Fanny McBride

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Aw! You wouldn’t do that to me, Mag-gie.’

  ‘I’d do it and more. You dirty big looney you! Fan! Fan!’

  As Maggie called, Fanny moved hastily forward, and on the sight of her the subject of the oration gave a little giggle. ‘Fanny likes me, don’t you, Fan? She’s a nice girl is Fan.’

  It was a situation Fanny found herself unable to cope with. What it was all about she didn’t rightly know, but there was Maggie, clawing the woman as if she would tear the clothes off her back, and the weird creature had called her a nice girl. Name of God!

  ‘Open the door, Fan.’

  As Fanny went hastily to obey Maggie’s order, she cried, ‘What’s up, anyway? What’s the matter with her?’

  ‘It isn’t a her, it’s a him. He’s just dressed up.’

  ‘My God!’ Fanny’s nose pricked. Of course that was it…she was learning something. She had heard about them, but this was the first one she had ever clapped eyes on in all her long days. At least, dressed up like this. There had been a fellow on the trams in her young days who should never have been put into trousers.

  When the painted face leered at her and the man with disarming simplicity said, ‘Don’t you believe her, Fan, I’m more one than the other,’ Fanny felt her gorge rise, and she heard herself saying, ‘Mother of God!’

  The door open, Maggie with one last push thrust the man into the street and into the arms of a passer-by.

  ‘What’s the matter? Can I help?’

  It was Maggie answering the voice and saying, ‘It will take you and more than all your Army to help this one,’ that screwed Fanny’s eyes up to peer into the darkness at the newcomer.

  As quick as she was in turning away Fanny knew that she had been recognised. Joyce Scallen, or Joyce McBride as she was now, had seen her all right! She hurried round into the office and sat down. It was odd, but up to this very minute she hadn’t minded him knowing she was working in The Ladies, but now something within her cried out in protest. No! No! I don’t want him to find out I’m in here. She did not ask herself why. She did not admit that his derisive laughter about the job might now hurt her. Philip’s scorn would have given her a kick, but Jack’s would have done something to her last shreds of pride. He would, she knew, have found nothing lowering to her status in going out to do a day’s cleaning, or washing, but working in the ladies’ lav…! She could hear his laughter now.

  Maggie came bustling into the office, her sharp, wizened face red with her indignation. ‘Would you believe it! I warned him last time. It’s nearly a year since he was on this spree.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘One of the funnies.’

  ‘The funnies?’

  ‘Aye, that’s what we call ’em. He works in the shipyard, like a big navvy, he is, but goes on these sprees every now and again. He’s been locked up once. Eeh! I feel sorry for him.’

  Fanny looked down on her in amazement. ‘You feel sorry for him? Then you took a funny way of showing it, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got to go for him, woman. Why, if I didn’t he’d never be out of here and the polis’d get him. Eeh! I’ll never forget the first time I saw him.’ Maggie stared at the floor and shook her head. ‘Mrs Craig let him through, and when he came out of the lav, he spoke to a woman from another cubicle and she took one look at him and passed out. Flat on the floor she was. That’s the time we got the polis. Eeh! It wasn’t half a night.’ Maggie started to laugh; her hard little body began to shake, and soon she was leaning on the shelf, her head on her arms.

  Fanny wanted to laugh with her over ‘the funny’. It would have been grand to have a good laugh, to sup at the hot cocoa and laugh, but she couldn’t somehow, for her eyes were still seeing the Salvation Army bonnet and Joyce Scallen’s eyes looking at her.

  Maggie straightened herself, and seeing Fanny’s face, her own sobered and she said, ‘You see nowt to laugh at in him?—Well, perhaps you’re right.’

  Fanny could not explain—it would take too long. Moreover, how could a woman who had never had a child understand a woman who had had twelve and only had feelings for one. She couldn’t, when she thought of it, understand it herself.

  It was the following afternoon when Fanny’s daughter-in-law appeared in The Ladies. Somehow Fanny had been expecting her, she had been keeping an eye open for the bonnet. But Joyce was not in uniform, she was neatly dressed, and bonny to all eyes but Fanny’s.

