A Grand Man

by Catherine Cookson

  Mrs McMullen had handed over the money, whilst her eyes had consigned her grandchild to the place from where through continued chastisement she had hoped to save her.

  Mary Ann’s last words as she left the house, which were apropos of nothing that had been said that morning, almost caused the final collapse of Mrs McMullen, for just a second before closing the door behind her Mary Ann said, ‘Me da’s a grand man.’

  She had often wished since she had stayed just a little longer to have seen the effect of her words on her granny, for even through the closed door she had heard the sound of her choking.

  She looked now at the old woman guzzling the last of the ham. She hadn’t been offered even the smallest piece. But what did it matter? She had more than ham on her granny, and her granny knew it. She could keep her ham and she hoped it stuck halfway down. She looked to where her mother was refilling her granny’s cup and wondered, and not for the first time, if her granny was really her mother’s mother. Her da likely wasn’t joking when he had said her granny had stolen her mother when she was a baby and she really never had been Lizzie McMullen at all but one of the first ladies of the land. Her da joked a lot at times, but still he was probably right about this, for what connection had her lovely mother with her granny? None; none in the wide world. Her mother’s hair was fair, like silver, and straight, not even a kink in it; while her granny’s was black and white and frizzed up. She got it that way by sticking it in thousands of papers. And her granny’s eyes were as round as aniseed balls but black, while her mother’s were long and grey. And then again her granny was little and stumpy and fat, and her mother was a grand height, and if she’d had nice clothes like Mrs Tullis, who kept the outdoor beer shop at the corner, she’d have looked like a queen. No, like a princess; for in spite of her mother’s great age of twenty-nine, she could be gay at times, like a young princess. No; her mother was no relation to her granny. Would her mother have golloped all that ham herself? She wouldn’t even eat any food if there wasn’t much for her and their Michael. Her granny was just what her da said she was, pig, guts, hog and artful!

  ‘You can get down now.’ Lizzie’s voice brought Mary Ann’s fixed gaze from her grandmother. ‘Say your grace.’

  Mary Ann said her grace. She knew why she had been ordered to leave the table, because she’d been staring at her granny and her ma was afraid she’d say something.

  Never slow to take advantage of a situation, she asked, ‘Can I look at the album, Ma?’

  Now the album was a treasure chest which, through an odd assortment of snaps, kept fresh the memories of the happy incidents that had taken place in the early years of Elizabeth Shaughnessy’s married life, and as time went on she found it more and more necessary to refer to it to confirm that these memories were the stamp on her mind of incidents that had once actually taken place and were not just vague dreams.

  Mary Ann could remember when she first saw the album. She was sitting between her ma and da and they were laughing and laughing as they turned the pages. She could remember the firelight shining on their faces, and they had both appeared so beautiful to her that instead of laughing with them she had cried. She could remember her da picking her up and carrying her upstairs to bed. Yes, she’d gone upstairs to bed, where Michael and her had a real bedroom. She couldn’t remember very much about that house, only the real bedroom. There had been other houses; then rooms; and finally Mulhattans’ Hall. In each place the furniture got less and less, until now none of it was familiar…only the album. The table and chairs might change, and even the beds, but the album…never. It was to her a land wherein she could wander and dream; but rare were the times she was allowed to wander alone. Only on such occasions as the present when her mother desired to keep her quiet was there a chance of getting the album to herself.

  She saw that her mother was annoyed with her because she had asked for the album in front of her granny, for it was a subject of controversy between them; Mrs McMullen considered that it belonged to her by right, having ignored the fact that her late husband had given it to his daughter on her sixteenth birthday.

  ‘Wash your hands again,’ said Lizzie; ‘and be careful how you get it out of the trunk. And mind, don’t disarrange the things. And stay in the room with it.’

  Mary Ann did as she was bidden; and as she knelt on the floor to open the lid of the trunk that stood beside the little window which came down to the floor, she paused to wonder why the album should have been put into the trunk, for although it was usually placed out of her reach it was generally on show, for it was indeed a showpiece, being backed with fine leather and bound with brass hinges that spread across the back and front of it; it had once been owned by her mother’s granda who came from Norway.

