The Forgotten Daughter

Book 0: Sixteen Streets Trilogy

by Elsie Mason

Genres: Family Life

Synopsis

Tyneside, 1930s. Years after she first fled to South Shields, Cathy is known by everyone as the landlady of the Robin Hood pub. But Cathy has a secret from her life before - a daughter, June, whom she had to leave behind. After all these years, can June accept her?

Cathy's friend Sofia faces her own dilemma. Encountering a man from her past, Sofia is given the opportunity to return to her hometown, Naples. It would mean escaping her own troubles in the Sixteen Streets... if only she dares take the chance.

Cathy and Sofia have worked hard to shed the sorrows of their youth. But maybe by revisiting the past, they can work towards a happier future...

Release date: September 12, 2024

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 368

Sample

Cathy Sturrock was still a beautiful woman. With her flaming red hair and her cat-like green eyes, she was every bit as striking as she’d been thirteen years ago, when she first arrived in the Sixteen Streets.

Back then she had been a penniless kid, turning up almost randomly in that warren of backstreet houses by the docks. She had been running away, with hardly a thought of where she would end up. Some bloke driving a wagon-load of goods up and down the highway between Northumberland and Tyneside had given her a lift and she had ended up here in South Shields.

How had she gone from being a girl with nothing at all to her name to what she was now? Round here they called her the Queen of the Sixteen Streets. Everyone knew Cathy. Everyone could recognise her a mile off. Hers was the beating heart of this community. She was the fiercest, loudest, most compassionate soul in the place and everyone knew it. She had time to help anyone. She had a kind word for all and sundry. She could remember all too well what it felt like when she was nowt and she never forgot it.

The bar at the Robin Hood pub at the top of Frederick Street was where you would find her most nights. Some time ago, the plaque above the front door had been made over into her name and now she was landlady and sole proprietor. How proud she was of that fact! She stood at the bar, all dolled up each and every night and it was like the stage she paraded around on for the sake of her adoring audience. The Robin Hood was all hers and she still found it hard to believe.

To think she had begun here as a bottle washer when she had hardly known which end of a pint was up and which end was down. It wasn’t quite fair to say that she had worked her way up the ranks. She had taken the decidedly more unstable – and some would say unsavoury – route of marrying the previous landlord, Noel Sturrock. Now, he was a famous face in these parts, too. He was a horrid, sour-faced old hunchback under whose care this had been a dismal and dangerous establishment. He’d led Cathy a merry dance in their years together but age and illness had seen him withdraw from the heaviest work. He’d become milder and less irascible and difficult. He was content for his wife to run the pub in his stead these days.

Just as well, because the Robin Hood was her whole world. She could hardly remember a time before coming here.

Her early life had been spent in the wilds of Northumbria, somewhere further up the coast, near the old gentle town of Morwick.

A part of Cathy’s heart was still lodged in that place, and even in her happiest moments there was a tug of sadness in her chest. She could never forget what she had left behind in that home on the wild coast.

Even while she sat at the bar of the Robin Hood, looking splendid and unvanquishable in one of her signature low-cut velvet gowns, there was always a secret sadness to Cathy Sturrock.

Only her very closest friends had any inkling about that. Friends like Sofia Franchino, who had been Cathy’s chief barmaid and best pal for quite a number of years by 1932, when this story opens.

In the spring of that year, Cathy’s past was starting to open up again. Things were about to change. At first she assumed it would all be for the better, but it almost turned out to be her undoing. Holding court at the bar of the Robin Hood, Cathy looked like she was the crowned and anointed Queen of the Sixteen Streets and she was going to rule quite happily forever. However, 1932 was the year that things got so bad she almost left South Shields and never came back.

Sofia Franchino was there with her every step of the way. The Italian woman – slightly younger than Cathy’s thirty years – had her own problems and dramas that year. The best thing about it all was that the two women had each other to confide in and rely upon. Without that help, they would surely have both been lost.

