Fanny McBride

by Catherine Cookson

  If possible the priest’s face stretched even to a longer length, his mouth formed an elongated ‘oh’ as he ejaculated the syllable itself, ‘Oh!’

  ‘Yes, Father. I’m after a job. It’s just temporary, but when it’s finished I’ll get another.’

  Again the priest nodded his head, and again he exclaimed, ‘Oh!’ Then: ‘What kind of a job are you after, Fanny?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m after gettin’ into The Ladies, Father, temporary like.’

  The priest’s mouth closed in order that he should moisten his lips; then they parted slightly and his head bounced once as he repeated in all solemnity, ‘The Ladies?’

  ‘Yes, Father, you know…’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the priest put in hastily. ‘Yes, I know, Fanny.’

  Fanny stared at the man who had been her confessor and friend for as long as she could remember. He wasn’t surprised, he wasn’t shocked, he didn’t think that she was past a job, even The Ladies.

  ‘Do you think your legs will stand it, Fanny?’

  Fanny phrased her answer carefully as she replied, ‘I’ll be only taking the money, Father. I’ll be off me legs for most of the time—at least that’s what I understand. It all depends on your reference. I have to have two, so I came to you. I’ve been to Bob Aiton’s for the other one.’

  ‘Oh, aye. Oh, you went to Bob? Now there’s a fine man. I’m sure he gave you a good one.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fanny, non-committal about both the reference and him being a fine man. ‘Perhaps you’ll remember, Father, he was brought up along of my lot.’

  ‘I do, I do, Fanny. They all ran around together. But Bob’s done well for himself, and no blame to him, now is there?’

  ‘That all depends,’ said Fanny. ‘It appeared to me he didn’t like to be reminded of his past. And I’m part of his past, for many’s the day I’ve fed him when his belly was empty. And there he was sitting behind his desk as snotty as a new-made bride.’

  Father Owen coughed, then he got to his feet and turned his back on Fanny and went to the waiting-room table and picked up a magazine. But before turning to give it to her he coughed again and blew his nose violently. Then coming to her, he handed her the magazine saying, ‘There, you’d better take that in case I’m not able to look in on you this week.’

  ‘Thanks, Father. And about the reference?’

  The priest stooped over her and patted her shoulder.

  ‘I’ll give you a reference that’ll get you into the Ministry of Supply, Fanny. I’ll say you’ve had a football team.’ The priest threw his head back and laughed down at her, and Fanny, joining her raucous pitch to his, cried, ‘And one in reserve, don’t forget, Father…I’ve had twelve.’

  ‘And one in reserve, Fanny. And they’re all good boys and girls.’

  The priest spoke as if her family were still children, and the smile slid from Fanny’s face and her eyes dropped to her hands and she tapped her fingers gently together as she said, ‘You’re forgetting about Jack, Father.’

  ‘No, I’m not forgetting about Jack.’ The priest’s voice was hearty. ‘Jack will see sense one of these days.’

  ‘In the Salvation Army, Father?’

  ‘Oh, that. You worry too much. Jack will never join the Salvation Army.’

  ‘He married one of ’em.’

  ‘Well then, do some praying and get her out of the Salvation Army and into the Church…That would cause some rejoicing in Heaven, wouldn’t it?’ Again the priest’s head went back in a laugh.

  But Fanny did not join her voice to his this time; instead, she said soberly, ‘You don’t know my Jack.’

  ‘Oh, I know your Jack very well. Didn’t I have the teaching of him? He’s going through a bad spell…don’t we all? No man is worth his salt who isn’t tempted.’

  ‘Tempted!’ repeated Fanny scornfully. ‘He’s past being tempted. He jumped in with his eyes open, and he’s in it over the eyebrows now and he cannot see his way out. That’s why he’s ashamed to come near me.’

  ‘What’s come over you?’ said the priest, sternly now. ‘Hope’s dead in you and that’s a sin. It’s as well you’re taking something to do, it’ll keep your mind from brooding. Well now’—his voice softened—‘let me get my pen and I’ll write you a note that’ll lead you towards happier times.’

