Pure as the Lily

by Catherine Cookson

  “With me da.” Mary was taking off her hat and coat as she spoke.

  “I I met him and went to the allotments with him.”

  Went to the allotments! “ Alice retreated back into the room, her hand thrust out towards the table that was set for tea.

  “This, madam, is what you are supposed to get ready. You’re supposed to be home here at three. There’s a pile of ironing. It’s been lying there three days, and’—she now turned her face in the direction of her husband but did not look at him as she ended ‘not a drop of water up. And no coals either. Am I supposed to do it all?”

  Alee never spoke. In the scullery he took off his coat and cap, hung them on the back of the st airhead door, went to the table under the little window on which stood a tin dish and an enamel jug of water and, pouring some water in the dish, he washed his hands, rubbed the back of his clean hand over his mouth, then rubbed his damp palm over the surface of his hair, after which he went into the kitchen and silently took his place at the table.

  The table was well equipped for a mid-week tea in these

  time^. There was a large loaf of new bread, a big square of marge on a glass dish; another glass dish holding plum jam, and a plate on which there were some thin slices of pale brown paste, their edges rimmed with yellow fat.

  The tea poured out, the meal continued in silence for some minutes;

  then Alice, as if there had been no interval in her haranguing, exclaimed. Three times a day, every day in the week, I have to go out, and do I get any hell. “

  The crash of Alec’s cup into the saucer startled them all. The tea spilled over on to the clean cloth, and it was this that Alice looked at as he jumped to his feet, crying, “There’s nobody makin’ you go out three times a day! It’s your own bloody choosin’. You break your neck to go out. A ... w!”

  The sound of his teeth grinding caused Mary to hunch her shoulders and she did not look up as he stalked from the room; she did not look up until she heard the staircase door bang. At the sound, Alice, who for the moment had seemed taken aback by his sudden attack, now got to her feet and yelled in the direction of the scullery, “No need to go out, you say? No need to go out? Bad lookout for everybody in this house if I didn’t go out. Bare legs and empty bellies it would be for the lot of you!... And you’—she turned on Mary who was rising from the table ‘where do you think you’re going?”

  “Just into the room.” Mary’s voice was flat.

  “You’ll sit down and finish your tea.”

  “I don’t want any tea.”

  “You’ll do what I say.” Alice’s hand on Her shoulder thrust her down on to the chair, and the impact of her spine with the wooden seat made her gasp.

  “And when you’re finished you can get that ironin’ done, me lady.”

  Mary now turned an indignant face up to her mother.

  “It’s Tuesday; I go to the pictures on a Tuesday, you know I do.”

  “Well, you’re not goin the night then

  I am so! “

  Alice drew herself up while she glared at her daughter and, her voice low now, she said, “You’ll defy me then?”

  Mary turned and looked down at her plate; she bit on her lip, and then she said, “It’s the only night out in the week I have. It’s only threepence, you know it is.”

  “Well, this is one night, threepence or sixpence or nothing, you’re not going.” And on this she marched out of the room and into the bedroom, where she grabbed up her coat and came back into the kitchen buttoning it. Looking from one to the other of the solemn figures sitting at the table, she said, “Now I’m tellin’ you; you both know what to do, you the ironing, and you your homework,” and went out.

  There was quiet in the kitchen, and the brother and sister did not look at each other but sat staring at their plates for some minutes, before slowly, as if activated by one mind, they started to eat.

  When the rain began to pelt against the window, Mary went hurriedly into the scullery, and as quickly came back saying, “He’s gone out without his coat, he’ll get sop pen

  “Will I go and look for him and tell him she’s gone?”

  Yes, go on, do that. Go up Ellison Street first. He might be standing in one of the shop doorways, the dead shops, or down Ormond Street. “

  “Aye. Aye.”

  “And here, put your old mac on else you’ll get sop pen an’ all. An’ it’s icy cold.”

  The boy felt grateful when Mary helped him on with his coat. He didn’t know why this should be for he never felt grateful for the kindnesses received from his mother. He had the same nice feeling when his da said a kind word to him. He knew that his da liked Mary better than he did him, but he didn’t mind that, well not really, for he liked Mary an’ all. Yet he knew he would feel better if his da would take more notice of him, because he thought a lot of his da, no matter what his ma said. It wasn’t his da’s fault that he was out of work, but his ma talked as if it was. There were only four boys in his class with da’s in full-time work. Another two had

  da’s on part time; for the rest, they were all in the same boat, so why should his ma go on like she did . ?

  He found Alee standing in the doorway of a barricaded shop, a shop that had died when the shipyard died. He went in out of the rain and stood beside him, and, blinking up at him, said, “She’s gone, Da.”

  Who’s she? The cat’s mother? “

  This was an attitude of his da’s he couldn’t quite make out. He said softly, The ma’s gone, Da. “

  “That’s better. Don’t they teach you manners at that school?”

  Jimmy didn’t answer this but said, “Mary said will you come back, she’s keeping the pot hot.” This last was a bit of his own invention, but he felt nice inside because he had thought of it.

