Love and Mary Ann

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Oh, Mike!’ Lizzie seemed incapable of saying anything else at the moment. She was really horrified that once again her mother had tried to harm this man, and she closed her eyes and bent her head into Mike’s neck as he said, ‘She did me a good turn in a way; I never thought I’d get on with Bob Quinton, but I’d like to bet we’re friends for life now. And I’ve got another little surprise for you. You’d better sit down.’ He led her to the couch, and when they were seated he looked at her with a wry smile on his face as he said, ‘Bob had another visitor the time I was there—your daughter.’

  ‘Mary Ann!’

  ‘Aye, Mary Ann. None other. I skedaddled into the lavatory when I saw her coming.’

  ‘What on earth was she doing there? Was it at his house?’

  ‘No, in the works’ office. She told him she’d been hiding in a cupboard at that party the other Saturday and overhead Connie and her cousin talking about you.’

  ‘Oh no, not that.’ Lizzie put her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Did you know about the cupboard episode, Liz?’

  ‘Yes’—Lizzie’s voice was just a whisper—‘she told me on Saturday night. She tried to tell me before but I wouldn’t listen to her. Oh, my goodness, what does he think?’

  Mike’s eyes were soft now as he looked at Lizzie and said quietly, ‘He’ll think just what she told him, that his wife loves him. Yes, she told him that, and also that her ma loves her da and thinks the world of him…oh, the world of him.’ There was a tremor of laughter in Mike’s voice now.

  ‘Oh, Mike!’ Although the tears were gushing from Lizzie’s eyes her lips were smiling. ‘She’s right, she’s right.’

  They were locked hard together and Mike’s kiss had been long on her lips when his glance was drawn upwards and towards the door leading into the hall, there to see Mary Ann standing in her nightgown. Slowly he withdrew his mouth from Lizzie’s and, pressing her arm tight as a warning, said as casually as he could, ‘Come in. What are you up for at this hour?’

  With slow, measured steps Mary Ann came into the kitchen and looked at her mother. Lizzie was not looking at her daughter, but was busily straightening her hair, and when she went to rise from the couch Mike’s hand prevented her, and he spoke again to his daughter, saying, ‘Come here.’

  Mary Ann now went and stood before them and she looked from one to the other, blinking her eyes rapidly the while. It did not and never had embarrassed her to see her parents loving; rather she was filled with the joy that came to her at only rare times, like the morning she was dancing with the lambs or when in some stage of benediction she would be carried away out of herself.

  She fell against them now, her arms around their necks, bringing their three heads together, and she started to laugh. And Mike laughed, and Lizzie laughed, and for a space this large section of Mary Ann’s world became wonderful.

  Chapter Ten: Never Judge a Man by the Fit of his Clothes

  Her ma and da were kind again. Except for the court business and Tony’s oddness, most of the sky was rosy. It only required that Mr Quinton should meet Mrs Quinton and everything would be fine. She pulled open the heavy door of the telephone kiosk.

  When some seconds later it swung heavily to behind her she wondered for a moment if she’d ever have the strength to open it again—well, somebody would be sure to come along and help her. Gingerly she put down her school satchel on the cleanest part of the floor, then reached up for the topmost of the three great books.

  From tacit inquiries of Beatrice and Janice she had learned that you had only to look in the telephone directory and there was the name and number of everybody in Newcastle. It had sounded so easy. She looked and looked, but she realised there were three people standing in a row outside the kiosk and they were all looking at her. They were two women and a man, and as she returned their gaze the man pulled the door open and asked, ‘Can I help you, hinny?’

  ‘I’m looking for Newcastle.’

  He looked down at the book. ‘Well, you won’t find it in that one; here’s the one you want.’ He reached in and pulled the bottom book forward. ‘Who do you want in Newcastle?’

  She looked at him for a moment before saying, ‘Quinton. The name’s Quinton.’

  ‘What’s the initial?’

  ‘What? Oh, you mean his…Mr Quinton’s?’

  ‘Well, whoever pays for the phone.’ He laughed, and the women joined in, and she said, ‘His name’s Bob…Robert.’

  ‘Robert…R. Quinton.’ He thumbed down the page, then asked, ‘R. J. Quinton, Burley House, Thyme Crescent, is that it?’

