Love and Mary Ann

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘No, I thought you wouldn’t…you’re a blasted little cat.’

  Mary Ann’s face widened with indignation. She did not like Lorna Johnson, she had never questioned Lorna Johnson’s feelings towards her, but now she knew them without any doubt. Then Lorna Johnson said something that Mary Ann could not quite take in. She said, ‘Well, my little madam, your days are running out, and if I can do anything about it I’ll help them along, you damned little upstart, you.’

  All this was delivered in a low tone. The tone even suggested that Lorna could have been saying something quite pleasant, and although Mary Ann could only half understand the implication of the words she realised full well that they were derogatory and she was mad at Lorna Johnson, and she knew that if she didn’t get away from her she would cheek her, with the result that she would get walloped. So without more ado she swung away from the girl and, leaving the byre, pushed the door closed after her. This action was merely an offshoot of her anger combined with the habit of always closing the door when coming out of the byre. It had no premeditation whatever about it. It did cross her mind at this moment that she was leaving Lorna Johnson in there with the bull, and Lorna was afraid of the animal. But she had taken no more than three steps from the byre door when a combination of sounds turned her about so swiftly that she almost leapt from the ground.

  She could not tell which she heard first, whether it was the heavy wooden latch dropping into the slot as the door banged, or the ear-piercing screech of Lorna, or the terrible bellow of the bull, but in the next instant she found herself frantically trying to unlatch the door. At other times it had always been quite easy. Though the slot where the wooden latch fell into was deep, the sides were smooth and lifting the latch was a simple matter of a second, or it had been until this moment. Whether the latch had actually stuck or it was the terrifying sound of Lorna and the bull apparently trying to out-yell each other, Mary Ann found that she couldn’t get the latch out of its socket.

  Then, on the point of screaming herself, she felt her body lifted from the ground, and as she hung dangling from a great hand she saw the latch being swung up and the door pulled open. And as her feet touched the ground again the saw Lorna staggering into the yard, her mouth wide and the screams still issuing from it.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right. There, you’re all right.’ It was Mr Johnson’s voice shouting above his daughter.

  ‘Sh…sh…she lo…locked me in. Sh…sh…she…lo…lo…locked…’

  ‘All right, you’re all right…She did, did she? You…you blasted little swine!’

  It was Mary Ann who now screamed. She screamed as Mr Johnson’s hands gripped her shoulders. Then for the next second or so she did not know where she was, she only knew she was being shaken and thought her head would fly off at any minute. She was gasping and choking so much that she couldn’t get her yells out. And then she felt as if she was being pulled in two. Her feet touched the ground and she fell onto her bottom with a plop. Before her bouncing vision she now saw her da facing Mr Johnson.

  She saw her da’s fist go out and Mr Johnson’s arms flaying, then Mr Johnson fell down, and as he hit the ground he gave an awful cry. It was this last cry, with its high screeching quality, that outdid both Lorna’s and her own screams and the bull’s roaring and caused a blackness to surround Mary Ann. Although she could see nothing she could still hear voices, and before she fainted away she was aware that the yard was full of voices, among them her mother’s and Tony’s.

  She rose struggling out of the thick blackness to find herself on the couch in the kitchen, with her mother bending over her, saying, ‘Drink this.’ But she couldn’t make herself drink. As her da was wont to say when he was very tired, ‘I haven’t got the list to lift a hand,’ so she felt now. She could scarcely lift her eyelids to look at her mother, but even the little she saw of her was enough to convey dimly to her that her mother was vexed, even angry, and she had the feeling for a moment that she wanted to pass out again, to escape from the look. But the sensation of fainting was still so near to her that she rejected this idea and lay still. With the passing moments she became more aware of what was taking place about her, and when her mother said again, ‘Drink this’, she drank from the cup, then lay back and closed her eyes.

  She was aware from time to time of her mother and Michael and Tony whispering, but she was too tired to make an attempt to listen. That was, until she heard Mr Lord speaking. She didn’t know if his voice was coming from the far end of the kitchen or outside the house, but she heard him say plainly, ‘Nice state of affairs, Shaughnessy. The man’s ankle is broken as clean as if you had cut it with an axe.’

