‘Nearly, Mam. David wants some cheese.’
‘David can’t have any cheese, I’ve told you it upset his stomach before. He’s got an egg and…’ She bent over her son and looked down into the empty egg cup, saying, ‘Oh, you’ve eaten your egg, that’s a good boy. But where’s the shell?’ She turned her eyes to her daughter, and Rose Mary, looking down at her plate, said quietly, ‘I think he threw it in the fire, he sometimes does. But he’d like some cheese, he’s still hungry.’
‘Now, Rose Mary, don’t keep it up. I’ve told you he can’t have any cheese.’
‘I’ve had some cheese.’
‘Oh.’ Mary Ann closed her eyes and, refusing to be drawn into a fruitless argument, took her seat at the table, only to bring her shoulders hunching up and her head down as an extra long wail from the trombone filled the room.
When it died away and she straightened herself up it was to see her daughter convulsed with laughter. David, too, was laughing, his deep, throaty, infectious chuckle. She was feigning annoyance, saying, ‘It’s all right for you to laugh,’ when she saw Corny standing behind David’s chair. He was motioning to her with his head, and so, quietly, she rose from the table and walked to his side and stood behind the children, and following her husband’s eyes her gaze was directed to the pocket in her son’s corduroy breeches. The pocket was distended, showing the top of a brown egg.
As they exchanged glances, she wanted to laugh, but it was no laughing matter. This wasn’t the first time that food had been stuffed into her son’s pockets, or up his jumper; it had even found its way into the chest of drawers. She was about to lift her hand to touch David when a warning movement from Corny stopped her. The movement said, leave this to me. Quietly she walked to her seat and Corny, taking his seat, drew his son’s attention to him by saying, ‘David.’
David turned his laughing face towards his father.
‘Did you eat the egg that Mam give you for your tea?’
The smile slid from David’s face, the eyes widened into innocence, the moist lips parted, and he bestowed on his father a look which said he didn’t understand.
‘Dad. Dad, he tried…’
‘Rose Mary!’ Without moving a muscle of his face Corny’s eyes slid to his daughter. ‘Remember what I told you about telling lies. Now be quiet.’ The eyes turned on his son once again. ‘Where’s the egg you had for tea, David?’
Still no movement from David. Still the innocent look. Now Corny held out his hand. He laid it on the table in front of his son and said quietly, ‘Give it to me.’
David’s eyelids didn’t flicker, but his small hand moved down towards his trouser pocket, then came upwards again, holding the egg. It took up a position about eight inches above Corny’s hand, and there remained absolutely still.
‘Give me the egg, David.’ Corny’s voice was quiet and level.
And David gave his father the egg, his little fist pressed into the softly-boiled egg crushing the shell. As the yoke dripped onto Corny’s fingers he smacked at his son’s hand, knocking the crushed egg flying across the table, to splatter itself over the stove. Then almost in one movement he had David dangling by the breeches as if he was a holdall, and with his free hand he lathered his behind.
David’s screams now rent the air and vied with the screeches of the trombone and the crying of Rose Mary as she yelled, ‘Oh, Dad, don’t. Oh, don’t hit David. Don’t. Don’t.’
Mary Ann wanted to say the same thing, ‘Don’t hit David. Don’t,’ but David had to be smacked. Quickly, she thrust Rose Mary from the room, saying, ‘Stay there…Now stay.’ And turning to Corny, she cried, ‘That’s enough. That’s enough.’
After the first slap of anger she knew that Corny hadn’t belaboured David as he could have done. It was only during these past few months that he had smacked his son, and although she knew it had to be done and the boy deserved it the process tore her to shreds.
She wanted to go to David now and gather him up from the big chair where he was crouched and into her arms, and pet him and mother him, but that would never do. She took him by the hand and drew him to his feet, saying, ‘Go into the bathroom and get your things off.’
Outside the door, Rose Mary was waiting. She exchanged a look with her mother; then, putting her arms about her brother, she almost carried him, still sobbing, to the bathroom.