  All the bitterness of which she was capable rose in Fanny and formed her mouth into a hard line and narrowed her eyes and caused the girl on the other side of the glass to gulp and swallow. It was evident that she was trying to get something out, but Fanny was determined to give her no chance to speak, and she cried, ‘Well, do you want a ticket or not? Make up your mind; only you can tell.’

  With heightened colour and downcast eyes, the girl groped in her bag and pushed a penny over the little counter, and in return she had a ticket flung at her.

  As she watched the girl slowly make her way to a cubicle a feeling of rage engulfed Fanny. She wanted to bang and clash and throw things, but there was nothing to hand to bang and clash, only the ticket puncher; and whatever she threw in here she’d likely be called upon to pay for. But this situation needed some reaction or else it would kill her. In the form of an outlet there sprang to her mind a parody on a Salvation Army hymn the soldiers had sung in the First World War. Although long forgotten, the words and tune now sprang to her lips and her voice startled Maggie, almost causing her to slip on the wet tiled floor she was mopping, when it exploded into song, raucous and loud, near earsplitting, singing the words:

  ‘Whiter than the snow,

  Whiter than the snow,

  If you wash me in the water

  That you’ve washed your dirty daughter,

  Then I shall be whiter

  Than the whitewash on the wall.

  Oh, whi-i-ter than the snow…ow,

  Whi-i-ter than the sno…ow,

  Oh, wash me in the water

  That you’ve washed your dirty daughter,

  Then, I shall be whiter

  Than the whitewash on the wall.’

  Maggie stood leaning helplessly on the mop. Her laugh was of the muted, side-aching sort, and when Mrs McBride junior came out of

  the cubicle she looked down on the little warped creature, but there was no sign of resentment in her eyes. And when she passed the glass partition and paused for a moment to look at Fanny, silent and breathless now, there was nothing in her expression that gave Fanny any satisfaction. If Fanny could have put a name to it she would have labelled the look pitying, but she wouldn’t put such a name to it.

  ‘Oh, Fan, I’ve never heard nowt so funny.’ Maggie was leaning against the doorpost. ‘What made you go off like that?’

  ‘Oh, I just felt like it.’

  ‘Eeh! It was funny. It was like a Salvation Army tune,’ said Maggie. ‘I thought the roof was coming off. Eeh! You should be on the stage.’

  On this compliment Fanny turned to the ticket puncher and a customer. She should be on the stage…She should be in her box, and she wished she was. She wished the Lord had taken her before her son had married a Hallelujah.

  She did not make any jokes while drinking her tea, and this puzzled Maggie, having witnessed her ‘funny turn’ a few minutes earlier. She kept glancing at her, yet refrained from probing the ‘closed look’. But later and just before Fanny said goodbye, she made a generous gesture at the expense of the Corporation and slipped into her bag two toilet rolls, saying, ‘God helps those who help themselves, Fanny!’ And Fanny, looking down at her, smiled now and added, ‘Aye, and God help those who are caught helping themselves, Maggie…Six months, stand down!’

  Maggie let out her high, squeaking gurgle. This was the Fanny she had come to know. She slapped her on the back and pushed her out of the door …

  Although Fanny had capped Maggie’s saying with her usual pithy comment, her mind returned to it now in se
rious vein. God helps those who help themselves. Aye, if that saying was taken to bits it would prove that them who looked after themselves from the start never wanted, whereas damn fools like herself who had given her life for her bairns were left with damn all. With a squad of ’em like she had reared she was left alone or as near to it as made no odds…Any minute now. Oh, blast Phil! What did he matter, anyway? When he was gone that would be one irritation less. Her mind began a tirade against Philip, and she let it have its way, for she knew that once it stopped she would be picturing the scene again in The Ladies, with herself yelling that song out, and somewhere in her there was a spark of shame for having acted in such a way. And the spark she knew had been given birth by the look in the lass’s eyes as she had gone out …

  When she reached home the house was in darkness. That meant that Phil wasn’t in yet, or perhaps he had been in and gone. This thought made her angry, as it had done the other night, for when she’d reached home at half-past six he’d already had his tea and gone out, and the night had seemed as long as a week, and she hadn’t clapped eyes on anybody until he came in again near on eleven. It wasn’t that she wanted his company, but when she had somebody to do something for, or even get at, it took her mind off other things.