  ‘Should have been his neck.’

  ‘Well, he has his own opinion on that. He tells me you struck him first.’

  ‘Who’s denying it? He was shaking her like a rat.’

  ‘It’s understandable when you give it a little thought. The man was upset about his daughter. I myself would not like to have been locked in that place with Neptune.’

  Neptune? It was William. Or was it? Faintly she remembered the unusual roar of William. Eeh! It couldn’t have been Neptune. She herself would never go near Neptune…And then another thought; weak yet gathering strength of conviction: she hadn’t locked her in…she hadn’t locked Lorna Johnson in, that was a lie.

  Then Mr Lord’s voice came again, ‘There will be an outcome of this business; that man’ll make trouble.’

  ‘Let him.’

  ‘What are you going to do for someone in his place?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  A few minutes later she felt forced to open her eyes, and there above her she saw the thin, wrinkled face of Mr Lord and in an odd intuitive way she realised that for all his stiffness and the sound of his voice he wasn’t mad about the business, not really mad. But her da was mad, as was her ma.

  ‘Are you feeling better?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think you’re able to talk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What induced you to lock that girl in the bullpen?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ She would have liked to take her denial further but she hadn’t…got the list.

  ‘They say you did.’

  ‘I pushed the door as I was going out…the latch must have dropped…it was stuck.’

  ‘Why was that girl in the bullpen, anyway?’

  Mary Ann was aware for the first time that Tony was standing at the bottom of the couch, and she looked at him and back to Mr Lord and then towards where her ma and da were standing, and she closed her eyes and her mother’s voice said, ‘Don’t make her talk any more just now, Mr Lord. Please. We’ll go into this tomorrow.’

  It was a short time later, when upstairs in her bedroom Lizzie was undressing Mary Ann, that she uttered a sharp exclamation and, going to the door, she called softly, ‘Mike, here a minute.’

  When her da came into the room her mother was standing behind her but she knew she was pointing to her shoulders. She did not know if there were any marks on her shoulders, she only knew that they were paining her, and her neck was so stiff that she could hardly turn her head. Her da’s words came on a deep, low tone, as he said, ‘What did I tell you? He was shaking her as if he was going to throttle her, and it looks as if he almost done it.’ His face came down to hers and he said gently now, ‘Does your back hurt, hinny?’

  ‘Me neck does, Da.’

  ‘Aye.’ He patted her cheek. ‘Your ma’ll rub it for you and it’ll be all right in the mornin’.’ And now he turned to Lizzie and said, ‘And you go off the deep end because I hit him.’

  ‘Well’—Lizzie was speaking quietly now—‘all this to happen after a day like I’ve had…waiting…waiting.’

  ‘Your mother didn’t turn up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any word why she didn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Huh! Then that’s a pleasure we’ve to look forward to.’r />
  ‘And your day off wasted.’ Lizzie was pulling the clothes up under

  Mary Ann’s chin as she made this statement, and Mary Ann saw a touch of lightness come to her da’s face as he looked at her and said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that, not entirely. We had a nice time, didn’t we, Mary Ann?’

  She tried to nod her head but it was too painful, so she gave him a little smile. She had looked forward all the way home in the bus to telling her mother about the meeting with Mrs Quinton and how nice her da had been with Mrs Quinton, but that would have to wait until another time.

  Chapter Five: Mrs McMullen

  Sunday morning found Mary Ann back on the couch in the kitchen; her neck was so stiff that she could hardly move and her shoulders were very painful…and all black and blue. She had managed to turn her head sufficiently to see a little of the result of Mr Johnson’s big hands. Her mother had been for her staying in bed, but she felt too shut out from everything up there and had begged to be allowed to lie on the couch in the kitchen. But up to now it hadn’t proved very pleasant, she was not being treated in the light of an invalid. Their Michael had started things off just before he took his departure for Mass by remarking with a wide shake of his head, ‘By! I wonder what you’ll trigger off next. You’re the limit, the outside limit. You’ve got more power for trouble in you than ten atom bombs.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything, our Michael; it wasn’t me. I told me ma; didn’t I, Ma?’ She appealed to Lizzie’s unresponsive back. ‘Lorna Johnson was looking for Tony, and because I couldn’t tell her where he was she swore at me and I went out and banged the door.’ She paused. ‘And the latch dropped and got stuck. It wasn’t me.’