  Alee looked down on the boy, then he put his hand on his shoulder, and as he felt the porous mac he said, You shouldn’t have come out, you’re wet through. “

  “We’re both in the same boat then.” The boy smiled up at him, and now Alee smiled back and cuffed his ear, then they stepped out into the driving rain. It was seven o’clock when Grandma McAlister came. Mabel McAlister was just an older replica of her daughter. She had the same thin face, sharp-pointed nose, and the same small over-full mouth, a feature that was at variance with her type of face; her hair was pale brown, fine of texture and sparse, and stuck out in wisps from under her blue felt hat; but the face still, held the shadow of a onetime attractiveness.

  She was sixty-three years old and when she had been thirty-four, as Alice was now, she had likely looked the same, and, like Alice, been entirely unaware that her claim to good looks was marred by her expression of peevishness.

  Grandma McAlister looked at her son-in-law sitting in the armchair to the side of the high, slack-coal-banked fire, and her tone itself was an accusation as she said, “She not back yet?1

  “No.” Alee rose slowly to his feet.

  “She’s a bit late but she should be in any minute. Sit down. Sit down, won’t you? Will I make you a drop tea?”

  “No; no thanks.

  “Tisn’t long since I had mine.” She sat down in the chair opposite and Alee resumed his seat. She had not spoken to Mary who was ironing on the scullery table that had been brought into the kitchen, nor had she spoken to Jimmy who was sitting doing his homework. But after a few moments of stretching one leg out, and then the other, as if to ease a cramp, she brought her feet together, folded her hands in her lap, looked at Alee and said, “Nothing doing?”

  “No, nothing doing.”

  “Ted Bainbridge, you know next to me, he got set on in Wallsend last week.”

  “Lucky for him. We were over that way this morning we nearly got set upon, not set on.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t go over there and cause a disturbance.”

  “Who said we went to cause a disturbance?” Alec’s voice was rising.

  “We went lookin’ for work. We’d been told there was some going.

 
Disturbance! What do you mean, causing a disturbance? “

  “Well, look at what happened over at North Shields last year. They say it was the Shields lot an’ fellows going over from here and incitin’ them.”

  “Oh my God!” Alee moved his head slowly. They don’t need any incitement, their dole queues are as long as ours. What you’re on about was the demonstration. They were demonstrating against. “

  “Demonstration! Better if they used their energy to look for work.”

  “Oh dear God!” Alee uttered the words to himself as if in prayer.

  Could you blame Alice for going on like she did, being brought up by that one sitting there? If ever there was a numskull in this world it was her.

  “She’s a long time.” Mabel McAlister looked round the aa room, and her eyes came to rest on Mary and she said, Your ma’s a long time. Go and see what’s keepin’ her. “

  Mary did not answer her grandma but glanced towards her father, and when he gave her an almost imperceptible nod she laid the flat iron on the fender, saying to him, “Will you take the heater out of the fire for me, Da?” Then she went from the room and into her bedroom, and there, taking her working coat, she buttoned it up to her neck, tied a scarf tightly round her head, and went down the front stairs and out of the front door so that she wouldn’t have to pass through the kitchen and look at her grannie again. She couldn’t stand her grannie McAlister.

  The house was the last but one at the top of the street, and at the bottom end was Mr. Tollett’s shop where her ma worked.

  Mr. Tollett was a nice man, Mary considered, different. He had only been in the shop about four years; he came and took it over when his father died. His father and mother had died within a month of each other, it had been very sad. Some people said that they had died through worry because they’d had to close up their other two shops owing to bad debts.

  Mr. Tollett hadn’t been married when he first came home but shortly after he married a girl from Newcastle, from Jesmond, the posh end.

  They said she hardly spoke to anyone around the doors. Mary only remembered seeing her once or twice because she never showed herself in the shop. She hadn’t been bad-looking, but sort of uppish. Then last year she had gone and died, leaving a baby only a year old. It was from then that her mother had gone to work for Mr. Tollett. It was just the baby, the house, and the meals she saw to at first; but now she helped in the shop. She went three times a day, even on Sundays.

  Half-way down the street there was an alleyway leading to Crowdon Road. There was a lamp-post on the edge of the pavement opposite the alleyway around which there was always a crowd of children playing, but

  tonight, raining heavily as it was, there were no children. But as she approached the lamp-post she made out two dim figures standing opposite in the shelter of the draughty passage, and when she recognized them her heart began to beat a little faster. They were Hughie Amesden and Paul Connelly.

  It was Paul Connelly as always who spoke to her.

  “Hello Mary,” he said.

  She stopped tentatively, standing in the middle of the pavement within the halo of the lamp.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Going some place?”

  “Just to the shop.” She looked at Paul as she answered him but all the while she was seeing Hughie. She had no need to look at Hughie to see him; she saw him so clearly in the night that she almost imagined he was sitting on the side of her bed talking to her, and the fact that he should talk to her would, she knew, be as great an impossibility as to find him sitting on the side of her bed, for he never spoke to her.

  He had once said “Hello,” but that was the only exchange that had been between them, and she had known him since she was ten. He was so good-looking that even the texture of his skin made her ache to look at it; his face was long and pale, his eyes deep-set and dark, but his hair was fair and wavy.