When Mary Ann returned to the room Corny said immediately, ‘Now don’t say to me that I shouldn’t have done that.’ She looked at him and saw that his face was white and strained, she saw that he was upset more than usual, and she could understand this. The defiance of his son, the indignity of the egg being squashed onto his fingers, and having to thrash the child had upset him, for he loved the boy. About his feelings for his son, she had once analysed them to herself by saying that he was crazy about Rose Mary but he loved David.
Everything seemed to have changed this last year, to have got worse over the past few months. At times she thought it was as Corny said, David had it all up top and he was trying something on. And this was borne out by the incident just now, for even she had to admit it appeared calculated.
Another blast from the trombone penetrating the room, she flew to the window, thrust it open and, leaning out, she cried, ‘Jimmy! Jimmy, will you stop that racket!’
‘What, Mrs Boyle…Eh?’
She was now looking down on the long, lugubrious face of Corny’s young assistant, Jimmy McFarlane. Jimmy was seventeen. He was car mad, motorcycle mad and group mad, in fact Mary Ann would say Jimmy was mad altogether, but he was a hard worker, likeable and good-tempered. Apart from all that, he was all they could afford in the way of help.
‘Sorry, Mrs Boyle, is it disturbin’ you? Is the bairns abed?’
‘They’re just going, Jimmy, but…but give it a rest for tonight at any rate, will you?’
‘Okay, Mrs Boyle.’ Jimmy’s voice did not show his disappointment, and he added, ‘The boss there?’
‘What is it?’ Mary Ann had moved aside and Corny was hanging out of the window now.
‘Had an American in a few minutes ago. Great big whopper of a car…A Chevrolet. Twelve gallons of petrol and shots and oil, an’ he gave me half a crown. Could do with some of those every hour, couldn’t we, boss?’
‘I’ll say.’
‘He was tickled to death by me trombone, he laughed like a loony. He laughed all the time, even when I wasn’t playing it. He must have thought I looked funny or summat, eh?’
‘Well, as long as he gave you a tip, that’s everything,’ said Corny. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
‘Okay, boss.’
After he had closed the window, Corny went straight into the scullery and returned with a floor cloth with which he began to wipe the mess from the stove.
‘Corny. Please. Leave it, I’ll see to it.’
Abruptly he stopped rubbing with the cloth, and without turning his head said, ‘I want to clean this up.’
Standing back from him, Mary Ann looked at his ham-fisted actions with the cloth. There were depths in this husband of hers she couldn’t fathom, there were facets of his thinking that she couldn’t follow at times. There were things he did that wouldn’t make sense to other people, like him wanting to clean up the mess his son had made. She said gently, ‘I’m going to wash them; will you come in?’
He went on rubbing for a moment. Then nodding towards the stove, he said, ‘I’ll be in.’
When he had the room to himself, and the egg and shell gathered on to the floor cloth, he stood with it in his hand looking down at it for a long moment. Life was odd, painful and frightening at times.
Chapter Two
Mary Ann liked Sundays. There were two kinds in her life, the winter Sundays and the summer Sundays. She didn’t know which she liked best. Perhaps the winter Sundays, when Corny lay in bed until eight o’clock and she snuggled up in his arms and they talked about things they never got round to during the week. Then before the clock had finished striking eight, th
e twins would burst into the room—Rose Mary had her orders that they weren’t to come in before eight o’clock on a Sunday, on a winter Sunday, because Dad liked a lie-in.
On the summer Sundays, Corny rose at six and brought her a cup of tea before he went off to early mass in Felling, and as soon as the door had closed on him the children would scamper into the bed and snuggle down, one each side of her, at least for a while. Eight o’clock on a summer Sunday morning usually found the bed turned into a rough house, and on such mornings Mary Ann became a girl again, a child, as she laughed and tumbled and giggled with her children. Sometimes she was up and had the breakfast ready for Corny’s return, but more often she was struggling to bring herself back to the point of being a mother, with a mother’s responsibility, when he returned.
But this summer Sunday morning Mary Ann was up and had Corny’s breakfast ready on his return. Moreover, the children were dressed and both standing to the side of the breakfast table, straining their faces against the window pane to catch a sight of the car coming along the road.
‘He’s a long time,’ Rose Mary commented, then added, ‘can I start on a piece of toast, Mam?’
