A Grand Man

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Oh-h.’

  The car moved on again, and Mary Ann, her eyes starting from her head with the force of her feelings volunteered the information, ‘She’s the one as I told you of. When I’ve been telling girls about our car and horses she’s always spoilt it…she never believes it.’

  ‘Dear, dear, doesn’t she?’ said Mr Lord.

  ‘No. But I was only making on, you know. But still, she should have believed it, shouldn’t she?’

  ‘Of course. Of course.’

  ‘Well, now she’ll see. She’ll get the shock of her life. It wouldn’t be any use me telling her on Monday that I’d been for a ride with you in a car. She’d say I was loopy and wanted me head looking.’

  ‘She would indeed.’ Mr Lord brought the car to a slow stop just where the group of girls stood on the pavement and, leaning across Mary Ann, he opened the door. With a grateful sidelong smile at him she edged herself off the seat, gave a little jump and landed on the pavement, face to face with Sarah Flannagan.

  That Sarah was surprised is an understatement. She goggled, her mouth as it fell open looking out of all proportion to her face. Mary Ann gazed up at her, long and steadily, before allowing her shining eyes to flicker over the rest of the group, two of whom had been listeners to the…big house, cars and horses tale, which Sarah Flannagan had shattered that particular night in the school yard. Now Mary Ann, addressing herself solely and pointedly to Sarah, said, ‘I’ve been for a ride and I’ve had me breakfast in a great big house. Like a palace it is. And we’re going to move into a fine grand cottage with a great lump of garden, and me da’s going to be somebody and me ma’ll have nice clothes.’

  To give Sarah her due she did try to speak. Her lips formed the usual phrase, but soundlessly, and they only got as far as ‘Oh you great big…’ for her eyes lifted to the old man in the car. She knew who he was, everybody in Jarrow knew who he was, and Mary Ann Shaughnessy had just stepped out of his car.

  Mr Lord watched the little play, and groping back and clutching at a faint spark of devilment from his youth, suddenly brought all eyes towards himself, including Mary Ann’s, when he said with slow pomp and using her name for the first time, ‘Where did you say you wanted to go for a ride tomorrow, Mary Ann?’

  A message that could only be read by Mary Ann came from his eyes, and she answered it with one that was touched with love. She moved towards the car window, ‘Oh, Whitley Bay.’

  ‘Whitley Bay it is then. And what time will I come?’

  ‘Come for me, in the car?’

  The proposal was filled with such phantasy that even she didn’t for the moment believe it as true.

  ‘Of course.’ Mr Lord’s voice had a touch of the old asperity about it, and this itself conveyed to all present the serious and truthful intent of his purpose.

  ‘Oh.’ On a surge of rising joy came an inspiration to Mary Ann, and after casting a glance about her at the amazed faces she swallowed hard and said, ‘Would you call for me then after Mass, the ten o’clock, at the church door?’

  The meeting place obviously was a surprise to Mr Lord, and his brows contracted for a moment as he repeated, ‘The church door?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was evident that the church door did not meet with Mr Lord’s approval. The sound that came from him was akin to a groan, and Mary Ann, looking apprehensively, said in a small voice, ‘Well, can you?’

  He moved back in his seat pulling the car door closed as he did so. His expression looked to Mary Ann very like the one he was wearing before he’d had his breakfast.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said softly.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Mr Lord.

  Suddenly she knew she couldn’t let him go like this. Reaching up, she peered over the lowered glass of the window and whispered, ‘Are you vexed?’

  For a moment he looked at her; then his eyes crinkled into a smile and his hand came out to her cheek, ‘I’ll be there.’

  Until the car had passed from sight around the corner of the street Mary Ann did not move, and when she did it was to walk away with her chin in the air and without even a glance at or word to Sarah Flannagan and the girls. The ground was still shaking under her feet; she fully realised it had been touch and go about the church door; also that its accomplishment was a glory that wouldn’t come her way twice. Tomorrow morning when all the school was coming out of the church there would be the car to meet her. Sarah Flannagan and all the lot of them, even the teachers would see her. The emotion was partly agony.

