Love and Mary Ann

by Catherine Cookson

  Michael would have been astonished if he had heard with what pride she reported his progress. ‘Yes, yes, Michael’s doing fine. I know all about Michael. How is Mr Lord?…Oh, but he’s away.’

  ‘No he’s not, Father, he came back yesterday. He’s all right an’ all…but he’s in a bit of a temper.’

  Father Owen’s head turned quickly again towards her as he asked, ‘With you?’

  ‘Just a little bit, Father.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Me grammar.’

  The priest’s head bobbed and he laughed now as he repeated, ‘Me grammar.’

  ‘My grammar, Father.’

  ‘That’s better. Well now, it would seem that you’re all in very good health and spirits on the farm…I forgot about Tony—how’s he?’

  ‘He’s all right, Father.’

  ‘Ah well, you’ve everything to thank God for, you’re all all right.’ The priest now turned himself completely round and, placing his palms on his knees with his elbows sticking outwards, he bent towards her and inquired softly, ‘Well now, will you tell me, Mary Ann, why the Holy Family has had the honour of a visit from you?’

  She stared back unblinking into the pale-blue eyes and she made no answer.

  There was a quirk to the priest’s lips now as he said, and still in a very soft voice, ‘Would I be right in thinking that you went to enlist their assistance again in polishing somebody off?’

  Mary Ann blinked once; it was a quick blink. All her life she had been under the impression that there was a close affinity between God and Father Owen, the only difference being that God was supposed to know everything whereas Father Owen actually did, at least concerning her.

  ‘Were you praying for your granny to die?’

  She had her head down now. ‘No, Father.’

  That was the truth, anyway; she hadn’t in those past few minutes when kneeling before the Holy Family asked them to polish off her granny. But had her granny come to mind when kneeling there the thought would have been accompanied, voluntarily or involuntarily, by the desire for her demise.

  ‘Look at me, Mary Ann.’ Father Owen’s finger came under her chin and lifted her face towards him. ‘Tell me, what’s the trouble?’

  ‘Nothing, Father.’ Her lids were blinking rapidly now and the priest stared at her for a long moment before patting her cheek and saying, ‘Ah well, come to confession Thursday night. Go along now and give my love to your mother and them all. Tell her I’ll be running in to see her one of these days soon, and I’ll want a big tea. Tell her that, mind.’

  ‘Yes, Father, I’ll tell her.’ Mary Ann smiled. ‘Goodbye, Father.’

  ‘Goodbye, my child. Thursday night, mind.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  As Mary Ann walked up the aisle she knew for an absolute certainty now that there was not even a gossamer thread between God and Father Owen. No-one but God himself would have realised that she couldn’t talk about this matter in any other place but the confessional box. For years she had poured out her secrets to Father Owen in the confessional and they were safe with him. She could come out of the box and within a few minutes look the priest in the face knowing that all she had told him had been obliterated from his mind. It was as if he labelled her sins individually and sent them post haste to their different departments in heaven, there to be dealt with expertly. And once they were gone they were forgotten…

  Always during her short life when danger had threatened Mary Ann’s loved ones she had sought the solution to her problems and solace for the hurt from three sources: the Holy Family, Father Owen and lastly Mrs McBride. The Holy Family were there to listen to her problems, Father Owen to give her advice about them, and Fanny McBride to bring an untranslatable feeling to her, untranslatable because it was a mixture of many things—easement, laughter, hope and pride. Oh yes, one main ingredient could definitely be picked out as pride, because in Fanny McBride her da had a great advocate. Fanny always made her feel proud of her da and today she wanted to feel extra proud of him, to hear that he was so wonderful that it was unthinkable even to suggest that anyone…anyone could take her ma from him. So now she did not make her way to the bus and home, but, ignoring the fact that she hadn’t told her mother she was going to Mulhattans’ Hall, and should her visit become known to Mr Lord it would make him mad, she turned in that direction and walked towards Burton Street.

  Although she hadn’t lived in Burton Street for years, Mary Ann was always instantly recaptured by the feeling of the place. Today it had the Sunday feeling, it was empty. Or almost. The front doors were closed and here and there a blind hadn’t been drawn—those were the ones who didn’t go to Mass, or chapel or church. The sight of these windows created in her a slight feeling of condemnation.

