Fanny McBride

by Catherine Cookson

  Corny, eyeing the…smasher, did not want to go out to play now, and he said, ‘But I’ve never had any tea, Gran.’

  ‘Then you will have a better appetite for it when you arrive home. Go on now, across the water with you.’

  There was no fun in his grannie’s tone, and Corny turned and went out, saying, ‘Can I leave me cornet then?’

  ‘Aye, leave it, and get out.’

  When the door closed on her grandson, Fanny, without any preliminary chatter, asked of the young woman, but quite lightly, ‘And what d’you want with our Phil?’

  The young woman hesitated only for a moment before saying, ‘That’s my business.’

  ‘I understand you and him are finished.’

  ‘We are not, not by a long way.’ The deeply waved head moved from side to side.

  ‘Then somebody’s a liar…Why couldn’t you wait at the corner like you’ve been doin’?’ The girl’s eyes widened, and Fanny went on, ‘You didn’t wait because he’s been dodgin’ you, and that doesn’t indicate to me he’s breakin’ his neck to see you.’

  The girl’s face reddened. ‘You’re insulting.’

  ‘I’m merely speaking the truth, lass. It’s far better to face up to it.’

  ‘Face up to it! You’re right there, that’s what he’ll have to do.’

  Now it had come, and Fanny waited, her eyes narrowing on the girl.

  ‘Do you know why I’ve come here?’

  ‘I’ve a good idea.’

  ‘Oh, have you?’

  ‘Aye, but go on, tell me in your own way.’

  This attitude slightly nonplussed the girl, and she hitched up her extremely smart coat onto her shoulders and moved from one spider-thin heel to the other, and when she was just about to speak, Fanny, her head cocked on one side, said, ‘Whist! You can hold it a minute, for here he is now.’

  She had heard Philip’s step in the hall, and now she also heard another step accompanying him and she thought quickly, ‘God in heaven! Don’t let him bring the lass in here the night!’

  But that is exactly what Philip did. Margaret came into the room, preceding him, and when he turned from closing the door behind them and saw who was standing facing him, his face darkened and his head lifted.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘What do you want, Sylvia?’

  His tone was quiet, and Sylvia, glancing from Margaret to him, waited a moment before answering, ‘Well, isn’t it evident? I want to see you.’

  Philip wetted his lips and moved uneasily, then turning to Margaret he hesitantly made an introduction. ‘This is Miss Dawson…Miss Leigh-Petty.’

  The girls nodded, more wary now, and when a silence fell on the room that shrieked in Fanny’s ears, she herself broke into it, saying, ‘Aye, well, we won’t get very far standin’ here like stooks of hay. If you’re goin’ to stay, sit down.’ She addressed the girl, then turning to Margaret she asked, ‘Are you going to have a cup of tea, lass?’

  Margaret blinked and shook her head, then said, ‘No thank you, Mrs McBride.’

  Philip and the girl were looking closely at each other now, and the girl’s looks were as dark as his own. But as Margaret moved towards the door, Philip’s eyes snapped away and he went sharply forward to open it for her; as he did so he made a statement which also sounded like a plea. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  It wasn’t Margaret’s answer to his statement, but Sylvia’s interjection, and it brought both Philip and Margaret round to her.

  ‘It’s evident that you don’t know about me.’ Sylvia moved forward as she addressed Margaret. ‘I suppose he’s told you nothing.’

  ‘What is there to tell? She knows all there is to know. We were friendly and it’s finished.’ In the harshness of his tone there was a faint tremor.

  ‘Friendly! Huh!’ Sylvia gave a high laugh. ‘Friendly, so friendly I’m going to have a baby.’

  Fanny was looking at her son’s face as this statement was being made and she saw the anger slide from it and fear take its place as he cried, ‘It’s a lie, and you know it. You can’t trap me like that, and you won’t, by God!’

