Fanny McBride

by Catherine Cookson

  Dear, dear God, what was she saying! Why didn’t she shut her mouth? But the words seemed to be spurting from another individual altogether and she couldn’t stop them. ‘I want nothin’ from him or you. He’s forgotten his duty as a son besides his duty to God, and no good will come of it. Mark that.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Fan? You havin’ trouble?’ It was Maggie at her elbow. Then looking at the girl moving towards the cubicles, she said, ‘Oh!’ then bending towards Fanny, she whispered, ‘Why, that’s the lass that keeps asking after yer. What’s up, Fan?’

  With a resounding clang Fanny punched another ticket for an invisible customer and exclaimed bitterly, ‘I want no-one to ask after me, Maggie. No mealy-mouthed, sanctimonious, come-and-be-saved hypocrite…for that’s how she got him, with her mealy-mouthed …’

  ‘Got who?’ said Maggie enquiringly.

  ‘Oh, it makes no odds. Listen, there’s somebody callin’ you.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Maggie, moving away reluctantly. ‘Aye, they’ve never been done callin’ this mornin’.’

  As she punched the tickets Fanny kept her eyes on the departing clients, and when she saw the girl going slowly out, her head cast down, some part of her wanted to cry out, ‘Hold your hand a minute. Come here.’ The locked room in her heart wanted to burst its door and the disused voice of tenderness cry out, ‘Tell him to come, and you come with him.’ But she couldn’t bring herself to assist the rusty hinges to swing back, so she went on punching, punching, and punching, answering, ‘Merry Christmas.’ Punching and punching, and all the while punching at the pain and the desire in her heart for her youngest son.

  With her hat still on Fanny went quickly through her Christmas cards. There was a pile of them, but there wasn’t anything to show that their Jack had remembered she was still alive. She was tired both inside and out, and added to it was a soreness now as she looked up at the mantelpiece. She had got a lot of fine cards. That’s about all she ever got from her family, a lot of fine cards. What had they sent her this Christmas? Bert and Jane had sent a special ‘Dearest Mother’ card with a letter enclosed to say how tight things were; Frank had sent her ten shillings and Molly five shillings, and Peggy a half-crown postal order, and she with her man working in the London docks, who never had less than fourteen pounds a week to pick up; Davie’s wife had sent her a pair of lisle stockings, and Owen and his wife their love. Well, they knew what they could do with that. From Don and his wife she expected nothing at all, and that she knew would be what she would get.

  Don had come in yesterday and remarked on her looking tired. He had said that she should give up the job in The Ladies and she had laughed in his face, for she could hear his wife speaking. What were they coming to, with his mother working in the lavs now! He had gone on to say she should get herself out and join the Old People’s Club and go for trips and suchlike. Once upon a time, he had reminded her, she had complained about never being able to get across the door, so now she should take the opportunity and go places.

  Go places! She sighed…she had never been further than Hartlepool in her life, and that was in a brake trip before she was married. She’d never had the chance after. Years ago she had imagined herself going to London to visit Peggy but that dream had faded long ago, and now she didn’t want to go anywhere apart from The Ladies. And when The Ladies job was finished, and it wouldn’t be long as Mary’s leg was getting better, there would be nothing to take its place. She was too old to go jaunting now, and she had no desire to join old people’s clubs—she saw enough of old people. You could live too long…aye, you could that. God, she thought, should so arrange things that when the work He had given you was done He should take you. Aye, and give you a big bonus for having put up with some of the jobs He’d dished out. Oh, she was weary these days, she couldn’t pull herself up at all.

  She sighed again and looked about the room. What did she want anyway? Oh, she knew what she wanted, let her face it, she wanted just one of her bairns to need her…Well, didn’t Phil need her?

  This reply seemed to come out of the air, and she nodded her head to it. Aye, it was strange, but she had come these past few weeks to know that he needed her, and it was God’s way of working, she supposed, to make the one she liked least of all her brood treat her the best. In some ways it was a slightly humiliating experience. As if the Lord wanted to humble her by showing her she had loved the specked and not the good fruit of her body.