  Added to all these charms was Hughie’s height. He was the tallest boy in all the streets around, he must be all of six foot now and still only seventeen. She’d never forget the first day she knew she loved him. It was one Sunday night last summer. Mrs. Turner had given her a frock. She had altered it, and she felt she looked bonny in it, so she had gone to church in the evening, because more people could see you in church. If you came out late they were standing about and they looked at you. And she wanted people to see her new frock because she had never had one like it; what was more, she’d had to fight to keep it because her mother had wanted it her mother took most of the things that Mrs. Turner gave her, her mother liked dressing up. The dress was of a dull yellow colour, not gaudy. She didn’t know what the material was but it was like a fine wool. It had a square neck

  and a full skirt. She hadn’t the dress anymore; her mother had burnt it. She threw it into the fire when they were having a row. But on that Sunday night Paul Connelly and Hughie Amesden were standing at the end of the road. She saw them immediately she left the church steps because Hughie Amesden always stood out above everybody else, and she remembered walking towards them and then the most odd thing happened. It was lovely but frightening. She saw Hughie Amesden slowly disappear into a white light;

  there was nothing left of him but white light, it even blotted out Paul Gonnelly. And the other funny thing was she never remembered passing them. She was a full street away when she came to herself and she thought, Where’s he gone? And she had turned round, and there they were right at the far end of the street and she hadn’t been aware of passing them. She had stood with her hand to her throat and had gulped and then coughed, and a woman passing by had stopped and said, “Are you all right, hinny?” She had taken hold of her arm and added, “Why, you’re shivering, lass; you’ve got a summer cold.”

  She had nodded at the woman, then walked on; and she had known she had fallen in love with Hughie Amesden, that she’d always been in love with him since he had first come into the neighbourhood when she was ten. Yet he had never, never spoken to her, only that once when they were standing in the picture queue. He had come and stood by her side and said, “Hello,” and she had said “Hello,” back; and then he had gone into the six pennies and she into the three—pennies.

  On the other hand, Paul Connelly was always wanting to talk to her.

  But she couldn’t stand Paul Connelly. She didn’t know why HughieAmesden and he were friends because Paul was only about half the size, they looked like Mutt and Jeff.

  She now raised her rain-wet lashes and looked at the Adonis, and he looked back at her, and at this she drooped her head and muttered,

  “I’ll have to be going, I’m going for Neither of them made any comment on this explanation and the three of them stared at each other for a moment longer, then she turned awkwardly and ran down the street. She was trembling again; she always trembled when she saw Hughie Amesden.

  When she came to the shop there were no children jumping up and down on the low sill or playing bays on the pavement with their hitchidobbers. She put her face close to the window and saw that the shop was empty, which was a rare occurrence, because Mr. Tollett sold practically everything and there was always somebody wanting something from half past seven in the morning until eight at night, ten on a Saturday.

  The shop was situated on a corner, with one window in Cornice Street and another in Benbow Street, the short street that was linked with Crowdon Road. The back door to the premises was in Benbow Street, and it led into a bads—yard nearly always filled with boxes of all shapes and sizes. There were two rooms behind the shop that were used as storerooms. In the main one Mr. Tollett kept his tubs of butter and rounds of cheese and sacks of flour, and there were nails in the ceiling from where he hung the sides of bacon. The other room he kept for storing tat ties and green grocery The door from the backyard leading into the first room had a pane of glass in the upper half.

  Next to this door was another that led into what had once been a separate house. The downstairs part had been turned into a garage, but the upstai
rs, consisting of four rooms, had been opened up to join those above the shop. Altogether, it was a grand place. She had been up there only once and had only glimpsed the sitting-room, but had been amazed at the size of it. Mr. Tollett had had two rooms knocked into one; it was really lovely. Her mother had almost shooed her out.

  She had said she wasn’t to come bothering, Mr. Tollett didn’t want the street in. She had wanted to say to her mother that she wasn’t the street, she was her daughter who had come with a message from her da.

  3 33

  She was going towards the door now that led into the house when she saw the outline of a figure moving behind the rain-smeared glass pane.

  That was her ma. Perhaps she was helping to put orders up. As her hand went towards the latch her faced moved closer to the pane of glass and now she could make out not only her mother but also Mr. Tollett, and saw that they were talking.

  The room was brightly lit but the rain-patterned glass distorted her mother’s features, and at first she thought that it was this that was making her look different. Then her hand dropped from the latch and she peered intently through the window. Her mother did look different, and it wasn’t because of the wet glass. She had never seen her mother looking like this. She was looking into Mr. Tollett’s face and her expression was soft and pleading; she looked young. She noticed that she kept wetting her lips. She saw Mr. Tollett bow his head while her mother kept on talking;

  she couldn’t hear what she was saying because of the wind and the lashing rain. But now she saw Mr. Tollett pick up something from a chair. It was her mother’s coat. She watched her mother put it on; her head was drooping now.

  When Mr. Tollett suddenly came towards the door, she sprang back and nearly fell into the boxes stacked near the wall. If it hadn’t been for the wind they would have heard her scrambling to the side of them.