vegetables for the pot. But the thought of either herself or her sisters courting any of these rough McMullens filled her with horror. She had heard from her mother how old McMullen took the belt to his wife for the slightest fault and how the boys were getting a name for fighting. ‘Like father like son,’ Ma would say in disapproval when her own husband was out of earshot.

  Rose had seen enough of the McMullen temper -especially in that tall John - to know that none of them could fit the picture of the man she would marry. After a few more minutes of Mrs McMullen’s questioning, Rose was thankful to hear boisterous shouting grow louder till it reached the door and several boys clattered in. John dumped the basket at Rose’s feet and gave her a stormy look.

  ‘Done,’ he muttered. ‘As clean as a baby’s arse.’

  Rose avoided his look and got up quickly, grabbing the cabbages and putting them on the table.

  ‘Ta for the tea, Mrs McMullen,’ she said, swiftly emptying the creel. ‘I’ll be off now.’

  ‘Hold your horses, Rose Ann,’ Mrs McMullen cried. ‘Remember the bag of cinders? John, fetch them from the yard. You can carry them back for Rose Ann.’

  ‘Oh, no, I can manage,’ Rose said in panic.

  ‘Nonsense; it’s nearly dark and I’ll not have you breaking your pretty ankles falling in some pothole. Your mother would never forgive me. Away you go, John, and see the girl home with the cinders. It’s the least you can do for all the trouble you’ve caused.’

  Rose thought he was going to burst with fury. But without a word, he stomped out of the house and left her to follow. He picked up a sack by the back wall, swung it over his shoulder, just missing her head, and set off down the lane without a backward glance. Rose balanced her empty creel and egg basket on her shoulder and hurried after his retreating figure. Pulling her shawl over her head in the biting wind, she was disgusted to find it damp and stinking from being dropped in the liquid refuse that leaked out of the privies. Damn John McMullen! This was all his fault, yet he was treating her like a lump of dung from his foul midden. Well, he could rot in Hell, St Theresa forgive her for the thought.

  By the time she caught up with John at the bottom of the hill she was out of breath and furious.

  ‘Stop!’ she panted. ‘I can see mesel’ home. I’m not ganin’ to run after you like I’m your slave, John McMullen. So give us the bag of cinders.’

  He turned and looked at her for the first time since leaving the rows. She could not read his expression in the dark, but he suddenly seemed very tall, looming over her. Behind him the night sky was lit with lurid flashes belching from the furnaces of Palmer’s mills. It could only be late afternoon, but it seemed like the dead of night, there were so few people about.

  Then Rose realised where they were. Jarrow Slake. She could tell from the noxious mix of smells: chemicals, effluent, a faint whiff of the tide and ships’ timbers. Pitch. The dark, resinous smell filled her nostri
ls and the spectre of Jobling’s rotting, pitch-smeared corpse leapt to mind.

  John must have seen the sudden fear cross her face, for he came closer still and demanded, ‘What’s wrong? Are you frightened of me or some’at?’

  Rose gulped down her panic. ‘I’m not!’ she retorted. ‘If you’ll just see us across the Slacks, I can manage the bag after that.’

  ‘Scared of the Slacks, then, are you?’ he asked, amusement creeping into his voice. ‘Worried that the ghost of Jobling is ganin’ to get you?’

  ‘No!’ Rose cried, but could not prevent herself from looking over her shoulder at the treacherous inlet.

  ‘Yes you are!’ John said with glee and let out a piercing howl that made Rose jump. He came at her, making wailing noises, pretending to be a ghost.

  ‘Stop it!’ she screamed, which made him laugh out loud.

  She dodged past him and began to run towards the Slake. John grabbed at her shawl and pulled it from her shoulders. ‘I’m coming to get you!’ he threatened in an echoing voice.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Rose shrieked. ‘I hate you!’

  But this just made him laugh harder as he chased after her. Rose hardly knew where she stepped, she just wanted to get away from him and across the Slake as quickly as possible. She plunged forward and found herself knee-deep in freezing water. The tide was in, so there was no way of squelching through the mud to the far side. In desperation, she clambered on to some of the floating timbers that were lashed together like a raft. Running to the end of it, she jumped on to the next group of planks and nearly toppled into the water. They bobbed and turned and she crouched down to hold on.