  She lifted it tenderly out of the trunk, smoothed again into order the assortment of clothes, then went to the bed and, laying it there, she fell on her stomach across the bed, her heels playing a silent tattoo on her small buttocks. Sucking in her breath in anticipation of coming enjoyment, she lifted back the heavy cover and looked once more on Great-Granda Stenson. But his side whiskers had long ceased to be funny. She turned a number of thick pages, ignoring with an upward tilt of her nose the photographs they held; she knew them all; they were merely pictures of her granny from the time she was a baby until she was married…and who’d want to look at them? But following the picture of her grandmother’s wedding group the real pictures began.

  Now she burrowed her knees into the bed. There was her ma with nothing on; and there was her ma on the sands with her spade and pail; and there she was again with her great long fair plaits and holding her school prize in her hand. There were many more snaps of her ma. Then they too abruptly stopped, and Mary Ann was confronted with two blank pages. They were like a curtain ending an act of a play, and although she was anxious to raise the curtain and continue the story, she did not hurry, but savoured what was to come. She knew there was not a lot more to follow, but it was the best, and, like the pork cracknel she sometimes had on a Sunday, she always conserved the nice things until the end.

  Slowly now she turned the page, and there they were, her ma and da. She drew the air up through her nose as if inhaling a scent. Oh, didn’t they look lovely? Anybody would know that her ma was a bride although she wasn’t dressed in white but just in a costume. It was the…lovely look on her face that told you. And there was her da, dressed as a soldier. Oh, better than a soldier…an airman. And he wasn’t just like any airman, for he had two stripes on his arm. He’d been a grand man in the Air Force, had her da. He had told her about the marshal, the one that sent the aeroplanes up. He had thought the world of her da, and he wouldn’t think about lifting a finger unless first asking her da about it…Oh my, yes; it was as her da said, the Air Force knew it the day he left.

  Her ma, at one time, had laughed until she cried when her da was telling her about what a grand man he was in the Air Force. But not lately, not since they came to live here. In fact, when she came to think about it, her da never looked at the album at all now.

  Suddenly her interest in the pictures waned; she found she didn’t want to look at herself and their Michael in the various stages of undress. She looked up from the book and around the room. Its only articles of furniture were the bed, the trunk and a white-painted wardrobe. The floor had no covering except a clippy rug, but the boards were stained and polished and would have looked fine, she thought, had there not been so many wide gaps that let both draught and dust up through them.

  Slowly she closed the book and wriggled back off the bed; and lifting the album, she returned it to the trunk. And not until she had closed the lid did she realise that it was the very first time she had put it away without being told…always her mother had to tell her again and again before she could be induced to close it. A pain not unlike a toothache came into her chest, and she stepped to the window and stood looking down into the street. Some of her friends were playing tiggy in the middle of the road, while others on the pav
ement opposite were endeavouring to walk on tin cans which they held tight to the soles of their shoes by pulling on string reins. The hurt feeling was pressing on her so heavily that it took away the wish that she might join them.

  Her mind became a confused jumble of desires. They swirled around in her head and became tangled, as always, about the mainspring of her life; if only her ma and da laughed together like they used to; if only their Michael didn’t make her wild by saying the things he did about her da; if only there were no weekends in the week and men didn’t get paid on a Friday; and if only her granny could be wafted away to some far place, not hell, no, but some place from where she would find it impossible to come and visit her ma and talk in a quiet voice in the scullery, telling her what she should do about her da—her ma was always short with him after her granny had been.

  She leaned her head against the top of the attic window—it was just the right height for leaning against—and filled now with a pain that was almost of an adult quality, she stared unseeing through it.

