‘Aw you!’ Jimmy pushed at the air with his flat hand, then said, ‘I’ll be upstairs, I’ll make that grand. Come on, come on up and have a look. Can you manage the ladder?’
Janie managed the ladder, and then she was standing under the sloping roof looking from one end of the attic to the other and she exclaimed again, ‘Eeh! my! did you ever see so many bits of paper and maps and books and things? There’s more books here than there are in the master’s cases in his study.’
‘Aye.’ Jimmy now walked up and down the room as if he were already in possession of the place, saying, ‘By the time I get this lot sorted out I’ll be able to read all right.’
‘Talkin’ of reading.’ Janie turned to Rory. The mistress is having a teacher come in for the children, sort of part time daily governess. She said I could sit in with them. What do you think of that?’
‘You won’t be sittin’ in with them long enough to learn the alphabet. And anyway, I’ll teach you all you want to know once I get you here, an’ you won’t have any spare time for reading.’
‘Rory!’ She glanced in mock indignation from him to Jimmy, and Jimmy, his head slightly bowed and his lids lowered, made for the ladder, muttering, ‘I’m goin’ to see if there’s any wood drifted up.’
Alone together, they looked at each other; then with a swift movement he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. He kissed her long and hard and, her eyes closed tightly, she responded to him, that was until his hand slid to her buttocks, and then with an effort she slowly but firmly withdrew from him, and they stood, their faces red and hot, staring at each other.
‘I want you, Janie.’ His voice was thick. Her eyes were closed again and her head was nodding in small jerks and her fingers were moving round her lips wiping the moisture from them as she muttered softly through them, ‘I know, I know, but . . . but not until . . . no, no, not until. I’d . . . I’d be frightened.’
‘There’s nothing to be frightened of. You know me, you’re the only one for me, always have been, an’ ever will be. There’s nothing to be frightened . . .’
‘I know, I know, Rory, but I can’t, I daren’t.’ She was flapping both hands at him now. ‘There’s me da, an’ me grannie, and all the others.’
He was making to hold her again. ‘Nothing’ll happen, just once.’
‘Aw—’ she now actually laughed in his face—’me grannie’s always told me, she fell the first night. An’ you can, you can . . . Eeh!’ She now pressed her fingers tightly across her mouth. ‘I shouldn’t be talkin’ like this. You shouldn’t make me talk like this. It isn’t proper, we’re . . . we’re not married.’
‘Don’t be daft, we’re as good as married. I tell you there’s only you, there’s only . . .’
‘No, Rory, no, not until it’s done.’ She thrust his hands away. ‘I mean proper like in the church, signed and sealed. No, no, I’m sorry. I love you, oh, I do love you, Rory, I’ve loved you all me life. I’ve never even thought of another lad an’ I’m twenty. I can’t tell you how I love you, it eats me up, but even so I want to start proper like so you won’t be able to throw anythin’ back at me after.’
‘What you talking about?’ He had her by the shoulders now actually shaking her. ‘Me throw anything back at you? Actually thinking I’d do a thing like that?’
‘You’re a man and they all do. Me grannie . . .’
‘Blast your grannie! Blast her to hell’s flames! She’s old. Things were different in her day.’
‘Not that. That wasn’t any different. Never will be. It’s the only thing a woman’s really looked down on for. Even if you were to steal you wouldn’t have a stamp put on you like you would have if . . . if you had a bairn.’
‘You won’t have . . .’
‘Rory, no. I tell you no. We’ve waited this long, what’s a few more months?’
‘I could be dead, you could be dead.’
‘We’ll have to take a chance on that.’
‘You know, Janie, you’re hard; there’s a hard streak in you, always has been about some things . . .’
‘I’m not.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘I’m not hard.’
‘Yes you are . . .’
‘I’m not. I’m not.’
‘All right, all right. Aw, don’t cry. I’m sorry, I am. Don’t cry.’
‘I’m not hard.’
‘No, you’re not, you’re lovely . . . It’s all right. Look, it’s all right; I just want to hold you.’
When his arms went about her she jerked herself from his hold once more and going to the window, stood stiffly looking down on to the river, and he stood as stiffly watching her. Only his jaw moved as his teeth ground against each other.
She drew in a deep breath now and, her head turning from one side to the other, she looked up and down the river. As far as her eyes could see both to the right and to the left the banks were lined with craft, ships of all types and sizes, from little scullers, wherries and tugs to great funnelled boats, and here and there a masted ship, its lines standing out separate and graceful from the great iron hulks alongside.
Rory now came slowly to the window and, putting his arm around her shoulders and his manner softened, he said, ‘Look. Look along there. You see that boat with a figurehead on it—there’s a fine lass for you . . . Look at her bust, I bet that’s one of Thomas Anderson’s pieces, and I’ll bet he enjoyed makin’ it.’
‘Rory!’
He hugged her to him now and laughed, then said, ‘There’s the ferry boat right along there going off to Newcastle . . . one of the pleasure trips likely. Think on that, eh? We could take a trip up to Newcastle on a Sunday, and in the week there’ll always be somethin’ for you to look at. The river’s alive during the week.’
She turned her head towards him now and said, ‘You said the rent’s three and six?’
‘Aye.’
‘You won’t get anything from Jimmy, not until he gets set-in.’
‘I know, I know that. But we’ll manage. I’ll still be workin’. I’ll keep on until we really do get set-in and make a business of it. I mightn’t be able to build a boat but I’ll be able to steer one, and I can shovel coal and hump bales with the rest of them. I didn’t always scribble in a rent book you know; I did me stint in the Jarrow chemical works, and in the bottle works afore that.’
‘I know, I know, but I was just thinkin’. Something the mistress said.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Well—’ she turned from him and walked down the length of the room—’she doesn’t want me to leave, I know that, she said as much.’ She swung round again. ‘Do you know she even said to me face that she’d miss me. Fancy her sayin’ that.’
‘Of course she’ll miss you, anybody would.’ He came close to her again and held her face between his hands. ‘I’d miss you. If I ever lost you I’d miss you. God, how I’d miss you! Oh, Janie.’
‘Don’t . . . not for a minute. Listen.’ She pushed his hands from under her oxters now and said, ‘Would you demand I be at home all day?’
‘I don’t know about demand, but I’d want you at home all day. Aye, of course I would. Who’s to do the cooking and the washing and the like? What are you gettin’ at?’
‘Well, it was something the mistress said. She said she had been thinking about raising me wage . . .’
‘Ah, that was just a feeler. Now look, she’s not going to put you off, is she?’
‘No, no, she’s not. She knows I’m goin’ to be married. Oh, she knows that, but what she said was, if . . . if I could come for a while, daily like, until the children got a bit bigger and used to somebody else, because well, as she said, they were fond of me, the bairns. And she would arrange for Bessie to have my room and sleep next to them at night and I needn’t be there until eight in the morning, and I could leave at half-six after I got them to bed.’