  ‘I think so.’

  The man and she stared at each other, and then he said, ‘You just think so, you’re not sure?’

  When she didn’t answer he added, ‘Well, the number’s Newcastle 4343601. Can you think of that, or will I get it?’

  When she still did not answer, the man picked up the phone and got the exchange and stood with the receiver to his ear and his eyes fixed quizzically on her. He stood for some time in this attitude, and just as his eyes jerked towards the mouthpiece Mary Ann put in hastily, ‘I want Mrs Quinton, Mrs Connie Quinton.’

  ‘Oh, aye…Hallo there, is that Mrs Quinton, Mrs Connie Quinton?’

  Mary Ann watched him listening, she watched him nod his head. Then passing the instrument down to her he said, ‘There you are, go ahead.’

  But she did not immediately go ahead, she did not go ahead until the man, with a laugh and some remark to the women, left the box and closed the door behind him. And then she said:

  ‘Hallo.’

  The voice that came to her over the wire didn’t sound like Mrs Quinton’s but she knew that it was, and when the voice said, ‘Who is it?’ she replied immediately, ‘Mary Ann…Mary Ann Shaughnessy.’

  ‘Oh…Mary Ann!’ The voice sounded high and surprised. And then it said, ‘How are you, Mary Ann?’

  ‘Very well, thank you.’

  ‘And your mother and father?’

  ‘They’re all right.’ She was stumped for a moment. How did you talk to somebody when you weren’t looking at them? It was an experience new to her. Then the voice over the wire helped her out. After a pause it said, ‘Were you wanting to tell me something, Mary Ann?’

  ‘No, no, I was only going to ask you if you’d come to my party…my birthday party, on Saturday, about four o’clock.’

  There followed another pause, so long that she held the receiver farther away from her for a moment and looked at it, then stuck it quickly back against her ear again as the voice said, ‘I would love that, Mary Ann. Thank you very much for asking me. Beatrice and Janice are coming, aren’t they? I’ll run them over.’

  ‘No, no, don’t do that. Well, what I mean is, I haven’t told Beatrice I was asking you. Could you not…well, could you not just make it that you were popping in?’

  Another pause, even longer this time, then the voice said, ‘Does your mother know that you have asked me to your party, Mary Ann?’

  There was no time to think about lying and the consequences of lying, for she knew instinctively that if her mother was not supposed to be in on this invitation Mrs Quinton wouldn’t just drop in, although her da had invited her, so she said hastily, ‘Yes. Yes, she does, but I wanted to ask you. I wanted to…to phone.’ And then to give a valid reason for the way the invitation was being given she said, ‘I’ve never phoned before. This is the first time and I wanted to do it. And I never told Beatrice because it’s a girls’ party and she’d…she’d…’

  She heard Mrs Quinton laugh gently, before saying, ‘All right, Mary Ann; it’ll be as you wish—I’ll just drop in.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Quinton, thank you. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mary Ann. Goodbye.’

  Mary Ann heard a click on the wire and she took the receiver away from her ear and again looked at it. It was difficult to know how Mrs Quinton felt when she couldn’t see her face—her voice had sounded a bit odd when she had said, ‘Goodbye, Mary Ann.’
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  ‘Well, you’ve got it over?’ The man had pulled open the door, and she turned to him and said, ‘Will I put it back now?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the procedure, put it back.’

  She put the receiver back on the stand, and as she went from the box the man and the two women laughed, which caused her to feel slightly indignant—she could see nothing funny in phoning. Anyway, she had done it, and she had also done her best to put things right between the Quintons. She could do no more. Only it was a long time till Saturday to see the results of her strategy.

  On Wednesday morning everybody was jolly at breakfast; at one point even Lizzie was rolling helplessly with her laughter. This was when Mary Ann, her face straight but her eyes wide with suppressed merriment, read aloud a card, the blood-connection duty card which she received each year from Mrs McMullen. And this one, under the circumstances even more farcical than previous ones, read:

  to my dearest granddaughter

  The sweetest day in all the year

  Is when I send you this.

  May all your life be free from care

  And overflowing with bliss.

  From

  Your Grandmother

  ‘Oh!’ said Mike, wiping his eyes. ‘Thank God we can see the funny side of it.’

