Chapter 45
Saturday fast becomes the day on which the Kelly household turns into a gathering place for newsies. They turn up at all times of day, with very little rhyme or reason, but the door to the house, whilst Jack and Katherine are in, at least, remains perpetually unlocked. The boys know that they're always welcome, even when Jack is out and there's only Katherine there to offer them coffee. On the third Saturday of their marriage, therefore, Jack is less than surprised to be woken by Crutchie wandering into his living room.
"Trouble in paradise?" Crutchie asks, eyebrows raised, as he eases himself into the armchair.
His eyes rove over the rather dishevelled and disgruntled form of one Jack Kelly, who is stretched out – at least, as much as is physically possible on this hellscape of a sofa – at seven on a Saturday morning and has clearly been there all night, judging by the way that he's half hanging off it and has his arm flopped over his eyes.
Jack grunts, sitting up and rolling the stiffness out of his shoulders. "Havin' nightmares. Don' wanta wake her."
"What you sleepin' down here for?" Crutchie wrinkles his nose. "'S screamin' once a night, max. Dead easy to get back to sleep from – I should know."
If anybody should, Jack knows, it's Crutchie. They slept in that penthouse together for years. Still, he shrugs. I don't want her to think I'm weak probably isn't an advisable answer.
"You's a nitwit, 's what you is." Crutchie tells him, matter-of-fact.
"Shuddup." Jack rolls his shoulders again, standing up and wandering toward the kitchen. "Toast?"
"When don' I want toast?"
Ask a silly question. Crutchie gets up from the armchair with some difficulty, due to the stuffing inside it being softened and spread out from years of use, manoeuvring his crutch around awkwardly until he can hop after Jack into the kitchen. Jack doesn't offer to help, much as he wants to. His new job seems to have exacerbated Crutchie's independence complex and Jack isn't about to mortally offend the kid at seven am on a Saturday morning. He has better things to do, like getting the toast started, leaving Crutchie with nothing to do but collapse into a kitchen chair and listen to the bread sizzling in the pan.
It's only as Jack picks up the pan off the stove, ready to slide the toast onto Crutchie's plate, when Katherine wanders in, unexpected. She has this peculiar talent, that rather disturbs Jack, honestly, of descending the stairs completely soundlessly. More than once he's turned around to find her unexpectedly in the same room as him when he's thought that she's upstairs, only to jump out of his skin.
"Jack, my love – oh!" Her eyes widen as she yanks the loose, sage green dressing gown tighter around her, face turning pink. "Crutchie, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were here, I'll go and get dressed-"
"Kath, you's in a dressin' gown, you's fine. Sit. Have toast." Jack says, thoroughly unperturbed.
"Jack, I'm not wearing stockings." She hisses.
"An' so far as I can remember you ain't got no hideously deformed toes as you needs to hide." Jack replies, pushing a slice of toast onto a second plate and thrusting it into her hands. "Crutchie don' care. Do you, Crutch?"
Crutchie looks up from his seat at the table and looks at Katherine for the first time. "Nah." He swallows down an enormous mouthful of toast. "You's got very pretty feet."
She can't help but laugh at that, her reluctance draining away as she sits down with her toast. "Ah, Crutchie, the compliment every girl wants to hear."
Her mother, Katherine knows, would be scandalised if she could see her now. In nightdress and dressing-gown, without stockings or corset, sitting in the kitchen in broad daylight with two men (only one of which is her husband). Her father truly would call her a slut for this. She bites into the toast rather more viciously than she entirely intends.
Jack, however, seems to notice the change in her demeanour as he puts down the pan and wanders over to drape himself over the back of her chair, pressing a kiss her cheek. She smells like the butter from the toast and that lavender soap that she uses to wash herself every morning and, sweetly, intoxicatingly, a little bit like him. Instinctive, she reaches up and takes hold of his arm to wrap it around her middle. It's become practiced, this, even after only a few weeks, the way that her body knows his, twines around him. Not touching him feels like a loss, like there's some part of her missing. Jack is comfort, grounding, books and mugs of tea on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
Race takes that moment to walk in, rolling his eyes when he sees them.
