A Grand Man

by Catherine Cookson

  All their eyes were on the door when it burst open, and Mike Shaughnessy came into the room, red of face and laughing…and sober.

  ‘Da, oh Da.’ She was hanging on to his arm, jumping up and down like a jack-in-the-box, and he said, ‘Here, here. Hold on. Stop it. Look, you’ll have old Miss Harper’s ceiling down.’

  He looked from her to Lizzie. ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ he said.

  Lizzie stared at him, her face a mixture of relief and astonishment.

  ‘You’ll never guess what happened.’ He moved toward her, and her head moved slightly.

  ‘I got an accumulator up.’

  ‘An accumulator?’ Only her lips showed that she was repeating the word.

  ‘I took a chance and backed Bird’s Eye. It was a rank outsider in the two-thirty. I put ten shillings on. Yes I know. I know.’ He quelled the protest in her eyes. ‘But it came off. It was ten to one and the lot went on to Fancy Fair, and, God alive, that came up and then every penny was on Raindrop. It was the favourite and only two to one. If it had been anything of a price…Liz, don’t cry. Aw, I knew what you’d be thinking, but I wanted to come home with the money, and I had to wait until the Anchor opened and Reg Brown paid out—I was afraid he might skedaddle with that lot—but I didn’t even…’ He paused, and suddenly Liz sat down and dropped her face into her hand.

  ‘Ma, don’t.’ Michael was on one side of her and Mary Ann on the other and Mike in front, and Michael repeated again, ‘Oh Ma, don’t.’

  Mike said nothing, but drew her hands from her face and, taking a wad of notes from his pocket, he closed her fingers about them.

  The tears dropping on their joined hands, she looked down on the notes.

  ‘There’s over thirty there. I’ve kept three, and no-one’s going to stop me from spending them.’ He took hold of her chin, lifting her face up to him. ‘We’re all going to Newcastle.’

  Lizzie could only blink and say, ‘It’s too late.’

  ‘It’s not too late.’

  ‘You haven’t had your tea.’

  ‘All I want is a wash.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Ma, Ma, come on.’ Mary Ann pulled at her mother’s arm, and even Michael added to her entreaty and said, ‘Let’s go, Ma.’

  ‘Where’s that water?’ Mike swung round and Mary Ann dashed to the fire and lifted the kettle from the hob and had the water in a dish by the time her da had stripped himself to the waist. She watched him lather his hair, and when he gave a particular grunt she lifted an enamel jug of cold water, and as she poured it over his head, turning his thick hair into spirals of rust-coloured ringlets, her thoughts too flowed with it like benediction, bathing him with her admiration and love.

  Chapter Four: The Blindness of Father Owen

  Why was it, Mary Ann wondered, that happiness lasted for only short periods whereas unhappiness seemed to go on forever? Or was it, she pondered, that unhappiness was made of stronger stuff than happiness? It must be something like that, for she could recall vividly the numerous times she had been unhappy, yet when she tried to recall the happy times the memories were weak and elusive, like the vapour that floated over the river; she couldn’t pin them down. Even that wonderful weekend when her da had won all that money and had taken them to Newcastle, that seemed now like something she had seen at the pictures, it wasn’t real; yet it had happened only four weeks ago.

  The weekend following it had promised to be the same, too, but her granny had stepped in and spoilt it. Oh, how she hated her granny. Why hadn’t she said ‘Milk bottles!’ to stop her? But it would have been no use saying ‘Milk bottles’ or trying any other means of stopping her granny that time. It had all happened on a Sunday. Her ma had taken her and Michael down to their granny’s in the afternoon because their da was at work, and Mr Quinton was there, and her granny had a fancy tea all set out in the front room. And then Michael had made them all laugh, except, of course, her granny, by saying for his Grace ‘Oh Lord, make us able to eat all that’s on the table.’ She could remember being amazed at their Michael making anyone laugh; but since their da had been working overtime and hadn’t been—sick, Michael had been different, even to their da. And all this had made their ma look really like a girl again, especially with the new dress and coat her da had bought her for her birthday. She herself hadn’t been able to buy that frock she had set her heart on for her ma, although she had looked out for courting couples until she was tired. She had even got a clip on the ear off one girl who was having a row with her lad up a back lane off Ferry Street. It had been no use trying to explain she was only listening so as to be able to help.