  But she found the table set just as she had left it before she’d gone out, with the bacon and eggs ready to go in the pan. Sitting slowly down in the old armchair she eased her shoes off her swelling ankles and moved her toes about, gazing at them as she did so.

  They’d be sitting down to tea now, and she’d be telling him all that happened, telling him what a mother he’d got…and her working in The Ladies. Staring at her distorted feet she pictured him rising from the table yelling as she would have done herself, ‘I’ll put a stop to that. Ladies! Just wait till I see her.’ She even turned her head, half expecting him to come bouncing in, yelling at her, ‘What the hell do you mean taking a job in a place like that? What’ll you do next?’ So vivid was the picture that her head reared and she turned her body round towards the door with a retort on her lips, and her heart almost stopped beating when the door was thrust open.

  Her hand was pressed tightly against her ribs when Corny backed into the room, saying, ‘Come on. Come on.’

  ‘What is it? Why have you come over in the dark?’ Fanny lumbered to her feet, then exclaimed, ‘What have you there? What is it?’ Then her voice rising in amazement she exclaimed, ‘Where did you get that thing?’

  Corny, pulling on a piece of leather as wide as a horse’s rein, cried, ‘It’s a dog, Gran.’

  Fanny moved closer. ‘A dog?’ she repeated.

  ‘Aye, Gran, can’t you see? Come on,’ he coaxed the animal. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Me da bought it. He swapped it for wor two rabbits.’

  ‘In the name of God!’ said Fanny slowly, looking down on the beast, ‘What sort is he? Do you know?’

  ‘No, Gran.’

  ‘No, I should think you don’t. And why put a collar like that on the animal; it would fit a horse.’

  ‘Me da says he’ll grow. Don’t you like him, Gran?’

  ‘Oh, aye…Aye.’

  Corny appeared slightly hurt at her evident lack of appreciation.

  Fanny continued to look down on the dog, and now the dog looked back at her, and of the two he appeared the more bewildered.

  He looked an impossible dog, and the expression in his eye as he returned Fanny’s scrutiny seemed to say he was well aware of just how impossible he was. His eyes were his best feature, but even they weren’t big enough, soft enough, or brown enough to redeem the rest of his body. His head was a bullet shape and his chest had the broad expanse of a bull terrier. But here the similarity ended, for his hind quarters had the appearance of a whippet, and over all he was brindle colour in black, white, and rust, while his long, thin tail defied any label—terrier, whippet, or otherwise.

  Fanny, sensing that something was expected of her, asked quietly, ‘What do you call him?’

  ‘Joe,’ said Corny.

  ‘Joe? In the name of God, why Joe?’

  Corny looked at his gran and he felt grieved at her attitude. He liked his gran, on the quiet he even admitted to himself that he loved her. She knew and understood everything, so why couldn’t she see the wonder of Joe.

  ‘I call him Joe ’cos I like Joe.’

  ‘Well, that’s as good a reason as any,’ said Fanny. ‘But what are we standing here for lookin’ at him as if he was goin’ to depart this life? Would you like something to eat?’

  ‘Aye, Gran.’

  ‘Well wait till I get me things off…Fried bacon or broth?’

  ‘Broth, Gran,’ Corny had brightened visibly. This was more like how things should be. ‘You know what, Gran?’

  ‘No. What?’

  ‘A man on the ferry laughed at him. He said I should enter him for the Manchester November Handicap, and another man said he was handicapped enough. They did laugh, Gran…and Joe barked. He’s got a funny bark, Gran.’

  Fanny put the heavy pan of broth onto the fire, saying, ‘Aye, he would have.’

  ‘I brought him over to show Tony.’

  ‘Tony?’ said Fanny. ‘The lad that’s upstairs?’

  Corny nodded.

  ‘But how do you know him?’

