Pure as the Lily

by Catherine Cookson

  what you did for me was to boost your own ego, if you know what that means. Put in simple words, in your case, get one up on everybody in the street. “

  You-thankless-God-forsaken-weak-kneed scut! for that’s all you are.

  You’re like her. Birds of a feather. You’re going to her aren’t you?

  She’s done this. She’s been egging you on for years. You long, weedy simpleton . “ She couldn’t go on. The saliva was running over her bottom lip.

  Betty was sobbing aloud now, sitting by the table, her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Jimmy looked down on her and said, “It’s too late for that, Betty. Don’t come the soft, downtrodden little woman at this stage because there’s no softness in you, you’re as hard as nails. I should have seen it from the beginning. But me ma’s right about one thing, I am a simpleton ... at least I was.” He turned and, picking up the coat from the chair, threw it over his shoulder, then lifted the cases and, looking at his mother, he dealt her the last but one final blow. Yet for her it was the final one. You’d like to know,” he said, ‘that I won’t be teaching any more. I wiped the blackboard with a lad’s face and the Head didn’t like it.... And although our Mary’s got nothing to do with this business you’re right, I am going to her, just for an hour or so. I’ve got somebody waiting there for me.” He walked towards the door through a clear path, and there he turned.

  “I’ll better tell you because you’ll know soon enough it’ll take the Home Guard to put the fire out when it gets around. I’m going off with Lally.”

  Betty was on her feet, her face looking fiendish now, and she screamed at him, “No! You won’t, you won’t disgrace me with her, that dippy

  I’

  ‘her, that brazen barmy blonde an’ you! Why you! “ Alice rushed to the table, but he had the door open when a tin of condensed milk, already spilling its contents, hit the stanchion. But when the cup caught him on the side of the face his teeth clenched and he felt the anger from earlier in the day returning. He was for putting the cases down but thought better of it; instead, he dragged the front door open and went into the street. He could hear the commotion behind him and their yelling in the hallway, but he knew that neither of them would follow him into the street. They both considered themselves above the types that took their battles into the street, which was odd, because when either of them got going you could hear them for doors down.

  When he turned the corner his pace slowed. He was free. He was free.

  The words rose to a crescendo in his mind like a 201 great concerted shout, and he paused for a moment to let them escape, but when they came through his lips they were a deep whisper that released his body of its weight.

  By the time he reached Mary’s, he had come down to earth somewhat. He was still married to Betty and she’d likely make him pay through the teeth with a maintenance order. But nothing on God’s earth could make him go back to her. He had escaped, he was free, free to love, and be loved by, Lally.

  It wasn’t until he was going up Mary’s stairs that he realized that he had his cheque on him. In shock, both of them had forgotten it was his pay day. He chuckled and smiled, and he was still smiling when he entered the hallway and Mary came from the sitting-room. But the smile slid from his face when he saw her.

  Mary watched him drop the cases and throw his coat over them, she watched him straighten his back and stretch his neck upwards. They stood looking at each other, until she said under her breath, “What’s all this about?”

  “Come into the kitchen.”

  In the kitchen with the door shut he said, “I hope you don’t mind, I told Lally to come here and wait for me.”

  “Lally. You mean ... ?”

  “Aye, yes, I mean what you think. I’ve left her, Betty, and I did it in one grand finale. I sent her for me ma, I made her go for me ma, and when she came I told her she was welcome to stay. You know how she’s plagued me for years to come and live there. Well, now they’ve got each other.” His voice dropped.

  “I couldn’t stand any more, Mary.

  The climax came at school. I. I hammered a boy. “

  You what! “

  “Oh, he had it coming to him.” He turned his head to the side.

  “He wrote something on the board about me and I rubbed it off with his face.”

  She put her hand to her cheek; then, grimly she said, ‘you know what usually happens when you attack somebody in the face. “

  “Oh, it wasn’t like that.” His tone was sharp now.

  “I made his nose bleed, that’s all, and gave him a fright.”

  They’ll likely sack you. “

  “Oh, that’s a forgone conclusion, I’m not going back.”

  “And’—Mary moved her head slowly up and down ‘you’re going off with her?” She jerked her head towards the door. “

  Yes. “

  “Oh my God! Our Jimmy!” Her tone, her manner, her look, were all derogatory.

  “Now don’t you start, Mary, you’re me only hope. And she’s all right.

  She’s, she’s wonderful. She may not be very bright, but I’ve got enough brightness for both of us. Betty was bright, brittly bright, bitchy bright. I know inside that Lally is what I need. And she’s nice, she’s kind. “

  “I’m not disputing that.” Mary had her head turned away now.

  “She might be all that....”

  “She is all that. When you get to know her you can’t but like her.”

  “That may be true an’ all, but have you thought what you’re doing?

  Betty won’t take this lying down. Even if she would, me ma’ll see to it that she’ll get the last farthing out of you; you’ll have to keep two houses. “

  “I’ll manage somehow. That will be the least of my worries. Bread and scrap and a board bed wouldn’t hurt me, it’s people that hurt me, Mary. You should know that, the same one that’s hurt you... her! Even Betty, as bad as she is, wouldn’t have gone to the limit if me ma hadn’t encouraged her. There’s the devil in me ma, she’s a bad woman.

