Mary Ann's Angels

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Mary Ann! You’ve got a visitor.’ It was Corny’s voice from the bottom of the stairs, and Mary Ann, turning about, walked across the room. But she paused near Rose Mary’s chair to say, ‘Now mind, behave yourself. I don’t want any repeat of that Sunday at the farm. You remember?’

  Her words were like an echo from the past, like an echo of Lizzie saying to her, ‘Now mind yourself, don’t cheek your granny, I’m warning you.’ She opened the door and went onto the landing and said, ‘Who is it?’ Then she made a suitable pause before adding, ‘Oh, hello, Gran.’

  Mrs McMullen was coming unassisted up the steep stairs, and when she reached the top she stood panting slightly, looking at Mary Ann, and Mary Ann looked at her.

  Ever since she first remembered seeing her granny she hadn’t seemed to change by one wrinkle or hair. Her hair was still black and abundant, and as always supported a large hat, a black straw today. Her small, dark eyes still held their calculating devilish gleam. The skin of her face was covered with the tracery of lines not detectable unless under close scrutiny, so she looked much younger than her seventy-six years. She was wearing this morning an up-to-date lightweight grey check coat which yelled aloud in comparison to the hairstyle and hat adorning it.

  ‘It’s warm today,’ said Mary Ann.

  ‘Warm! It’s bakin’, if you ask me. And the walk from the bus doesn’t make it any better. I would have thought that after being stuck miles from civilisation afore you married you would have plumped for some place nearer the town. But I suppose beggars can’t be choosers…Aw, let me sit down, off me feet.’

  ‘Let your granny sit down.’ Mary Ann was nodding towards Rose Mary, and Rose Mary, sliding off the dining-room chair, stood to one side, and as Mary Ann watched her granny seat herself she thought, ‘Beggars can’t be choosers. Oh, what I’d like to say to her.’

  ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea.’ Mary Ann moved towards the scullery now, and Mrs McMullen, without turning her head, said, ‘There’s time enough for that; I’ll have something cold if it’s not too much trouble…Well now.’ Mrs McMullen put her hands up slowly to her hat and withdrew the pin, and as did so she looked at the children. First at Rose Mary, then David, then to Rose Mary again, and she said, ‘You underweight?’

  ‘What?’

  Rose Mary screwed up her face at her great-grandmother.

  ‘I said are you underweight? And don’t say “What?” Say, “What, Great-gran?” Do you get weighed at school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Didn’t they tell you you were underweight?’

  ‘No…no, Great-gran.’

  ‘Well, if my eyes don’t deceive me, that’s what they should have done.’

  ‘I’ve brought you a lemon drink.’

  ‘Oh…thanks. I was just saying to her’—Mrs McMullen nodded to her great-grandchild—‘she looks underweight. Anything wrong with her?’

  ‘No, no, nothing. She’s as healthy as an ox.’ Mary Ann was determined that nothing that this old devil said would make her rise.

  She watched the old woman take a long drink from the glass, then put her hand in her pocket and bring out a folded white handkerchief with which she wiped her mouth. And then she watched her turn her attention to David. ‘Hello there,’ she said.

  David looked back at this funny old woman. He looked deep into her eyes, and his own darkened and he grinned. He grinned widely at her.

  ‘He not talking yet?’

  Mary Ann hesitated for a long moment before saying, ‘He’s making progress.’

  ‘Is he talking or isn’t he?’

  Steady, steady. Metaphorically speaking, Mary Ann gripped her own shoulder. ‘He can say certain words. The teacher’s very pleased with him, isn’t she, Rose Mary?’

  ‘Yes, yes, he’s Miss Plum’s favourite. She takes him to the front of the class and she pins up his drawings.’

  ‘They only have to do that with idiots.’

