‘Aye, damn, yes. Don’t you go putting your head into a noose because of me. You did right there. And take my advice and give her a clear road.’
‘Well, once they’ve left the place it won’t be difficult, but at the moment I seem to stumble over her at every step I take. I’m sorry about all this, Mike; it’s really my fault, as you said, taking her out in the first place.’
Mary Ann felt no relief at Tony’s changed attitude towards Lorna Johnson. Even the prospect of being taken to court did not reach the gigantic proportions of the situation that was now in existence between her parents. The situation that spread its atmosphere through the kitchen and which could be felt by everybody, Tony and Michael included, and Michael ate his breakfast in a questioning silence that caused his eyes to flicker every now and again between his parents.
From the window of his office Mike saw Mary Ann and Lizzie pass the gate. Mary Ann looked into the farmyard but not Lizzie, her gaze was directed straight ahead, and Mike said, ‘Blast, damn and blast.’ What he wanted to do was dash after them, pull Lizzie round to him, look into her eyes and say, ‘Aw lass, come on, come on. Now ask yourself, now ask yourself, is there anybody on God’s earth for me but you?’ He had said similar words to her three years ago when she had got worked up over the Polinski girl. It was odd, but he had never even given her cause to be jealous. That was one thing he hadn’t got on his conscience. Now he himself had had cause to be jealous, for at one time Bob Quinton was never off the doorstep, waiting for the moment she was going to walk out. He rubbed his hand roughly around his face. He supposed he shouldn’t have said what he did to the old girl yesterday, it must have sounded a bit odd. But the chance to get one over on that old devil had been too much for him. He realised he had made more out of his acquaintance with Mrs Quinton than was necessary, and he wouldn’t for the world have done it if he had thought Liz was going to take it in the way she had. He expected her to laugh over it. But then he should have had the sense to know that women don’t laugh at the same things as men. The trouble was that once this kind of rift got hold you never knew where it would end. In some cases it split the lives in two with the shock of an earthquake, in others it just spread unobtrusively like a malignant disease, until one morning you woke up petrified with what had hit you.
His elbows on the desk, he brought his head onto his good hand, and it was in this position that Mr Lord came upon him and said abruptly, ‘Hallo, what’s the matter? Under the weather?’
Mike got hastily to his feet, answering as he did so, ‘No, sir. I just happened to be thinking for a minute.’
The old man stared into Mike’s big face, his eyes narrowed and penetrating. He stared until Mike, moving uneasily, asked, ‘Anything up, sir?’
‘That’s what I would like to hear from you.’
‘Me? I don’t know what you’re getting at. Are you referring to Saturday night’s business?’
‘No, I’m not referring to Saturday night’s business. I happen to be referring to the situation between you and your wife.’
Every feature in Mike’s face became stiff, but before he could make any retort Mr Lord put in, ‘And don’t tell me it isn’t any of my business. If you shout your business loud enough for people coming to your door to hear what is being said, it is no longer your own business.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Mike’s expression was now one of bewilderment.
‘I happened to call on you last evening for the purpose of inquiring if Tony had returned home. You were going at it so hard that I heard every word you said when I was yards away from the door…This woman Connie Quinton, what about her?’
Mike seemed to reach half his height again and there was quite an interval before he spoke, and then his words came low and dangerously deep as he said, ‘Now look you here sir, I’m not unaware of what I owe you, and I repay you with my work from dawn, many days until dusk. Aye, and later. And I repay you with my loyalty and with trying to save every shilling I can for you. But there you have all of my life you have any right to; the rest is my concern. Do you hear me, sir? What happens behind them walls over there’—he now worked his thumb vigorously over his shoulder—‘what happens within them walls concerns me and my wife.’
Mr Lord was staring fixedly at Mike all the time he was speaking, and now his gaze dropped away for a moment as he said in an extraordinarily calm tone, ‘I’ve always admired you for one thing, Shaughnessy: you speak your mind. And I had found that you speak the truth. But you can’t intimidate me with this manner of yours about the sanctity of your married life. Your wife is troubled. I like your wife, she’s a very fine woman, and I don’t want to see you playing ducks and drakes—’
‘Look, sir.’ Mike was trying to keep his temper under control. ‘This is all a mountain out of a molehill.’
