Harold Read online

  HAROLD

  Catherine Cookson

  Table of Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  Harold

  PART ONE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  PART TWO

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  In brief:

  Her books have sold over 130 million copies in 26 languages throughout the world and still counting…

  Catherine Cookson was born Katherine Ann McMullen on June 27th, 1906 in the bleak industrial heartland of Tyne Dock, South Shields (then part of County Durham) and later moved to East Jarrow, which is now in Tyne and Wear.

  She was the illegitimate daughter of Kate Fawcett, an alcoholic, whom she thought was her sister. She was raised by her grandparents, Rose and John McMullen. The poverty, exploitation, and bigotry she experienced in her early years aroused deep emotions that stayed with her throughout her life and which became part of her stories. Catherine left school at 13, and after a period of domestic service, she took a job in a laundry at Harton Workhouse in South Shields. In 1929, she moved south to run the laundry at Hastings Workhouse, working all hours and saving every penny to buy a large Victorian house. She took in gentleman and lady lodgers to supplement her income and took up fencing as one of her hobbies. One of her lodgers was Tom Cookson, a teacher at Hastings Grammar School, and in June 1940, they married. They were devoted to each other throughout their lives together. But the early years of her marriage were beset by the tragic miscarriage of four pregnancies and her subsequent mental breakdown. This took her over a decade to recover from, which she did, often by standing in front of a mirror and giving herself a damn good swearing at!

  Catherine took up writing as a form of therapy to deal with her depression and joined the Hastings Writers’ Group. Her first novel, Kate Hannigan, was published in 1950. In 1976, she returned to Northumberland with Tom and went on to write 104 books in all. She became one of the most successful novelists of all time and was one of the first authors to have three or four titles in the Bestseller Lists at the same time.

  She read widely: from Chaucer to the literature of the 1920s; to Plato’s Apologia on the trial and death of Socrates (she said that here was someone who stuck to his principles even unto death); to history of the nineteenth century and the Romantic poets; to Lord Chesterfield’s Letters To His Son and the books and booklets that abounded in her part of the country dealing with coal, iron, lead, glass, farming and the railways. She disliked it when her books were labeled as ‘romantic.’ To her, they were ‘readable social history of the North East interwoven into the lives of the people.’ For the millions of her readers, she brought ‘an understanding of themselves’ or perhaps of their dear ones. Her stories do not bring in a realism in which the worst is taken for granted, but a realism in which love, caring, and compassion appear, and most certainly, hope. ‘This type of realism does exist,’ Tom Cookson said of her writing. There is nothing sentimental about her writing; she is unrelenting in the strong images she invokes and the characters she portrays. They were born of her formative years and her personal struggles. Many of her novels have been transferred to stage, film, and radio with her television adaptations on ITV, lasting over a decade and achieving ratings of over 10 million viewers.

  Besides writing, she was an innovative painter, and she believed that her father’s genes fostered the strength to work hard, but also, in rare moments of freedom, to strive to better herself. Catherine was famed for her care of money but had given much to charities, hospitals, and medical research in areas close to her heart and to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, who set up a lectureship in hematology. The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust continues to donate generously to charitable causes. The University later conferred her the Honorary Degree of Master of Arts. She received the Freedom of the Borough of South Tyneside, today known as Catherine Cookson Country. The Variety Club of Great Britain named her Writer of the Year, and she was voted Personality of the North East. Other honours followed: an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1986, and she was created Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She was appointed an Honorary Fellow at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford in 1997.

  Throughout her life, but especially in the later years, she was plagued by a rare vascular disease, telangiectasia, which caused bleeding from the nose, fingers, and stomach, and resulted in anemia. As her health declined, she and her husband moved for a final time to Jesmond in Newcastle upon Tyne to be nearer medical facilities. For the last few years of her life, she was bedridden and Tom hardly ever left her bedside, looking after her needs, cooking for her, and taking her on her emergency trips, often in the middle of the night into Newcastle. Their lives were still made up of the seven-day week and twelve or more hours each day, going over the fan mail, attending to charities, and going over the latest dictated book, with Tom meticulously making corrections line by line, for Catherine’s eyesight had long faded in her 80s.

  This most remarkable woman passed away on June 11th, 1998 at the age of 91. Tom, six years her junior, had earlier suffered a heart attack but survived long enough to be with her at her end. He passed away on 28th June, just 17 days after his beloved Catherine.