  Before she reached Mulhattans’ Hall she cast her eyes across the road in the direction of the Flannagans’ freshly painted house, and her interest at this moment in the Flannagans was almost dormant. It was over a year since Sarah and she had met, and on that occasion they had passed each other without doing battle, for the simple reason that Sarah, being accompanied by…a lad, had refused to look at Mary Ann. Mary Ann did not wish to remember at this moment that the ignoring of herself by her enemy had cut her as deep as any slight and had been as provocative as an open challenge.

  But now there was no sign of Sarah Flannagan, and this morning Burton Street was quiet. That was until she reached Mrs McBride’s window. Even before she came near it she knew that Mrs McBride was…on; and when she had walked up the steps and across the fusty hall and knocked on her door, she had to repeat the knock twice before Fanny’s strident voice yelled, ‘Come away in then!’

  ‘Hallo, Mrs McBride.’

  ‘Oh, hallo, hinny. It’s you. Come in, Mary Ann, come in. Come in and sit down. I’m just going at this one.’

  This one was no other than Corny, Mrs McBride’s grandson and the only one of her many grandchildren for whom she had a strong liking. Corny was a tall boy of fifteen, a gangling, loose-limbed lad, with a face out of kindness one would call plain. It had one good feature: the shape of his mouth. Detached from its particular fixture Corny’s mouth could have been termed beautiful, but in its present position its assets were outweighed by the other accompanying features. Again that was, until he smiled, or was deeply amused by something, and then his eyes, looking through his almost closed lids, held an infectious merriment that made the onlooker wonder about this gamin plainness. But at the present moment the plainness was very much in evidence, as was the look of frustration and irritation.

  ‘Hallo, Corny.’ Mary Ann was pleased to see Corny.

  ‘Hallo.’ His voice was rough.

  ‘Aw, you wouldn’t open your mouth to him, Mary Ann, if you knew what he was up to. He makes me wild, he does.’ Fanny was covering the distance between the oven and the table, and after banging onto the table a blackened meat dish holding a more than well done point-end of brisket, she cried, ‘Look at that! Almost gone to a cinder, that’s him.’ She looked at Mary Ann while indicating her grandson with her thumb over her shoulder. ‘You’ll never guess what he’s up to now, not in a month of Sundays you won’t.’

  ‘Aw, Gran.’

  ‘Now shut your mouth, you; you’ve said enough already you have!’

  Her fat body had turned swiftly towards her grandson, and now, turning as swiftly back again towards Mary Ann, she said, ‘You know the trouble, lass, I’ve had with one and another, now don’t you?’ She did not wait for Mary Ann’s reply but went on, ‘It’s all past so they say, all over and done with, but when my Jack married a Hallelujah, hell broke loose, and now, God in Heaven, you wouldn’t credit it, not two in me own family, but this one here’s goin’ the same road.’ Again she thumbed her grandson, and Corny broke in, ‘Aw Gran, divint be daft. Aa’m not gannin the same road, it isn’t the Salvation Army.’

  ‘It’s not a kick in the backside off it.’ Fanny was now standing face to face addressing her grandson, and she brandish
ed a long, black, double-pronged meat fork in her hand as she did so. ‘What’s the Church Army or Boys’ Brigade, or somethin’, but a first cousin to them?’

  ‘But, Gran, Aa’m not joinin’ them.’

  ‘No, not yet, but wait a week or so an’ be God they’ll have you in, as soon as you learn to blow that blasted cornet to their satisfaction. Then they’ll have you in. Do you think they’re goin’ to learn you to play the thing as you said for nowt. Oh no, not if I know them Willies. If you had told me he was goin’ to charge you a bob a lesson, then I would have thought nowt of it, but a bandmaster in the Boys’ Brigade goin’ to do something for nowt…Oh, away.’ She flapped her hand at him, and he protested vehemently.