  He went out of the room into the hall, and just as he had passed through the door Fanny saw him stop abruptly as if he had been taken aback. And when he spoke the reason was made clear to her and brought her up onto her feet with the suggestion that she had just at that moment been progged with a pin…Nellie Flannagan! My God! If she were to go to Hell for a bucket of pitch that lady would follow her! What could she be wanting here at this time in the morning?

  And now Nellie Flannagan’s voice told her, for her refined twang floated into the room, saying, ‘I’ve called to see you, Father, with reference to a post.’

  Aye, it would be a post with that one, not a job.

  ‘I was wondering if I might ask you for a testimonial?’

  Now what job would she be after? Who would take her for anything other than somebody who wanted to learn the art of putting on false airs and graces…being an upstart, in short?

  She saw the priest’s hand move swiftly out and close the door, and she thought to herself, ‘Oh, he needn’t worry, I know me manners if nobody else does. I wouldn’t raise me voice so near to the Holy Church. I’ll keep me bawling for me own doorstep.’ Then again she thought, ‘He needn’t have worried,’ and she wanted to tell him so when he returned to the room with the pen in his hand and his face bearing an expression that spoke of hurry.

  She watched his pen moving swiftly over the paper for quite some time, and she did comment to herself that he wasn’t letting Lady Flannagan cut her reference short, he was giving her her dues. Then when he licked the envelope and pushed in the letter and handed it to her, seemingly all in one movement, she looked at him squarely in the eyes and to the poor man’s consternation, she said, calmly, ‘Don’t agitate yourself, Father. I’d neither hit her nor spit in her eye on your premises. And thanks a lot for this.’ She fluttered the envelope. ‘And I hope when you’re writing out a reference for her you’ll give her her deserts as you’ve given me mine.’

  With this telling statement she nodded once, a deferential nod, and turning on her heel she made swiftly for the door into the hall, determined that he wasn’t going to lead her out through his private quarters and the main presbytery door.

  On entering the hall she did not allow her disappointment to show when there was no sight or sound of Nellie Flannagan. And when the priest, smiling now with a smile that drew up one side of his mouth, bade her goodbye from the door with a ‘God bless you, Fanny’, she replied, ‘And you too, Father’; then sailed down the street in the direction of home with all the lightness she could muster, for her corsets by now were sticking in her at all angles and her feet were bursting out of her good shoes.

  ‘This,’ said Mrs Proctor, ‘is Miss Toppin.’ She waved her hand airily to a tiny, shrunken creature with a face like that of an old bird.

  As Fanny acknowledged the introduction she thought, God help her, she’s got a beak on her that’d pick a winkle.

  ‘I’m known as Maggie,’ piped Miss Toppin in a voice that was as thin and sparse as her body, and she accompanied this information by a smile that did something to her face and made Fanny add to her comment, I’ll get on with her all right, she seems a canny sort.

  ‘Maggie is permanent…almost an institution in herself.’ Mrs Proctor looked down on Maggie with a look of mixed condescension and pity, on which Maggie immediately turned her back and went about her business.

  ‘Mrs Craig comes in in the mornings.’ Now Mrs Proctor was addressing Fanny. ‘Your time will be from one-thirty till six, with fifteen minutes off for tea.’

  ‘Where do I go to get that?’

  ‘You don’t go anywhere, you have it here. There’s a ring.’

 
; ‘That’s nice.’

  A few minutes later Fanny looked about her at the L-shaped corridor of boxes, at the little glass-fronted office in which she was to sit. She liked the look of that very much, and behind it was the cubbyhole where the stores were kept and where she could go to make her tea; she liked the look of the whole set-up; she liked the smell of the disinfectant; but above all she liked the look of Maggie, and as she had to work with her that was just as well, she felt.

  ‘Now I must go. I will leave you in Maggie’s capable hands.’ Mrs Proctor was all abustle, which indicated the importance of her position and the many calls upon her services. ‘Maggie will show you what is necessary and you’ll start tomorrow. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Fanny.

  Maggie did not even nod, but with her thumbnail she made a ripping sound as she tore the outer cover from one toilet roll after another. Then when the door had closed she commented, ‘She gets on me tripe!’

  ‘Does she?’ said Fanny.

  ‘Aye, she does.’ There was another ripping sound and Maggie’s long nose jerked up and down and drew Fanny’s eyes with it.

