‘She’ll get out of all that; children do.’
‘They don’t . . . most of them get worse once they leave school. “Ganging hyem”, they say. “Had on”, they say. You know they do. Do you want her to speak like that?’
‘I don’t think it matters very much how one speaks, it’s how one acts that counts.’
‘Don’t be silly, woman.’ He stood up. ‘They act mostly as they speak.’
Lizzie put her hand to her trembling lips. ‘I know you mean well, sir, and you have been kindness itself to us all, but I would ask you to forget about this and leave Mary Ann where she is. In any case, it’s hopeless – Mike will never agree to it.’
‘Mike!’ Mr Lord’s head swung from his shoulders as if it would leave his body; it was as if Mike’s name had set his nerves jangling. ‘Look, I’ll have this settled now – send for him. He’s no fool about the child, no matter what else he is. He will put her first.’
Lizzie put her hand on the table and steadied herself, ‘It’s no use, sir; besides, there’s no-one here to go for him.’
‘Then I’ll soon find someone.’
She watched him march out of the cottage, and to her amazement she heard him imperiously request Mrs Jones to bring Mike at once. She sat down as if to give herself respite before the coming battle. The old man, she could see, was on his high horse, when he would brook no interference from anyone. But Mike wasn’t anyone, he was Mary Ann’s father. He was her life-spring, and she, to a great extent, was his. They couldn’t do without each other. Mike’s words came back: ‘He does it to buy her.’ He was right.
Mr Lord returned and sat down, but did not speak. The room, warm and still, took on the atmosphere of a courtroom where the judge, who was also the prisoner, was awaited.
Even as they fought they jumped about, clapped their hands and stamped their feet to ward off the penetrating cold. Sarah and her army of three were ranged on one side, while Mary Ann with only Cissy and Agnes were on the other.
‘You think you’re everybody because you’ve been picked to say poetry,’ said Sarah, skipping in an imaginary rope. ‘Any fool can learn poetry.’
‘Then why don’t you?’ said Mary Ann pertly.
‘’Cause I wouldn’t want to be like you, for all the tea in China, because you’re the biggest liar from here to Frenchman’s Bay and back – telling people that the Infant Jesus brought you that bike.’
‘I didn’t say that, so there.’ Mary Ann bounced her head at the grim-visaged Sarah. ‘I said that I prayed to Him and He told Mr Lord to get it . . . Father Owen told me to do it. “Go on and ask the Baby, Mary Ann,” he said, “and He’ll give you anything you want because He knows you’re good.” That’s what he said. So there!’
Thumping her forehead with her fist, Sarah turned amazed eyes to her followers, and together they followed her example and thumped their own heads. ‘She’s barmy!’ cried Sarah. ‘She’ll end up in the loony bin.’
‘I’ll not,’ said Mary Ann, blowing on her gloved hands, ‘but I know where you’ll go for certain – Hell – down there!’ She thumbed the earth. ‘Hell! Hell! Hell!’ Each word was emphasised with a jump, and on the loudest ‘Hell!’ and the highest jump, a voice said: ‘Mary Ann Shaughnessy! You come to me in the morning.’
The injustice meted out by teachers in general and this one in particular kept Mary Ann, in spite of the intense cold, immovable as she watched the departing figure. Then a splutter from Sarah brought her round in fury: ‘You! You great big goat-face! I’ll tell me da on you,’ she cried.
‘I’ll tell me da on you,’ mimicked Sarah. ‘Me da’s a grand man.’
‘So he is, an’ all.’
‘And a grand drinker.’
Still mimicking, Sarah turned on her heel with this shot, and taking her friends with her, ran out of the school yard, with Mary Ann’s voice helping her on her way, crying, ‘Oh you! You . . . you big liar! You’ll burn in . . . ’ She stopped abruptly and glanced round, but there were only the questioning eyes of her friends upon her. ‘She’s jealous of me bike,’ she ended lamely. Then, ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘else I’ll miss the bus. And’ – she added, by way of payment to her reserve army – ‘I’ll give you a ride on me bike when the weather’s fine and me ma lets me ride it.’