It was on a Tuesday evening that everything began to change. As far as Cathy remembered, there was no particular reason for the choice of date or day. It was all down to June and what she had decided. She was coming down from Morwick on the train and, though Cathy never travelled very often or very far by train, she understood that timetables and such worked in a particular way and that travellers were at the mercy of their peculiar timings.

June was due in South Shields sometime after seven on Tuesday evening and so Cathy spent days on end in preparation for the arrival. Barmaids Sofia and Minnie were drafted in to work extra hours. The whole place needed sweeping and mopping and dusting and polishing up. All the wooden surfaces had to gleam, as did the horse brasses on the wall, the floorboards, the glasses and the beer pumps themselves. The crown glass windows had to shine, letting multi-coloured daylight beam into the saloon in a way it hadn’t for simply years.

Sofia was glad of the extra hours and the few extra bob in her pay packet, but she was confused about the cause of it all.

The two women shared a half of stout at midday, sitting at what had become known as the Women’s Table by the open fire. It was a mild spring and chilly out, but the two were warmed through by their morning’s busy work. They both had their hair tied up, best pinnies on and they were lathered in dust. ‘This place has never been so clean,’ Sofia laughed as the rich dark beer slaked her thirst. ‘Now, tell me what it’s all in aid of, Cathy. You promised me.’

Cathy studied her friend. Cathy was vivacious but Sofia was properly beautiful. She had the dark hair and olive complexion of someone who had grown up right next to the Mediterranean. She had been brought up in Naples, and even after all these years in South Shields her accent hadn’t quite been blotted out.

She was looking so earnestly inquisitive that Cathy had to laugh. And she had to tell her the truth. She rummaged about in the pocket of her pinny for a letter, which she unfolded with great ceremony. The paper was dated only one week ago, but it was worn and faded as if it had been opened and refolded and studied like a treasure map and kissed over a thousand times.

‘June is coming,’ Cathy said.

Sofia rolled her eyes. ‘So is Christmas!’ she said. ‘But who exactly is June? You haven’t explained anything to me yet …’

The landlady of the Robin Hood bit her lip. Now was the moment. This was when she told her truth. The very thing she had been bottling up so tightly for all these years. Not even her very best, most trusted confidante had an inkling about this secret.

‘Oh …’ Cathy said, and her eyes roved over that worn piece of paper yet again as she flattened it down on the table. She was careful not to dampen it with beer spills. ‘Look at her lovely handwriting! Copperplate, don’t they call that? I don’t know anyone who can write as nicely as this.’

Sofia was losing her patience. ‘But who is she? And what does she say?’

Cathy’s worried thoughts were already straying. ‘Will we have enough food, do you think? I’ve invited simply everyone. All the regulars. Everyone from Frederick Street. You know what folk are like if there’s a free feed on the cards. The place will be swamped. But I don’t mind, of course. I want to give June a proper welcome to the Sixteen Streets …’

Now Sofia was gritting her teeth and trying to read the precious letter upside down. ‘Just tell me who she is! Stop being so secretive.’ She had never seen her friend being as nervy and fretful as this. It really wasn’t like Cathy at all.

Cathy scanned the letter once more. ‘Listen how she writes! “This reunion is one that I anticipate with great joy.” How fancy is that? And her only sixteen! She must be so clever. Why, she’ll put me to shame!’ Then Cathy started glancing around the bar again, looking for any corner that might still need tidying or cleaning or polishing up. She wanted June to see it all and be impressed. She didn’t want her to see this place as just a dingy, dirty, backstreet boozer. She wanted her to see it as the palace that it truly was.

‘Cathy,’ Sofia glared at her. ‘You must tell me.’

The landlady nodded. This was the moment for the long-held truth to come out. At last. ‘She’s my daughter,’ Cathy said. ‘Junie is the daughter who I had to leave behind.’

‘I’ve known you for ages and ages, Cathy Carmichael,’ Sofia said accusingly. She even used her friend’s maiden name, to underline just how many years had gone by. ‘How come you’ve never mentioned this business of having a daughter of your own?’

All at once Cathy looked shamed and uncomfortable. ‘I know, I’m sorry. I could never say anything. My heart was broken. I had to pretend that June didn’t even exist, just to get by.’