  ‘She had a different story. She says you called her in to see the bull, then ran out and shut the door on her.’

  ‘Oh, the big liar!’

  ‘That’s enough of that talk, Mary Ann.’

  ‘But, Ma…’

  ‘Enough, I said.’

  Then Michael had gone to Mass and her mother had gone about the business of preparing the Sunday dinner in a silence which indicated her worried state. Mary Ann sat until nearly dinner time getting more and more bored, unable to concentrate on reading, and fed up with the pain in her neck. She wished somebody would come in…anybody. Although she hadn’t outlined the Sacred Heart on her breast her wish was granted within a matter of minutes. And it brought her upright with such a painful jerk that she brought out, ‘Ooh! Oh, Ma!’ and her voice trailed away on a sound akin to a groan as her granny’s voice came from the back door saying, ‘Anybody at home?’

  Lizzie was at the oven with her back bent and she seemed to hold the position for a long time although she had closed the oven door, and then she straightened up and looked across the room to where her mother stood in the kitchen doorway, dressed in her Sunday best.

  ‘Well, the place looks as lively as a morgue; not a soul to be seen; only that lad Len. Where’s everybody?’

  ‘Oh…oh, come in, Mother. Oh, they’re about. Michael’s gone to Mass.’ Lizzie pulled a chair from under the table and said, ‘Sit down. Let me have your hat.’

  Mrs McMullen, placing her handbag on the table and slowly taking the pins from her high, black, satin-draped hat, looked towards the couch and Mary Ann and made a cryptic remark. ‘Aye! Aye!’ she said.

  ‘I was expecting you yesterday, Mother. I thought you might be ill.’

  ‘No, I’m all right, never been fitter. Somebody came in and I couldn’t get away. What’s wrong with that one?’ She nodded towards the couch as if Mary Ann was a deaf-and-dumb mute who had to be alluded to objectively, and without waiting for Lizzie to reply she handed her her hat and coat and, ignoring the chair that Lizzie had offered, took the one nearest the fire, Mike’s particular chair, and sat down.

  Lizzie, going towards the hall to deposit her mother’s clothes, remarked, ‘She had a fall.’

  ‘Aye, I heard about it.’

  Lizzie must have thrown the clothes onto the hall table, for she was back in the kitchen within a second, saying, ‘You’ve heard about it? You’ve been quick, haven’t you?’ Her voice was curt.

  ‘No, not that you’d notice. I came along the road with that Len. He told me there’d been the devil’s fagarties on here last night. He said she’d…’ there was a bouncing of the head in Mary Ann’s direction, ‘that she’d locked a lass in with a savage bull and the girl’s nearly gone off her rocker, and her father and the noble Mike went at it. And now her father’s in hospital with a broken leg and his face all bashed in.’

  ‘Nonsense; he hasn’t got a broken leg, it’s just his ankle. And his face isn’t bashed in.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I heard. I’m only repeating what I heard. And don’t shout at me, Lizzie. I’ve only just got in; don’t let us start right away.’

  As Mrs McMullen took a neatly folded handkerchief from the pocket of her skirt and, shaking it out, wiped the end of her nose, Lizzie turned towards the table, raising her eyes ceilingwards as she did so. Then, muttering under her breath, ‘I won’t be a minute’, she left the kitchen and Mary Ann at the mercy of her granny…Or was it the other way about?

  The combat would have been equal had Mary Ann been feeling fit, but she was feeling…bad. She knew that her mother had gone out to warn her da about the visitor, and she guessed, and rightly, that her granny had said she was coming yesterday to hoodwink her da, knowing that he would dodge her if he could. She looked now to where her granny was sitting, her gimlet eyes sending their light across the room, a light which held no trace whatever of affection, and like a young, wounded polecat she waited for the old, healthy, wily, ageless cobra to strike. It did.

