There was something about this last statement that brought an odd feeling into Mike’s throat: it was the feeling that had at times, when he was a lad, made him either hit out with his fists or seek some corner where he could cry unashamedly. He put out his one arm again and, gripping Corny by the shoulder, said roughly, ‘Let’s hear no more about clothes; it isn’t clothes that make the chap. And one of these days you’ll have more suits than you’ll have pegs to put ’em on.’
Corny’s head shot up and his eyes were bright and there was a look of amazement on his face as if he had heard a prophet speaking, and he said softly, ‘Aye, Aa know, Aa’ve aallways told meself that. One day Aa’ll have ten suits and everythin’ Aa want. Funny you sayin’ that.’ A smile touched his face now and Mike laughed and turned him slowly about as he lied, or let it be said, as he told a tale, for was he not Mary Ann’s father? ‘I’m a bit of a fortune-teller meself,’ he said. ‘A better name for it would be character-reader. I can generally tell what a bloke is made of and what he’s coming to.’
‘Can ya?’ Corny was relaxed for a moment; he was looking up admiringly at Mr Shaughnessy—Mike Shaughnessy whom he remembered having seen rolling drunk and dancing in the street and who now looked…well, like as if he was rich.
‘Aye,’ said Mike—he was walking slowly and casually towards the gate. ‘You remember the fellow you saw driving the car the other day with the old ’un?’ As he felt Corny’s shoulder stiffen he added, ‘Oh, he’s all right. That’s Tony; he’s the old fellow’s grandson. They didn’t discover the relationship until three years ago. The old man hasn’t had the chance to alter him. Tony’s all right, you’ll like Tony.’
‘He sent me some things.’ Corny’s voice was low now and he looked at his feet as he walked. ‘And I wouldn’t hev ’em.’
‘Oh, I don’t blame you.’ Mike’s voice was airy. ‘But mind you—’ He paused slightly in his step. ‘Tony would mean no offence, his only aim was to give you a hand.’
‘Aye p’raps. But, aall the same, Aa’m not startin’ on second-hand togs, Aa swore Aa wouldn’t. Ye see, me ma’s always told me about me granny and…’
‘Aah!’ Mike cut in. ‘There’s a woman, your granny. You know, Fanny’s the best friend I’ve got. Ah, here we are. Get yourself in there.’ He pushed Corny slightly forward, and kept pressing him until they entered the kitchen. And with his voice on a high airy note he cried, ‘Is there any room up at the top there? Ah, yes, move along, Mary Ann. Is there a chair, Liz?…By the way, this is a friend of mine.’ He put his arm around Corny’s shoulder as he surveyed the company. ‘We can’t go into individual introductions at the moment, there’s too many of us, but you just call him Corny, short for Cornelius…eh?’ He gave Corny a little hug, then added, ‘You’ll get to know everybody by and by. Come on, let’s get on with this tea.’
Mary Ann’s heart was thumping under her ribs, and for the first time today she had that jumping, joyous feeling inside of her. She ignored the subdued quietness that had settled on the table; she ignored the terrible look on Mr Lord’s face; she ignored her mother’s stiff countenance; she ignored the polite, surprised look on the faces of her two best friends and was about to smooth matters in her own way when her da caused the silence to break on tentative laughter when he exclaimed loudly, ‘Put your bugle down, lad. You’re not going to drink your tea through that, are you?’
Mary Ann, eagerly taking the instrument from Corny’s hand and laughing high in her head, cried, ‘Oh, Da! It isn’t a bugle, it’s a cornet, and Corny’s a smashing player.’ There was more laughter, a little louder this time, but still lacking the unrestrained quality that had pervaded the party before Corny’s arrival. For the moment the company seemed to be dominated by the feelings of both Lizzie and Mr Lord, which were vividly expressed in their faces. And then Mrs Schofield spoke and she addressed herself directly to Corny. ‘I have a brother who plays the cornet,’ she said.
‘Hev ya?’