  Usually she was only too well aware that the Flannagans’ window was straight below theirs on the opposite side of the street; but this evening with so much on her mind she gave no thought to it, until the curtains being jerked violently together attracted her attention. Then she straightened herself up, thinking, Eeh, I wasn’t looking in. Eeh, I wasn’t. She was about to withdraw when a too-well-known face suddenly appeared between the curtains and a tongue of remarkable length was thrust up at her. Before she could retaliate the owner of the tongue had withdrawn it, and the curtains were again closed.

  For the moment, the weight of the family worry was lifted from her, and she compressed her lips and shook her head from side to side before muttering, ‘Oh, Sarah Flannagan, you cheeky thing, you. Oh, you are! Just you wait.’

  She could see by the bunched curtains that her enemy was still behind them, so keeping to one side of the attic window she waited, and it was no time at all before the curtains were jerked apart, and Mary Ann was ready at the instant. Not only did her tongue shoot out but it wagged itself violently for a second before returning limply to its residence.

  Gasping with indignation, Mrs Flannagan threw up the window; but Mary Ann did not wait to hear what she had to say. With her fingers pressed to her lips she ran across the room, but before pulling open the door she composed herself to enter the kitchen so as not to give herself away. But she need not have troubled, for her mother and her granny were in the scullery, as her granny’s voice proclaimed.

  It came softly, but clearly audible, to her. ‘You’re a fool,’ it said.

  She stood, her ear cocked towards the scullery, and when her granny’s voice came again, her body began to tremble as if she was freezing with cold. ‘Leave him. Get a court order; he’ll have to pay. I’ll take the bairns. And if you don’t want to go back to office work there’s plenty of clean factories to pick from now. If ever there’s been a fool, it’s you. If only you’d stuck to Bob Quinton you’d be living like a lady now. Look at the building business he’s got up. And him never married. Oh, I wish the other one would fall into the Don on a dark night, I do, so help me God. And there’s never a night goes by but I pray for it. God forgive me.’

  There was a crash that brought the two women running into the kitchen, and for a moment they stood looking down at the blue cup and saucer lying in fragments on the hearth. Then they looked towards Mary Ann standing by the table, her face white and drained and her eyes stretched wide.

  Mrs McMullen was the first to speak. Forgetting for the moment all caution, she reverted to her old manner. ‘Well now, would you believe it? Anybody can see with half an eye that she threw it. Well, I ask you. And one of the good ones, an’ all.’

  ‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’ The words rose to a scream in Mary Ann’s throat. The tears rained from her eyes, blinding her. As her mother’s arms went about her she started to moan, and Lizzie, holding her tightly, cried, ‘It’s all right. It’s all right. It doesn’t matter about the cup or anything. We’ll get another. Sh!…Sh, now!’

  ‘A good smacked backside, that’s what she wants.’

  ‘Mother. Please.’ Lizzie’s voice checked the old woman. ‘Go, will you; I’ll be down on Sunday.’

  Even the feather on Mrs McMullen’s hat seemed to bristle. ‘You’re telling me to get out because of that ’un?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Don’t you see? Just this once. Go on.’

  Completely outraged, Mrs McMullen buttoned up her coat and marched to the door. But there she turned and said, ‘Very well. But I’ll expect you as usual on Sunday, mind. What’s things coming to, anyway? Ordered out!’ Her voice was cut off abruptly from them as the door banged.

  For a moment Lizzie’s eyes rested on the closed door; then lifting Mary Ann up she set her on her knee and rocked her gently, saying nothing but looking away out of the window, over the rooftops, into a narrow stretch of clear sky, unpierced by even one tall chimney or crane or mast.

  Was it wrong to wish to die? Was it wrong to wish from the bottom of her heart that she had never set eyes on Mike Shaughnessy? How much longer could she go on?…All her life, she supposed, until she was an old woman, inured to it all like Mrs Lavey down below…hope dead, love and respect burnt out. What more could she do? Only pray for something to happen. She shook her head. Pray? She was always praying, until now it had become only a form of talking to herself. Sometimes she thought her appeals never left her head—there was no force left in her to push them out. Her belief in the goodness of God was going, if not already gone. To believe in God’s inevitable pattern for good you had to be made like Mary Ann and swear black was white, or be a saint. She was long past the Mary Ann stage, and she wasn’t made of the stuff of saints. She wanted to lead a decent life and to have Mike the way he used to be. She wouldn’t grow into a Mrs Lavey; she’d leave him.

