Fanny McBride

by Catherine Cookson

  Slowly the fear of the darkness left her and she lay in it, almost calmly, waiting as she had been doing all night, and for days and weeks past, waiting, waiting. And when at last the darkness slowly lifted and she was able to glance once more about the firelit room, she noticed a very odd thing, so odd that, to put it still in her own words, her heart nearly shot out of her mouth, for sitting in the other armchair right opposite to her, literally dead to the world, was herself.

  With a strange lightness upon her now she rose from her chair and moved nearer to the great, slumped figure and stood staring at it in a kind of awe for a moment. Begod! She wasn’t a pleasant sight, not a bit like she thought she was. She stroked down her apron, as if in an attempt to put a semblance of tidiness on herself, and the thought struck her that it was…queer…it was, that she could do this, make herself tidy…yet that other one of her was not affected by it. As she raised her eyes and looked slowly around the familiar room, with every detail clear and distinct before her eyes, although there was nothing but the dim light of the fire to show them up, it came to her with a sort of great pity, overwhelming pity, that she had died, died in that spasm of pain and anger and doubt, and all her waiting was over, all the recriminations, all the worries of being left alone. Everything she had tired herself out with these past months had been a useless waste of good time.

  Then she stood straight up and stretched herself, and moved her hands down her body as if to get the feel of the strange lightness that was on it, and as she did so she was overwhelmed by an urge to go quickly away from this room that had held her life, to go now, at this very moment. The urge promised happiness and peace…even, strange thought, adventure, and the thought of adventure was in no way incongruous to her now. In the very act of moving towards the door she stopped. She could not go yet, she would have to wait a little longer. But the waiting didn’t matter any more, for it was without pain. She sat down again, quite calmly, and looked at herself sitting slumped in the chair opposite, looked at herself down the years to when she was a child and felt light and springy as she did at this moment.

  It was dawn now. Soon the house would be astir. With no sense of time at all she waited, and when the bedroom door opened and Philip came out and she watched him spring across the room and lift up her drooping head, she cried, ‘Don’t look like that, lad…aw don’t man!’ She watched him fall on his knees and bury his head in her lap, and as his sobbing twisted his body she went to him and put her arms about him. Why was he taking it like this? ‘Look, man,’ she said, ‘give over, I was never worth all that. Aw, come on now.’

  It was strange but he did not knock her flying when he sprang up and placed his head near her breast as if listening. Then she watched him rise and stumble to the door, and she listened as the house awoke from its first sleep of the New Year.

  When Margaret came in she, too, knelt before her and she took her hand and held it to her face. Margaret was a nice lass…aw, she was, none better. And she was for Phil, the very one. Then came Amy and Barry Quigley and Ted Neilson, and between them all they lifted her onto the bed. And, begod, she had to admit they had their work cut out. She knew she was a size, but not all that weight!

  She moved aside out of the hubbub, and as she watched them the urge to leave the house increased. Yet she didn’t go. Then the doctor came, and as he walked through her she said, ‘You’re late again…too late this time.’ She watched him fiddling about with her, and it didn’t look decent somehow. Then without warning the blackness descended upon her again.

  When it cleared the doctor was no longer there, but Mary Prout was standing over her. There was a muzzy feeling in her head and she thought vaguely, I’ll be launched afloat if she cries any more. And now the light, airy feeling came on her again and the urge to get away was almost over-powering, and she said to herself sharply, ‘Go on.’ But still she didn’t go.

  And then he came in.

  His face was grey and he was thinner, and he looked much older than on the day they parted. He came and stood looking down on her, all the muscles of his face working and his teeth biting into his lip. He did not cry as Phil had done, his crying was slow and painful and hurt her. She patted his arm and said, ‘It’s all right, lad, it’s all right. I knew you’d come. Come on now, come on, stop that. I’m not mad at you for not showing up, I was just impatient…as ever. Give over. Give over now. I tell you I understand.’

  And she did understand. She made several valiant efforts to tell him so. But his teeth still ground into his lip, and she knew as she looked at him that for the remainder of his life the pain of coming too late would be with him.

  Then Phil started on him. He was standing at the other side of the bed and the look on his face was one that she hadn’t seen there before, for it was a reflection of her own when in anger as he ground out, ‘You’ve done this! You’ve finished her years before her time.’

  She watched Jack drag his eyes from her and say with surprising meekness, ‘What could I do? She’d have gone for me like a tiger if I’d put me nose in the door.’