  The words had been muttered below her breath but they were clear to Mary Ann, if not to the children. As Rose Mary asked, ‘What did you say, Great-gran?’ Mary Ann had to turn away. She went into the scullery, and as her mother had done many, many times in her life, and for the same reason, she stood leaning against the draining board gripping its edge. She longed, in this moment, for Lizzie’s support, and she realised that this was only the second time that she had battled with her granny on her own; there had always been someone to check her tongue, or even her hand. On her granny’s only other visit here two years ago, she’d had the support of their Michael and Sarah, but now she was on her own, and she didn’t trust herself. How long would she stay? Would she stay for dinner? Very likely. But Corny would be here then, and Corny could manage her somehow. She had found she couldn’t rile him, consequently she didn’t get at him. She was even pleasant to him; the nasty things she had to say she said behind his back.

  She almost jumped back into the kitchen as she heard her granny say, ‘Be quiet, child. Give him a chance, let him answer for himself.’

  ‘I was only sayin’—’

  ‘I know what you were saying.’ Mrs McMullen now turned her head up towards Mary Ann. ‘This one’—she thumbed Rose Mary—‘is the spit of you, you know, she doesn’t know when to stop. I don’t think you’ll get him talkin’ as long as he’s got the answers ready made for him.’

  Mary Ann forced herself not to bow her head, and not to lower her eyes from her granny’s. It was galling to think that this dreadful old woman was advocating the same remedy for David’s impediment as Corny and her mother. Mrs McMullen now turned her eyes away from Mary Ann, saying with a sigh, ‘Aw well, it’s your own business. And you’d never take advice, as long as I can remember…I think I’ll take me coat off, it’s enough to roast you in here. I’d open the window.’

  ‘The window’s open.’ Mary Ann took her granny’s coat and went out of the room with it, and laid it on the bed in the bedroom. And now she stood leaning against the bed rail trying to calm herself before returning to the room. The old devil, the wicked old devil. And she was wicked—vicious and wicked. On the bedroom chimney breast hung a portrait of Corny and her on their wedding day, and her mind was lifted to the moment when they were walking down from the altar and her granny stole the picture by falling into the aisle in a faint; and in that moment, that wonderful, wonderful moment when all her feelings should have been good, and her thoughts even holy, she had wished, as she saw them carrying her granny away down the aisle, that she’d peg out. Yes, such was the effect her granny had on her that on the altar steps she had wished a thing like that.

  When she returned to the kitchen it was to hear Mrs McMullen saying to Rose Mary, ‘But how many in a week, how many cars does he work on in a week?’ and Rose Mary replying, ‘Oh, lots, dozens.’

  ‘Does he get much work in?’ Mrs McMullen’s gimlet eyes met Mary Ann’s as she came across the room.

  ‘Who? Corny?’ Her voice was high, airy. ‘Oh yes, he gets plenty of work in.’

  ‘Well!’ The word was said on a long, exhaling breath. ‘It must be his off time, for what I could see when I passed the garage was space, empty space, and the floor as clean as a whistle…Why doesn’t he sell up? I heard your father on about him having an offer.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, he’s had offers, but he doesn’t want to sell up, we’re quite content here.’

  Her da on about them having an offer. Her granny must have been saying something to her mother and her da had made it up on the spur of the moment about them having an offer. That’s what he would do. Good for her da.

  Mary Ann said now, as she brought the tray to the delph rack and took down some cups and saucers, ‘We did consider one offer we had, but then it’s so good for the children out here, plenty of fresh air and space, and the house is comfortable.’

  ‘You can’t live on fresh air and space. As for comfort…’ Mrs McMullen looked round the room. ‘You want something bigger than this with them growing, you couldn’t swing a cat in it.’
/>
  ‘Well, we don’t happen to have a…’ Mary Ann abruptly checked her words, and so hard did she grip the cup in her hand that she wouldn’t have been surprised if it had splintered into fragments. There, her granny had won. She put the sugar basin and milk jug quietly onto the tray and took it to the table under the window before saying, ‘It suits us. I’m happy here. We’re all happy here.’

  ‘Your mother doesn’t seem to think so.’

  ‘What!’ Mary Ann swung round and looked at the back of her granny’s head. ‘My mother would never say I was unhappy. She couldn’t say it, because I’m not unhappy.’

  ‘She doesn’t have to say it. She happens to be my daughter, I know what she’s thinking, I know how she views the set-up.’