By the time Mary Ann reached the bus stop she was once more in harmony with her own particular world, for she had regaled her admiring friends with the wonders of the farm: their cottage, which had now reached the proportions of a mansion house; Mr Lord, who was the good genie and bestower of all gifts; but lastly and covering all, her da and his high position on the farm.
She waved to her friends from the bus, and they waved back, even running along the streets to get a last glimpse of her from the window. She was happy. And wait till her da knew she had been picked from the whole school to say poetry at the monthly assembly, when all the classes would be there. Wasn’t it lucky she had been asked to recite bits from Hiawatha? She liked Hiawatha because it was sing-songy.
To the rhythmic purr of the bus she began to recite to herself from Hiawatha’s Childhood, shaking her head each time she repeated the plea of the animals and birds, ‘Do not shoot us, Hiawatha,’ until she reached the end and rendered triumphantly to herself,
‘All the village came and feasted,
All the guests praised Hiawatha,
Called him Strong-Heart, Soan-ge-taha!
Called him Lion-Heart, Mahn-go-taysee!’
But long before the bus reached the crossroads her thoughts had sunk to a less literary level and she was endeavouring to compose a rhyme that would make Sarah Flannagan mad. Line after line was discarded as not bad enough, and by the time the bus stopped she had given up the attempt. But she still felt happy; so, to the rhythm of,
‘Boxy, boxy, push it down your socksy;
Umper, umper, push it up your jumper,’
she hitched down the lane home.
‘Boxy, boxy’ was a very good thing to hitch to – it got you along – and so happy was she to be home that she continued to chant in no small voice right across the yard and into the scullery, but stopped dead at the kitchen door.
In the kitchen, and all looking at her, were her ma and da and Mr Lord, and she did not need her eyes to tell her that there had been a row. The atmosphere was enough. The tension conveyed itself to her and touched her nerves like a vibrating wire.
‘Say that again.’
‘What?’ She looked at Mr Lord.
‘That jingle you were saying as you came in.’
Mary Ann looked from Lizzie to Mike, then at Mr Lord again, and she repeated slowly and flatly, ‘Boxy, boxy, push it down your socksy; umper, umper, push it up your jumper.’
It didn’t sound right like that, you had to hitch to it.
Mr Lord turned on Mike. ‘The school is good enough for her, she is learning fast! That’s what she is learning.’
Mike’s face was unusually pale. He wet his lips a number of times before saying, ‘Look, sir, let’s get this straight once and for all. She’s my daughter, she’ll have the education I can afford and that’s all.’
There was almost a sneer on Mr Lord’s face. ‘And what do you pay for her present education?’
‘Nothing,’ barked Mike, with startling suddenness, ‘and that’s what I can afford!’
Lizzie closed her eyes and her hand went to her throat as she waited, but unexpectedly Mr Lord did not answer Mike with a similar bark. His voice became even quieter. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘will you let her decide for herself?’
‘No – a child of her age doesn’t know what she wants.’
‘True in most cases, but this case I think is different. She knows what she wants, if anybody does. Will you take a chance on it? I promise you I’ll stand by it, and you won’t hear me mention the matter again if it goes against me.’
Lizzie brought Mike’s eyes to hers, and he saw the fear in them, not of Mary Ann being allowed to choose, but of his reactions to this affair
no matter what the child’s choice should be. Fear for him was ever present with Lizzie, and nothing he ever did seemed to allay it. The anger that was boiling in him suddenly lost its intense heat. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘have it your way.’
Now they all looked at Mary Ann, but no-one offered to tell her what she had to choose, and she gazed from one to the other in troubled perplexity. Heavily, Lizzie moved towards her, and, taking her hand, drew her to a chair. She sat down and brought Mary Ann to face her squarely, and in a low voice began to talk to her as one does to a child when another is asleep.
‘You know the stories you read in your Girl’s Own and The Schoolgirl about the big schools where the girls sleep in dormitories and have parties at the end of term before they go home?’
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘Do you like those stories?’
‘Yes, Ma.’
Lizzie paused and looked away from Mary Ann to Mr Lord’s feet. They were thin feet, she noticed, long and thin. He was all long and thin, not capable surely of such tenacity to a whim, for that’s all it was, a whim.