On the sound of ‘Hev ya?’ Lizzie lowered her eyes. Up to this moment she would have said of herself that she was no upstart, but now she admitted quite frankly that all her feelings were those of an upstart, for she was ashamed that she or anyone belonging to her had ever been in such circumstances as would oblige them to make even the acquaintance of anyone like Corny Boyle. Oh, she wished him far away, anywhere but here…‘Hev ya?’ Oh, Mary Ann! What was to be done with her? It was true what Mr Lord said, she had no sense of correct behaviour, she would never have mixed her invitations to this drastic extent if she had. Of all the children she could have invited from the district round Mulhattans’ Hall, Corny Boyle was the roughest customer. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he had come at any other time, but now, when she was surrounded by…these others. Lizzie refrained from giving Mary Ann’s posh friends any class status. And there was Mr Lord; he was livid. Oh, what would the outcome of this be? The party was spoiled, couldn’t Mary Ann realise that—for doubtless ‘hev ya?’ was just the beginning.
She looked at her daughter, but Mary Ann was engrossed at the moment in what Mrs Schofield was saying to Corny.
‘Yes, and he drove us nearly round the bend; in fact, as the saying goes, up the wall and over the other side. And I was the first one over.’ Mrs Schofield cast her deep blue eyes round the table now and caught the laughter to her, then went on, ‘Of course, that was when he was learning, but now when he can play, well he hardly ever touches it. It’ll be the same with you.’ She looked back to Corny.
‘Noo…noo, it won’t. Aa’m gonna larn it proper. A man near us is larning me now.’
‘Well, good for you. You’ll have to play something to us after tea, eh?’
‘Aye…aye, Aa will.’ Corny was looking directly at Mrs Schofield, and to do this he had to cut his glance from Mr Lord who was at her elbow.
‘Perhaps you’ll give me a lesson,’ said Mrs Schofield, still talking to Corny. ‘I feel I’ve missed something in not taking advantage of our Robert. It mustn’t sound so bad when you’re doing the blowing and not just listening. What do you say?’ She turned her eyes for the fraction of a second on Mr Lord, and before he had time to make any caustic comment she flashed her laughing gaze round the table again, crying, ‘We’ll have a percussion band. You, Mary Ann, you can play the comb. And you, Beatrice, we’ll give you a tray. And Janice, you can bang two loaf tins. And Tony there can…’
Mike looked across the table at this woman who was allotting household instruments to everyone at the table, and the smile deepened on his face as he thought to himself: I made a mistake; now I know why men marry such women. She’s no fool, that one, and she’s kind with it for all her dithery lah-de-dah. Aye, she is that. He took up the ball she had set rolling and cried, ‘What would you give me?’
‘Oh, now, let’s see.’ She appealed to the whole table. ‘What shall we give him?’
There were cries of this and that, and when Connie to the side of him said, ‘I’d give him a washboard,’ he turned to her, laughing. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘and wait till you hear me; a washboard it will be.’
Everybody had made a suggestion for the percussion band with the exception of Lizzie and Mr Lord. Lizzie now handed Corny a cup of tea for which, after looking hard at her, he said ‘Ta’, and then almost before he had laid the cup on the table he made an impatient exclamation to himself and, putting his hand in his pocket, he pulled out what appeared to be a stick of thumb thickness, about nine inches in length, wrapped in newspaper, and for the first time since coming to the table and sitting next to Mary Ann he turned and looked at her and spoke. ‘That’s for yer birthday,’ he said.
‘Oh…oh, thanks, Corny.’ She hadn’t the foggiest notion what was under the paper, and for a moment she hesitated to open it in fear that it would be something that might bring derision on the giver. Slowly she unfolded the wrapping, and when the thing lay across her hand there was a gasp of surprise from those nearest to her, for Corny’s present was a small flute cut out of black eb
ony and inlaid between the stops with mother-of-pearl. It was of exquisite workmanship and delicate beauty, and that it should have been given by this rough lump of a lad seemed to add to its lustre.
‘Oh, isn’t it beautiful!’ Connie was leaning forward across the table, and Mrs Schofield, bending forward too, exclaimed, ‘Oh, that is lovely.’
Speaking to Corny for the first time, Tony asked quietly, ‘Where did you come across that?’
‘Aa picked it up in a junk shop.’
