The White Empress (21 page)

‘Yer won’t let ’er belt me, will yer, missus?’

Marie smiled at him. ‘No, I won’t and don’t call me “missus”, my name’s Marie.’

‘What am I going to do with him?’ Cat cried, once they were outside.

‘First of all we’re all going home, that is to our house. Then we’ll decide what to do with him.’

Cat blessed Marie’s sound common sense. The whole incident had upset her more than she realised. Her four months of paradise
had vanished abruptly. It was as though when she had stepped from the train she had stepped out of a dream and the old Cat
Cleary, with all her attendant problems, had stepped into her shoes.

Joe hailed a passing taxi and they resumed their journey with Eamon kneeling on the floor, his head in Cat’s lap, the beating
he had received making it impossible to sit down.

When he was cleaned up and dressed in some of Mr Gorry’s cut down cast-offs and sat, on a pile of cushions, eating a plate
of steak and kidney pie, Cat watched him, wondering frantically what she was going to do about him.

‘Why did you do it, Eamon?’

‘It was a dare, the others said I ’ad ter do it, like.’

‘And you were stupid enough to agree and stupid enough to get caught! I notice none of the “others” were in the nick! And
I suppose you haven’t been to school for months?’

He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

She stood up and began to pace the room. ‘What am I going to do with you?’

‘Can’t yer take me with yer, our Cat?’

‘No, I can’t and talk properly! It’s “you” not “yer”. I’m not having you grow up like Pa, Eamon! I want you to have a good
job, a good life and you can if you try hard enough! If you work hard at school and stay out of trouble, you could get to
be an engineer, like Joe.’

He stared at her over the rim of the mug of tea. He liked Joe Calligan, he often gave him a penny. He liked the idea of growing
up like Joe, wearing a uniform, having money in your pocket and going to sea. School wouldn’t be so bad if you really could
be like Joe at the end of it. He hated school. He was fed up with being cuffed for untidy work and stupid things like that.
He didn’t mind Maisey or most of the O’Dwyers. Shelagh had gone off; he’d heard dirty whispers about her. Pa never hardly
spoke to him, Cat had gone off and gone all ‘dead posh’ as his mates jeered.

He missed his Mam. She never yelled at him like Maisey did, or belted him like Pa and he’d missed Cat. She was different now,
was Cat. All grown up and telling him he could be like Joe, if he worked hard. His backside was sore. The scuffers wouldn’t
catch him again, not
likely. He looked around the kitchen. He liked it here. It was warm and clean and the pie was good, and if he could be like
Joe . . . The girl who had told him to call her Marie poked her head around the door. He liked her as well.

‘Cat, I want a word with you.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the hall and he watched his sister follow her out.

‘I’ve had a talk to Mum and Dad and Dad’s willing to take Eamon on as an errand boy, office boy, tea lad, anything to keep
him off the streets. He can live here, that way they’ll be able to keep an eye on him and give you peace of mind while you’re
away.’

‘Oh, Marie, I couldn’t shove the responsibility of him on to you and your parents! He’s my brother and my responsibility!’

‘What else can you do, Cat? Once your back is turned he’ll be off again, getting up to God knows what! The only alternative
is to send him to boarding school and I think he’d hate that and probably run away.’

‘I can’t afford to send him, anyway!’

‘Then it’s settled! He’ll stay here, you’ve got no other choice. He will be working for his keep.’

‘But there is still the responsibility, he can be a right little sod at times!’

‘Look, Dad will keep him so busy during the day and he can do his lessons after tea so he won’t have time to get up to anything!’

‘Oh, what would I do without you all! You’re more family to me than my real family! I’ll leave an allotment for him, for your
Mam to collect and your Dad has my
full permission to box his ears if he thinks he needs it! Oh, Marie! What can I say!’ Cat hugged her, tears in her eyes. ‘All
I hope is that the next time I come home, I won’t have to face another trauma!’

‘We’ll share it, you won’t be sailing on your own again, Cat. I’m coming with you!’

Cat gasped in delight.