‘No, you can’t. You’ll wait till your dad comes in.’
‘I’m hungry, I could eat a horse. David’s hungry an’ all.’
‘Rose Mary!’
Rose Mary gave her shoulders a little shake, then turned from the window, and, moving the spoon that was set near her cereal bowl, she said, ‘I hope old Father Doughty doesn’t take our Mass this mornin’, ’cos he keeps on and on. He yammers.’
‘Rose Mary, you’re not to talk like that.’
‘Well, Mam, he does.’
‘Well, if he does, it’s for your own good. And you should listen and pay heed to what he says.’
‘I pay heed to Father Carey. I like Father Carey. Father Carey never frightens me.’
Mary Ann turned from the sideboard and looked at her daughter; then asked quietly, ‘Are you frightened of Father Doughty?’
Rose Mary now took up her spoon and whirled it round her empty bowl saying, ‘Sometimes. He was on about the Holy Ghost last Sunday and the sin of pride. Annabel Morton said he was gettin’ at me ’cos I’m stuck-up. I’m not stuck-up, am I, Mam?’
‘I should hope not. What have you to be stuck-up about?’
‘Well, it’s because we’ve got a garage and it’s me dad’s.’
‘Oh.’ Mary Ann nodded and turned her head back to the cutlery drawer. ‘But I thought you said you weren’t stuck-up.’
‘Well, just a little bit. About me dad I am.’ The spoon whirled more quickly now. Then it stopped abruptly, and Rose Mary, turning to her mother, said, ‘What’s the Holy Ghost like, Mam?’
‘What?’
‘I mean, what’s he like? Is he like God? Or is he like Jesus?’
Mary Ann made a great play of separating the knives and forks in the drawer. Then, turning her head slightly towards her daughter but not looking at her, she said, ‘God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost are all the same, they all look alike.’
‘Oh no, they don’t.’
Mary Ann’s eyes were now brought sharply towards her daughter, to see a face that was almost a replica of her own, except for the eyes that were like Corny’s, tilted pointedly upwards towards her. ‘Jesus is Jesus, and I know what Jesus looks like ’cos I have pictures of him. An’ I know who God looks like. But not the Holy Ghost.’
Mary Ann’s voice was very small when, looking down at her daughter, she said, ‘You know who God looks like? Who?’
‘Me granda Shaughnessy. He’s big like him, and nice and kind.’
Mary Ann turned towards the drawer again before closing her eyes and putting her hand over her brow. Her da like God. Oh, she wanted to laugh. She wished Corny was here…he would have enjoyed that. Big, and nice, and kind. Well, and wasn’t he all three? But for her da to take on the resemblance of God. Oh dear! Oh dear!
‘Aha!’ The sound came from David who was still looking out of the window, and Rose Mary turned towards him, crying, ‘It’s me dad.’
Both the children now waved frantically out of the window, and Corny waved back to them.
The minute he entered the room they flew to him, and he lifted one up in each arm, to be admonished by Mary Ann, crying, ‘Now don’t crush their clothes, they’re all ready for mass.’
‘Dad. Dad, who said seven o’clock?’
‘Father Doughty.’
‘Oh, then Father Carey will say eight, and Father Doughty will say nine, and Father Carey will say ten. Oh goody!’ She flung her arms around his neck and pressed her face against his, and David following suit, entwined his arms on top of hers and pressed his cheek against the other side of his father’s face.
The business of Friday night was a thing of the past; it was Sunday and ‘family day’.
Although the pattern of Sunday differed from winter to summer it had only been what Mary Ann thought of as ‘family day’ since Jimmy had been taken on, because Jimmy came at eight o’clock on the summer Sunday mornings and stayed till ten, and, if required, he would come back again at two and stay as long as Corny wanted him. Jimmy was saving up for a motorbike and Sunday work being time and a half he didn’t mind how long he stayed. And when he was kept on on Sunday afternoon it meant they could all go to the farm together.
‘Sit yourselves up,’ Mary Ann said, ‘and make a start. I’ll take Jimmy’s down.’