  ‘Quite a while since you had your name in the papers, isn’t it?’

  Mary Ann said nothing.

  ‘Must be on three years ago since the country heard of your exploits, when you ran away from that convent. Sussex it was, wasn’t it? You got your name on the wireless that time…You’ve been quiet for a long spell. Most unnatural…Do you know, if the bull had killed that girl they could have hung you?’

  On occasions such as this, and there had been a number, and with the same opponent, Mary Ann became vividly aware that she possessed bowels and that there were a lot of them, for the feeling her granny engendered in her would run up and down and back and forwards all over her stomach. It was an almost indescribable feeling, being a mixture of sickness, aggressiveness, loathing and desire. It was the ingredient of desire which was at the forefront of her mind at the moment, and she was wishing the old wish yet once again. Oh, if only her granny would drop down dead. Remembering what Father Owen had said to her on Thursday night about wishes always coming home to roost, she turned her eyes quickly from her granny’s face, and the movement caused a momentary excruciating pain in her neck, and she was reminded of her granny’s words about hanging. But she did not put her hands to her neck, she clapped them on her stomach.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry about getting into the paper though, for you’ll be in soon enough by the sound of things. That Len said that the man is going to take an action against yer father so he’ll have to go to court and you along with him. You’ll be in print once more, and that should satisfy you.’

  For once Mary Ann could make no rejoinder, she was feeling too awful; her stomach felt as if it was doing somersaults.

  ‘Cat got yer tongue? Or have you realised you’ve gone too far with this latest escapade and this’ll be the finish of you? I wouldn’t be surprised if the man claims so much damages that it’ll be the finish of him an’ all.’

  Him did not refer to Mr Johnson, Mary Ann knew; him was her da, and she was stung to retort, ‘It wasn’t me da’s fault. And it wasn’t mine either. So there. Len wasn’t there and he knows nothing about it. You’re always on and trying to make—’

  ‘Mary Ann!’ It was her mother speaking as she came into the kitchen. And her granny’s hurt and indignant tone followed up with, ‘Oh, don’t stop her, she’s just showing me
her convent manners. But as I told you in the first place, it would take more than a convent to refine her. As for making her talk properly, you have a vain hope there. She’s me-ing this and me-ing that as much as ever she did. It’s money he’s putting down the drain all right in this case. He might as well drink it—he’d have some satisfaction out of it, any rate, then.’

  ‘Now look here, Mother.’ Lizzie was standing in front of her mother. ‘I’ve told you before, you’re welcome to come to my house at any time, but I won’t have you here if you’re going to create mischief.’

  Mrs McMullen looked up at her daughter with a pained, hurt expression, and her voice had almost a break in it as she said, ‘Well, I like that. I haven’t darkened your door for months, and I’m not inside it fifteen minutes and you accuse me of making trouble. Well, I can go the same way as I came; get me my hat and coat…’

  As she half rose from the chair Lizzie said, ‘Don’t be silly, I’m only telling you. I don’t want any trouble one way or the other.’

  ‘Well, who’s making it? I just open my mouth and make a statement and somebody jumps down my throat.’ She did not name the someone but flickered her eyes towards the couch. ‘And if there’s any complaining to do I can do my share of it. Here I’ve come all this way and you’ve never offered me a cup of tea.’

  Lizzie sighed. ‘The dinner’ll be on the table in a few minutes, Mother…All right, I’ll make you a cup of tea. Or would you rather have a glass of cider or ginger beer?’

  ‘I’ll have a cup of tea if you don’t mind, please.’ The tone was definite.

  Mary Ann watched her mother walk with quick steps to the kitchen. She watched her granny, after meeting her glance, turn her eyes haughtily away and, leaning her head against the high back of the chair, close her lids as if intending to sleep. Mary Ann, too, lay back against the head of the couch and waited. As she knew her granny was waiting, waiting until Mike should come in before she started again.