‘Yes, I’ve left college. I’ve got a job as a stenographer, I think they call it, on the
Empress of Britain
! Now I’ll be able to keep my eye on you, Cat Cleary!’

As Cat hugged her again a small dark cloud appeared on her horizon. What would she tell David? Marie was supposed to be her
sister, at least in David’s eyes.

T
HE DOMESTIC SITUATION WAS
explained to David after she had discussed it for hours with Marie. It was impossible to keep up the charade of Marie being
her sister, so they decided that they must be cousins, first cousins, that she had lived with the Gorry’s ever since she had
left Ireland, that after her mother’s death, her father and Shelagh had returned to Dublin and they decided not to mention
the existence of Eamon at all.

‘There’s already enough complications as it is,’ Marie advised.

‘How shall I explain living with you and not them all these years?’

‘Just say you didn’t get on with your Pa, that’s true enough. That you visited your Ma whenever you could. Tell him you didn’t
get on with your Shelagh either. It does happen, Cat. Families don’t always stay together. Especially those who are not forced
by circumstances to do so.’

‘Should I just cast caution to the wind and tell him the truth, I hate all these lies?’

‘No! Well, not yet, anyway.’

‘But he loves me, it won’t make any difference!’

‘You never know. It might not make any difference to him, it may make a world of difference to his family and that could influence
him in the end!’

‘No it wouldn’t, they didn’t want him to go to sea but he did.’

‘But in the matter of a wife, well, that’s different.’

‘Oh, I suppose you’re right. You usually are, you know much more about people . . . like them, than I do. Not everyone is
like your family, I suppose.’

‘Our family!’ Marie corrected. ‘You love him, don’t you, Cat?’

A smile lit up her face as she nodded. She had been disappointed that she had only seen him once since they arrived home.
He had gone for a holiday in Scotland with his parents and Miss Sabell and there had been no way he could get out of it, he
had explained ruefully as he had kissed her.

‘Will you tell them that we’re going to get married?’

‘Not just yet. I want you with me when I tell them. I want them to get to know you.’

‘Oh, David, what if they don’t like me? What if they don’t think I’m good enough for you?’

‘Hush, you mustn’t even think like that! They’ll love you just as much as I do. My aunt already likes you.’

She smiled as she remembered the conversation.

‘I like him. I wonder if I’ll meet someone like him?’

‘You will. You’ll be lucky, you’ll have your own cabin on Fluff Alley and mix with the higher ups more than we
do. You’re bound to meet someone, maybe a millionaire, who knows!’

Marie laughed. ‘That would be one up on our Marlene. She’s courting a bloke who is “something in Income Tax” as she puts it.
She’s giving herself all kinds of airs and graces. “He’s a civil servant, quite high up, too,” she’s always saying! But seriously,
Cat, I wouldn’t tell David everything – not yet – your Shelagh is going to take some explaining away. Beside her your Pa and
Eamon pale into insignificance!’

Cat had to concede to this point and so she continued with the charade, but she was uneasy, feeling the web of lies she was
spinning would one day trap her.

Amidst all the preparations of buying new uniforms and shoes, cotton day-dresses and a couple of cocktail dresses, Cat made
time to go to see Maisey. She had never forgotten Maisey O’Dwyer’s kindness to both herself and her mother over the years.
For once she found the house deserted, except for Maisey herself.

‘The girls is workin’ now, the little ’uns are at school. Himself has got steady work at Bibby’s an’ ’e’s out. I told ’im
ter clear off from under me feet,’ came the explanation.

‘I’ll be off again soon, but I wanted to see you.’

‘Cum ’ere an’ let me look at yer! Eh, yer look grown up, Cat. Ellen would ’ave been so proud, I miss ’er yer know, I really
do.’

Cat’s eyes misted. ‘You heard about Eamon?’

Maisey nodded, while putting the kettle on to boil. ‘I tried, Cat, luv! I nagged an’ nagged at yer Pa, Blast ’im! But yer
know ’im an’ we never knew where the little sod was, day or night!’

‘I know Maisey. You did your best but he wasn’t your responsibility, you’ve got enough worries of your own with your lot.
Eamon’s with me now, at least he’s going to stay with Mr Gorry, he’s going to put him to work.’