  It’s dreadful to say such a thing. “ He turned away and looked out of the kitchen window.

  “Aye, it’s dreadful when you’ve got to say that the one who bore you is bad, rotten.”

  There was a silence between them now, then Mary asked quietly, “Where you heading for?”

  He turned to her.

  “That’s the point; I’ve no place as yet. I was going to ask a favour of you. The Flake Street shop, the rooms above, they’re damaged I know but... but I could fix

  them up for the time being. There’s nobody in there, is there? “

  Mary blinked, bit on her lip, then said quietly, “No.”

  “Then ... then will you let us have them just until I find a place?”

  She looked at him. What could she say? The thought of the Flake Street shop spelt pain to her. What she did say was, “They’re bare; there’s no bedding there, nothing.”

  “If you could let us have a few blankets or something until tomorrow we’ll send the cart for Lally’s things.”

  She heaved a sigh.

  “Yes, I could do that.”

  He walked towards her and took her hands and said gently, “Thanks, Mary. You know something? I’ve never been happier in me life than I am at this minute. I can’t remember one real happy day, not even’—he gave a hie of a laugh ‘not even the day I married Betty, because the previous night some little thing that she said clicked in my mind and linked her with me ma, and if I could have got out of it then I would.... You want to see me happy, don’t you Mary?”

  ‘you know I do Well, I’ll be happy with Lally. Where is she? “

  “In the dining-room with me da. Funny’—she now gave a small laugh ‘they’re talking together as if they’d known each other for years;

  I’ve never heard me da talk so much since he came into the house. “

  Jimmy smiled now as if she had paid him a compliment and said, “There, what did I tell you?”

/>   She turned from him, saying, “Well come on. Take your coat off and have a cup of tea....”

  Two hours later they were ready to go. Jimmy had made the journey with the van to Flake Street and deposited there some bedding which included a single mattress, together with their cases, and now Mary was in the sitting-room alone for a moment with Lally. They were both standing

  looking at each other. Mary thought. This woman is a year younger than me, only twenty-six, but she looks thirty if she’s a day.

  And she looks blousey, not Jimmy’s type at all. Jimmy was the brainy type, clever, intellectual. He should be doing something with his brain. But what had he done? Lost his job as a teacher. With that record behind him he’d never get teaching again. And now he was going to start his life with this woman, her with the nickname of Doolallytap, and you didn’t get a nickname like that around here unless there was some reason for it. What was Jimmy thinking about?

  She started as Lally now put out her hand and touched her gently and, as if reading her thoughts, said, “I know I’m no cop. People’ll say he’s mad. An’ perhaps he is ‘cos I’m not bright, but at the same time I know some things that other people don’t. I don’t think you need to be too bright to make a man happy, an’ I’m going to make Jimmy happy.

  I’ll spend me time, all me life, trying to make him happy. An’ . an’ I’ll tell you something. If he wants to leave me after a bit I won’t try to stop him, I’ll just be thankful for what I’ve had. It doesn’t come everybody’s way every day to get a man like Jimmy. “

  Her humility was embarrassing, it was throat catching. She could see now what had got Jimmy, the simplicity, the truth, and the depth, yes, a depth welling up out of the big body. She swallowed hard before she said, “I think you will make him happy, Lally; he ... he needs a little, a little love. He’s had a rough passage.”

  They both nodded at each other now, and when the door opened Mary said briskly, “Well now, I suppose you’d better be off. But’—she looked towards Jimmy ‘come round for breakfast in the morning and we’ll get down to things. When I’ve had time to think there may be some place more suitable than Flake Street.”

  Jimmy said nothing, he just smiled at her; then taking Lally by the arm he led her into the hallway, where Alee was standing.

  “We’ll be off then, Da,” he said.

  “Aye, lad, aye.” Alee nodded at him and then at Lally.

  “Be seeing you, lass,” he said, and Lally answered, “Oh yes, be seeing you, Mr.

  Walton. Pleasure meetin’ you. “

  “An’ you, lass, an’ you.”

  Mary did not go down the stairs with them, and when the sound of the door closing came to her she turned and looked at Alee, and she saw that he was smiling. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him really smile. She looked towards the st airhead doorway. She had the strange feeling that her da, too, had gone off with Doolally-tap.

  Chapter Eight

  it was over. The world had stopped going mad. That is all except the Japs. But they would soon be put in their place, and the best place for them was in graves. So said everybody that came into the shop.

  Wasn’t it marvelous! Soon they’d be able to come in and say, “Couple of pounds of best butter, lass; three pounds of cheese; two pounds of the best short back, smoked mind;

  half a dozen bars of chocolate; no, no, make it a dozen; two pounds of biscuits, mixed, custard creams, chocolate, lemon slices, the lot. “

  And Mary brought censure down on herself by answering one customer who was prophesying this order by saying, “Yes, Mrs. Jacobson; but in the meantime you’ll have your rations, for four isn’t it?”

  There were victory teas in the streets, one street vying with another in laying a table for the hairns, and lavish enough to represent victory.