"D'you two ever keep your hands to yourselves?" He asks, swiping the second slice of toast of Crutchie's plate as he saunters over to the opposite chair.
Katherine blushes, looking down at her own breakfast, but Jack just laughs over Crutchie's indignant protests and stands back up. He doesn't quite let go of her, though, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder, the other one on the chair back, not quite ready to abandon their closeness.
"Nah. Mrs. Ross from next-door told me the other day that I oughta be less affectionate wi' my wife."
Katherine hides her face in her hands, knowing exactly where this story is going. To be fair, when Jack had repeated this conversation to her, they'd both thought it was hilarious, doubled over laughing in the bathroom, struggling not to let toothpaste escape onto the floor as they did so. Still, it's one thing for them to laugh about it when they're brushing their teeth, Jack behind her, one arm around her waist, eyes meeting hers and twinkling in the mirror, and quite another for him to air it to the boys.
She tilts her head back to look up at him, and he catches her eye, raising one eyebrow almost imperceptibly, seeking her permission to continue. Blushing, she gives him a little nod, and he returns, grinning, to his story.
"So," Jack says, fully getting into the story, Crutchie and Race's eyes on him, riveted, as they always are when he gets like this, the bright eyed dreamer, "I asks Mr. Chavers 'bout it, an' he gets all shuffly an' uncomfortable, like, an' he says that his mother-in-law is complainin' 'bout all the affectionate noises comin' from our bedroom."
"And that's my cue to go and get dressed." Katherine declares over Race's cackling and Crutchie's red-faced huffs of laughter, wolfing down the last of her toast before scurrying upstairs.
She gets halfway up the stairs before she remembers that she still wears a ladies' corset, not a working woman's one, and so she's really going to need Jack's help to tighten it, and has to do the walk of shame back into the kitchen to get Jack.
When she walks back into the kitchen, Jack's laughing at something that Race has said, leaning against the counter, framed with the window behind him, pale sunlight throwing him into shades of late summer, the last glimmers of August glory dimmed by September. How she ever got so lucky is completely and utterly beyond her.
"Jack, my love." He looks up at that, sees her stood in the doorway, and smiles like he's watching the sun rise. "I need your help with my corset."
It's become fairly commonplace, now, Jack growing used to the ritual of helping her to get dressed in the morning, so he just nods and tosses the tea-towel that he's holding over his shoulder, making to follow her. The other two, however, well. All colour drains from Crutchie's face, while Race bursts into laughter, attempting a wolf-whistle before breaking off into giggles. Jack scrunches up the tea-towel and throws it at Race's head. Katherine ought to feel uncomfortable, she knows – such conversation certainly wouldn't have been permitted in the Pulitzer house, that's for sure. At age five, she had once made reference to her drawers at the dinner table and been promptly expelled from the dining room. But… these are her boys and this is their way. So, instead she fixes Race with a sarcastic look.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Race, is that you volunteering to help instead?"
And, well, that certainly shuts him up.
Katherine is immensely glad, half an hour later, when there's a knock on the door and she can answer it, fully dressed, because there, on the doorstep, is Rose, fiddling with a dainty little handbag and sporting a hat so large Katherine isn't sure that she'll be able to make it through their front door. The woman mumbles something about whether it's inconvenient timing, but Katherine jumps in, reassuring her and then inviting her in. There's raucous laughter coming from the kitchen and there's a moment when Katherine wonders if she's done the right thing, not putting Rose off until another day, but then shakes the thought away. No, Rose was the one who was unsatisfied in all of this. Crutchie and Race are better friends than she'll ever be, so if Rose wants to be friends with her, then she'll just have to deal with the newsies as well.