‘They’ve been good to yer, Cat, that lot, ’aven’t they?’

Cat assented. ‘Oh, let’s forget all that, Maisey. Here, I brought you these!’ She placed the carrier bag on the table, amidst
the dirty tea cups, the crumbs from breakfast and an assortment of odd buttons that Maisey, in one of her rare moments of
patching and mending, had been using. She watched with amusement as, with one sweep, Maisey shoved the whole lot to one end
of the table and oh’d and ah’d over the cheap souvenirs she had brought from her cruises. The necklace of coral got the most
admiration, along with a hand-embroidered tablecloth bought in Havana.

‘I’ll keep this fer best, special occasions like.’ She fingered the fine lawn with red, work-roughened hands. It never occured
to her how many hours of work had gone into its making, or just what ‘special’ occasion she would use it for. She’d never
had any linen like this before. ‘On second thoughts, it’s too good fer any of my lot, they can drape it over me coffin when
I’ve gone!’ she joked. ‘Eh, but yer work too ’ard to spend yer coppers on me, Cat!’

‘Maisey, you were good to us. You took us in when we first arrived, shared everything with us. You looked after Ma, you tried
with Eamon and . . . Shelagh. I don’t forget things like that!’

‘Well, yer should forget all about ’er! I’ve said it
before an’ I’ll say it again, she’ll come to a bad end will that one! I sent ’er packin’, I’d ’ad enough. It might not be
a palace but it’s a respectable ’ouse!’

‘She came to me for help and I was all set to help her, until I realised that she’d only ever been thinking of herself. All
that hysterical weeping was for herself! I don’t regret it, I think she’s always hated me.’

‘She was jealous of yer, Cat, an’ it was eatin’ ’er up. But forget about ’er, the tea should ’ave brewed now, we’ll ’ave a
good jangle! Tell me about all them there foreign places!’

It was on her way back from Maisey’s that she met Joe, by accident. She bumped into him as she rounded the corner of Vauxhall
Road.

‘I thought you were still away!’

‘Haven’t you got a calendar in that house? It was only a trip to New York and back.’

‘I’ve been so engrossed getting everything ready that I just didn’t realise, Joe. Where are you going?’

‘Nowhere special. Fancy a walk?’

She slipped her arm through his as they made their way towards the Dock Road.

‘You’ve changed, Cat. You’ve grown up.’

‘I suppose I have. Don’t you approve?’

‘Of course I do!’

‘You don’t sound convinced. Did you want me to stay sweet seventeen forever?’

‘In one way, I suppose I did.’

‘Because then I would always have been dependent on you?’

He stared straight ahead of him and didn’t answer.
His gaze seemingly fixed on the smoke belching from the ‘ugly sisters’ of the power station.

‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘I care about you, Cat, that’s all. I don’t want to see you hurt again.’

‘You mean David Barratt?’

‘Yes. I don’t know him so I suppose it’s not fair to judge him.’

‘No, it’s not. He’s very sincere, Joe, and he cares. Really cares.’

‘I’m glad.’ There was a note of harshness in his voice.

She looked up at him and realised with surprise that he was a man. He was no longer the boy she had grown up with, joked with,
cried with. She recognised in his handsome face and dark eyes the raw feelings of passion, longing and jealousy. ‘Joe, you
know I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.’ She paused, choosing her words carefully. ‘When you asked me to marry you, after
Mrs Travis died, I was still a child. I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t understand, I thought you were asking me out of
pity and I was headstrong, stubborn . . .’

‘You haven’t changed in that respect, Cat.’

‘I have, Joe! Oh, I have! I love David, it’s not like the infatuation I felt for . . . for Stephen Hartley. Not the deep affection
I have for you, an affection that will never change, Joe, truly it won’t. But I do love David, and—’ she stopped. She couldn’t
tell him.

Those were the words he had never wanted to hear her utter. He felt cold. She was too attractive not to have collected a string
of boyfriends, he’d accepted that, but he had hoped that in the end she would come back to
him for good. He couldn’t hide his lacerated feelings. ‘And what if he turns out to be another Hartley?’