  Mary Ann again went into the scullery and again she was holding the draining board, and she bit on her lip now, almost drawing blood. It was at this moment that Rose Mary joined her and, clutching her dress at the waist, she looked up at her. Her ma was upset, her ma was nearly crying. She hated her great-gran, she was an awful great-gran. She whispered now, brokenly, ‘Don’t cry, Mam. Aw, don’t cry, Mam.’

  ‘I’m not crying.’ Mary Ann had brought her face down to her daughter’s as she whispered. ‘Go back into the room and be nice. Go on. Go on now for me.’

  ‘Aw, but, Mam.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Rose Mary dutifully went into the room and took her seat again, but she did not look at her great-grandmother.

  ‘What are you doing at school?’

  When silence greeted Mrs McMullen’s question, David turned his bright gaze on his sister, and when she didn’t answer he moved quickly to her and shook her arm, and for the first time in her life she pushed off his hand, and Mrs McMullen, quick to notice the action, said, ‘You needn’t be nasty to him, he was only telling you to answer in the only way he knew.’

  Now Rose Mary was looking at her great-grandmother and, the spirit of her mother rising in her, she said, ‘I don’t like you.’

  ‘Ah-ha! Here we go again, another generation of ’em. So you don’t like me? Well, I’ll not lose any sleep over that.’

  ‘I like me Great-gran McBride.’

  Mrs McMullen’s face darkened visibly. ‘Oh, you do, do you? And I hope you like her beautiful house, and her smell.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do. And David does an’ all. We like goin’ there, I’d go there all the time. I like me Great-gran McBride.’

  ‘Rose Mary!’ Mary Ann was speaking quietly from the scullery door, and Rose Mary, now unable to control her tears, slid to her feet, crying, ‘Well, I do like me Great-gran McBride, I do, Mam. You know I do.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but now be quiet. Behave yourself, and stop it.’

  ‘I don’t like her, I don’t, Mam.’ Rose Mary, her arm outstretched, was pointing at Mrs McMullen.

  ‘Rose Mary!’ As Mary Ann advanced towards her, Rose Mary backed towards the door, staring at her great–grandmother all the while, and as she groped behind her and found the handle she bounced her head towards the old lady, saying, ‘I’ll never like you ’cos you’re nasty.’ Then, turning about, she ran out of the room and down the stairs.

  She’d find her dad, she would, and tell him. Her great-gran was awful, she was a pig, she’d made her mam cry, she’d tell her dad and he would go up and give her one for making her mam cry.

  She ran to the garage, but she couldn’t see her dad. But through the tears she saw a big car standing in the mouth of the garage and another car at the top end with Jimmy working on it. She ran out of the garage again and went towards the office, but she stopped just outside the door. Somebody was talking to her dad, and she recognised his voice. It was that nasty American who bought his petrol from Riley’s.

  ‘Rose Mary!’ It was her mother’s voice coming from the stairs. She looked round before running again. She wasn’t going to go upstairs and sit with her great-gran, she wasn’t. She hated her great-gran. She would hide. Yes, that’s what she would do, she would hide. She looked wildly round her. And then she saw a good hiding place and darted towards it …

  Chapter Seven

  In the office, Corny leant against his desk, mostly for support, as he stared down at the American sitting in the one seat provided. ‘I can’t quite take it in,’ he said.

  Mr Blenkinsop smiled with one corner of his mouth higher than the other. ‘Give yourself time,’ he replied ‘Give yourself time.’

  ‘May I ask what made you change your mind, I mean to build your factory at this side instead of yon side?’

  ‘You may, and I’ll tell you. But it won’t do you any good. I mean it won’t help you any further, for you’ve already reached the stage when you know that it’s best in the long run to play fair.’

  Corny screwed up his eyes as he surveyed Mr Blenkinsop. He had always played fair in business, but he wondered where he came in the American’s plan in this line, but he waited.