  Catherine Cookson’s Books

  NOVELS

  Colour Blind

  Maggie Rowan

  Rooney

  The Menagerie

  Fanny McBride

  Fenwick Houses

  The Garment

  The Blind Miller

  The Wingless Bird

  Hannah Massey

  The Long Corridor

  The Unbaited Trap

  Slinky Jane

  Katie Mulholland

  The Round Tower

  The Nice Bloke

  The Glass Virgin

  The Invitation

  The Dwelling Place

  Feathers in the Fire

  Pure as the Lily

  The Invisible Cord

  The Gambling Man

  The Tide of Life

  The Girl

  The Cinder Path

  The Man Who Cried

  The Whip

  The Black Velvet Gown

  A Dinner of Herbs

  The Moth

  The Parson’s Daughter

  The Harrogate Secret

  The Cultured Handmaiden

  The Black Candle

  The Gillyvors

  My Beloved Son

  The Rag Nymph

  The House of Women

  The Maltese Angel

  The Golden Straw

  The Year of the Virgins

  The Tinker’s Girl

  Justice is a Woman

  A Ruthless Need

  The Bonny Dawn

  The Branded Man

  The Lady on my Left

  The Obsession

  The Upstart

  The Blind Years

  Riley

  The Solace of Sin

  The Desert Crop

  The Thursday Friend

  A House Divided

  Rosie of the River

  The Silent Lady

  FEATURING KATE HANNIGAN

  Kate Hannigan (her first published novel)

  Kate Hannigan’s Girl (her hundredth published novel)

  THE MARY ANN NOVELS

  A Grand Man

  The Lord and Mary Ann

  The Devil and Mary Ann

  Love and Mary Ann

>   Life and Mary Ann

  Marriage and Mary Ann

  Mary Ann’s Angels

  Mary Ann and Bill

  FEATURING BILL BAILEY

  Bill Bailey

  Bill Bailey’s Lot

  Bill Bailey’s Daughter

  The Bondage of Love

  THE TILLY TROTTER TRILOGY

  Tilly Trotter

  Tilly Trotter Wed

  Tilly Trotter Widowed

  THE MALLEN TRILOGY

  The Mallen Streak

  The Mallen Girl

  The Mallen Litter

  FEATURING HAMILTON

  Hamilton

  Goodbye Hamilton

  Harold

  AS CATHERINE MARCHANT

  Heritage of Folly

  The Fen Tiger

  House of Men

  The Iron Façade

  Miss Martha Mary Crawford

  The Slow Awakening

  CHILDREN’S

  Matty Doolin

  Joe and the Gladiator

  The Nipper

  Rory’s Fortune

  Our John Willie

  Mrs. Flannagan’s Trumpet

  Go Tell It To Mrs Golightly

  Lanky Jones

  Bill and The Mary Ann Shaughnessy

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  Our Kate

  Let Me Make Myself Plain

  Plainer Still

  Harold

  Catherine Cookson’s well-loved novels Hamilton and Goodbye Hamilton tell the story of Maisie, who invented an imaginary horse to keep her company through the long years of an unhappy marriage, and before she became a bestselling author. In this engaging sequel, Hamilton has vanished from Maisie’s life and two human companions take his place.

  In the days of mourning that follow the death of her beloved second husband Nardy, Maisie takes comfort and joy in the company of the cheerful, bright-eyed little cockney boy called Harold. Now, a year later, she decides to adopt him, and begins to find happiness once more and rarely needs to escape from reality into her imagination. She is even beginning to hope that true love could strike twice. But life is never simple and an unexpected friendship with a curious man could leave Maisie in grave danger…

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1985

  The right of Catherine Cookson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This book is sold subject to the condition it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form.

  ISBN 978-1-78036-106-2

  Sketch by Harriet Anstruther

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described, all situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  Published by Peach Publishing

  PART ONE

  THE MOHICAN

  One

  ‘Why do you want to adopt him?’

  I stared at James Stoddart, the father of Harold, and I wanted to say, ‘Because I love him,’ but found that I couldn’t use the word, not in front of this horde of the boy’s uncles and aunts, and his grandmother and grandfather, not forgetting the outsider who was present. And to my dismay I heard myself sniff before I replied, ‘Because I am fond of him.’

  ‘You wouldn’t like to adopt me, Mrs Leviston, now would you?’ The big man grinned at me, and as the titter went round the room his mother, my dear Janet, yelled, ‘You, Max Flood! I warned you now, didn’t I?’

  ‘Oh, Mum. Mrs Nardy … I mean Mrs Leviston understands it was only a joke. Don’t you, Mrs Leviston?’

  ‘Yes.’ I smiled at him. ‘It was only a joke.’ Then endeavouring to bring a little lightness into the proceedings, I added, ‘I might have considered the proposition if you had been smaller,’ only to put my foot in it through my nervousness by adding, ‘But no doubt I’ll be adopting some part of you because, you being his favourite uncle, Harold has picked up many of your sayings,’ which brought forth from the others a chorus of protests.

  ‘You’re not his favourite uncle.’

  ‘Who said you’re his favourite uncle? I’ve seen to him time and time again.’

  ‘Who took him to the Zoo last week?’

  ‘Shut up! Shut up, the lot of you!’

  All eyes now turned towards Janet, and I was amazed yet again at how this slender woman in her sixties was able to cope with this crowd of big lumbersome men and their attendant girlfriends … so called.