  ‘I’m eliterate, that’s what she says.’ Maggie’s head jerked towards the door. ‘I heard her say that one day ’bout me, that’s why I don’t get the job in there permanent.’ She nodded towards the glass partition. ‘Can’t count, she says, but I can take the pennies when we’re stuck like now. I can count when I want to. I know how many beans make five…You want a cup of tea?’

  The ripping sounds were still going on as Fanny said, ‘Aye, thanks very much, I could do with one.’

  ‘Come on in then.’ Maggie bundled the toilet rolls into a box, then, with a conspiratorial air, went into the little room where she lit the ring and put the kettle on it, saying as she did so, ‘Sit down.’ Then the relieving smile splitting her face again, she put her head back and looked up at Fanny as she exclaimed, ‘That’s if you can get in.’ This was said in the nature of a compliment and Fanny laughed.

  ‘By! you’re big.’

  Looking down on the undersized little woman Fanny exclaimed, ‘And by, you’re little.’ Whereupon they both laughed together.

  ‘If we was the same size we would have to play Bad-weather Jack and find Lady Jane, wouldn’t we, one in and one out?’ piped Maggie.

  ‘Aye, we would that.’

  The more Fanny heard of Maggie’s chatter and the more she saw of the wizened little creature the more she liked her. And when Maggie, handing her a brimful cup of tea, exclaimed, apropos of nothing in the immediate conversation, ‘Mary Prout’s got nothing more up top than me, and she takes the money. Tain’t fair, is it?’ Fanny, without going into the matter, said, ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘But somehow I don’t mind you.’ The little woman poked her finger into the region of Fanny’s bust. ‘I think we’ll get on. Not like Mrs Craig…you want to see the way she comes dressed up. I says to her one day, “What d’you think this is? You look as if you were dressed for a garden party,” and you know what she said?’

  Fanny took a drink of tea, looking enquiringly over the rim as she did so into the small, bright eyes below hers.

  ‘She said that she was a cashier in a Ladies’ convenience and dressed accordingly.’

  As Fanny spluttered into her cup Maggie let out a high squeak that seemed to corkscrew through the top of her head pulling her upwards to the ceiling, for she stretched with her glee. Then she clapped her hands over her mouth, exclaiming, ‘Eeh! There’s somebody in.’

  As Fanny watched her scuttle out of the cubbyhole she thought, ‘I’m goin’ to enjoy meself here.’ Then placing the cup hard down on the shelf opposite as if to emphasise her resolution, she repeated, ‘Aye, I am. I’m goin’ to think no more, I’m goin’ to enjoy meself.’

  Fanny had hardly got home when the knock on the door made her turn impatiently, and she cried in her usual way, ‘Come away in.’ But on seeing the woman from upstairs she was somewhat taken aback. However, she tried not to show it as she exclaimed, ‘I’ve just got in, I haven’t got me things off.’ Then she added, ‘But come in anyway.’

  With her hands extracting the pin from her hat Fanny watched her neighbour sail into the room like an eighteenth-century lady on a slumming expedition. And when, without any further invitation, the woman seated herself Fanny sat down opposite her with her hat still on. She’d get her puff, she decided, while weighing up this odd creature.

  She was, Fanny commented to herself, sixty-five if she was a day. And how old was the youngest child? Seven or eight, not more. Well now, she granted that every so often there were miracles performed appertaining to creation, although in some cases she believed them only because she must, like the one about John the Baptist’s parents. There had been a bit of fiddling there, she’d often thought, but they couldn’t get away with that kind of fiddle these days. Taking things as they were this lady would have been close on sixty when she gave birth to her last child, and that was a bit too much to stomach. There was a mystery here.

  Because of the mystery and Fanny’s natural curiosity to get to the bottom of all mysteries, she now forced a smile to her face as she said, ‘You’ve come about the tea party?’

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly a tea party, I am merely asking you to tea.’ The voice was cool, very cool.

  ‘Oh, aye.’ Fanny was determined not to be annoyed. ‘Well, I look upon it as the same thing. Is it your birthday or something? By the way, your name’s Leigh, isn’t it?’

  Fanny’s tone was at an unusually polite conversational level.