  ‘Mr Bradley’s a nice man, he is, Gran. He doesn’t want nowt off me, he just said Aa’d it in me to be a good player, if Aa’d some lessons. An’ Aa only told you ’cos I thought you’d be pleased…’

  ‘Pleased—of course I’m pleased. You’ve made me Sunday.’ Thrusting her arm right out, she pointed a podgy finger at him and, wagging it in front of his nose, she stated her ultimatum, ‘I’m so damned pleased I’ll tell you this. You go to that fella for lessons an’ you don’t come back here. And mind I’m tellin’ you, you don’t put your nose in this door. Now that’s finished…ended, that’s enough.’ Fanny emphasised the end by showing her grandson the palms of her hands with her fingers spread wide, and he looked through them up into her face but said nothing. He just put his lips firmly together and moved his head from side to side and said nothing.

  And now Fanny turned to Mary Ann and cried, ‘Well now, sit down, me dear, and let’s hear your crack. How’s everybody up yonder?’

  ‘Oh fine, Mrs McBride.’

  ‘Mike?’

  ‘Oh, me da’s grand.’ And then Mary Ann added, ‘I didn’t tell me ma I was coming or else she would have sent you something, Mrs McBride.’

  ‘Oh, yer ma brought me a pile of stuff in last Wednesday, eggs, butter, the lot, and a chicken the week afore. Your ma keeps me supplied…Lizzie’s a good friend.’

  Mary Ann looked at Mrs McBride and her mouth dropped open to repeat, ‘Me ma here last Wednesday?’ Her ma hadn’t said she came to Mrs McBride’s every week. A soft understanding smile spread over Mary Ann’s face. Her ma didn’t want her to come too often to Mrs McBride in case it upset Mr Lord, but she was seeing to it that Mrs McBride didn’t go short of titbits. Her ma was nice; oh, her ma was nice.

  ‘Will you have a bit dip and bread? Look, it’s nice fat.’ Fanny indicated the grease in which the brisket was swimming, and Mary Ann, looking towards the fat, felt her stomach give a little heave. But she managed to smile as she said, ‘No, thank you, Mrs McBride; it would put me off me dinner and then me ma will go for me.’

  ‘Aye, perhaps you’re right. What about you?’ Her countenance was disgruntled as she addressed her grandson, and the substance of Corny’s answer was the same as Mary Ann’s. ‘Aa’m not hungry,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a change; something’s going to happen. My God, you not hungry…world catastrophe imminent.’

  On this statement they all, after a second’s hesitation, simultaneously burst out laughing, and Fanny sat down, crying, ‘Oh, I’m not the woman I was. I can’t laugh as long or as loud. I have no puff now.’

  Mrs McBride had been very ill; they had thought she was going to die. But Mary Ann couldn’t see her friend dying. Mrs McBride was Mrs McBride and would go on forever.

  Mary Ann regaled her now with her own particular news of the farm and listened yet once again to Mrs McBride telling her she had always known that Mike had it in him to be a grand farmer. The conversation was most satisfying, and when half an hour later she went to take her leave she was not displeased that Corny, who had been mute since his battle with his granny, now made it evident, and without words, that he, too, was about to take his leave. And this called forth comment from Fanny.

  ‘You not stayin’ for your dinner?’

  ‘No, Gran; me ma wants me across home.’

  ‘You didn’t say that afore.’

  ‘Ya didn’t give me a chance, Gran.’

  ‘Have you got somethin’ special?’

  ‘No, nowt that I know of.’

  ‘Well, why do you want to go skiting off?’ Whether it was an unusual thought had struck Fanny or whether she was checked by the expressive hunch of her grandson’s shoulders, she stopped her cross-questioning and, looking at Mary Ann, she smiled broadly, saying now, ‘All right, get yersels along and my love to your ma and da, hinny.’

  ‘Bye-bye, Mrs McBride.’

  ‘Bye-bye, hinny. And thanks for comin’; it does me good to see you…So long, you.’ She accompanied this last terse farewell with a dig from her thick fist in her grandson’s back, and he, bestowing on her now an affectionate grin, replied, ‘So long, Gran; be seein’ ya.’

  ‘Aye, be seein’ ya.’

  She led them out of the door and watched them walk side by side down the steps. ‘So long,’ she called again. And they answered her, ‘So long.’

  As Mary Ann walked down the street with Corny she began to experience an odd sensation. She was pleased to be with Corny…yet she was ashamed, and she was ashamed of being ashamed. It was rather confusing.