‘All these years, though …’ Sofia said. ‘How could you stand it? How could you bear being parted from your own child?’ She could hardly imagine what it was like. Sofia was devoted to her own daughter. She complained about her, loudly and insistently. She told her every day that she was the bane of her life. Bella was turning into a properly opinionated madam now that she was almost full-grown. But Sofia couldn’t conceive of a version of her life without her.

‘There was no choice,’ Cathy said, and tipped the dregs of her drink into her mouth, lingering over the sudsy beer foam, as if buying herself more time. She didn’t quite know just how much to tell her friend.

‘I want to hear the whole story,’ Sofia told her. ‘Leave nothing out.’

‘There’s no time today,’ Cathy said. ‘We’ve got the sandwiches to make and the spread to lay out.’

Sofia reached over the table to touch her friend’s hands. To her astonishment she realised that they were trembling. Cathy, trembling, as she sat in her own pub! Why, nothing ever made her nervous and afraid. After all the things she had overcome! The crooks and the ne’er-do-wells she had seen off the premises. The bar room brawls she had broken up. The very real problems that her drunken hobgoblin husband had provided for her. Over the years Sofia had seen Cathy take many of these things in her stride.

Now though she was trembling. And all because of this mysterious daughter. ‘How old is she again?’

‘S-sixteen now,’ Cathy said softly, looking surprised as she said the word out loud. ‘She’s grown up. She’s a woman now.’

‘Like my own Bella,’ Sofia smiled. And she thought: imagine if I’d not had Bella with me through all these difficult years! The girl was a handful. Sometimes Sofia felt she was mouthy and she answered back to everything her mother ever said. But Sofia couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be deprived of her.

‘My Junie’s old enough to make her own decisions now, you see,’ said Cathy. ‘And to travel by herself. It seems that she has decided to find her true mother at last. She wrote out of the blue that she was coming to see me.’

‘Out of the blue,’ Sofia said. ‘That must have been a shock.’

‘It was.’ Cathy smiled broadly. Her whole face lit up and it was as if she was banishing all her doubts and fears. For Sofia it was just like watching the sun coming out and burning through wisps of rainclouds. ‘So that’s why we’re doing a little party to welcome her. That’s all there really is to it.’

‘I see …’ Sofia smiled. She watched as her friend got to her feet and gathered up their empty glasses.

‘Shall we get back to work? All that bread won’t butter itself.’

Sofia toiled happily through the afternoon on the buffet, making up ham and pease pudding sandwiches and slicing up the sausage rolls. She couldn’t help but wonder if Cathy wasn’t going overboard though. Was this really the best way to welcome her daughter? By inviting the whole local community into the pub to observe every tender moment? Wasn’t this the kind of private event that was best carried out away from the public eye?

When Sofia thought about it all, she realised that maybe Cathy felt safer somehow holding this reunion in full view. This saloon bar was Cathy’s little kingdom and here she was queen. The regulars from the Sixteen Streets were her subjects and they were loyal. Perhaps she would feel protected and strong, receiving this young princess from afar, if she were surrounded by her familiar court?

Sofia, chuckling, shook her head at herself as she laid out the best china that Cathy had carried from the Sturrock house over the road. I’ve read too many silly romantic novels, Sofia told herself. I’m turning this coming party into something much more dramatic than it actually is. Cathy knows what she’s doing. I should just let her get on with it. Maybe things won’t be as melodramatic as all that.

Famous last words, Sofia would think later, as she remembered these last few hours before Junie arrived in town.

Sofia should have reminded herself of how things always turned out. They never went smoothly and there were always hitches. There was always extra drama and tears and shouting and a dreadful carry on. It was just the way that things tended to be here in the Sixteen Streets.

By the time the Robin Hood’s doors opened in the early evening, Cathy had made sure that everything was perfect. Crisp white cloths lay over the buffet tables in the far corner of the Select bar, so that no straying hands could greedily help themselves before the party officially started. Cathy had nipped home for an hour to change into her best new dress – which was a deep forest green and rather modest and slightly matronly, if Sofia had to be honest. Cathy had pinned up her wayward auburn curls and toned down her usual Hollywood starlet make-up. ‘How do I look? Like a respectable mother?’