  Phil was worried over the lass upstairs and was going round like a bewildered hare. Of late he seemed to have lost his lordly air. When she had told him that Sunday night that Margaret was going away he had asked, ‘Do you know where?’ and she had said bluntly, ‘No, but I do know she’s goin’ to see some man or other. I think it only right you should know it, for you don’t want to be led up the garden a second time.’

  He had looked pretty sick on this, and although she had felt sorry for him, she was ashamed inside herself that the whole business, vital as it might be to him, was really of little concern to her. At times it would seem that she had borne only one child, for if every one of her brood had turned up in the kitchen this very minute, and Jack not among them, the loneliness in her heart would not have eased. She shivered, took off her outdoor things, then made herself some tea, and after drinking it she drew a chair up near to the fire and sat staring into it.

  It was a long while later when the knockers banging in the street aroused her. It was the extra post. She didn’t tell herself what she hoped the post would bring, but she rose and pushed in the latest cards here and there on the mantelpiece, then straightening her apron she went to her door and waited. There was the sound of a motor van drawing up outside, and a moment later a lanky youth came into the hall. He smiled broadly at her, saying, ‘McBride, Quigley and Lavey.’

  ‘I’m McBride,’ said Fanny. ‘The Laveys are over there and the Quigleys upstairs.’

  ‘Well, there’s a parcel for the Laveys.’ He looked at the parcel. ‘That’s all for them. And there’s four cards for the Quigleys.’

  ‘And mine?’ asked Fanny quietly.

  ‘Oh, there’s none for you.’

  ‘But I thought you said…’

  ‘Aye, the other fellow’s bringing it off the van.’

  As the boy dived up the stairs the door was pushed open again and another plain-clothes postman came in carrying a hamper.

  ‘McBride?’

  Fanny could only nod.

  ‘Well, here you are, mother. I’ll take it in for you.’

  ‘Is it mine? You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes’—he looked at the label—‘if you’re Mrs Fanny McBride and this is Mulhattan’s Hall…Is it?’

  ‘Aye, it is.’

  ‘Well, then, this is yours, and I’ll just dump it inside.’

  He stood the hamper on the table, saying, ‘That should see you over.’ Then added, ‘A happy Christmas to you.’

  Fanny dragged her eyes from the hamper to the man going out the door. ‘A happy Christmas…just a minute!’ She scurried to the mantelpiece for her purse and opening it she hesitated between sixpence and a shilling, then extracting the shilling from it, she said, ‘Here.’

  ‘Ta…oh, thanks, mother.’ The man stood looking at her for a second, during which he seemed to take her and the whole room in. Then he went out, banging the door so hard that the building shook.

  She went slowly to the table, her eyes fixed on the hamper, but she didn’t open it; instead she stood surveying it. It was about two feet high and eighteen inches across. There were two labels on it, and she searched for the postmark. Aye, there it was, Jarrow. Yet why, she asked herself was she troubling to see where it was from…she knew where it was from and who had sent it, didn’t she?

  Her heart was bounding and thumping, and her breathing became so difficult that she had to press her hand to her side. He hadn’t forgotten her after all, but if he had only brought it himself, or just come himself…oh, if he had only come himself. Oh, that pride.
Well, this was to break the ice, she knew his way…What a Christmas! A hamper, a real Christmas hamper.

  Years ago when they were all young she had often said, ‘You know what I would like, I’d like the postie to stumble in that door carrying the biggest Christmas hamper in the world.’

  None of them had thought to buy her a hamper, even a little one, until now. Oh, Jack. Only Jack would have thought of something she had said years ago. Her eyes were hot and burning and her body was trembling. She sat down and as her hand caressed the wickerwork the door burst open and Corny came in.

  ‘Hallo, Gran.’

  ‘Hallo, lad.’ She turned a beaming face to him. ‘Look at what’s just come. Come and see what the postie’s brought.’

  ‘Coo! Gran. A hamper!’ He put his arms about it and tried to lift it from the table. ‘Coo! it’s heavy. Who’s it from?’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘Me Uncle Frank?’

  ‘No.’ Her brows drew down. ‘Not your Uncle Frank.’

  ‘Go on, open it, Gran.’

  ‘Aye, I will. Bring me the gully so’s I can cut the seal an’ the cord.’