‘It didn’t sound like that to me. Nor would it have done so to anyone else who was passing your house last night. It sounded as if you were having an affair with this woman and your wife had found out. Is she, by any chance, the wife of Quinton the builder…my builder?’ He motioned his head in the direction of his house.
‘Yes, she is. And I’m not having an affair with her.’ Mike paused to draw in breath through his teeth. ‘God in Heaven. I met the woman on Saturday morning in a cafe when Mary Ann and I went in for a cup of coffee. I’d never clapped eyes on her before. She happens to be the aunt of Mary Ann’s school pal. We spoke for ten minutes or so, and that’s the beginning and the end of it as far as I’m concerned. Look, sir’—Mike’s voice became slow and patient sounding—‘it was like this…’
For the next few minutes Mike explained what had occurred on Mrs McMullen’s visit yesterday, and the explanation seemed to satisfy Mr Lord. It even seemed to give him some slight amusement, for the muscles of his face twitched as he listened. And when Mike had finished he said, ‘Well, if that’s the case you must make it up with Mrs Shaughnessy and let’s have no more of this. We’ve enough trouble on our hands without domestic ones. Now about Johnson.’ He jerked his head in a birdlike fashion before going on. ‘The wife has just been up to me. She means to make the most out of it. They’re taking the matter to a solicitor. That means court, unless you come to some arrangement and pay what they ask. Have you any money saved?’
‘About ninety pounds.’
‘Huh! Well, that won’t go far. If it reaches court those sharks’ll have that in the first lick if you lose; and let me tell you, as I see things you are likely to. Blast the man! And his family!’ Mr Lord’s face now became stiff, as did his voice, as he went on, ‘I never liked him from the day he came…Now don’t say it. Don’t say it. I know I engaged him myself, but I still maintain I’ve never liked him, and the sooner he’s gone the better. The sooner they’re all gone the better. As things stand I think it’s just as well he’s taking the matter to court because if he didn’t he would expect to carry on here as usual, and I don’t want him here. I want them gone as soon as possible. You understand?’
‘Yes, sir, I understand.’
Mr Lord turned and looked away from Mike and out of the office window, and now he said, ‘You seem to do a lot of talking to Tony, and him to you. What does he think about this girl?’ The last two words were rapped out.
‘I don’t think you need to worry in that direction—that is, if you don’t pull the reins too tight. He’s a man, he’s not a lad any longer, and you’ve got to recognise this and let him go his own road.’
Mr Lord swung his gaze from the window onto Mike, repeating as he did so, ‘Own road? That’s just what I won’t let him do, and finish at a dead end. That’s where young men finish who are let go their own road. Dead ends. Look, Shaughnessy, I’m going to speak frankly to you. There are very few people whom I can say that to, but you’re concerned in this particular matter as much as I am…Yes, you can look surprised, but whatever tight rein I hold on him will ultimately be for your benefit as well as my own, you and yours. Do you follow me?’
Mike’s
eyes were screwed up as he peered at the old man and he said quietly now, ‘No, sir, I’m afraid I don’t. I can’t very well see what Tony’s future has got to do with me.’
‘I said you and yours.’ The two men were staring at each other, and in the silence that fell on them could be heard the lowing of the cows in the byre and the purring of a tractor in a far field. And then Mr Lord said, ‘Little girls grow up. In five years’ time Mary Ann will be seventeen. Now do you understand me?’