  Janet had become very dear to me over the past three years we had been together. I think she had resented me a little at first when I became the wife of her dear Mr Nardy. This, of course, was natural for had she not attended him since he was a baby? And later, after his mother died, she had become his housekeeper, although only part-time, for she still had her own growing horde to attend to. Max was the eldest, followed by Billy and Joe; the three of them, each over thirty and divorced. Then came Maggie, Harold’s mother, who three years ago had left her husband Jimmy Stoddart for another man, only to leave this man for yet another and go off with him to Australia. She was the only one of the family not here today. Greg, and Rodney, and Hilda had followed at yearly intervals. May, the youngest, was smart: she was well dressed. She had acquired a flat of her own, I understood, and was now a receptionist in a small hotel. To use her mother’s words, she had made it, the only one of the lot of them to have done so.

  But of all the family, it was Hilda and her boyfriend who had held my attention mostly since I had come into the house. Janet had described them to me from time to time. Her description, however, was but a pale shadow of the reality: Hilda’s hair, which hung below her shoulders, was of three distinct colours, green, blue and yellow; she had a long thin face, her eyes seemingly enlarged with coal-black make-up, and her mouth with scarlet lipstick; her fingers were almost hidden under rings all studded with large glass stones. She was wearing a tight, very low-necked purple sweater, but the cleavage of her breasts was covered by strings of beads. Her skirt was of a shiny material that reached just to her knees. She wore ankle warmers, apparently hand-knitted and of indescribable colours, and on her feet she had heavy brogues. That was Hilda, and she was well out of her teens.

  Her boyfriend was more easy to describe; he was simply the last of the Mohicans. No-one could mistake him for anything else: not only did the ridge of his hair running across the crown of his head speak his name loud and clear, but also his whole attire was pure Mohican Indian. I had been really startled by his appearance and amazed at the lack of self-consciousness that enabled him to walk abroad looking as he did. But now I was in for another surprise.

  All Janet’s family talked with a cockney twang, and, with the exception of May, were no respecters of aspirates. But when the Mohican opened his mouth his voice was clear, his tone crisp and his words very much to the point: he was saying to Jimmy Stoddart, ‘Why all this kerfuffle about why Mrs Leviston wants to adopt Harold. It’s no longer the case of why she would want to adopt him, it’s more likely, why has she adopted him? The deed’s done, it’s all signed and sealed.’ He turned towards me now and the two painted marks on his cheeks spread as he smiled and added, ‘It isn’t everyone that’s taken for love, is it, Mrs Leviston?’

  The voice was so incongruous with his get-up that I could find nothing to say at the moment; but it would have been cut off anyway for Jimmy Stoddart had risen to his feet and, with arm outstretched and finger pointing, he was crying, ‘Who’s askin’ you to butt in, you weirdy git! This is a family affair, and what my son does is no … ’

  ‘That’s another point, isn’t it, Mr Stoddart: he’s no longer your son; you signed him away this morning.’ The Mohican’s voice was quiet and cool.

  The very next moment I yelled or yelped as a small vase flew past my face, headed straight for the Mohican, and splintered against the wall just behind his head. In that
instant I noticed the expression on the Mohican’s face: it wasn’t fear, it looked like rage as if he could have been a real Indian, and on the attack.

  But now there was pandemonium in the room. Janet was shouting, ‘You get out of here, Jimmy Stoddart! And the less I see of you the better.’

  The men were all on their feet, except Mr Flood, who had been seated near the fire and was still seated there and still smoking, having lit one cigarette from the other, and seemingly oblivious of the commotion.

  ‘I’ll go when I’m ready.’ Jimmy Stoddart was standing near the sitting-room door. He was a tall man, well built and what you might call good-looking in a flashy kind of way. His hair was dark and thick and had certainly been under the hairdresser’s hands, as the waves above his ears testified. And ignoring Max, who was lumbering up to him and saying threateningly, ‘I’d get goin’ when the goin’s good, mate,’ he stepped to one side and, looking directly across the room at me, he shouted, ‘I want to know when I can see ’im.’

  ‘You never bothered seein’ ’im much before.’ It was the bedecked Hilda now speaking for the first time since I’d come into the room and her voice, unlike her boyfriend’s, had certainly no refinement in it.

  I answered the man, saying, ‘You know the agreement, you may see him every other Saturday and have him for a weekend once a month.’

  ‘I know that. But which weekend? This weekend? Next weekend?’

  ‘Let it be the last weekend in the month.’

  He made no comment on this but stood still for a moment, and as he looked at me I was reminded of my first husband, Howard Stickle, who was now serving a twelve-year sentence for having tried to kill me by burning me to death. In the attempt he was successful only in burning my husband and so bringing him to a premature death, burning the fingers off my stepfather, and horribly disfiguring the daughter of his second wife. It came to me that there was more than one Stickle in the world.

  ‘To hell with you! What are you anyway, the lot of you? Scum.’

  There was a surge towards the figure going out, but Janet blocked the way, her voice rising above the mêlée as she cried, ‘Stop it! Leave him alone. Enough! My God! What has this house come to?’ Then pushing Rodney and Billy aside, she made her way towards me and her face was crumpled in distress as she said, ‘Ma’am, what can I say? The first time in my house and you meet a lot of hooligans.’