  But it didn’t matter now, nothing seemed to matter any more since that Sunday night. She had become deader and deader inside since then. If she could feel mad, or scream or cry, it would be better than this feeling that made her want to die. She had actually been praying to the Holy Family for them to make her die this last week, and all through her granny.

  The scene, like all unhappy things, was held fast in her mind and she couldn’t get rid of it. She had only to shut her eyes to see it all as plain as plain. They were having their tea and her ma was laughing at something funny Mr Quinton had said, when her da walked in. For a moment he had looked terrifying as he glared down on Mr Quinton, then he had laughed and said something to her granny about when she was making plans she should always be prepared for setbacks. Mr Quinton had got up from the table and stared back at her da, but he hadn’t spoken to him. Then he said goodbye to her granny and her ma and he had called her ma Elizabeth, and when he had gone her da had said, ‘And now-E-liz-a-beth, with your mother’s permission, we will go home. It seems a great pity I was finished early, I spoilt the party. And your mother must have gone to great pains to organise it.’ Then he had suddenly dropped his quiet voice and, turning on her granny, had cried, ‘You old devil, you!’

  After that she couldn’t really remember what was said, except the feeling of terror her granny’s admission had brought to her, for her granny had said she would go on planning until she had her daughter away from him. She could recall the terrifying stillness of the room and then her da saying, ‘But what about a divorce? There’s no divorce for a Catholic, is there? If your plan worked out you’d be making her live in sin, wouldn’t you? You old hypocrite.’

  On this her ma had got them all out of the house and they come back to Jarrow, and no-one spoke at all on the way until they got home; and then her da wouldn’t believe that her ma didn’t know Mr Quinton was going to be at her granny’s, and they fought in the bedroom, a different kind of fighting, talking low and quiet and bitterly. And at intervals during the following week they had talked like that. But still her da hadn’t been sick until last Saturday, and even then he hadn’t meant to be, for he had come in at half past five after doing overtime, and it was then her ma had told him she’d had the offer of a house, one of the newer ones, up Primrose Way. At first he had been pleased, and then he had begun to question her, and in a sudden burst of temper her ma had admitted it was through Mr Quinton’s influence that the offer had been made. Her da had gone out then and got sick, not blind sick but just sick enough to talk and talk and talk; and twice during the week he had gone and got sick like that again; and last night as she held the towel for him he asked her quite suddenly ‘Do you like Mr Quinton?’ and she had lied promptly, saying, ‘No, no, I hate him.’ And as he dried himself he had said flatly, ‘You can’t lie to me—you like him because he’s smart and has a fine big car and he never swears.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘And what’s more, he doesn’t get—sick—does he?’

  She had fallen against him and clung to his leg and he had said something to himself that made her shiver. ‘Life’s hell,’ he had said. He had loosened her hands from him and walked away. There seemed to be a deadness about him—he didn’t bounce or rush or laugh any more—and the deadness was on her too, and she wished that she was really dead—dead as dead and in purgatory, and
so taken up with going through it for her sins that she wouldn’t have time to feel like this.

  ‘If I have to speak to you again, Mary Ann Shaughnessy, you’ll know about it. Are you going to confession?’

  ‘Yes, oh yes, Miss Johnson.’ Mary Ann dragged herself up out of her misery and from her desk.

  ‘Then stop dreaming…Now you’ll all walk three abreast, and if there’s any carry-on in the street like there was last Thursday you’ll all be for it in the morning. Grace Smith, stop that pushing there…All those going to Father Beaney at the front and those for Father Owen at the back here.’