Yes. Yes, Mike understood and he was shocked with his understanding. The shock was overlaying his surprise and was so great that for a moment he couldn’t speak. And Mr Lord said, ‘My life went wrong. I’ve had very few interests in my time, that is until I met your child, and from then things seemed to happen to me—I built a house where I had never intended building a house, then Tony came and everything was completely changed. I’m old, but not too old still to have desires and dreams, and my main desire, my one dream, is to see that my grandson gets the right woman. You should take it as a compliment, Shaughnessy, that I’m picking on your daughter, for, after all, she’s two-thirds you. But I see that it isn’t affecting you that way. Now, now’—he raised his hand firmly in front of Mike’s face—‘don’t say it. Not now, for you’ll likely tell me you’d see me in hell first before you would let me have my own way. Well, that is what I’d expect you to say, but I don’t want to hear it. The only thing I’m asking you is to remember that I trust you, and as yet Tony must know nothing of this. I’ll tell him when the time is ripe. Now I must away.’ He looked at his watch, and without any word of goodbye he left Mike with a face as red as his hair …
Mike slowly sat down on the office stool. He couldn’t find words, not even strong ones, to use as an exclamation to fit the old man’s audacity. After a moment he said to himself: ‘What can you say?’ A few minutes ago he had been worrying about the state of affairs between him and Liz, and now here it had been told to him, and by no other than the old boy himself, who was worth God knows what, that he proposed keeping his grandson and heir free until Mary Ann was of an age to marry. It was fantastic. But even ‘fantastic’ didn’t seem to fit the situation. It was somehow…shocking, even indecent in a way. Mary Ann, a child of twelve, well, near thirteen, and Tony already twenty-three. How would Tony take it when he found out what was in the old man’s mind? Pack up and go off—and likely marry the first girl that came his way just to show the old boy who was master of his fate. And who could blame him?
And then there was Mary Ann. How would she react in five years’ time? Would she be a different Mary Ann? Of one thing he was certain: she wouldn’t be so changed that if she wanted Tony and he was still available there would be no obstacle she wouldn’t remove to have him. But, on the other hand, if she didn’t want Tony nobody on God’s earth would be able to make her take him. The odds seemed to lie with Mary Ann.
Mike raised his head and looked out of the open doorway to where in the far distance a cloud of dust coming down the hill indicated that Mr Lord was on his way to town. Yet it wasn’t of the old man that Mike thought as he watched the car disappear, but strangely it was of Corny Boyle. Mary Ann, used as she was now to Tony, and acquainted with the gracious living that was the daily routine in the house on the hill, also mixing daily with the class that she met in the convent, had asked to her party Corny Boyle. Yes, the decision would lie with Mary Ann.
This was a very relieving thought, and it pushed Mike’s head back and he smiled and gave a little relieved ha-ha of a laugh before getting up from the stool and going about his work.
No bones broken, was the doctor’s report on Mary Ann. The pain in her neck was from the bruises, about which he remarked that it looked as if she had been clutched by a gorilla.
Mary Ann repeated the doctor’s remark to Mike at dinner time and he said, ‘We must remember that.’
Mary Ann was puzzled by Mike’s attitude when she returned home. He wasn’t mad any more and he was making an effort to get her ma round. But this appeared to be fruitless. At odd times during their dinner she found him looking at her, not the way he did when he was vexed or yet pleased, but in a way she couldn’t make out.
During the afternoon she felt better, and because of this the time began to drag. She was reluctant to go round the farmyard after Saturday night’s business. She had a greater reluctance about paying a visit to Mr Lord. She did think that she might wander up and talk to Ben. But then she didn’t know if Mr Lord was in or out. So by four o’clock she was wishing heartily for the morrow when she would be back at school again, and thinking of school she decided to go to the main road and meet Michael coming off the bus. This would undoubtedly surprise him, but she was thinking less of that than of the excursion giving her something to do.
She had just gone a short way along the road when she heard the wireless playing. She knew it was the Johnsons’ wireless and they would be sitting in the garden with the window open. She hadn’t seen any of the Johnsons since Saturday night and she was afraid of meeting them now, yet at the same time she was glad they were in the garden, for she had something to say to Lorna Johnson.