  He was scared, he was dead afraid of her, and not without cause either. She knew what she was about, this one. Fanny now watched Margaret as she looked from Philip to Sylvia and back again to Philip. Margaret’s face had taken on a blank expression, and for the moment she seemed to grow taller than either the girl or Philip. Then like a waft of wind she was gone, and Philip was standing looking at the closed door. He stood like this for some seconds before rounding on Sylvia, and now the words tumbled out of his mouth, giving proof of his agitation. ‘You won’t put it over on me. I haven’t seen you for weeks…weeks and weeks. I told you we couldn’t go on. Whatever’s happened it wasn’t with me, you know that damn well. Anyway, what’s come over you, Sylvia?’ He peered at her as if trying to see her in this new guise. ‘You weren’t like this.’

  The emotion of pity had never before been aroused in Fanny for this son who, to her mind, could talk the hind leg off a donkey once he got started on some of his high-falutin’ ideas, which usually centred around the uplifting of somebody or other, usually within the family circle, generally one who was perfectly happy jogging along in his ignorant state. Many was the time when he had sat in the kitchen here pressing home some particular point of improvement, and she had wished him far enough and wished also with vicious intensity that some one of them could cap him with an equally swift flow of words and take him down a peg. Not one peg but half-a-dozen. But now, here he was being brought low indeed, and she was for him with every pore in her body. His fear hurt her, for it was a new element, an emotion she had not hitherto found in any other member of her family. Say the same thing had happened to Don…he would have lifted his hand and swiped her one. Or Jack…oh, Jack would have thrown back his head and laughed, then said, ‘Get goin’, Jane.’ All such lasses had been Janes to Jack…until he met the Hallelujah piece. She switched her mind off the thoughts that bred only pain and to the present situation again and to her son, and saw him rubbing his palms together, making an uneasy, husky-like sound, and she saw his good-looking face draw tight and his lips plying each other for moisture. Then her eyes turned to the girl, smart, sleek and defiant, and she stepped in both mentally and figuratively, for moving between them so that she could face the girl, she said calmly, ‘What about the manager at the factory office? Have you met his wife lately?’

  If she had struck out at the girl with her fist she could not have startled her more, for her eyes stretched, her mouth fell open and her hands, feeling the need of some support, gripped the top of her bag.

  ‘You feelin’ faint?’ asked Fanny, then without waiting for confirmation she added, ‘Go on, why don’t you answer?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘No?’ Fanny stared at the girl, and seeing guilty admission in her attitude she made a shot in the dark, saying quietly, ‘You didn’t get your money for nothing, did you? And wives have a habit of getting nasty when their pay’s cut short or they’re left alone at nights. Now, me lass, if you’ll just take your body and your bairn back to the office I’m sure its father’ll be only too glad to see you’re both provided for. Of course, that’s if his wife doesn’t get wind of it.’

  The girl was looking at Fanny as if she was seeing a witch, then her eyes lifted to Philip and she said defiantly, ‘It isn’t his…it isn’t!’

  Philip had been staring in bewilderment at his mother. Now he looked at his late girlfriend, and after hesitating a moment, he said, ‘I don’t care whose it is, the only thing I know is I’m not responsible. And you know that, too.’

  He seemed to have regained some of his coolness, for he added, ‘You really must take me for a fool.’

  ‘It is yours. You said you loved me and you’d do anything for me.’

  ‘Except father your bairn.’ It was Fanny speaking. And she added, a
nd not so unkindly now, ‘Get goin’ lass, and my advice to you is to go and see your old boss and threaten to go to his wife if he won’t do anything for you. That’ll fix him.’

  Undoubtedly Fanny’s knowledge had upset the girl’s plans, for she looked deflated as she turned her eyes from one to the other. Then making one last stand, she confronted Fanny, saying desperately, ‘It is his.’

  ‘Get goin’, lass.’ Fanny spoke quietly and went to put her hand on the girl’s arm, but it was struck away. ‘Don’t touch me!’ The mascaraed eyes flicked around the room, then came to rest with derision now on Philip. ‘No wonder you would never bring me to your home. No wonder you forbade me to come near the house…you, with all your high and mighty ideas and supposed education. My! You had a nerve, and there’s no doubt about it.’