  Mary Ann joined the latter group. Not only did she not scramble for the front place but she took the inner side of the last three in the ranks which ensured her the unenviable position of being the last to go into confession, but that was what she wanted, for when she was last she could talk to her heart’s content and the priest wouldn’t hurry her on. Once she had told Father Owen all that was on her mind she knew that she would get some relief from this feeling. She had seen him a number of times during the past week but of course she couldn’t tell him her trouble in any other place but the confessional box, for she didn’t want him to know it was she who was troubled, or what she was troubled by, and in the confessional box he wouldn’t know it was her, for as everybody knew God struck priests blind once they entered their part of the box so that they wouldn’t know who was talking. They might peer through the grid but they couldn’t see a styme. That’s why you could tell them everything that was in your heart and not be afraid they’d split on you.

  As the crocodile swung out of the school yard it touched on a group of the bigger girls. They, too, were on their way to confession, but, because of their years, free and unhampered, and among them and near to Mary Ann’s side of the ranks was Sarah Flannagan.

  After mimicking the marching by striding along the gutter swinging her arms, Sarah addressed herself to Mary Ann’s averted face and hissed, ‘Convict!’ whereupon Mary Ann, without turning her head but mouthing each syllable widely, said, ‘Cas-i-bi-anca, flannel face!’

  This retort had the effect of infuriating Sarah and with her fist she pushed Mary Ann in the back and knocked her flying into the girl in front, who, in turn fell onto the girl in front of her. The result was four children lying on the pavement and Miss Johnson standing over them, saying, ‘Who did this?’

  There was a chorus of ‘Mary Ann Shaughnessy, miss.’

  ‘It wasn’t!’ Mary Ann denied emphatically. ‘It was Sarah Flannagan.’

  But since there was neither sight nor sound of Sarah Flannagan Miss Johnson said, ‘You come to me tomorrow morning,’ which added bitterness to Mary Ann’s collection of negative feelings and a new resentment against so-called justice.

  In church she found it impossible to make her preparation for confession—she could only keep thinking that she wished she were dead. With one thing and another, she was fed-up and tired of it all. If only it was possible to die quickly like that. She snapped her finger and thumb against her bent forehead. If something could happen and she could be struck dead. Laurie Carter had said her mother knew a man who had been struck dead because he swore at a priest…She lifted her eyes over the back rest and looked across the church to where the Holy Family were enthroned in deep shadow. If she was struck dead she’d likely go straight to them. For the moment she had forgotten the required passage through purgatory. Suppose she swore at Father Owen. Eeh, what had put that into her head? Fancy thinking about swearing at Father Owen! But if it would make her die…No, not Father Owen. Well, which other priest did she know but Father Beaney? And she wouldn’t have the courage to go up to Father Beaney and swear at him. She stared through the dimness towards the altar, and presently she thought, ‘If I’m going to do it, Father Owen will be the best.’ Suppose, as she was kneeling in the box, she did just a little swear at him. Perhaps that would do, and when she died he’d know she hadn’t meant it. But what should she swear? Should she say damn? No, that wasn’t quite big enough. Bloody? Eeh, no, that was too awful! She might be sent to Hell forever for that.

  The last penitent came stumbling out of the box, and rising from her knees, she sent up a quick prayer to the Holy Family in an appeal to be provided with the swear words necessary to cause her demise. She groped her way into the dark confessional and knelt down below the grid and began in her customary way, ‘Pray Father give me thy blessing for I have sinned. It is a week since my last confession.’

  ‘Yes. Go on.’ The priest’s voice seemed to come from a great distance and did not for the moment seem to be the soothing voice of Father Owen but of a priest who already knew all her sins and the blackness of her heart, so, quickly, she gathered her wits together and presented them to him, ‘Please, Father, I have given way to the sin of hate.’

  ‘Who do you hate?’

  ‘Me granny.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, she’s always saying nasty things about me da and she wants me ma to leave him and she’s got another man all ready for her. The man’s nice enough but he’s not me da.’

  There was a movement of the priest’s feet, and he said, ‘Your mother—what does she say about all this.’

  ‘Nothing, Father—at least they fight a bit. She gets sick to the heart because he goes and gets a skinful. I mean he gets drunk.’

  There, she had said the word. It was only in here in the fast secretness of this box with this blind priest that she could utter that word.

  ‘When was he last drunk?’