Mrs Johnson and her daughter were sitting in deckchairs on the tiny square of lawn below the cottage window. Mrs Johnson was knitting and Lorna was reclining with her hands behind her head. That was, until she caught sight of Mary Ann, when she sat bolt upright. Mrs Johnson, too, sat upright, and putting the knitting on the grass, she rose to her feet and walked a few steps to the railings that separated her from Mary Ann, and over them she greeted her with, ‘You! You damned little bitch! You know what I’d like to do with you?’
Mary Ann stopped in the middle of the road and looked at Mrs Johnson. You weren’t supposed to answer grown-ups back, so, taking her eyes from Mrs Johnson’s angry dark face, she looked to where Lorna was still sitting in the chair and she said quietly, ‘I didn’t lock you in with the bull, and I never asked you into the byre. You know I didn’t. You came in yourself, you know you did. You were looking for—’
‘Shut up your mouth and get yourself on your way before I forget meself and slap the face off you.’ Mrs Johnson looked as if she could carry out her threat any minute, and Mary Ann, who was backing away and looking at Mrs Johnson now, said, ‘Well, I didn’t lock her in; it’s all lies.’
‘Yes, you did.’ Lorna had joined her mother. ‘Ooh! You little rat, when I think what you’ve done!’ Lorna’s lips were wide apart and her teeth were tightly clenched, and it looked for the moment as if she was going to have another screaming fit, when her mother commanded sharply, ‘That’s enough. Say no more, keep it for the court. Go on, get yourself away, you.’ Mrs Johnson flung her arm wide as if to swipe Mary Ann from the face of the earth, and Mary Ann turned and got herself away and in a hurry. She was trembling and more than a little afraid. The viciousness of the Johnson woman was something that she hadn’t encountered before.
When she came within sight of the main road but still some way off she recognised the boy standing on the verge near the main road as their Michael, for his figure was similar to that of her da, only in smaller proportions. But what brought her almost to a stop was the fact that Michael was not alone. He was standing talking to a girl, and the girl was sitting on a pony with her back to Mary Ann.
Mary Ann had never seen Michael talking to a girl; Michael didn’t like girls. Her step became slower, her curiosity deepened. Their Michael knew a girl with a horse. His prestige mounted…until she came silently within a few yards of them and they, still intent with each other, did not hear her coming. Even before Mary Ann halted, the amazing revelation was working its way with furious indignation up through her body. The girl on the horse was not in jodhpurs but in jeans, and topping the jeans was a red sweater, and lying down the back of the red sweater was a long black ponytail of hair. It was the hairstyle that had deceived her; she would have known that back in a million if it hadn’t been for the hairstyle.
The ferocity of her feelings must have reached the
pair in front of her, for as Michael turned his head sharply in Mary Ann’s direction Sarah Flannagan swung her slim waist round in the saddle.
In three years Sarah Flannagan had changed mightily. She was a tall, slim girl with attractive dark looks and appeared much older than fourteen. The manner in which she handled the meeting with her lifelong enemy bore this out, for with a wry smile on her face she looked down on the diminutive figure and said with disarming casualness, ‘Hallo, Mary Ann.’
It was an approach that would have taken a strong wind out of a galleon’s sails and it stumped Mary Ann. Never before had she heard Sarah Flannagan speak in a voice like that to her, or anyone else for that matter. Mary Ann was quick to recognise immediately that gone was the girl who used to taunt her and walk behind her chanting:
‘Swanky Shaughnessy—there she goes:
Two boss eyes and turned-in toes;
She cannot even wipe her nose,
Swanky Shaughnessy—there she goes.’
Or the edifying rhyme which went:
‘Pig’s belly,
Wobble jelly;
Pig’s fat,
Dirty cat.
Pig’s skin,
Double chin;
Pig’s cheek,
Shiny beak.
Pig’s lug,
Ugly mug—
And that’s Mary Ann Shaughnessy.’
But Mary Ann remembered. Yet not because of the insults hurled at herself. Those didn’t matter. What did matter was that this girl had been the main taunt of her life where her da was concerned. Had she not written up on a wall for all to see:
Love and Mary Ann Page 9