  She glanced sideways at him…up at him, for he was almost twice her height. His clothes looked funny, not a bit like the boys’ who were at Beatrice’s party. Both the ends of his trouser legs and the cuffs of his jacket seemed to be moving farther and farther from their appointed places with each step he took. She realised that he had outgrown his suit, and she felt slightly indignant that his mother hadn’t done something about it.

  He now turned and, catching her eye on him, he smiled as he said, ‘Me granny’s a tartar, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s nice.’

  ‘Aye, she’s aal reet is me granny. Aa divint knaa what Aa’d dee if Aa hadn’t her.’

  This seemed an unusual remark for Corny to make, at least Mary Ann thought so. If three weeks ago, before their first meeting for some long time, she had given a thought to Corny Boyle her mental picture would have presented her with a dirty-nosed, dirty-faced teasing lump of a lad, of whom, had she been truthful with herself, she was afraid, but these two brief meetings had shown her a different Corny altogether. She was at this moment wishing that she hadn’t to take the bus and he could walk all the way home with her, yet at the same time there was this feeling of being ashamed to be seen with him in such clothes. And, moreover, she was finding that she was criticising his way of speaking. Mrs McBride talked broad and she liked to hear her, and she herself could talk a bit broad, but now, alone with Corny, she had an urge to talk proper, even to talk out of the top of her head like Beatrice. She also became more confused by her feelings when she realised why she wanted to do this…it was in the hope that he would try to copy her…and talk, well, if not proper, a bit different from what he did.

  The hope was strangled even as it struggled for birth by the sound of Corny’s voice saying in his rich Geordie accent, ‘Hev ya heard Eddie Calvert?’

  ‘Heard Eddie Calvert?’ Her words were precise. ‘Who is he?’ Even to herself she didn’t sound like herself.

  ‘He’s a cornet player. Why…the best. By lad, he can myek her taalk. Mr Bradley says if Aa stuck at it Aa could myek a go of it an’ be as good as him…Eddie Calvert…But there’—the gangling limbs seemed to fold up at this point—‘Aa’ve got neewhere to play. Neebody wants to hear yer practisin’ the cornet.’

  Mary Ann forgot for the moment about talking properly, she forgot about being ashamed of his suit or the broadness of his twang; she seemed to forget everything, even the revelations by Mrs Quinton yesterday, the revelations that could shatter the harmony of her home. Everything at this moment was forgotten but the desire to comfort and please Corny. The sudden shyness that was accompanying this desire forced her to look straight ahead as she said, and in her ordinary voice now, ‘I like hearing you practising. You played nice that m
orning. And me da knows the song you were playing. If you want to practise there’s plenty of space on our farm, and me da wouldn’t mind you comin’, I know he wouldn’t…Nor me ma.’ She ignored a pause in her thinking at this point which seemed to check her tongue, and went on in a gabble now and looking at him as she walked. ‘It’s my birthday on June the first. You can come to me party—that’s on the Saturday—if you like, and you can play…’

  He had stopped and was looking at her, his face straight and his voice unusually quiet now as he said, ‘Yu mean that? Yu’re not just kiddin’?’

  ‘No. No, I’m not. Yes, I mean it.’

  And she did mean it. Every fibre of her meant it. As she looked into his now gently smiling face, she meant it. As they turned and walked silently now towards the bus stop, she meant it. As he stood looking at her through the window of the bus, she meant it. She meant it more than ever as she went along the road towards the farm. She meant it until she looked up the hill towards Mr Lord’s house, and then she stopped, and with her gaze fixed on the imposing structure she said defiantly, ‘Well, it’s just his suit.’ Yet before she reached home she knew it wasn’t just Corny’s suit; and as she entered the house she could see Mr Lord and Corny confronting each other and she exclaimed to herself, ‘He’ll have a fit.’

  And there was no need to explain to whom she referred.

  Chapter Four: Mike Passes Himself

  Monday morning, as is generally understood, sets the main pattern for the week, and the scene in the kitchen before Mary Ann departed for school indicated a stormy time ahead.

  In bed last night Mary Ann had realised that if she had told her ma of the extended invitation to Corny immediately on entering the house it would have been over and done with, but she hadn’t, and so following a night of weird dreams dominated by Corny, dressed in a smaller suit still, blowing his cornet into Mr Lord’s face, she decided she must tell her ma before she went to school. Strategically she left the telling until almost the last minute. And now the place was in an uproar.