She looked at Mary Ann again. ‘You know at those schools the girls learn different things from what you do at your school?’
‘Yes, Ma. But’ – Mary Ann brightened a little – ‘I’ve been picked for poetry, I’m going to say Hiawatha before the whole school, and Sarah Flannagan . . . ’
‘Yes, yes, you can tell me later. I’m glad you’ve been picked. But listen – would you like to learn French and German, and play hockey?’
‘Oh yes, Ma.’
Lizzie paused again – she dare not look at Mike – ‘And talk properly?’
Now Mary Ann’s bewilderment vanished. She became herself again. Her chin edged upwards, just the slightest and she inquired in no meek voice, ‘Like Lena Ratcliffe?’
‘Something like Lena – perhaps better.’
Mary Ann turned and glanced at Mr Lord. Then she asked, ‘Grammar and things?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t want to be like Lena Ratcliffe, but . . . ’ She paused. There was another side to this. Imagine being able to talk swanky and boast about your house matches to Sarah Flannagan, like Gwendolyn Tremayne did in The Prefect of the Fourth. She would say to her, in her best swanky voice, ‘So you see, Sarah Flannagan, I’m a prefect, and you’ve got to do as I say or I’ll have you chucked out – no, thrown out, on your great big ugly mug, and . . . ’
‘You’ll have to go a long way from home and only come back in the holidays.’
Only come home in the holidays . . . Mary Ann swung round and looked at Mike. He was staring at her, but she could get nothing from his face. It looked blank, as if he was asleep with his eyes open. If she went to this school she wouldn’t see him, not for weeks and weeks. She wouldn’t hear him laughing, she wouldn’t be here to pour the water over his head when he washed, and she always poured the water over his head, and when he was sad and had his gone-away look she wouldn’t be here to make him laugh. And she wouldn’t see her ma or their Michael either. Suddenly the thought of not seeing Michael became painful, too, in spite of the fact that last night he had punched her because she had slapped him on the back with the cold, wet flannel when he was taking off his shirt. Everything quite suddenly became painfully dear to her. Above all, far above all, the dearness of her da. Yet, as her answer came into her mind, her head drooped, for there came over her a feeling of pity for Mr Lord. He was nice, in spite of his growling when he talked, and he was kind, and she would like to please him, ’cos hadn’t he bought her that bike? But if she pleased him, she would displease her da.
‘I don’t want to go to any school if I have to go away.’
Neither Mike nor Mr Lord moved, nor did their expressions change. Lizzie, glancing from one to another, and relief rising in her, made herself say, ‘Now are you sure? Remember you will have nice clothes and meet nice girls.’
‘But I don’t want to – not to go away.’
Mr Lord picked up his hat from the chair and without a word made for the door, and before Lizzie could rise to open it he was gone.
Mary Ann went towards Mike. She felt all of a sudden quiet and somehow tired. She leant against his leg and his hand moved gently on her hair.
‘Get your things off,’ said Lizzie; and to Mike she said, ‘Are you going back now before your tea?’
‘Yes, I’m going back now.’ He spoke quietly; then he eased Mary Ann from his leg and went out.
‘Get your hands washed,’ said Lizzie.
Mary Ann washed her hands. Everything was as it had been, except that she felt sorry for Mr Lord.
Chapter Seven: The Lapse
‘And you know what I said to him next, Mrs McBride?’
‘No.’ Fanny pushed her folded arms, which supported her huge breasts, further onto the table. ‘Go on, hinny, and tell me; me ears are like cuddy’s lugs.’
‘Well’ – Mary Ann became lost in recalling the scene of three weeks ago – ‘well, I said to him: I’m not going to your fancy school, ’cos I don’t want to be a lady and talk posh and swanky, an’ I said I’m gonna stay home with me ma and da.’
‘And what did the old boy say to that?’ Fanny’s eyes were lost in deep wrinkles of amusement.
‘Oh, he said lots, he kept on and on and on.’
‘And you wouldn’t give in?’
‘No.’