  Philip’s face was suffused with colour, but he spoke quietly and there was neither fear nor anger in his voice as he said, ‘Get out!’

  ‘Yes, I’ll get out, Mr Lord Almighty, but don’t think you’ve seen the last of me, ’cos you haven’t. And’—her head bobbed defiantly as she exclaimed—‘and I’ll take you to court. I’ll prove it in a court of law, you’ll see. You won’t get off with this.’

  She went towards the door, but before going out she turned and looked on Fanny and threw at her one dart. ‘Not that it would be to my advantage to enter this family and be connected with you!’

  Before Fanny could come back with a retort the door had banged closed, and there they were left standing in the middle of the room in a strange, uneasy quiet, looking at each other.

  Philip’s head moved slowly and he wetted his lips, then brought out a single word below his breath. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Fanny turned towards the fire, giving a great haul to her bust but saying nothing.

  ‘How did you know…about her boss? Is it true?’

  ‘I should say that it was more than likely, for didn’t she bring the evidence of it?’ Fanny spoke casually. ‘It was a bit gossip Mary brought over some weeks ago, and I put two and two together and seemingly made four. But, God help her’—Fanny now laughed and flicked her gaze over her shoulder towards her son as she added—‘I hope it doesn’t turn out that number, that would be too much of a good thing.’

  Philip did not smile, he only tugged at his collar, and Fanny, turning and facing him now, asked with indelicate pointedness, ‘Could she have been right about you?’

  ‘No. No, she couldn’t. I’ve told you.’ His voice was loud. ‘There was never anything like that. She was always so damn proper—at least with me. My God!’ He turned from her and rubbed his hands across his eyes. ‘I can’t believe it. What if she should…? Anyway, it’s nearly four months since we broke it off. She didn’t seem to mind much then. I never saw her until she turned up one night at the corner and asked if we couldn’t just be friends. I went out with her twice after that but had to tell her it was no good. But she wouldn’t let it go at that, she started waylaying me.’ Now he paused and stared at Fanny before finishing. ‘And Margaret…you saw her face?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Fanny; ‘you’ll have a little explaining to do in that quarter.’

  ‘Blast it all!’

  Fanny’s eyebrows raised themselves just the slightest. He was almost human this lad of hers, that’s what trouble did for you. ‘Aye, blast it all,’ she said. ‘But come and have your tea, you need it to fortify yourself. And if you were to ask my advice, the easiest way out for you would be to take that job and skedaddle, make a clean break of it, for although the lass up above is all right you’re goin’ to be saddled with something up them stairs if you go on.’

  It had taken some unselfish strength of mind for Fanny to offer this piece of advice, and she could not but recognise the surge of relief when he said, ‘It’s too late for that, I’ve turned it down.’

  ‘You’ve turned it down?’ She paused in the act of pouring out some tea. ‘Why?’ She was asking the road she knew, and he knew it, too, and didn’t answer, except to shake his head. And Fanny, as she cut the bread, was set to wondering if the entire loss of this last son wouldn’t have been preferable to a closer association with the drug-taking lady up above, and she realised that in one part of her heart she was hoping that the latest development with Sylvia had put paid to his chances with Margaret, yet knowing the tenacity of man she thought it best just to wait and see.

  But some minutes later, as she sat alone at the table, she could not resist talking at him as he changed his coat in the bedroom. ‘The only one of the lot of them to get into this fix, and whichever way you jump you’re goin’ feet first into a ready-made nursery. Begod! The first McBride to be let in for anything like this.’ Then some part of her make-up which did not allow of her to kick anyone when they were flat out led her to take a gulp of tea to drown her ending, as she said, ‘That’s what comes of trying your hand at being different. Education!’

  Chapter Seven

  Fanny came from the market square laden. She had been to the shops to draw her Christmas clubs—it was a bit early to do so but she wanted the stuff off. It had taken her two hours to choose the Christmas boxes for her family. That she chose seven of the same kind made no difference, for they would be despatched to different parts of the country. She felt pleased with herself, she always felt like this when buying presents. The four and elevenpenny ties, the four and elevenpenny socks, the aprons and the tea towels that went to make up the presents for the adults, and the games and clockwork figures for the children, each brought, if not joy, a definite satisfaction, and gave her a feeling of affluence that a more up-to-date grandmother might have experienced in presenting her sons and her daughters with electric razors and expensive cosmetics.