Sofia’s heart went out to her. She wanted to tell her friend: I don’t think you should change yourself one bit. You can’t really change, you know. No one can change their true nature. Oh, but wasn’t that the truth! Sofia felt that she had lived her entire life around people who would never, ever be able to alter the least little thing about themselves – for good or bad. People just were. They were impossible and you just had to live with it: that’s how Sofia felt at the grand old age she was.

‘You look like the loveliest mother in the world,’ she told Cathy, brushing aside her own misgivings. She thought it would surely be best to go into such a meeting with no pretence. This young girl arriving tonight should simply take Cathy as she was. She would have to get used to this place, these people, this whole world of South Shields, because there was absolutely no way of prettying it up and making it different. Perhaps Sofia should have warned her friend: let the child take you as she finds you. I’m sure she will love you, nevertheless. If her heart is as kind and as steadfast as her mother’s, I’m sure that it will all be fine.

It would have been lovely to say something like that to Cathy, but there just wasn’t time, and the words wouldn’t organise themselves so neatly on her tongue. All Sofia could do was give her best friend a comforting hug and a peck on the cheek. Then all at once the whole pub was filling up with their regulars, all dressed up to the nines and set upon having themselves a good and rowdy do.

The regulars at the Robin Hood liked nothing better than having a party and any excuse would do. Tonight word had gone round that someone very special in the landlady’s life was about to arrive for a visit, and Cathy had very generously put on a spread and was offering a free drink to everyone to kick the evening off. She was known for being generous and for living her life in full public view. Whatever went on in the dramatic home life of Cathy Sturrock, her regulars expected to have ringside seats.

Their resident pianist, Martha Blaylock, who everyone called Aunty, took up her position at the battered upright. She sipped at a pint of milk stout, cracked her swollen knuckle joints and launched into a jaunty music hall number. Best to get everyone singing along right from the start was her philosophy. Soon the place was rattling and rolling and the floorboards were shaking as the dancing began. It didn’t take long for parties to warm up, not around here.

‘It’s past seven,’ Cathy said nervously, glancing at the old ship’s clock above the back of the bar. She was eating peanuts ravenously – she was on her third little packet – and locks of unruly hair were falling out of her ‘do’.

Sofia gave her an encouraging smile, but she was in the middle of pouring drinks for the Farleys and their next-door neighbours, the Mintons, who had arrived en masse. She was so busy she couldn’t find the breath for one more encouraging word.

Sofia got on with her job of measuring drinks and filling up trays and welcoming the droves of arrivals at the bar. The next time she looked up it was to see Cathy sweeping across the room to where a young woman had just stepped through the pub doors.

June was blonde and curly-haired. She had delicate features and was wearing an expensive-looking long woollen coat. She had two suitcases in her hands and she appeared to be terribly shy and worried.

Hands working automatically at the beer pump, seeing to her customers, Sofia watched Cathy hurry over to her daughter and she found herself offering up a silent prayer.

Oh dear god, let this thing go right for poor Cathy. She could do with some love and some good luck in her life, she really could.

‘Everyone! Everyone listen to me, now!’ Cathy was used to shouting above the noise of the pub crowd. She rang the ship’s bell above the bar and beamed at them all as they paused their supping and turned to give her their attention. A whole roomful of familiar faces was smiling back at her, and this pleased the landlady no end. What better welcome could there be for young June?

The girl was standing right beside her. She was pretty as a picture in her canary yellow frock and matching shoes. Her tightly curled hair was almost the same shade as her dress and her make-up was perfect even after the rigours of travel in a dirty train carriage. June looked fresh as a daisy and Cathy’s heart was swollen with pride.

‘I’ve got someone very special to introduce to you all.’