‘Good for you. You stick to your ma and da.’
‘I’m going to.’ Mary Ann now also leaned her elbows on the table. It was nice being in Mrs McBride’s kitchen, although it wasn’t clean like theirs for it smelt of onions and soapsuds and baking herrings; and it was nice being with Mrs McBride, for she made you feel fine and important, and she took away all the things that kept niggling inside of you. She had even dulled the one terrifying thing, the fear. Yet the terrifying thing itself seemed more at home now in this house than it did in the cottage, for it had nearly happened here last year, and now it was starting again. She had no name for it, this thing which existed between her ma and da and Mr Quinton, but just a fortnight ago it had come into their lives again. She had seen it almost take on tangible form and fill the kitchen, when her da walked in upon her ma and Mr Quinton having a cup of tea, and her ma had the best cloth on and the good china out, and it was Saturday and the men weren’t working on the house. Mr Quinton had spoken nicely to her da and her da had spoken nice back, but even as they walked about the house the terrifying thing was there. Yet it did not leap to real life until her ma and da went to bed, when they fought quietly, their words hissing unintelligibly, well into the night.
The next day her ma’s face was stiff and white. And then there was yesterday and the snowballing. Her and their Michael were pelting their ma with snowballs in the lane when Mr Quinton came along – he was walking, because he couldn’t get his car up the lane – and he joined in the fight, helping their ma, and they all had a rare game; and nobody came past, only Mr Ratcliffe. Yet her da knew, because when he came in he said, ‘Well, did you have some fine sport?’ and it wasn’t really to her and Michael he said it but to their ma. And this morning her face was all white again. And then straight after dinner her da had gone out. That’s why she was here.
In the soothing company of this fat, grubby old woman she had forgotten for the moment why she had been sent into Jarrow. Lizzie, in her agony of uncertainty as to what Mike in the throes of his jealousy might do, had sent Mary Ann to his old haunt in the hope, not that she might find him sober, but that, with the usual power the child had over him, she might induce him to return home quietly, for Mike, under the influence, was a one-man show. Beer did not make him belligerent but gave him the desire to entertain. Contrary to his attitude towards the mass in his sober state, when in drink he sought out his fellows, and with song and dance regaled them. It was this regaling that filled Lizzie with shame and gave a sourness to Mike’s own awakening.
‘And what are you in Jarrow for the day on your own?’ inquired Mrs McBride. And when M
ary Ann, with a betraying nonchalance, said, ‘Oh, just to look round,’ Mrs McBride squinted at her and drew her chins in, fold upon fold.
‘Just to look round!’ she said.
‘M’m.’
The squint became narrower. ‘Don’t tell me Mike’s at it again.’
The blood rushed to Mary Ann’s face.
‘Dear God, is he mad? To jeopardise a fine job! What’s come over him this time?’
Mary Ann stood up. ‘He hasn’t done it . . . I mean I just come to look for him.’ Then her small show of defiance slid away. This old woman knew all there was to know – hadn’t she saved their Michael’s life after he gassed himself, and didn’t she like her da and always stood up for him? She said quietly, ‘He went out all on his own, and he usually takes us on a Saturday, and me ma was worried and sent me to look for him. And I waited till the Ben Lomond came out and he wasn’t there; nor at the Long Bar; nor at Rafferty’s.’
‘He’s a blasted fool if ever there was one!’ cried Fanny indignantly. ‘And old Lord won’t stand for him and the bottle again. He should tread warily there.’
This last remark put into words another worry. Everyone had to tread warily with Mr Lord now; he wasn’t like he used to be. He didn’t pass the crossroads in the morning and give them all a lift to school, and he never came into their house at all now; and he had refused to take her hand that day in the farmyard. And Lena Ratcliffe had seen and had crowed over her the next morning.
‘You’re being put in your place,’ she had said, ‘and Mammy says it’s not before time.’
When she had jumped at Lena and slapped her face she had expected their Michael to go for her, but strangely enough he didn’t, he went for Lena instead. That had made her feel . . . funny towards him, and that night she had lent him her paintbox.
The Lord and Mary Ann (The Mary Ann Stories) Page 9
