‘Daft of him wanting to come all this way.’
‘Yes, it was, John George.’
‘Of course I was just thinking that if I hadn’t have come along he would have taken you all the way, and that, after all, was what he wanted. I’m blind about some things some times.’
She was kind enough to say, ‘Not you, John George,’ for she had thought it a bit short-sighted of him to accompany them in the first place, and she added, ‘Don’t worry. And you know what? We’re goin’ to settle something next Sunday.’
‘You are? Oh, I’m glad, Janie. I’m glad. I’ve thought for a long time he should have a place of his own ’cos he doesn’t seem quite happy back there. And yet I can’t understand it for they’re a good family, all of them, and I like nothing better than being among them.’
‘Oh! What makes you think that? What makes you think he’s not happy at home, John George?’
‘Well, he’s surly like at times. And I get vexed inside when I hear the way he speaks to Lizzie ’cos she’s a nice body, isn’t she . . . Lizzie? I like her . . . motherly, comfortable. Yet . . . yet at times he treats her like dirt. And I can’t understand it, ’cos he’s not like that outside, I mean when he’s collecting; he’s civility’s own self, and all the women like him. You know that, don’t you? All the women like him, ’cos he’s got a way with him. But the way he speaks to Lizzie . . .’
Janie paused in her walk and, putting her hand on John George’s arm, she drew him to a stop. Then flicking the falling snow away from her eyes, she asked quietly, Don’t you know why he goes on at Lizzie like that?’
‘No.’
‘He’s never told you?’
‘No.’
‘You mean he’s never told you an’ you’ve been workin’ with him and coming up to the house for . . . how many years?’
‘Four and over.’
‘Eeh! I can’t believe it. I thought you knew.’
‘Knew what?’
‘Well, that . . . that Lizzie, she’s . . . she’s his mother.’
‘Lizzie?’ He bent his long length down to her. ‘Lizzie Rory’s mother? No! How does that come about? I don’t believe it.’
‘It’s true. It’s true. Come on, don’t let us stand here, we’ll be soaked.’
‘What . . . what about Mrs Connor? I mean . . . his mother . . . I mean.’
‘It’s all very simple, John George, when you know the ins and outs of it. You see they were married, Mr and Mrs Connor for six years an’ there was no sign of any bairn. Then Mr Connor gets a letter from Ireland from a half-cousin he had never seen. Her name was Lizzie O’Dowd. Her ma and da had died— as far as I can gather from starvation. It was one of those times when the taties went bad, you know, and this lass was left with nobody, and she asked if she could come over here and would he find her a job. Everybody seemed to be comin’ to England, particularly to Jarrow. They were leaving Ireland in boatloads. So what does Mr Connor do but say come right over. By the way, she had got the priest to write ’cos she couldn’t write a scribe and Mr Connor went to a fellow in Jarrow who made a sort of livin’ it writing letters an’ sent her the answer. It was this by the way, Mr Connor having to go an’ get this letter written, that later made him see to it that Rory could read and write. Anyway, Lizzie O’Dowd arrives at the cottage. She’s seventeen an’ bonny, although you mightn’t think it by the look of her now. But I’m goin’ by what me grannie told me. And what’s more she was full of life and gay like. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that she and Mr Connor . . . Well, I don’t need to tell you any more, do I? And so Rory came about. But this is the funny part about it. Almost a year later Ruth had her first bairn. That was Nellie. And then she has another. That was Jimmy. Would you believe it? After nothing for seven years! Eeh! it was odd. And, of course, we were all brought up as one family. You could say the three families in the row were all dragged up together.’
As she laughed John George said solemnly, ‘You surprise me, Janie. It’s quite a gliff.’
‘But you don’t think any the worse of Lizzie, do you?’
‘Me think any the worse of . . . ? Don’t be daft. Of course I don’t. But at the same time I’m back where I started for I understand less now than I did afore, Rory speaking to her like that and her his mother.’
‘But he didn’t always know that she was his mother. It was funny that.’ She was silent for a moment, before going on, There was us, all the squad of the Learys, me da, me ma, and me grannie. Well, you know me grannie, her tongue would clip clouts. But nobody, not one of us, ever hinted to him that Mrs Connor wasn’t his mother, it never struck us. I think we sort of thought that he knew, that somebody must have told him earlier on. But nobody had; not until six years ago when he was seventeen and it was Lizzie herself who let the cat out of the bag. You know, Lizzie is one of those women who can’t carry drink. Give her a couple of gins and she’s away; she’ll argue with her own fingernails after a couple of gins. And it was on a New Year’s Eve, and you know what it’s like on a New Year’s Eve. She got as full as a gun an’ started bubbling, and Rory, who up till that time had been very fond of her, even close to her, when she hadn’t got a drink on her, ’cos this is another funny thing about him, he can’t stand women in drink. Well, I don’t remember much about it ’cos I was only a lass at the time, but as I recall, we were all in the Connors’ kitchen. It was around three o’clock in the morning and I was nearly asleep when I hear Lizzie blurting out, “Don’t speak to me like that, you young . . . !” She called him a name. And then she yelled, “I’m your mother! Her there, Ruth there, never had it in her to give breath to a deaf mute till I went an’ had you.” And that was that. From then on he never has been able to stand her. An’ the pity of it is she loves him. He went missing for a week after that. Then he turned up one night half starved, frozen, and in the end he had the pneumonia. He had been sleeping rough, and in January mind. It’s a wonder it didn’t kill him. Now do you begin to understand?’
‘I’m flabbergasted, Janie. To think that I’ve known him all this time and he’s never let on. And we talk you know, we do; I thought we knew everything there was to know about each other. Me, I tell him everything.’ The tall length drooped forward. His head bent against the driving snow, he muttered now, ‘I’m that fond of Rory, Janie, ’cos, well, he’s all I’d like to be and never will.’
‘You’re all right as you are, John George; I wouldn’t have you changed.’ Her voice was loud and strong in his defence.
‘You wouldn’t, Janie?’ The question was almost eager, and she answered, ‘No, I wouldn’t, John George, because your heart’s in the right place. An’ that’s something to be proud of.’
They walked on some way in silence now before she said quietly, ‘I hope you don’t mind me askin’, but the lass you’re gone on, why don’t you bring her up to the kitchen?’
He didn’t answer immediately but took her arm and led her across the road and up the street towards the beginning of Westoe and the select section of the town, where the big houses were bordered by their white railings and the roads were broad enough to take two carriages passing, and he said now, ‘I wish I could, oh I wish I could ’cos she’s nice, Janie, and bonny. Not as bonny as you, but she’s bonny. And she’s had a life of it. Aye, one hell of a life. And still has. Her da’s got religion on the brain I think. Her mother’s bedridden, and, you know, they spend Sunday praying round her bed, taking turns. The only time she’s allowed out is on a Saturday afternoon when she’s sent to Gateshead to visit an aunt who’s dying and who seems to have a bit of money. Her da wants to make sure of who she’s leaving it to and as he can’t go up himself and the other two lasses are in jobs—there was a brother, Leonard, but he ran off to sea, and good luck to him I say—Anyway, Maggie is allowed to go to Gateshead on a Saturday afternoon. That’s how I met her first, on one of me Saturday train jaunts.’