There were murmurs of interest and already the Robin Hood’s regulars had taken careful note of the neat and attractive visitor. She seemed rather high class for around here. Just look at how demure she looked, as well as immaculate and expensive. Her comportment (was that the right word, Cathy wondered vaguely) was very good, too. She stood there, quite unabashed, soaking up all of the attention that was being lavished upon her.

‘Who’s the bonny lass, then?’ someone shouted out and there was a ragged cheer of approval.

‘Now, you must be polite and treat her like a lady,’ Cathy warned. ‘She isn’t used to rough sorts like the likes of you!’

Laughter at this, but some of the women bridled at Cathy’s words. Who was this young madam who looked like she was putting on airs?

‘This …’ said Cathy, touching June’s arm softly and smiling at her. For a second she looked proud and almost as if she was about to cry. Then a new look came into her eyes. Cathy hesitated. She bit her lip. She looked for a second as if she didn’t know how to describe the girl. She opened her mouth and said something she hadn’t been expecting to say. ‘This is a member of my family I haven’t seen since she was just a wee bit of a thing. Since she was about three years old, in fact. Now she’s a beautiful young lady, look! This is my cousin. This is my Aunt Liz’s daughter. This is Junie.’

The girl blushed as the whole room erupted into cheers and hearty greetings. They were even stamping on the wooden floorboards as they welcomed her into the community. ‘It’s just “June” really,’ the young girl said softly, almost under her breath. Only Cathy could really hear her. ‘“Junie” was what they used to call me when I was a very little bairn. I don’t really like it now …’

But her words were drowned out by the welcomes and the offers to buy her drinks from the men – young and old – who came up to have a closer look at her. ‘She won’t be drinking anything alcoholic!’ Cathy warned them. ‘It’ll just be pop! She’s still a bairn, really.’

Aunty Martha struck up a few discordant notes on the piano, racking her brains for a suitable song of welcome. After some dithering on the keys she settled on one of her favourites to get everyone singing along, ‘The Blaydon Races’. Soon the room was busy and boisterous again and the attention drifted away from the visitor.

‘I hope I didn’t embarrass you,’ Cathy grinned at her. ‘I just wanted them all to see how bonny you are.’

June simply smiled at her.

‘I’ll get Minnie to carry your bags across the road to the house,’ Cathy said, eyeing the cases that June had brought in from the street. They were good leather cases. They might get nicked, just sitting there. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen luggage as fancy as that,’ Cathy said. The same was true of the coat that June had arrived in, too. Cathy had never owned anything of such quality in all her life. She shook the thought out of her mind. Of course she wasn’t about to become envious.

Then Sofia was there, bringing a tall glass of lemonade for the girl. ‘Eeeh, it’s good to see you, pet,’ the Italian girl said warmly. ‘I’ve heard so much about you. You’re very welcome here.’

‘Thank you,’ said June, accepting the drink. ‘It’s all a bit surprising. So many people staring at me!’

‘We don’t do things by halves round here,’ Cathy assured her. ‘Here in the Sixteen Streets everyone knows everyone else’s business. We’re quite used to living cheek by jowl. We have a party for every important event – and that includes your visit.’ When she looked at June then she seemed almost nervous. She watched the girl delicately sip her lemonade and then set the glass on the bar.

‘May I see my room? And splash some water on my face?’

‘Of course,’ Cathy said, and beckoned Minnie Minton over. ‘Show her over to number twenty-one. The door will be open. Get her settled into the spare room and if Noel tries to get in your way, pay the old devil no heed.’

Moon-faced and pale of complexion, the youngest barmaid Minnie looked like she was in a constant state of fear. Today was no exception. She hated being anywhere near Cathy’s peculiar husband and what was more, she was nervous of this fancy-looking stranger in the posh yellow dress. ‘Righty-oh, Cathy,’ she stammered because, though she was anxious about everything, Minnie also adored Cathy Sturrock and would have gone to the ends of the earth for her.

‘Hurry back though, won’t you?’ Cathy implored the younger girls. ‘Because we’ve put on a little buffet and all these gannets in here will gobble the lot in seconds if you don’t get back soon.’