  ‘My name is Mrs Alice Leigh-Petty, and it isn’t my birthday, but’—her voice now sounded to Fanny like that of a wireless dame, as she went on in quick jerky tones to explain the reason for the invitation to tea—‘I have always been interested in social work and I have found myself temporarily, I repeat temporarily, sojourning in a quarter that could, I feel, avail itself of my experience.’

  Now Mrs Alice Leigh-Petty’s voice gathered speed. It could be true to say that she gabbled at Fanny, but all in a very highfalutin’ twang.

  Fanny sat listening with gathering brows. There was a great deal that she couldn’t make of the woman’s jabber, but this much she did gather. The poor should be weaned from their grossness by the example of their betters, and she, Mrs Alice Leigh-Petty, was going to start the crusade in this very house.

  Mrs Alice Leigh-Petty proposed, over tea at three o’clock the following afternoon, to guide the steps of the heavy-footed ladies of Mulhattan’s Hall onto the first rung of the ladder of culture. They would, she went on to say, talk of books, in a quite simple way, and cover, over other cups of tea on other days, the necessary arts without which women remained, as were her immediate neighbours of necessity, creatures whose lack of intellect placed them in a position akin to animals.

  There had been in this discourse wonderful food for Fanny’s repartee but she had refrained from using it, for as she’d looked at the thin, lined face of the woman and her pale eyes sunk into large sockets, she had been kept busy putting two and two together. There was something funny here. A blind and deaf mute could tell that.

  She next learned that Clara Lavey, Amy Quigley, and Miss Harper had all accepted the invitation to tea, the former two, Fanny had no doubt, to get a belly laugh—but Miss Harper, Fanny knew, had accepted because she was no doubt deluding herself that she would be mixing with society. Miss Harper was out for refinement, even if it choked her.

  Mrs Leigh-Petty abruptly finishing her discourse rose to her feet, the curl of her lower lip indicating that she’d had as much of the plebeian atmosphere as she could stand at the moment. Then the curl increased and the pale eyes stretched as Fanny explained briefly, ‘Thanks all the same, but I won’t be able to come.’

  ‘You won’t? Why?’

  ‘Well, you see, I’m startin’ a job the morrow.’

  There was a pause before Mrs Leigh-Petty repeated, ‘Starting a job?’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I
said.’

  ‘May I enquire what position you are taking up?’

  ‘Aye, you may.’ Fanny sniffed, a loud, loose sniff. ‘I’m goin’ in The Ladies. Mary Prout across the way has a bad leg. I’m carrying on for her.’

  As if Mary’s name had conjured her out of the blue, she now put her head round the door and exclaimed, ‘Oh! Fan, I didn’t know you had company.’

  ‘Really!’ Mrs Leigh-Petty’s nose seemed to be actually smelling The Ladies.

  ‘Aye, really.’ In spite of her good intentions Fanny’s gorge was rising and she shouted now as if Mary was the length of the street away, ‘Come away in, Mary.’

  Mrs Leigh-Petty turned and looked across the room at Mary Prout hobbling towards them, then she looked back at Fanny and exclaimed with what sounded like genuine regret at the loss of a star pupil, ‘Then I won’t expect you tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘You won’t,’ said Fanny decidedly. ‘Good day to you.’

  Without returning the salutation, Mrs Leigh-Petty sailed out of the room, ignoring Mary as if she had no proof of her substance.

  ‘Well’—Fanny moved hastily to close the door on her visitor’s back—‘what d’you make of that ’un? If she’s all there, then I’m ready for Sedgefield. Out to educate the Tyne she is, and startin’ on us.’

  ‘She’s been all round the doors,’ said Mary, ‘asking people to her tea party…But how did you get on, Fan, about the other business?’ Mary’s face was anxious.

  ‘Oh, fine,’ said Fanny airily. ‘The job’s there when you’re fit to go back to it. I’m startin’ the morrow.’

  ‘Thank God,’ said Mary fervently, and with a little laugh she added, ‘And you an’ all, Fan.’

  ‘I’m tired.’ All at once Fanny sat down in her chair again with a dull-sounding plop. Then looking at Mary, and with a lifting jerk to her head, she added, ‘But I must admit I’ve enjoyed meself the day. Aye, I have. That is, until that ’un came on the scene. Did you say she’d been all round the doors?’