Before she left the room they had all started on their cereal. When David had emptied his bowl he pushed it away from him, and Corny, looking down on his son, asked quietly, ‘Would you like some more, David?’
David looked brightly back into Corny’s face and gave a small shake of his head, and Corny, putting his spoon gently down onto the table, took hold of his son’s hand and said quietly, ‘Say…no…thank…you…Dad.’ He spaced the words.
David looked back at his father, and Rose Mary, her spoon poised halfway to her mouth, looked at David.
‘Go on, say it,’ urged Corny, still softly. ‘No, thank you. Just say it. No…thank…you.’
David’s eyes darkened. The mischievous smile lurked in the back of them. He slanted his eyes now to Rose Mary, and Rose Mary, looking quickly at her father, said, ‘He wants to say no thank you, Dad. He means no thank you, don’t you, David?’ She pushed her face close against his, and David smiled widely at her and nodded his head briskly, and Corny, picking up his spoon again, started eating.
Rose Mary stood with one hand in Mary Ann’s while with the other she clutched at David’s. She wasn’t feeling very happy; it wasn’t going to be a very nice Sunday. It hadn’t been a very nice Sunday from the beginning, because her mother had got out of bed early, and then her dad had been vexed at breakfast time because David wouldn’t say No thank you, and now they were going into Felling by bus.
Her mam had snapped at her when she asked her why her dad couldn’t run them in in the car. She couldn’t see why he couldn’t close up the garage for a little while, just a little while, it didn’t take long to get into Felling by car. And what was worse, worse for her mam anyway, was that she had to go all the way to Jarrow by bus. She didn’t like it when her mam went to Jarrow Church, but she only went to Jarrow Church when she was visiting Great-gran McBride, killing two birds with one stone, she called it. She herself liked to visit Great-gran McBride, and so did David. They loved going to Great-gran McBride’s. They didn’t mind the smell.
‘Mam, couldn’t you leave going to Great-gran McBride’s until this afternoon?’
‘Don’t you want to go to the farm this afternoon?’
‘Yes, but I’d like to go to Great-gran McBride’s an’ all. Dad could run us there afore we went to the farm.’
‘Dad can’t do any such thing, so stop it. And don’t you start on that when we get home. I’m going to see Great-gran McBride because she isn’t well and she can’t be bothered with children around.’
‘She always says she loves to—’
/> ‘You’re not going today.’
There was a short silence before Rose Mary suggested, ‘Couldn’t we come on after mass? We could meet you an’ we could all come back together. I could get the bus; I’ve done it afore.’
‘Do you want me to get annoyed with you, Rose Mary?’
‘No, Mam.’ The voice was very small.
‘Well, then, do as you’re told. What’s the matter with you this morning?’
‘I think it might be Father Doughty an’ I don’t like—’
‘You know it’ll be Father Carey. And not another word now, here’s the bus, and behave yourself.’
Twenty minutes later, Rose Mary, still holding David by the hand, entered St. Patrick’s Church. Inside the doorway she reached up and dipped her fingers in the holy-water font, and David followed suit; then one after the other they genuflected to the main altar. This done, they walked down the aisle until they came to the fifth pew from the front. This was one of the pews allotted to their class. Again they genuflected one after the other, then Rose Mary entered the pew first. One foot on the wooden kneeler, one on the floor, she was making her way to where sat her school pals, Jane Leonard and Katie Eastman, when she became aware that she was alone, at least, in-as-much as the other half of her was not immediately behind her. She turned swiftly, to see David standing in the aisle looking up at Miss Plum. Miss Plum had David by one hand and David was hanging on to the end of the pew with the other. Swiftly, Rose Mary made the return journey to the aisle, and Miss Plum, bending down to her and answering her look, which said plainly, ‘Now what are you up to with our David?’ whispered, ‘I’m putting David with the boys on the other side.’
‘But, Miss Plum, he won’t go.’
A low hissing whisper now from Miss Plum. ‘He’ll go if you tell him to, Rose Mary.’
A whisper now from Rose Mary. ‘But I’ve told him afore, Miss Plum.’
‘Go and sit down, Rose Mary, and leave David to me.’
Mary Ann's Angels Page 3