  She had reached the corner of the street before she realised that not a solitary jeer had followed her, not even the usual jibe of ‘Mary Ann, frying pan!’ She turned round, and there they were where she had left them, standing like dummies. Unable to resist a parting shot she turned her back, lifted up her short skirt, and thrust her bottom out at them.

  The voice of Fanny McBride rang up the staircase with the force of a sergeant major on the barrack square. She was holding on to the bottom banister with both hands as she cried once again, ‘Mike! Mike! You, Lizzie—she’s here, walking down the street as large as life.’

  She had scarcely finished before Mike was descending the last flight of stairs towards her.

  ‘Look for yourself.’ She followed him to the door and called out over her shoulder, ‘What did I tell you, Liz? I knew she would turn up. She’s not the kind to go and tip herself in the river…not Mary Ann.’

  Mary Ann walked up the steps towards her parents. Her eyes darted from one to the other. She spared no glance for Mrs McBride or Miss Harper, or the Laveys who were now crowding the hallway, but the suppressed excitement about her made itself felt, and she asked in an airy tone, ‘What’s the matter, Ma?’

  ‘Listen to her. What’s the matter, Ma?’ Fanny’s laugh vibrated round the hall. ‘Only half the town looking for you, pollismen an’ all.’

  Mike and Lizzie both stood staring down on her as if they were finding it hard to believe the evidence of their eyes, and it was Mike who eventually spoke. ‘Where’ve you been?’ he asked.

  Mary Ann did not at first reply, but looked up at her father. His voice was harsh and his face was harsh and he wasn’t like her da at all. His face looked even worse than it had done last night, and his manner had the power to crush her gaiety and she replied meekly, ‘In the country.’

  ‘In the country…well, I’ll be damned!’ Fanny slapped her thigh, and Lizzie, saying nothing, reached out and, taking Mary Ann’s hand, led her through the little press and up the stairs.

  Once in the room and the door closed, Lizzie suddenly sat down. It was as if her legs had been whipped from under her. She put her hand for a moment to her brow and covered her eyes, then softly she asked, ‘Where’ve you been? I want the truth, mind.’

  ‘In the country, Ma.’

  ‘Why did you go out like that…so early?’

  Mary Ann looked from her mother to where Mike was standing glaring down at her, and she found she couldn’t say. There wasn’t very much time left, so she substituted, ‘I wanted to get back soon but we went for a ride in the car.’

  The room became so still that Mary Ann scraped her foot on the lino in order to make some familiar sound.

  ‘Whose car? Who have you been with? Now no lies.’ The tone of her father’s voice wiped the remaining joy from the morning. It was if she had done something wrong…and him saying ‘no lies’. As if she told lies for herself—she told lies only to make things come right for him. Her lips trembled and her head drooped and she muttered ‘Mr Lord’s.’

  ‘Mr Whose?’

  ‘Lord’s…him who has the farm.’

  Slowly Mike came to her. ‘You went to Mr Lord’s? What for?’

  ‘To tell him…to tell him…’ Now she was sniffling and Lizzie said, ‘Sh! There now. Just tell us what happened and you won’t get wrong.’

  ‘I went to tell him what a…a grand man you were with…with horses and cows and things.’

  For a brief moment Mike’s eyes held Lizzie
’s; then he turned slowly towards the fire, and Lizzie, gathering the child to her, said, ‘Tell me what happened. How did you get into Mr Lord’s place?’

  ‘I got through the barbed wire, and the old man let me in, and Mr Lord give me half his breakfast. Then we went to see the cottage.’ She lifted her head from her mother’s breast and still sniffing continued, ‘Oh it’s a lovely cottage, Ma; he’s given us the best one.’

  As Mike swung round exclaiming, ‘What did you say?’ Lizzie pressed Mary Ann away from her, and holding her at arm’s length demanded, ‘What are you talking about, child?’

  ‘The cottage that goes with the farm, Ma. He gave me a letter—here—’ she pulled the letter from her pocket and, turning, handed it to Mike who took it and opened it without taking his eyes from her. When he did begin to read both Lizzie and Mary Ann watched him. Then he slowly lifted his head and silently contemplated Mary Ann. His head shaking with a slight bewildered movement, he handed the letter to Lizzie and went into the room, walking, Mary Ann thought to herself, as if he’d already had a few.