  ‘Gone for you!’ Philip’s voice was full of scorn. ‘Did she ever go for you? She gave you everything and the rest of us nothing…nothing, do you hear? And these past weeks it’s been hell just watching her waiting for you, but you, bighead as usual, wouldn’t come unless she sent for you. Well, now it’s too late, and you’ll remember it’s too late for the rest of your life.’

  So Philip had known how she felt. Well, well. She put her hand on his arm, saying, ‘Hush now, hush now. Enough of that.’ And she laughed as she added, ‘You mustn’t quarrel over the dead, it’s a useless game.’

  Then she looked from one to the other, but the affection in her gaze was still not equal, and being aware of this she felt a slight return of pain. But she could do no more, she could not alter herself, it was too late. She was finished with this life anyway, and this room. The urge within her told her this and, obeying its pressure and with only a faint sense of regret, she left it and the people in it and went into the hall and towards the main door. But when she opened the door she was brought to a halt, for there, coming across the ice-covered road towards the house was none other than Nellie Flannagan.

  Begod if she isn’t coming to make sure I’m dead, thought Fanny, and if she goes in there and moans over me I’ll rise up and spit in her eye, so help me God, I will!

  Mrs Flannagan reached the pavement. She reached the steps. And when she had mounted to the third one Fanny went to meet her and with a great sweep of her hand she was aiming at her unsuspecting enemy to bring her, she hoped, chin first onto the steps when a voice saying sharply, ‘Now! Now! None of that,’ checked her.

  The voice, a strangely familiar one, stayed her hand, and she turned to see, in the far distance, in fact right at the top of the street, a figure she recognised instantly, and the recognition gave wings to her feet and a great lift to her heart. So light did she feel that her bulk wafted itself like a feather up the street.

  She knew that she was smiling all over her body, and her mind was more joyous than it had been in the whole of her life. It was true then, all that they had promised…they had sent the blessed Michael himself to fetch her. And within a jiffy now she’d be in one of the mansions of Heaven.

  So great was her haste to take up her new abode that she almost floated past him, but a hand, not as soft as down but as hard and as gnarled as any navvy’s stopped her progress.

  ‘Where you off to?’

  She looked at him, surprise stilling her tongue for the moment. He had a voice like a number of people she could put a name to…Father Owen, Father Bailey, Phil and, most surprising of all, Corny.

  ‘You ask me that?’

  ‘I do.’

  His tone annoyed her, so much so that she forgot his mighty power and nearness to the Throne and found herself answering him in a manner similar to that she would have used on a lesser celestial being.

  ‘What you asking the road you know for? I’m off to g
et me just deserts, for God Himself knows I’ve earned them.’

  ‘Then you’re going the wrong way.’

  His voice boomed the words as his mighty hand lifted and pointed down the street, and she turned her startled eyes to behold, standing outside Mulhattan’s Hall, no other than McBride himself. The same yet different, for above his great thick ears where the tufts of hair used to stick out were now horns, not big ones like those associated with the Devil himself, but big enough to show clearly which side he was on. And even after all these years of enforced abstention she saw with her widening eyes that his nose was still bulbous, knobbly and red.

  At this juncture she found that the pain had returned to her side, brought on no doubt by fear. She flung herself round to Saint Michael, crying, ‘I’m not goin’ along of him, I’ve had enough. As God’s my witness, I’m not havin’ another existence with McBride.’

  ‘You’re a hypocrite, Fanny McBride.’

  As he said this she was set to wondering how anyone could dislike an archangel, but she did at this moment. She knew why he had called her a hypocrite. He was getting at her for the Masses she’d had said for McBride, supposedly to get his soul out of purgatory. But the proof of her duplicity was before her, for he was still there; in fact, by the sight of him, a bit lower down.

  The pain in her side was getting worse and she pressed her hand to it as she answered his accusation with, ‘Then I’m not alone.’

  On this she expected his wrath to come down on her and kizzen her up, but instead he laughed, just like Father Owen would have done. And just like him, he asked, ‘And how do you make that out?’

  Ignoring entirely now his great majesty, she replied. ‘Because I’ve prayed to you for years, not knowing what you were really like.’

  Again his laughter filled the street. But she did not laugh with him, nor did her heart become light as it had done when she had first rushed to meet him, the only feeling that remained now was the urge to go…to go on…on, on, and up. And she voiced this in saying wearily, ‘If we’re goin’, let’s away now.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere, Fanny.’