  She almost sprang to her feet, forgetting that she held the child.

  The jerk caused Mary Ann to slip to the floor, and she stood dazed, and asked, ‘Is he coming? Is it me da?’

  ‘No,’ said Lizzie, getting up; ‘you slipped.’

  ‘Ma.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Me granny…’

  ‘Now’—Lizzie smoothed the tumbled hair back from Mary Ann’s forehead—‘forget what you heard your granny say.’

  ‘But she said…’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what she said. Everything’s going to be all right.’

  ‘Honest?’

  Lizzie pressed her teeth into her lip and her head moved slightly. ‘Honest,’ she said.

  Mary Ann sniffed and turned away. ‘Will I start getting the water up?’

  ‘No. Wait until Michael comes in,’ said Lizzie.

  ‘But he won’t be in until six. Didn’t he say that Mr Wilson wanted him for two hours the night?’

  ‘Yes, I know. But it can wait until he comes in. You can go out and play for a little while.’

  ‘I don’t want to go.’

  Lizzie looked down on her daughter, and she thought, Oh, let her want to go out to play. Don’t let her start to reason and feel yet. But hadn’t she always reasoned and felt, especially where he was concerned? If things came to a pitch, it would be her that would be the stumbling block. If she were deprived of him she would die. She said, ‘Do you want the album again?’

  ‘No.’ Mary Ann shook her head. And as Lizzie stared at her the sound of footsteps on the stairs caused them both to turn and face the door, but almost instantly they recognised the steps weren’t his.

  There came a knock on the door, and when Lizzie opened it there stood Mrs Flannagan dressed for the street; and besides wearing her best things she was using her best voice, the one that Mike Shaughnessy called her refeened twang.

  ‘Mrs Shaughnessy, I must have a word with you. I’m sorry to trouble you as you’ve plenty on your plate, God knows, but I really must make a stand. It’s getting that way that a body can’t look out of her window.’

  �
�What has she done now?’ Lizzie Shaughnessy’s voice was flat.

  ‘Stuck her tongue out at me. A yard long it was. I was just pulling back me curtains before I went out. I was just off to the confraternity…I’ll let the sun in, I thought, to warm up the room. It’s a pity you don’t get it across this way in the evening; it’d make all the difference. But there I was at the window, and she came and with real intent and purpose she leant forward and stuck her tongue out at me. I was so taken aback, Mrs Shaughnessy, I was really. It was uncalled for.’

  ‘Did you?’ Lizzie looked over her shoulder to where Mary Ann was standing behind her.

  ‘Not at her, Ma. At Sarah. She had stuck her tongue out at me and dived behind the curtains; and I was waiting for her.’

  ‘Now, now, now, Mary Ann.’ Mrs Flannagan looked and sounded distinctly shocked. ‘My Sarah was nowhere in the room, when I went to the window. You must not preevaritate.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Mary Ann from behind her mother. ‘She was. I saw her through the curtains.’

  ‘Well!…That child!’ To Mrs Flannagan’s feelings was added indignation. ‘It’s one thing to weave tales as I know you do, but it’s another thing to tell downright lies. I’ll say no more, Mrs Shaughnessy. But I thought I’d come and tell you…one must make a stand. And I’m not a person to cause trouble, especially to those who are heavily burdened already.’

  Mary Ann saw her mother’s shoulders lift and heard her voice take on that note that made her different. ‘You came to tell me about Mary Ann putting her tongue out. You have told me, Mrs Flannagan. I shall chastise Mary Ann. Is there anything more you want to say to me?’

  There followed a short silence while the two women regarded each other. Then the older woman burst out, ‘Don’t come your hoity-toity with me, Mrs Shaughnessy; it won’t wash. I pity you, I do, but I’ll only stand so much.’