  Mary Prout usually came with her on such occasions and gave her a hand, but Mary’s leg after four weeks was still troubling her. Fanny had chided herself earlier for a ‘Thank God’, and she was now missing Mary’s help, for her arms were breaking and her feet were burning. But still it had been an exciting day buying all the stuff, and the weather, too, had helped, for it was bright, with a steely brightness, and the air cut at your throat as it went down. There would be snow. She liked snow at Christmas, she had always liked snow at Christmas, but like everybody else, the weather, too, could be perverse, and would bring snow before its appointed time, and what would they have on Christmas Eve but slush as always?

  Before she was halfway home her hat had slipped to one side, her breath was coming in short gasps, and she told herself that her tongue was hanging out for a drink of tea. If only she was home and had the teapot on the hob.

  She crossed over Ormond Road, sniffed at the new council flats, and came into the labyrinth of small streets and breathed a long sigh as she turned into Burton Street. Thank God, it wouldn’t be long now afore she had her hand on the teapot and her feet up.

  She was halfway down the street when the noise came to her, but she did not pay it the least attention—there was always some old fellow blowing his trumpet in the back lane, but of course, not half as many as afore the war. Then you could have music of a sort for breakfast, dinner, and tea. But a little further on she was suddenly made to pay attention to the ear-splitting strains being emitted by the trumpet, for these were accompanied by the distressing sound of yelping, a weird yelping. And she took in swiftly, even through the thickening twilight, that she wasn’t the only one who was aware of the odd combination, for on the pavement outside Mulhattan’s Hall she could make out Sam and Clara Lavey, and Amy Quigley from upstairs, and on the opposite pavement, talking across to them, was Lady Golightly herself. And various doors, too, she now noticed, were open, showing protesting faces.

  She had proceeded but another few yards when the shuddering truth sprang at her…that noise was coming from Mulhattan’s Hall, from her house to be exact. It was Corny on that trumpet, accompanied by Holy Joe…my God! The sounds put her teeth on edge, and she wanted to screw up her face in protest. It was like the wailing of lost souls. Wait till she got h
er hands on him…only wait…And the street out! She’d swing that dog by the tail to hell, you see if she didn’t. As for the trumpet player, she’d make him swallow the infernal instrument, she would begod!

  As she neared her door the gesticulating died away and the talking ceased, but the accompanying strains of the cornet and the dog increased, if anything.

  Believing firmly in the method of attack in any battle, Fanny, addressing her near neighbours, shouted, ‘And what may I ask is the gathering for? Is somebody dead?’

  ‘No…not de…dead, Fan,’ stuttered Sam Lavey, ‘b…b…but…but nearly d…d…deaf. Li…listen to that.’

  ‘It’s your Corny, Fan,’ said Amy Quigley; ‘and it’s been goin’ on now since three o’clock.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have knocked on the door and told him to be quiet?’

  ‘I did, Fan, and rapped on Miss Harper’s floor from above. And there was nowt but cheek out of him. He said he was practisin’. Miss Harper went out, she couldn’t stand it.’

  Fanny, having her own work cut out to stand it, cried, ‘The child’s right, he’s got to practise some place, he’s takin’ lessons.’ Then raising her voice even further so that it would be carried above the wailing and across the road, she yelled, ‘Some folks’ bairns can be tied to their tinny pianos and made to practise until the neighbours are ready for Sedgefield, and nothing is said about that, eh?’

  As Mrs Flannagan drew herself up in preparation to sending back a shattering retort, Fanny turned sharply away, mounted the stone steps and went into the hall, to be covered and torn with sound the like of which she had never heard before, not even when the lot of them were young and galloping mad about the house.

  Bumping the door open with her hip and quickly closing it again with a thrust from her bust, she was about to cry out in protest and demand silence when Corny stopped.