June smiled softly. ‘Oh, I’m not terribly hungry, thanks.’

Then she was gone, led out of the bar by Minnie, who was cooing and gasping over her oxblood leather cases.

Now everyone in the bar was singing lustily along with ‘My Old Man Said Follow the Van’.

Ada Farley – the fierce and diminutive matriarch from over the road – was suddenly standing at the bar and demanding a fresh glass of Mild. ‘Eeeh, yon was a bonny girl, Cathy. You must be so proud of her!’

Cathy said, ‘Aye, I am that, Ada.’

The older woman was training her shrewd eye up at the landlady. Cathy was growing warm and discomforted in her matronly dress. She knew that there was no hiding anything from Ada Farley. There could be no subterfuge or secrets where she was involved. ‘How long is she down for?’

‘She’s welcome to stay for as long as she likes,’ Cathy said. Now that she thought of it, there had been no mention in Junie’s beautifully composed letter about her plans. All she had said was that she’d be arriving on this day and at this time. Cathy had been so keen to agree that she hadn’t even thought any further.

‘Eeeh, well, it’s lovely,’ Ma Ada said, accepting her fresh and foaming pint of beer. ‘Nice to have some family around you, for once. I don’t really think of you as having people, Cathy. In all of these years you’ve never really talked about them.’

Cathy shrugged carelessly and her expression darkened slightly. ‘There’s nothing much to say, really. I was brought up in the country by my Aunt Liz, mostly. I don’t have a massive tribe like you do, Ada.’

Ada Farley scowled. ‘A tribe, yes! That’s what I’ve got. And they’ve got me on the war path. Have you heard what my oldest lads have been up to?’

Cathy listened good naturedly to her old friend’s complaints and mock outrage about the sons she doted on. It was her drunken husband who was the real problem at number thirteen, Cathy knew. The sons were paragons and saints to Ada Farley, but she’d be free of her husband in the blink of an eye if she ever got the chance. There he was, over by the piano, slurring his words to another rendition of ‘Cushie Butterfield’.

‘My god, I wish Aunt Martha would learn herself some new bloomin’ songs.’ Ada rolled her eyes. ‘It’s the same three or four ditties going round and round!’

‘She likes to get everyone singing along,’ said Sofia, who reappeared suddenly in their midst, bundling up the cloths that had been covering the buffet. ‘Look, I’ve had to let them get at the spread. Everyone’s starving, Cathy. There’d have been a riot if I’d said they had to wait any longer.’

Smiling, Cathy nodded absently. ‘Let them have it,’ she said.

Ma Ada took herself off to the buffet table quick as a flash, wrestling through the mass of bodies lining up with their plates.

‘June said she wasn’t really all that hungry, after her journey,’ Cathy said, feeling oddly deflated as she watched the feeding frenzy in the Select.

Then she realised that Sofia was staring at her with narrowed eyes. She blinked. ‘What? What is it?’

Sofia said, ‘You know what, pet. “Cousin”? “Aunty”? What is all this? That’s not what you told me! You told me earlier today that the lass was your own daughter!’

Minnie Minton was secretly quite proud of being trusted to show June into her aunt’s house. It was an honour, in a way. The girl was dressed so smartly and had such airs about her, it was like a proper lady had come to visit them on Frederick Street.

‘This is her house then, is it?’ June asked, standing in front of the bow window of number twenty-one.

‘Only a hop, skip and a jump from the pub!’ Minnie grinned. ‘So she doesn’t have far to go to work.’

It was hard to read June’s expression as she stared up at the reddish orange bricks of the front of the house. Was she disappointed? Perhaps she had been expecting something grander?

‘Our house is exactly the same, over the road,’ said Minnie. ‘They’re lovely houses inside. Very cosy.’

June gave her a weak smile and clutched the smaller of her cases more tightly. Minnie – who was carrying the heavier one – suddenly realised: oh, she’s nervous, the poor thing. She’s just a kid. She’s younger than I am, even. And here she is, shoved in amongst all these new people. We must be kind to her. ‘Come inside. You’ll see. You’re . . .