  ‘He had a few last night, Father.’

  ‘Go on with your confession.’

  ‘I’ve kicked our—’ She stopped herself saying the word Michael, he might recognise her through that name; so said, ‘Me brother. And I’ve torn up the scraps of paper he writes on, and made him wild by calling him Ginger. And I’ve missed my morning prayers because I got up late, and I’ve looked over Cissy Tollard’s shoulder into her exercise book.’

  ‘Yes; go on.’

  She was raking round in her mind for her other great sins when it came back to her that not a few minutes ago she had committed the worst sin of all by deciding to swear at him.

  ‘Go on, my child.’

  But she couldn’t go on. And after waiting a while he said, ‘Come on, my child, finish your confession.’

  ‘I wanted…’

  ‘Yes?’ he encouraged.

  ‘In the church, a minute back, I made up my mind to swear at you, Father.’

  ‘You what?’

  Two white bulbs came close to the grid and looked down on Mary Ann, but she looked fearlessly back into them knowing that the eyes were sightless. After a while they were withdrawn and the priest said, ‘And why did you want to swear at me?’

  ‘’Cause I wanted to die.’

  ‘Because you wanted to die?’ There was utter bewilderment in his tone.

  ‘Yes, I heard tell that if you swore at a priest you’d be struck down dead.’

  Father Owen gave two short coughs, then he blew his nose before saying, ‘And why, may I ask, do you want to die?’

  ‘I told you, Father, it’s about me da. I’m miserable and I never want me dinner and I don’t care if I can go out to play or not. I even thought if I could find some poison I’d take it and when I was dead me da might be sorry and not get drunk again.’

  ‘Poison?’ The priest’s voice was crisp now. ‘Poison’s no use, I’ve tried it.’

  ‘You have, Father?’ She was brought clean out of her own trouble with surprise and she stretched up to see better into the dimness beyond the grid.

  ‘Yes, it only gives you the gripes in your inside and you’re no better off.’

  ‘Oh—’ The thought of gripes in her inside turned her forever from the thought of poison, but she went on, warming up to the situation, ‘Last night I was so miserable, Father, and me ma wouldn’t let me go out and look for me da and I thought if I could get out I’d a good mind to throw meself under the bus where it r
ounds the Ben Lomond in Ellison Street.’

  ‘Under a bus? Oh, that’s a worse idea altogether.’

  ‘Is it, Father?’

  ‘I’d say it is. What happens when you throw yourself under a bus? It chops off either your arms or your legs and you live on, and it’s not a very pleasant state having no arms or legs, is it?’

  ‘No, Father.’

  ‘Well, forget about the bus, and pray to the…Who do you usually pray to?’

  ‘To the Holy Family, Father.’

  ‘Oh, the Holy Family…well, you couldn’t pray to a better Family, and you pray to them tonight and ask them for something nice to happen to you. What would you like to happen?’

  ‘Oh, Father. For me da…’

  ‘Oh’—he cut her short—‘leave your da to God. Now isn’t there something you want to happen to yourself?’

  ‘Well, I wanted to get into the procession, Father.’

  ‘And you’re not in it?’

  ‘No, Father, and all of them have been picked.’

  ‘Yes…Ah well, you go on praying to the Holy Family and you can be assured they’ll make something nice happen to you.’

  ‘They will, Father?’

  ‘They will that. They never fail. Now for your penance say the first joyful Mystery of the Rosary, and make your act of contrition.’

  ‘O my God, I am very sorry I have sinned against Thee because Thou art so good, and by the help of Thy Holy Grace I will never sin again.’

  ‘Goodnight and God bless you.’

  ‘Goodnight, Father.’

  Out of the confessional box, Mary Ann decided it would not be wise to stay in a now empty church to say her penance, for the priest, once out of the box and his sight back, would know it was her he had been talking to. And he’d remember about the drink and connect it with her da.

  On the way home she wondered what nice thing the Holy Family would make happen to her; but this only played on the fringe of her thoughts, for deep in the permanency of her mind she knew there was only one thing that really mattered, one thing that would make her happy, and that was the happiness of her ma and da.