  But now Lizzie said nothing, until Michael, saying as if to himself, ‘The sweetest day in all the year,’ caused a fresh outbreak of laughter, when she cried, ‘Enough! Enough! Come on, get your breakfasts, you’ll all be late.’

  It was a pity, Mary Ann thought, that she had to go to school on her birthday. She would like to have browsed over her cards, of which she had fifteen, and try on the dress her mother had bought her. Then there was the lovely encyclopaedia from her da to be perused, not forgetting the book from Michael by Nancy Martin called Young Farmers in Scotland. She was even generous enough on this particular morning not to question his choice, for he had also bought her a brooch with her birthday stone in it. Oh yes, everything was wonderful, even if she did have to scatter to school.

  But as she finished golloping her breakfast she did remark to herself with a note of regret that no-one had brought up the matter of the riding lessons. Well, she didn’t want to go, anyway. Not where Sarah Flannagan was, that she didn’t.

  Then into the joy of the morning intruded another thought, and she knew she was not alone with this particular thought, for although neither her ma and da nor their Michael had mentioned Tony they were all thinking about him—he hadn’t been near the house since Sunday. She knew also that they had thought, as she had, that her birthday would bring him in. Last year he hadn’t waited until breakfast but had come diving upstairs before she was up. He had given her a lovely present of a camera and a box of candies. She had the box yet and it still had the big bow on it.

  She couldn’t see why a row with Mr Lord should prevent him from coming in. He’d had rows before and far from keeping him away they had kept him longer in the kitchen talking. Her da, she knew, was getting a bit worried about the business. He had said last night that short of waylaying him and asking him outright it looked as if they’d remain in the dark. But the job was how to waylay him, for he hadn’t clapped eyes on him. And then he had turned to her and asked quietly, ‘Sure you haven’t been up to anything?’ And she had vowed as she made the sign of the Sacred Heart, ‘No, Da. On the Sacred Heart, no.’

  The arrangements for the day were set by a card to Lizzie from Mrs McBride, which said she would have Corny at Mulhattans’ Hall that evening at five o’clock and Lizzie knew she would always be more than pleased to see her. And so it was arranged that Mary Ann, who did not want to miss the look of wonder on Corny’s face when he received this bundle of fine clothes, would go straight to Burton Street from school and meet up with her mother.

  A meeting with Mrs McBride and Corny in the middle of the week she looked upon as an unexpected treat, and its anticipation coloured her birthday to a rosy glow. At ten minutes to five she jumped off the bus and made her way hastily to Burton Street.

  She couldn’t explain the feeling to herself other than that she seemed to become different when she was in this part of the town. People spoke to her. They hailed her: ‘Hallo there, Mary Ann!’ ‘How you doing, Mary Ann?’ ‘How’s yer da, Mary Ann?’ ‘By, Mary Ann, yer lookin’ grand!’ She always felt as if she was somebody when she came to Burton Street.

  Wanting to get there quickly, she took a short cut and was turning the corner round by Tullis’s, the outdoor beer shop, when she bumped slap into Mrs Flannagan. She had said, ‘Pardon. Oh, I’m sorry!’ before looking up into the thin, peevish face of Mrs McBride’s—and her own—enemy.

  She drew back from the contact as if she had been stung by an enormous wasp. Then her face showed blank amazement as Mrs Flannagan spoke. It was as if the wasp by a magic touch had turned into a harmless bumblebee, for Mrs Flannagan was smiling her thin smile, and it was very hard to believe that in her refeened voice which Mary Ann knew she kept for special occasions she was speaking to her. ‘Oh, it’s you, Mary Ann. And how are you?’

  Mary Ann backed into the gutter, making a wide circle around this alarming Mrs Flannagan, and she mumbled as she did so, ‘All right, thank you.’

  ‘And how is everyone?’

  Everyone meant her ma and da. Mrs Flannagan was asking after her ma and da! She gulped, and still retreating backwards she said again, ‘All right, thank you.’

  ‘That’s right. That’s right.’

  What was right Mary Ann couldn’t make out, but she nodded before turning swiftly about and making for Mrs McBride’s.