"Coffee?" Katherine asks, leading her into the little kitchen, where Jack is leant against the sideboard once again, whilst Race and Crutchie lounge at the kitchen table. She motions for Rose to join them. Rose's eyes go wide, but she obeys, perching on the very edge of the wooden chair.
Of all of them, rather unsurprisingly, Jack recovers first.
"Rose!" He offers her a smile, albeit a tight one. "'S nice to see you again. These are my brothers, Crutchie and Race."
"What… unusual names."
"'S jus' nicknames." Crutchie smiles, sticking out a hand across the table. "I's Charles, 'f you wants the proper version, an' this is Edward. You must be one o' Kath's friends?"
"Yes." Rose looks at Crutchie's slightly grubby hand nervously, but, after a moment of hesitation, shakes it all the same. "Nice to meet you."
"I's surprised you didn't meet us at the weddin'." Crutchie says, his tone light, and Katherine almost drops the coffee pot.
"I… wasn't able to make the wedding."
Race narrows his eyes. "You ain't one o' those old cows who rejected the invite, was you?"
"So!" Katherine turns on her heel, a little coffee slopping over the rim of the mug as she brings it over to the table. "Is there something in particular that brings you round, Rose?"
"Oh, not really. I just wanted to make sure that the offer of friendship still stood, you know." She pauses, silence, then looks around, her eyes catching on chipped plates and newspapers stacked under a table leg, lines appearing on her smooth, porcelain skin. "Your new house is very nice."
"The boys did a good job."
"Are you going to Cornelia and Darcy's wedding?"
Oh. She's known they're engaged, of course, but she hasn't fully processed that, not really. That Darcy, her oldest friend, has tossed her away so easily… it was bound to sting a little, but she didn't think she would care so much. She's known for a long time of his disapproval, but assumed it was disapproval like Ralph's, disapproval that would prioritise her, their love for her, over any umbrage they took against her life choices. But, no. She'd amused him, for a while, and then when she'd become tiresome, or inflammatory, or dangerous, he'd tossed her to the curb, like yesterday's paper.
"We haven't been invited."
"Oh." Rose, to her credit, clearly hadn't known, by the way she bites her lip. Jack still wants to kick her out of his house though, just for the look that comment put on his wife's face. "Maybe she's forgotten. We haven't seen you in a while."
"An' whose fault is that?" Race mutters. Jack cuffs him upside the head. Rose ploughs on.
"I'm hosting an afternoon tea next Saturday, you ought to come." She forces lightness into her tone. "Perhaps it will jog Cornelia's memory."
Katherine frowns. "Won't your husband mind?"
"He's out for the day."
Rose's answer is too quick and they all know it. Rose has planned this, oh-so-carefully, to get exactly what she wants without the consequences. She wants Katherine, but not for her husband to know that she's carrying on the friendship with someone so unsuitable. Her words colour Katherine's cheeks in pink shame.
"I see." Katherine presses her lips together. "Thank you for the invitation. I'll think about it. We quite often have guests around on weekends, as you can see."
"Oh, of course." Silence. A cough. "Well, I really ought to be going."
Rose stands. Her mug, on the table, is still half-full of coffee.
When Katherine re-enters the kitchen after showing Rose to the door, Jack immediately strides across the floor and pulls her into an enormous hug. He's so much bigger than she is, a fact that she forgets sometimes, when he's so gentle, but she's grateful for it now, that he can completely envelop her. She presses her nose against his undershirt, breathing him in. He smells like ink and paint and little bit of sweat, but she doesn't mind. She knows him, could take him apart and put him back together with her eyes closed, knows the way his sweat tastes on his skin and the places that undo him. He's hers.
"Are you goin' to go?" Crutchie asks, his voice quiet, and she pulls away to look at him.
"I don't know. Probably."
"Ace," Jack sighs, "'s your decision, but you always comes back feelin' worse off. Maybe 's time to let it go."
"I know. I just… want some friends that are just mine, you know?"
"What you on about?" Race frowns. "We ain't jus' here for Jack, y'know."