  ‘As I told you, my father built up Blenkinsop’s from making boxes in a house yard, with my three brothers and six sisters all rounded up to help in the process, cutting, nailing, getting orders, delivering. It was before the last war and things were bad. I was just a youngster, but my father thought I had what it took to sell, and so I was put on to do the rounds going from door to door in the better-class neighbourhood of our town, showing them samples of our fancy-made boxes to put their Christmas presents in, the kind of presents that we kids only dreamed of. From the beginning it was, as our father said, small profit and quick return. “Put into your work,” he said, “more than you expect to get back in clear cash and the profits will mount up for you.” You know, that took a bit of working out to us boys whose only thought was to make money, and fast, but after a time we understood that if you make your product good enough it will sell itself a thousandfold, and in the end your profits will be high…Well, after the war the business went like a house on fire. We were all in it, those of us who were left. Three died in the war, my three brothers, but the girls and their husbands still carry on their end of it, and our father’s maxim still holds good.’

  Corny shook his head, but he still did not quite follow, and the American knew this, and he lit a cigarette and offered Corny one before he went on, ‘It’s like this. I have two cars. I brought one to you, and I took one to Mr Riley. I knew exactly what was wrong with each; in fact, the same was wrong in both cases. Mr Riley charged me almost fifty per cent more than you did, and he bodged the job, at least his mechanics did. I guessed he’d put on twenty per cent in any case, me being an American and rolling. They think we are all rolling. But to pile on fifty per cent…Oh no. No. So I made a call on Mr Riley this morning and told him I thought he had slightly overcharged me. He was, what you call, I think, shirty. In any case, Mr Riley thought he’d got it all in the pan. He knew I had bought this whole piece of land a month ago, and as he said, only a fool would think of building this end, for just look at the stuff they would have to move, rock going deep. Well, he got a little surprise this morning when I told him it was on this end I had decided to put my factory, at least the main gates of it. My storehouses will now back onto the far road, there will be main gates leading to the main road, and another at the far end of this road leading to your Gateshead, but I’m putting my main building towards the end of your road, here…Oh no’—he raised his hand and waved it back and forward—‘not entirely to help you, but because it is advantageous, as I see it, to my plan. As I’ve told you, seeing the material we’re dealing with I don’t want petrol stores too near to the works, but I want them near enough to be convenient for the lorries and cars, and from the first I saw I had the choice of two petrol stations, and I’ve made it. The fifty per cent supercharge finally decided me which of the two men I preferred to deal with. That’s how I do business. I look over the ground first—panning for gold dust my father used to call it. Always look for the gold and the dirt will drop through the riddle, he would say…Well.’ Mr Blenkinsop surveyed Corny. ‘There it is.’

&nbs
p; ‘Well, sir, I’m…flabbergasted.’

  ‘Oh.’ The American put his head back. ‘That’s a wonderful word, flabbergasted.’ He rose to his feet. ‘We’ll do business together, young man.’ He put his hand on Corny’s shoulder, much as a father would, and said quietly, ‘You leave this to me now. You’ll need money for more pumps; we’ll want a lot of petrol because our fleet of lorries won’t be small. There’ll be a great many private cars, too, as nearly all the workers in England have cars now; it isn’t an American prerogative any longer.’ He smiled. ‘How much land did you say you had to the side of you, I mean your own?’

  ‘Just over three-quarters of an acre. It runs back for about four hundred feet though; it’s a narrow strip.’

  ‘Good, you’ll need every bit of it. You’ll want workshops and a place for garaging cars. That’s a good idea.’ He made for the door now. Then, turning abruptly, he said, ‘What’s kept you here for seven years, in this dead end?’

  ‘Hope. Hoping for the road going through; hoping for a day like this…someone like you, sir.’

  ‘Well, all I can say is that I admire your tenacity; it would have daunted many a stronger man. You know, you with your knowledge of cars would likely have made a much better living working in one of the big garages.’

  ‘I know that, sir, but I’ve always wanted to be my own boss.’

  The American surveyed him with a long, penetrating glance, then, punching him gently on the shoulder, he said, ‘You’ll always be your own boss, son. Never you fear that. But now…’ He stepped out of the door, saying, ‘I’ve got a mixed weekend before me, business and pleasure. I’m off to Doncaster to see a cousin of mine, who’ll be on the board of the new concern. Also, I hope to persuade him to be my general manager. I should be back on Monday, and then we will get round the table and talk about ways and means.’ He took two steps forward and half-glanced over his shoulder and said, ‘You wouldn’t like me to buy you out?’