He picked it up in a junk shop. Mike was repeating the words to himself. This unprepossessing lump of humanity—for even Mike couldn’t in any way glamourise Corny, this lad who had been brought up in the low end of Howdon, who had never experienced any of the niceties of life—had…picked out from among junk this instrument of beauty. He himself was no musician. He could dig away at the piano by ear and he could sing a bit, but he knew nothing about musical instruments, yet he did know that the flute, or whatever it was, was a little miracle of workmanship.
‘Oh, Corny!’ Mary Ann’s lips were trembling, perhaps a little with relief but mostly with happiness. Of all the presents she had had today, and she’d had a lot, this was the best. Nor had she forgotten the pony. She looked up at Corny, and although her voice was low it brought a hush to the table. ‘I’ll learn to play it, Corny. Yes, I will. I promise I’ll learn to play it.’
‘Between homework and riding lessons?’
She flashed a quick look over her shoulder towards Mr Lord. His voice was even and controlled but it did not deceive her; she knew he was vexed, even mad, but that did not stop her from saying, ‘Yes, yes, I’ll fit it in some way, but I’ll learn it.’ She flashed her laughing face up at her mother now and said, ‘I’ll play it in bed, Ma.’ In her excitement she had forgotten that for today her ma also was not her ma but her mother.
Mr Lord looked down at his plate and applied himself to crumbling up a piece of cake. He was hurt, deeply hurt, and angry. Angry at himself for being angry, for allowing this child to retain the power to hurt him. He had given her the pony for her birthday present, for he knew that nobody else would be able to give her such a present, even if they had thought of it, and she had been overjoyed with the pony, but neither the animal nor himself had elicited from her the feeling which she was bestowing on this…penny-whistle, gormless, uncouth individual. What had he said to him? ‘By God! I’ll get on.’ He glanced at the boy now. He was drinking his tea, likely with loud sucking sounds if it was possible to hear him.
Just as Mr Lord was twitching his eye back to his plate again, Corny, from over the rim of his cup, looked at the old man and, catching his disparaging glance on himself, returned it unblinkingly. It was Mr Lord who looked away first.
If that boy had entry into this house, and there was every likelihood that he would, following on Shaughnessy’s attitude, then the child would be influenced by him. How old was he…sixteen or so? He would have to do some thinking about this and step warily. It was a pity, he thought now, that he had already exchanged words with him; he could do much more to nip this thing in the bud had he approached the youth from a different angle. There was one thing sure: he must make it his business to get this boy away from the vicinity by some means, either fair or foul. He was certainly not going to have his schemes brought to nothing by a lump of a lout like this. No, he certainly was not. He more than surprised Tony by turning to him at this juncture and saying, in a tone which by a stretch could be termed jocular, ‘Why haven’t you learned some musical instrument?’
‘What! Me?’ Tony’s eyes were wide as he looked at his grandfather, but he was not deceived by the old man’s change of front, for he knew he was furious at the boy’s intrusion, but he replied with a laugh, ‘I’m tone deaf, you know I am; I can’t even sing in the bath. Don’t forget you’ve complained of the noise more than once.’
After this exchange, Tony’s and Mike’s glances, meeting quietly across the table, said: ‘The old boy’s not going to lie down under this.’
The tea lasted much longer than Lizzie had anticipated, and although she herself was not feeling at ease she was glad to see that the company had apparently forgotten Corny’s presence—that is, all except Mary Ann. She would have to talk to Mary Ann later tonight or perhaps tomorrow. She would have to tell her, in a quiet way, that you didn’t look at people as she was doing at Corny, even if you liked the person, and that if she wanted to keep anybody’s affection—and God forbid that she would ever want to keep this boy’s—she must hide her feelings, and for a long, long time. There were lots of things she must talk to her about—she was thirteen now. Oh dear, dear! Why had this boy put his nose in the door today, today of all days, when everything was going so beautifully?
Lizzie now gave Mary Ann a slight dig in the side which had the twofold purpose of drawing her attention away from Corny and giving her the signal that she and the younger members could leave the table. But apparently the older members wanted to leave the table, too, and there was a general outpouring into the sunshine and onto the lawn again. But not with the instruments of the percussion band. The talk about that had served the purpose Mrs Schofield had intended.