"Yeah," Crutchie pipes up, grinning at Jack, "you think we comes here to look at his ugly mug?"
"'Ey!"
Jack's protest goes unacknowledged as Race gets up and yanks Katherine into another hug, Jack moving backwards, testament to how much he trusts Race in the way that he passes her over without complaint.
"You's our friend too, Princess." Race says, squishing her against him. "You's one o' us – King o' New York, an' all that."
…
"Read to me?" Jack asks, from where he's slumped in the armchair, the last of the newsies having finally trooped out of their door.
Katherine hums her assent, his request quite expected at this point, plucking a book from the little shelf he's put up for her by the fireplace. "I've got a new one from the library."
When she turns back, he's got his arms open, waiting for her. It's become custom somehow, despite the fact that they have a perfectly serviceable and substantially larger sofa less than three feet away, for Katherine to curl up in the armchair with him. They've got it down to a fine art, now, Jack with his legs stretched out straight, Katherine's flung over his lap, his arm around her, maybe a hand coming up to play with her hair as she tucks herself into the place where his neck meets his shoulder, resting against the lean muscle of his chest. They fit together like jigsaw pieces. Intertwined, braided together at their ends. Katherine clears her throat, starts to read.
"Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name…"
She continues, her voice soft, melodic. Jack's fingers pull the pins from her hair, easing it down out of its style and into its natural state. He loves her as her society self, put together and pinned, professional, but he loves her even better like this, in half-undone clothes and loose hair, pen or fingers flying across the page. When its down, he brings his other hand over, surrounding her completely in his arms, and begins, absent-mindedly, to braid it.
"…Oliver cried lustily. If he could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of churchwardens and overseers, perhaps he would have cried the louder."
"He woulda." Jack says.
He speaks without thinking and seems to realise it immediately, shooting her an apologetic look for his interruption. Katherine allows the book to fall shut, cover weighing against the fingertip that marks their page, numbing it a little. Perhaps this had been a poor choice of novel. The last thing she wants is Jack thinking about his own childhood when he's been so happy today.
"Since when do you know how to braid hair?" She asks, quiet, fingering the little section of hair he's been at work on, glossy and neat.
Jack smiles at her, rueful. "Full o' surprises, me."
"I'm serious."
He sighs, leans his head back, closes his eyes as if in pain. "We used to have a girl newsie, Emma. Too young to sort her own hair out, so I did it for her; me an' the boys used to sneak her into the lodgehouse – she weren't allowed to be there, 'cos 's only for boys an' all that."
A hand cups Jack's face, pulls him in for a kiss. His eyelids flicker, it's unexpected, but not unwelcome, his mouth covering hers, eyes closing, relishing, blissful.
"You're wonderful." Katherine finally whispers, against his mouth, resting their foreheads together, her thumb ghosting along his cheekbone. "What happened to her?"
He swallows, heavy, hurting. "Got carted off to prison for solicitin'."
"What?" Katherine's eyes fly open. Jack's stay closed. The braid begins to unbraid itself, no longer held by either of their fingers.
"Yeah. 'Pparently a man forcin' hisself on her was her fault for solicitin'." He clears his throat. "You should carry on."
So she does, she carries on reading, worrying yet more at each sentence about the memories this must be dredging up, watching the knit of her husband's eyebrows, noticing when his fingers stutter in their paths to comb through her hair.
"…'Please, sir, I want some more.'
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.
'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.
'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'
The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked aloud for the beadle."
Katherine can't take it, slamming the book shut. "Am… am I making you sad? With this book?"
Jack just blinks at her. "No, Ace. I's lived worse."
"That doesn't mean it isn't making you sad."
He shrugs. "'S a novel, ain't it? Oliver's goin' to get a happy endin'. Gotta find out what happens in the meantime."
"How do you know Oliver's going to get a happy ending?" She frowns, searching his eyes for something, hope, an answer, perhaps.
He looks up at her, lips pink from her kisses, his eyes dark. "I did."