  After she had cut the seal Fanny began to roll the cord neatly into a ball, her eyes on the hamper the while, until Corny’s patience giving out, he cried, ‘Aw! Never mind the string, Gran, let’s see what’s in it. Open it. Aw! Go on, Gran, let’s see in it.’

  As if she expected the hamper to hold china, Fanny removed the top and then the packing, and there, revealed to her own and Corny’s eyes, was the first layer made up of a small ham, two decorated boxes and a fancy tin.

  ‘God in Heaven!’ Even as she voiced her wonder her hand went to the envelope pushed between the boxes, and with trembling fingers she opened it. After a moment she looked down at Corny, and her face was such a mixture of expressions as to be comical. But Corny did not laugh at her for he saw that his grannie was upset.

  ‘It’s a grand hamper,’ he said in a small voice. ‘Who sent it to you, Gran?’

  He watched her draw in her breath; then slowly dragging her eyes back to the hamper again, she said, ‘Phil.’

  ‘Uncle Phil?’

  ‘Aye, Uncle Phil,’ she repeated, looking at the paper again. She hadn’t read what was written on the paper, she had looked first at the bottom just to see Jack’s name there, which would mean that everything was all right between them in spite of the Hallelujah. But it was Phil who had thought of her and her longing for a hamper, not Jack…Phil, with his desire to be different, with his flair for words, with his mania for clean changes, with his pet hobby that had gone on, seemingly to her, since he was born, the reforming of herself. Yet it was he who had thought of her and bought her what she liked most—food. He was as miserable as sin because of the lass upstairs but he could think of her like this. He had never bought her anything to equal this before. It was as if he knew just how badly she was feeling about Jack and was trying in some measure to make up for his brother’s neglect. Yet he never guessed the extent of her feelings for his brother, she was sure of that—she had, she felt, treated them all alike, on top.

  ‘Fancy me Uncle Phil sending you that. Eeh! It must have cost a lot. And I’ve brought you a Christmas box an’ all, Gran.’

  ‘Have you now?’ She forced a smile to her face.

  ‘Aye, but you haven’t got to open it till Christmas mornin’.’

  ‘No. No, I won’t. Of course I won’t.’

  ‘Guess what it is?’

  ‘A five-pound note.’

  ‘Why no, Gran!’ He turned his head to the side, but did not take his eyes from her.

  Fanny looked at the small parcel, about six inches in length, and gave another impossible guess. ‘A pair of slippers?’

  ‘Coo!’ he laughed, ‘look at the size of your feet, Gran…There are two things in it…three of one,’ was how he described the handkerchiefs, ‘and…oh’—he considered the number of hairpins there would be in a packet—‘ about thirty of the other.’

  ‘What! All that? By! I’ll never guess in a month of Sundays.’

  ‘I’ve bought them with me own money, mind, Gran. Nobody helped me.’

  ‘Did you, lad?’ Fanny looked at him tenderly. ‘That was kind of you. And now,’ she added, ‘I suppose you’re broke and you’ve come on the cadge?’

  ‘I haven’t, Gran…no, I haven’t, I’ve one and ten left, look.’

  Fanny nodded as she looked down at the palm full of coppers; then picking up the ham she turned away and made for the scullery. The flat look had returned to her face, and Corny, after staring at her back for a moment, furtively slid the note from the table and with one eye on the scullery door he hastily read it:

  Dear Mother,

  How often have I heard you say you wanted a hamper! It gives me great pleasure to be able to grant your desire. I hope you find it to your liking.

  Philip

  His Uncle Phil always talked like that…proper. He had always been a bit scared of his Uncle Phil, but his da said his Uncle Phil was better’n any of ’em. That was after his Uncle Phil had come over the water to their house the other day and asked his ma to go and see his Uncle Jack and ask him to go and see his grannie. His Uncle Phil said he wouldn’t go hissel’ ’cos they had never hit it off and Jack would be more likely to stay away if he went and asked him. His ma said she couldn’t go ’cos she was bad. She wasn’t bad properly, Corny knew, but she was goin’ to have triplets. That’s what his da said. But she was goin’ to have a baby anyway, so she couldn’t come across the water. But she had written a letter to his Uncle Jack, and his Uncle Jack would have got the letter this morning, so he might be here at any minute now.