  After a moment Lizzie’s hands dropped into her lap and she too stared at Mary Ann in a bewildered fashion; then without any warning she began to cry, not a quiet easy crying, but a crying that was tinged with laughter and touched on hysteria. It brought Mike back to the kitchen and after only a moment’s hesitation, during which his face worked convulsively, he went to her and gathered her into his arms and smothered her wild cries against his breast.

  Mary Ann stood apart, watching. The emotions that were coursing through her were too tangled and complex for her to experience any one of them consciously; she could not put a name to the feeling of deflation their combined force created; she could not even think that her da holding her ma in his arms again portended nothing but good. One thing only was evident to her, everything had turned out quite differently from what she had imagined. Her news hadn’t been greeted with open arms; she hadn’t been hugged and kissed and told what a clever girl she was; instead, she had been accused of lying. Why, when she came to think of it, the only one who believed her was the Lord himself. He thought she was a clever girl; he had told her so when he put the letter into her hand. And because he realised she was a clever girl she had given him her entire confidence—she had related graphically just how Sarah Flannagan had banged her head against the wall because of what happened on Coronation Day, and he had laughed and laughed. She had even told him about how she went in the black dark for Mrs McBride the night their Michael put his head in the gas oven. The more she told him the more he laughed and she knew he believed everything she said.

  She had decided much earlier in the morning that she liked Mr Lord. She had even decided to take him under her wing, for all he needed was a good laugh and his house tidying up and he’d be all right.

  She watched her da lead her ma into the bedroom, and when the door closed on them she felt indeed alone. She stood irresolute for a moment; then with a flop she sat on a chair and was preparing herself to feel very misused when the outer door burst open and Michael appeared. He gave no welcome cry at the sight of her but in his brotherly fashion advanced towards her demanding, ‘Where do you think you’ve been?’

  She did not answer but looked up at him with a sidelong glance fully calculated to aggravate his already harassed feelings.

  ‘Where’s me Ma and Da? The motor cops are looking for you.’ He looked around the room. ‘Where’s me Ma?’

  Still Mary Ann said no word, and her air of superiority, which at any time had the power to annoy him, infuriated him now. Without further words he stretched both hands out to grab her, but like lightning she slipped beneath them and, still without speaking, she aimed one well-cobbled toecap at his shin.

  On his cry of real pain the morning suddenly balanced itself again and her depression lifted. Life was normal, the world was full of magic, she was cleverer than their Michael even if he was going to the Grammar School; they had a cottage in the country, her ma and her da weren’t going to leave each other…and there was Mr Lord. And tomorrow morning he’d be at the church waiting for her for all the world to see.

  Michael, hopping on one leg, cried, ‘For two pins I’d…’ and she answered pertly, ‘Oh, would you? Well wait a minute and I’ll get them for you.’

  ‘Mary Ann.’ On her name being called softly from the bedroom door, she swung round and there stood her da. They looked at each other for a moment before he held out his arms to her and almost in one leap she was in them, hugging and being hugged with such intensity that even Sunday morning became blotted out.

  Now came the Elevation of the Host. Mary Ann knelt with bowed head and beat her narrow chest with clenched fist as each tinkle of the bell came from the altar and she murmured with every thump, ‘Lord be merciful to me, a sinner; Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.’ She drew a deep breath as she raised her head after the last tinkle. Ah, that was over. There wasn’t much more now. Soon John Finlay would carry the big book from one side of the altar to the other and then Father Owen would say, ‘Our Father’ and ‘Hail Mary’ and a little bit more, and then…The excitement began to tear round inside her again, almost making her feel sick. Eeh, she mustn’t be sick. She had been sick last night, but she hadn’t minded for both her ma and her da had held her head, and it wasn’t because she had eaten any sweets or anything or had had anything fancy for her tea. She had felt the sickness coming on in the afternoon while she waited for her da to come back. He had gone out all dressed up to see Mr Lord and he hadn’t returned till nearly seven o’clock, but for once her ma hadn’t looked worried. She had looked quiet and calm—she had looked like that since she had unpacked their clothes—and her da had looked quiet too. She remembered at dinner time they had all sat round a makeshift meal, and Mrs McBride had come up and had cried, ‘Lord, ye’re as quiet as a bunch of survivors from a wreck,’ and her da had said in an odd way, ‘Just as quiet, Fanny.’ And when he came back from Mr Lord’s he was still quiet and he wasn’t quite himself, but he wasn’t sick or anything. Oh no, for she knew he hadn’t touched a drop. But he seemed as if he must have her near him; and after she was sick he had even washed her himself and put her to bed. Oh, it had been a grand weekend, a lovely weekend. And it wasn’t over. Oh no, not by a long time—there was all today.