  Mrs Flannagan had spoken to her…civilly. The world would surely come to an end. And then she began to giggle inside, seeing a picture of herself when she got home mimicking Mrs Flannagan to her da. And she would tell Mrs McBride. Yes, she would make her ma and Mrs McBride split their sides telling them how Mrs Flannagan had spoken to her. ‘And how is everyone?’

  She ran the rest of the way up the street to Mulhattans’ Hall. But when she reached the steps her run dropped to a walk, and then she stopped. Mrs McBride was leading off, she was leading off something awful. For a moment she thought her ma had not arrived. But it was Lizzie, wearing her keep-your-tongue-quiet look, who opened the door to her.

  When she entered the room there was Mrs McBride standing at one side of the table, her fists dug into her great hips, and at the other side stood Corny, a plain, furious-faced Corny, and between them, on the table, were the clothes her ma had brought—the suit, the shoes, the two shirts, the pullover, the socks and the three ties. That the matter was serious Mary Ann knew immediately, for Mrs McBride did not turn to welcome her but went on yelling at her grandson.

  ‘Who the hell d’you think you are to turn your nose up at things like this!’ Mrs McBride’s fist came off her hip and she lifted a shirt high in the air with a flick of her finger. ‘Stuff you’ll never be able to afford in all your born days, for you’ll end up playing that blasted cornet in the back streets. That’ll be your end, me lad. You’ll take those things and you’ll say thank you very much and you’ll put them on. Aye, you’ll put them on if I have to strip you and dress you meself.’

  ‘Aa won’t…Aa won’t hev ’em. Aa’ve towld ye, Gran.’ Corny’s voice was not loud, and because it was not loud it carried more weight and power than his granny’s. ‘Aa din’t want his things. If me ma can’t buy me new clothes Aa’ve towld ya Aa’ll wait till Aa can buy ’em mesel’. But Aa divn’t want them!’ He flicked his hand across the table as if swiping away something repulsive.

  ‘In the name of God!’ Fanny closed her eyes for a moment before opening them wide again and turning them on Lizzie. And now her voice was a tone lower as she said, ‘Lizzie, would you believe it if you weren’t seeing with your own eyes and hearing with your own ears? Would you believe it? Here’s this walking scarecrow’—Fanny now flung her head round towards Corny—‘that’s all you are, a walking scarecrow, a laughing stock, a big gowk. You’re fo
nd of singing “He stands at the corner and whistles me out, With his hands in his pockets and his shirt hanging out”, but that’s a respectable figure compared with you, for you’re hanging out from all points, north, south, east and west. Your arms are hanging out of your coat, your legs are hanging out of your trousers, and your neck’s craning a mile up out of your shirt. Have you seen yerself lately?’

  ‘Aye. And them that doesn’t like me they knaa what they can dee. An’ ye can taalk yerself sky-blue-pink, Gran, but Aa’m not takin’ that aald bloke’s things.’

  ‘They’re not Mr Lord’s things, Corny.’ Lizzie’s voice was soothing. ‘They belong to Tony. He’s the young fellow, and very nice, you would like—’

  ‘Aye, Aa’ve seen him. He was in the car the other day. Aa divn’t want his things.’ Corny’s voice was getting lower now and quieter, and his head drooped as he added, ‘Thanks, aall the same, Mrs Shaughnessy, but ye see, Aa divn’t want them things.’

  ‘All right, Corny, I under—’

  ‘Well now, you don’t want them things?’ Fanny had started again. ‘Well now, listen to me, me lad, and I’m tellin’ you: this is an ultimatum as good as ever you’ll hear comin’ over the wireless. I said an ultimatum, and that’s what I mean. You take them things and you wear them or else you never put your nose in this door again.’

  Corny raised his head and looked at his granny, and his granny looked at him. They stood thus for a long time, or so it seemed to Mary Ann, an unbearably long time, and she felt an awful ache pass through her chest when Corny, still looking at his granny, said simply, ‘Fair enough, Gran, fair enough.’

  Mary Ann’s eyes, wide with apprehension, followed him as he walked round the table, past his granny, past her ma and out of the door. They were letting him go.

  She looked swiftly to where Mrs McBride stood, her arms akimbo once again, her face purple hued, and from there to her mother, who looked terribly troubled. Then without a word to either of them she turned swiftly about and ran out of the room.