  He looked towards the door as if it would open under his desire and show his uncle standing there. He knew his grannie had thought the hamper was from his Uncle Jack, and she was upset because it wasn’t. But anyway, his Uncle Jack would come, he was bound to come, for his ma said she had given it to him hot and heavy in the letter. He had liked his Uncle Jack; he was always good for a lark and a bit carry on. His Uncle Jack used to tease his gran and call her names and laugh at her, and she used to go for him, like she did for himself in fun. Perhaps when his Uncle Jack came in he’d have a bit lark. He wished he would come in ’cos he was getting that funny feeling in his chest.

  When his grannie was upset it disturbed him in a way he did not like and could not understand. He was made to feel sorry inside, and his mischievous and laughter-loving nature jibbed at this lowering feeling. And so he was but presenting a prelude to what he hoped would take place when he said offhandedly to Fanny as she returned from the kitchen, ‘I saw me Uncle Jack the day, Gran.’

  Fanny’s hands, raised to dip into the hamper, became still.

  ‘Where?’ she asked.

  ‘Ormond Street.’ You were bound, sometime or other, to see everybody in Ormond Street.

  ‘Did he speak?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said, “Where you goin’?” an’ I said, “To me grannie’s.”’

  ‘Aye, go on.’

  ‘Well, he said, “I’ll be seein’ you soon.”’ Corny paused.

  ‘Which end of the street was he at?’

  ‘The top end.’

  ‘He wasn’t goin’ to the ferry?’

  ‘No, Gran.’ Corny was studying intently a large jar of lump ginger in syrup.

  ‘Was he alone?’

  ‘Aye, Gran.’

  ‘What was he doing?…Pay attention…look at me.’

  He had started something. Why had he said he’d seen his uncle? Didn’t he know what his gran was like when she once got asking questions?

  ‘He was looking in a shop, Gran.’

  ‘Whose shop?…Which shop?’

  Corny’s face was averted again and his eyes strayed to Fanny’s feet, which gave him a clue and he muttered, ‘A shoe shop, Gran.’

  A shoe shop. He was on his own…he was in the town and was looking in a shoe shop. What wo
uld he be looking in a shoe shop for when he never bought a stitch of his own, and wouldn’t go into a shop if you paid him? There was only one explanation, he couldn’t come to her without some present; he was likely looking for some slippers for her. Hadn’t he said to Corny he’d be seeing him soon? That meant he was coming. It couldn’t mean anything else could it? There was nothing else it could add up to. He was on his way, likely at this very minute.

  ‘Here,’ she cried, her voice crisp and her face alight, ‘let’s get this thing emptied and the stuff put away…come on now.’ And she drew one thing after another out of the hamper; a small cheese, a box of chocolates, a bottle of port.

  ‘Coo! Gran, what’s in this glass thing?’

  ‘Walnuts,’ said Fanny, ‘pickled. Push them in the cupboard.’

  ‘Why not stick them all on the sideboard, Gran, then everybody can see them?’

  ‘Put them in the cupboard.’

  When Jack came into the room, she did not want him to be confronted by a galaxy of stuff that Phil had bought for her. That would put them off on the wrong foot for a start, for he’d never had any time for Phil. Phil, he had considered, had always been a bit of an upstart. Yet of the two who had acted the upstart lately?…Here, here! She wasn’t going to think like that and him likely to be in any second.

  ‘There,’ she said, ‘now put that hamper in the scullery, it’ll do for stickin’ wood in.’

  Corny took the hamper to the scullery and set it soberly on top of the wash-boiler, after which he stood contemplating the sink while he gnawed at his thumb as if he intended to relieve his hand of the member. His Uncle Jack would come. His mother had written to him, hadn’t she, and told him what he must do, so he would come.

  But as he stood gnawing, an uneasiness rose in him which made him reluctant to re-enter the kitchen until drawn there by Fanny’s voice bellowing, ‘What you up to in there? Come out of that pantry.’

  ‘I wasn’t in the pantry, Gran.’ Corny came into the kitchen. ‘Gran, I’m goin’ to see if Tony’s comin’ out.’