  ‘I got talkin’ to him last week outside. He said he’d like a dog and one day he’d have one…Gran.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Do you like your new job, Gran?’ Corny’s eyes were well up under his lids.

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘What do you do, Gran?’

  Fanny’s lips twisted and she looked down her nose before she answered, ‘I take the money.’

  ‘The pennies?’

  ‘Aye, the pennies.’

  ‘What for? Do women have to pay a penny to go to the lav, Gran?’

  Fanny moved some plates with slow deliberation. She had many answers she could have given to this, but she had to remind herself of her grandson’s age while pretending to ignore his knowledge or the fact that he was ‘having her on’, so she said, ‘It’s a custom.’

  There was a deep glow in the back of Corny’s eyes. ‘Me da says it’s ’cos they take longer.’

  ‘Your da would think up something like that.’

  ‘I’m glad that lads don’t have to pay a penny. I’d never have no pocket money. I’m always goin’ when it’s cold.’

  Fanny ignored this confidence, and was about to change the subject to food when Corny put in, ‘Me ma nearly laughed herself daft at what me da said. He started to sing a song about the waters of Minnie Tonka, and he called you Fanny Tonka and said he’d send you a record for the grama—’

  ‘Be quiet! And you can tell your da if he sends anything here I’ll come across the water and break it over his head…before God I will.’

  ‘He was only funning, Gran.’ Corny’s head was down now and his eyes were no longer merry. His gran was mad. From beneath lowered lids he watched her go to the hearth, and he searched about in his mind for something that might please her…And then he had it.

  He started to play with Joe before he said, ‘I saw me Uncle Jack the day, Gran. He was waiting to get on the ferry as I was coming off.’

  Fanny turned slowly from the fire and looked down at the mat where Corny was now wrestling with the dog.

  ‘Stop him a minute,’ she said sharply.

  ‘What, Gran?’

  ‘Stop still a minute.’

  Corny bent over the squirming dog.

  ‘What did your uncle say?’

  ‘He said, “Hallo”.’

  ‘And what else?’

  Corny fell on his back and the dog bounded onto his chest, ‘Aw! give over…. He give me a tanner, Gran, and said watch out I didn’t end up in jail, for…aw! Give over you.’ Then sitting up on his hunkers he ended, ‘He said watch out I didn’t end up in jail for passing off a dog for a horse…he was laughing at the collar, Gran.
’

  ‘Aye, and what else?’

  Corny stopped the dog’s antics by taking a firm grip on his head and tail, and he looked up at his gran. ‘That’s all, Gran.’

  Fanny’s hand was at her side again, and the boy twisting agilely to his feet said, ‘You got the wind …’ He paused as if expecting to be pounced on, then finished, ‘again, Gran?’

  ‘No…Are you sure? Are you sure that’s all he said?’

  ‘Aye.’

  She turned away and Corny looked at her back, then pushed the dog’s forepaws from his shoulders. That strange, disturbing feeling which he sometimes got when he looked at his granny and to which he could give no name was attacking him again and caused him to say, ‘He did say something else, Gran, I’ve just remembered.’

  ‘What was it?’ Fanny was facing him.

  ‘Well, he just said, “How’s…how’s me mother?”’

  ‘He said that?’

  Corny rubbed his nose along the length of his hand. ‘Well, not that…he…he said, “How’s yer grannie?”’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I said she’s all right.’

  ‘And then?’

  Corny remained silent, his eyes held by the round, dark ones looking at him. He couldn’t think of another lie, not right on the minute he couldn’t. Given a bit breathing space he could have gone on for hours. Yet not with his grannie, and her looking at him like that he couldn’t.

  ‘Come on, lad, think.’ It was a demand.

  ‘That’s all…Gran…Joe’s…Joe’s hungry.’

  ‘He would be.’ Fanny glared at the dog. ‘Was he with anybody?’

  ‘No.’

  Slowly Fanny turned away and went into the scullery. But from there she shouted, ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Just as I was coming here, Gran.’

  Perhaps the girl hadn’t told him how she had gone on, perhaps she had kept it to herself, for he couldn’t have been up in arms against her if he had asked after her like that.