  His voice was kinder but held a note of finality.

  ‘Well, what’s goin’ to happen to me?’ There rose a feeling of panic in her.

  ‘You’re going back.’

  ‘No! No!’ Her voice sounded like a moan and it filled the street. ‘No, don’t send me back, I’ve had enough, I’ve suffered enough, I can’t bear the heartache over again.’

  ‘The heartache was of your own making; you’re stubborn and pigheaded. You’ve been the same all your life.’

  ‘You rear eleven and try and be anything else. It’s the likes of you who could never tackle such a job who are the first to tell others how they should go on.’ She was angry now and quite fearless of this great being.

  ‘True. True in all you say.’ He nodded solemnly down on her. ‘But apart from McBride you’ve made your own heartache with your children.’

  ‘How d’you make that out?’ She was aggressive now.

  ‘You’ve brought them up to the best of your ability, but you didn’t love them, did you, except one? Not that they were a gang you could love very much, I admit, being self-seeking, the whole bunch of them…But again I say, except one, and he wasn’t the one that you loved…you understand me?’

  She moved her body as she said, ‘I understand you well enough. But I’m as God made me.’

  ‘Oh, no you’re not.’ Saint Michael’s voice was sharp now. ‘Don’t you lay the blame on Him. He simply gave you a pattern, the making up lay with you. And you liked the look of what you made so much that when you saw it reproduced in your son, Jack, you fell in love with it. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  She was hot, very hot, and she flung her arms wide as she cried, ‘You can’t help where you love.’

  ‘Then you should realise that your son Philip cannot help loving you, and he is the one who deserves your affection, not the other one. And what is more, I’m telling you now that your beloved Jack doesn’t need your love, for he has inherited all your weak and bad points, he can do without you very well. But Philip’s different. He needs you, always has done, and you’re going to be given the chance to fill that need, you’re going back.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s goin’ to be married, what need will he have of me then?’

  ‘You’re a stupid woman, Fanny McBride, a stupid and stubborn woman.’ His voice was rising and the anger was showing on his face. ‘For two pins I’d countermand the orders I’ve got and send you packing down to McBride, so if you’re wise you’ll be on your way before I do just that…And mind, I’m warning you. You stint your affections towards Philip and I’ll have you back here and in the arms of McBride before you know you have come and gone…Now away you go.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘No buts. No buts…NO BUTS.’

  The boom of his voice sent her body tumbling down the street, and it was only at the foot of Mulhattan’s steps that she managed to right herself. Then, strange…strange thing, she found she was standing on the steps above Nellie Flannagan with her arm thrust out in the same position as it had been when it was checked by his voice. He had said nothing about Nellie Flannagan, not a word, although he had made his mouth go about other things. Well begod! She’d have some satisfaction of some kind out of this episode. So, with a mighty downward swing of her arm, she whipped Mrs Flannagan’s feet from beneath her.

  The street was filled with a cry as from a scalded cat and she watched the thorn of her flesh rise some way in the air, before landing flat on her face at the bottom of the steps.

  With her body wobbling with laughter and dusting her hands she marched up the steps and into the hall again. But here, the stuffiness of the house after the clean air outside caught at her throat and almost choked her. She began to cough. And the coughing racked her body and dragged at her, pulling her down. Down she went, and she clutched at the black air about her. And when out of it came a hand she hung onto it with all her might.

  ‘Thank God!’

  She opened her eyes slowly to the voice and at the same time to a loud cry. From the street.

  ‘Oh, Mother!’ She looked at Philip, whose hand she was gripping; then with eyes that had weights dragging at them she turned them on Jack. So he had come. Why didn’t it matter so much now? She didn’t know, she was so tired.

  ‘Go to sleep, dear.’

  It was Phil’s hand that was taking her wet hair back from her brow. Aye, she would go to sleep. She felt at peace somehow. She would talk later.

  The voices were whispering all about her; the room was full of them. There were ‘Thank God!’s and ‘She’ll pull through now’ and ‘It’s a miracle, if there ever was one.’ Then a whisper, distinct from the rest, said, ‘That cry in the street, that was Mrs Flannagan. She’s fallen down the steps and twisted her ankle badly. They’ve had to carry her across home.’

  With a quirk to her lips Fanny went to sleep.

  The End