  Oh, if Father Owen would only put a move on…Eeh, what was she saying? After all the Holy Family had done for her, and…She tut-tutted to herself. Would you believe it, she had never even thanked them properly. She turned her face to the side altar and found to her surprise that as she had nothing at the moment to ask of them she was a little at a loss for words. Hesitatingly she began, ‘Dear Blessed Holy Family, thank you for all you have done for me, for getting me da a job and for the cottage.’ It all sounded so inadequate, sort of mean. She felt that something was expected of her, some present of some sort. Well, she’d light a candle the morrer—she just couldn’t spare the time this morning. The mean feeling persisted and she thought, ‘I know what…I know what’ll please them more than anything.’ She unlaced her fingers and put her hands fingertip to fingertip as she usually did when dealing with matters of import. ‘Dear Holy Family. I promise you faithfully, so help me, that I’ll never tell another lie. May I be struck down dead if I do.’ There, she felt better, and the Holy Family looked very pleased, but it still felt funny not having anything to ask them to do. She was about to turn her attention back to the main altar where John Finlay was now moving the book when she suddenly thought of her granny. Now there was something they could do to get on with. Solemnly and fluently now she beseeched them, ‘Dear Holy Family, could you do something about me granny to stop her from coming out to our cottage? Could you give her a bad leg or something? You needn’t kill her off, just stop her. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Amen.’

  She got that in just in time to give the responses with the rest of the children to the priest saying the first half of the ‘Our Father’. On the third ‘Hail Mary’ her respo
nses were loud and clear and very definite, as if she herself had some proprietary right in their saying…‘Holy Mary—Mother of God—pray for us sinners—now and at the hour of our death—Ah-men.’

  Ah…there, it was over. Father Owen had not disappeared through the vestry door before she was on her feet.

  ‘Sit down and wait until the class is out.’ A hand on her shoulder and the hissed command from Miss Johnson brought her bottom abruptly into contact with the hard seat.

  Oh, Miss Johnson! She had eyes like a gimlet. Oh dear! Bust! Now as like as not she’d keep her back till the very last.

  Which was exactly what Miss Johnson did. Row after row of children swarmed methodically into the aisle. With noisy caution they kicked against the wooden kneelers, gasped audibly as they genuflected towards the altar, and invariably scraped their feet on the heating grids.

  Mary Ann kept her eyes riveted on Miss Johnson’s back, but Miss Johnson seemed to have entirely forgotten Mary Ann’s presence. She was standing six rows away and apparently in another world.

  Oh the beast…oh she was awful. Mary Ann wriggled on her seat as if she were already on that gridiron so often prophesied by her granny. Everybody would be gone home. Perhaps even Mr Lord would think she’d gone, and he’d go away. There was no fear strong enough to keep her in her seat; she rose to her feet and, moving quietly into the aisle, genuflected and bowed her head to the altar, only to lift it to Miss Johnson’s legs which she surmised had been whipped in front of her by lightning, or the devil.

  ‘I thought I told you to wait until the church emptied?’

  You don’t argue with a teacher or Mary Ann would have said, ‘You said wait until the class had gone, which is quite a different thing from waiting until the church was empty.’

  Perhaps the swish of Father Owen’s gown had some influence on Miss Johnson’s censure, for she murmured softly, ‘Go on now; but come to me in the morning.’