‘He isn’t married and he’s not like that! He’s worked too hard to get where he is to have dallied with many women at all!’

‘Is that what he’s doing with you, Cat – dallying?’

‘Joe, please! In a few days I’m leaving on a world cruise, I may not see you again for months and months!’

‘Maybe that will be the best thing for both of us!’

‘But I don’t want us to part like this!’

‘You want me to be your friend, I think you said that the last time! Those days are over, Cat! I’m a man, not a boy! Don’t
you understand that I can’t settle for that kind of friendship? And I won’t hang around to pick up the pieces if he uses you
and then throws you aside!’

‘He won’t! I told you he’s not like that!’

‘Has he asked you to marry him?’

She bit her lip to stop it all blurting out.

‘Oh, I see! He expects you to wait around until he’s ready, until he decides or rather condescends to marry you?’

She covered her ears with her hands. ‘Stop it, Joe! Stop it!’

He caught her roughly by the shoulders and pulled her to him, bruising her lips with his mouth before she fought her way from
his embrace.

‘You’ll never throw my feelings in my face again, Cat Cleary! Don’t come to me looking for sympathy if things don’t turn out
as you want them to! I’ll be gone! I was coming up later to tell you, I’ve been promoted and transferred to the
Aquitania
. I don’t think we’ll see
each other for a long time, if ever again! Goodbye, Cat!’

He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving her staring after him. She felt utterly miserable and bereft. She had always
depended on Joe. He had always been there. She took a step forward then stopped. He was a man now and he had his pride. A
pride that she had unintentionally hurt time and again. A dull depression settled over her as she watched his disappearing
figure. He was going out of her life, maybe forever, and there was nothing she could do about it for she had given her heart
to another man.

Three days before they were due to sail, David telephoned her to ask her to come for tea the following day. He would pick
her up at 3.30 p.m. He apologised for the invitation being at such short notice, but what with the holiday and everything
. . . but his parents would love to meet her. She had replaced the receiver but kept her hand on it.

‘Not bad news, you’ve gone as pale as—’

‘No, I suppose it’s good news, it’s just that . . . he’s taking me to meet his parents tomorrow!’

‘Oh, now that sounds interesting!’

It hadn’t sunk in yet, but with Marie’s words came the full realisation of the implications. ‘Oh, I feel sick just thinking
about it!’

‘Why? They can’t be that bad! His father looked quite nice when we saw him at the station. He waved and smiled, don’t you
remember?’

‘No. I was too preoccupied by what Eamon had done! He’s a bank manager, did I tell you? Oh, they must live
in a really posh house! What will I say? What will I wear?’

‘Just be yourself, he won’t expect you to behave any differently.’

‘But what if I forget and say something wrong, something about Eamon or Maisey?’

‘Just try to think before you speak,’ Marie advised, sagely, before dragging her upstairs to sort out a suitable outfit from
both their wardrobes.

She wore Marie’s new silver-grey linen suit, with its short jacket, narrow lapels and nipped-in waist. The skirt was calf-length,
slim but with inverted pleats front and back. Underneath the jacket she wore the white, hand-embroidered blouse she had bought
in Port-of-Spain. Her own black court shoes and bag, Marie’s pale-grey gloves and a white Bangkok straw hat completed the
outfit. She paced the floor, smoothing the fingers of the gloves, checking her bag for a clean handkerchief, her purse, her
keys.

‘For heaven’s sake, keep still, you’ll wear the pattern off the carpet! You’re working yourself into a right state!’ Marie
chided.

‘I can’t! I can’t help it! I don’t want to go!’

‘You’ll be fine! You look attractive and smart, but elegant in a quiet way. There’s nothing brash or common about you! Stop
worrying. Anyone would think you were going to meet the king or the pope!’

‘I think it would be easier. At least I wouldn’t have to talk much or take tea with them!’

‘He’s here! Now go on and stop fussing!’

He complimented her on her outfit and kissed her
cheek as he helped her into the car, which was large, comfortable and grand.