  “Come on, Mary.” Mrs. McArthur smiled at her.

  “You can scrape the bottom of the barrel. It’s for the baims, a bit extra

  fat and sugar. You’d be surprised what I could do with a couple of pounds of each. They say they’re using liquid paraffin to make their cakes across the road’—she nodded in the direction of the houses over the back lane ‘but our Lizzie’s Monica, she’s nursing in Harton, you know, well, she told our Lizzie to be careful in using too much of that, things can happen to your inside she said. So as I said to Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Farthers, we’re havin’ none of that, we’re not having that on our conscience. “ She laughed here.

  “We don’t know what’s in the bloomin’ marge, and the sugar might be half sand, but still that’s the Government’s fault. What about it, lass?”

  Mary smiled wryly, “All right, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Good lass.” As Mrs. McArthur went to leave the kitchen she turned and said, “And you’ll come down and look in? It’s no use broodin’, lass, you cannot bring them back.”

  When she had gone Mary thought, She’s right, you cannot bring them back. But she went into the bedroom and lifted up Ben’s photo and that of David from where they stood on the chest-of-drawers, and she looked at them for a long while before replacing them. Then of a sudden she grabbed up Ben’s photo again and held it to her chest, murmuring, Oh Ben! Ben! “

  She was lonely. She seemed to be getting more lonely with every day that passed; time wasn’t helping her. Here she was, surrounded by people all needing her, making demands on her and filling her with guilt because she wanted to push them off. Over the past months the feeling of wanting to get away from them all had been strong on her, but since May the 7th, the day on which Germany surrendered, she’d had the added urge to actually pack up and rush off somewhere. But where?

  The war over, she saw the world open to her, she could travel. She’s always wanted to travel, and she’d have enough money. Ben’s hobby would pay off now. He had initiated her into his hobby. He had shares in about fifteen different companies. Not a lot; perhaps only two or three hundred, and some of them weren’t worth more than a

  shilling or two each as they stood, but Ben had told her time and again, let the war be over and within a year or two most of these would rocket. Once he had turned to her and said, “Don’t ever sell these, Mary, I mean thinking that they’re not worth anything because they’re low,” and she had replied, “What on earth are you talking about? How could I sell them?” And he had said, “Well, you never know what happens. I’m just warning you.”

  She would heed his warning; he had made her sensible where money was concerned. Then there were the shops. The property was theirs hers now, besides the six houses and the cottage, Moat Cottage. But she knew what she was going to do with the cottage. The day Jimmy and Lally went in there she was going to hand him the deeds. It would be a surprise, a nice surprise, and it would give him a feeling of security and add a final touch to his happiness.

  At times lately she had felt a bit green about Jimmy’s happiness. He was going around like a tall beacon light, shining with it. He had been right, Lally had been what he needed. And Lally herself, nobody could help liking Lally. She was big, naive and lovable, and she was someone who had to be cared for, and directed, and Jimmy had never had anyone to direct, or prove himself master of, he had been bullied, dominated and mastered all his life.

  During the last year she had watched her brother become a man. The dreaminess had gone, and since the baim had been born . well, anybody would think that it was the first baby that had been delivered into the world. But then it was Lally’s first baby.

  It was odd how things had gone for him since he had taken the final step away from her ma and Betty. He had got a job as orderly in the Infirmary, and he had not only endeared himself to most of the staff with whom he worked, but had managed to bring the interest of the doctors to bear on Lally owing to her three previous miscarriages; in consequence she’d had the best of care and had been admitted to hospital during the latter part of her pregnancy. She’d had to

  have a caesarean in the end and it was doubtful it she’d ever ha
ve another child. But that didn’t matter, she’d given him a son, and he had called it Ben.

  She had been very touched that Jimmy had called the child Ben and so, in order that his son could be brought up in decent surroundings, away from the scum of the streets and the back lanes, she had suggested to him that if he put in some spa retime work on the cottage, with what old bomb—site timber he could get his hands on, and decorate it, even if only with battleship grey paint, then they could move in there. His delight had been so great that you would have thought she was offering him Buckingham Palace.

  Yes, she was glad, happy that things were going well for Jimmy, even if his doting attitude towards Lally was a little too much at times.

  As she went quietly from the bedroom she saw her daughter hastily push a bag of sweets into her coat pocket and gulp at the one in her mouth, and she called, “Annie!”

  “Yes, Ma.” Annie’s expression was surly.

  “I thought you were going to give your rations in for the Victory tea?”

  “Well, I am; I did.”

  “What’s those you put in your pocket?” She went towards her and drew from her pocket a bag holding about six ounces of toffees, and she put her head on one side and surveyed her daughter, and Annie surveyed her in return and said, “Ma, you’re niggardly.”

  Yes, she supposed she was niggardly. Who else in her position would deprive her daughter of a few sweets? What was the matter with her anyway? She handed the bag back to Annie, but asked, “Who gave them to you? Teresa or your gran da

  The gran da

  “Go on.” She pushed her, and she smiled wryly as she watched the child flounce down the stairs. Her da would have done the same for her years ago.

  A few minutes later she entered the back shop. Alee was

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