Corny kept very much in the rear of the company and for the short time she was allowed Mary Ann stayed by his side. She was happy. This was the most wonderful party she had ever had and, oh, she was going to learn to play the flute. It was a beautiful flute, everybody thought so. It was the nicest present she had received today—or at any other time. Well, there was the pony. But that was different somehow. Mr Lord had been mad at Corny coming. That was at the beginning; he didn’t seem so bad now, he was with Mrs Schofield. Mrs Schofield was a funny woman, but she did make people laugh. She was making them laugh now. On the sound of the laughter she deluded herself that everybody was enjoying themselves and there was no need for her to bother and she could spend the rest of the time with Corny.
Looking up at him now, she said with bald diplomacy, ‘You needn’t go when the others do, need you, because you came late. If you’ll stay I’ll show you round the farm and take you up to see my pony. Oh, he’s lovely.’
‘Did ya da gie you it?’
‘No…’ She paused before the admission. ‘It was Mr Lord.’
‘Oh, him. He doosn’t like me.’
‘Oh, but he will in a little while; he’s like that with everybody to start with. Oh’—it was a loud ‘oh’—‘he was worse than that with me. He even told Ben, that’s his servant, to throw me out of his house.’
‘He did?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘Mary Ann!’
Mary Ann turned to find her mother looking at her.
‘You must see to your guests and play some games.’ As Lizzie said this she gave Corny a weak smile, and Corny, understanding, stood stock-still.
‘I won’t be a minute.’ Mary Ann reassured Corny before reluctantly leaving him to join Beatrice and the rest. She did not say, ‘Come along and join in’—she couldn’t imagine Corny playing, not at their games, anyway.
As Corny found himself looking at Lizzie he felt as he had done when he first entered the kitchen, and once again he said, but under his breath, ‘Aa shouldn’t a’ come, should Aa?’
‘Don’t be silly, Corny, of course you should; you’re very welcome.’ Lizzie was surprised at the enthusiasm she put into this comforting but untrue statement.
He said now, ‘Me Gran will go off the deep end when she knaws.’
‘Why should she?’ Lizzie found she was saying all the things she didn’t mean, for were she in Fanny’s place she’d find more than enough to go off the deep end about.
She was wondering in her mind what to say to him next when the situation was saved by Mrs Schofield crying, ‘Oh, there you are. Now come on, play the cornet, and something jolly, mind, nothing highfalutin.’
‘Aw, Aa couldn’t play anythin’ high flootin’ if Aa tried.’
Corny was laughing now, and Lizzie found herself being amazed at the fact
that this dizzy woman could put this lump of a lad at his ease, whereas she herself, who was, she felt, an understanding, sensible type, put him on edge. But then, wasn’t she Mary Ann’s mother? Mrs Schofield had nothing to lose with Corny.
‘Ya reely want ta hear it?’
‘Of course I do, everybody does. Listen, everybody.’ She stopped and flung her arm upwards as if she was mistress of ceremonies. ‘Squat a minute, Corny’s going to play.’
‘Oh, Lord!’ It was the boy Roy Connor speaking from where he stood at the bottom of the lawn among his friends. ‘This’ll be Corny by name and Corny by cornet.’ The witticism brought sniggers from the girls and guffaws from the boys, until a voice said, ‘Connor!’ It was the voice of the fifth-former speaking to a second-form grub, and the grub reacted without remembering that he wasn’t at school and said humbly, ‘Yes, Shaughnessy?’
‘We’ll have none of that.’
‘No, Shaughnessy.’
In this moment Mary Ann loved their Michael and she told herself that she would never, never, never be nasty to him again. It was in this moment, too, that the first stirrings of love flickered in Sarah Flannagan’s breast for Michael Shaughnessy. She had liked Michael, she had always liked him, she had always been attracted by him, mostly it must be said, because of the halo of the Grammar School. But it was now that the liking changed to the first spark of rare love, and thereby Michael Shaughnessy’s and Sarah Flannagan’s destinies were entwined, painfully entwined. But as yet they did not know this and were ecstatically happy on this afternoon of the party.
Love and Mary Ann Page 19
