Mulligan's Yard

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘From up his sleeve, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Aye, we could put money on that.’ Mona looked across at Mulligan’s office. He presided over the yard most days, his watchful eye making mental notes of comings, goings, who kept the place tidy, who left a mess. He ran his own business, too, something to do with Irish racehorses and breeds of cattle he wanted to introduce. ‘Miserable sod,’ declared Mona, before placing a pinch of snuff on the back of a hand. She inhaled, sneezed, passed the snuffbox to her sister who went through the same ritual.

  ‘Well, if he says one more word to me, I’ll punch his face for him,’ declared Tilly, once her sinuses settled. ‘Clean me windows? What’s the point of cleaning windows every day when they just mist over with all the steam? I mean, he never speaks, then when he does open his ignorant Irish gob, it’s just to gripe and complain.’ She pointed to Mulligan’s window. ‘Look, he’s stood there now watching us. Flaming cheek.’

  Mona glanced across the yard. ‘As long as he gets his rent, why the hell should he care what we do? Thirty year we’ve been running this laundry – ever since Mam died. He should learn a few manners. Why, the gob on him’d curdle milk from forty paces, I’ll bet. Dairy farming? His cows’ll be giving nowt but cheese if he has owt to do with it.’ In spite of the harsh words she spoke, Mona’s heart skipped a beat. Eeh, James Mulligan was a bonny-looking man, that was for sure.

  Both sisters swept a glance around the yard. The undertaker next door was always quiet, but that was the nature of his trade. Next to the funeral parlour and at right angles, the stonemason carved out his trade. He laboured under strict instructions not to hammer after nine in the evening, so any rush jobs had to be done during the day, just a bit of polishing and quiet chiselling after hours. Between the mason and the clock-maker, stables stood parallel with the rear of the Red Lion, then, after the turn, there was a night-watchman’s shed and Mulligan’s office. A sweets and tobacco, a fabric shop and a grocer’s backed on to the yard, their main entrances on Deansgate, one to the left of the inn, two to the right. Those shopkeepers didn’t know how lucky they were, because Mulligan could not oversee their ongoings.

  ‘Shall I get the leather and wipe the windows?’ asked Mona.

  ‘Not yet. Let the swine wait,’ replied Tilly. ‘Him and his car and his fancy clothes. He dresses like summat out of an old book. God knows where he got that hat, but I swear it’s one of them they wear at the opera. I bet it goes flat so it’ll fit in a cupboard.’

  ‘It’s him wants flattening,’ declared Mona, though she didn’t know whether she meant it. But even his father had been easy in comparison with this bloke. Thomas Mulligan had been too drunk most days to notice whether the yard buildings still had roofs and walls. Mr Mulligan Junior might be something of an oil painting, but he was a hard man.

  ‘He’ll get his comeuppance,’ Tilly remarked. ‘If there’s a God, yon feller’ll not thrive. Catholics? All that dressing up, bowing and scraping – the service they call Mass is like a three-ring circus or a pantomime. And they know how to hang on to their money. Show me a rich Catholic and I’ll show you a miser. Oh, aye, he’ll not prosper.’

  As if their movements had been choreographed, the sisters turned simultaneously and re-entered the wash-house, Tilly leading the way, as ever. A few poor souls lingered, folk who couldn’t afford a morning session. Mornings were dearer and busier, and the Walshes managed to get an extra penny per sink from early birds. Some of the early washers used the dryers, too, whereas these remnants of the local populace would carry or push wet bundles home, contents to be hung in kitchens overnight or saved for tomorrow, God and the continence of rain clouds willing.

  Mr Dobson from next door came in with a box of shrouds. These had been used to house bodies until families turned up with a suit or a dress. He pushed the plain white items across the counter. ‘He’s been on the rampage again,’ he said mournfully. ‘Could I be a bit more discreet with my coffins. That’s because I had three arrivals at once, and I left two outside for five minutes.’

  Tilly and Mona shook their heads in sympathy.

  ‘Then, he started on about my horses. They’ve got to do it somewhere, haven’t they? I mean, I pick it up regular and put it in the manure bucket. There’s folk queuing up to get their hands on my manure. Nowt but the best, my horses get. There’s a fair few prize-winning roses come out of the back ends of my beasts. There I am, seeing to the needs of the newly departed, and all he can think about is keeping the yard clean and uncluttered.’

  Tilly picked up the shrouds and pushed them under the counter until morning. ‘Usual, Mr Dobson? Boil and a light starch?’

  ‘Aye.’ The undertaker fiddled with his watch fob.

  ‘I were just saying afore,’ volunteered Tilly, ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to. Have you seen his motor?’

  ‘I have,’ replied Seth Dobson. ‘Just a big piece of swank on four wheels.’ He leaned forward in a conspiratorial fashion. ‘I’ve heard some say as he had nowt as a lad. No back in his trousers, no boots on his feet.’

  ‘Eeh,’ said Mona, joining the other two in their huddle. ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘I do say,’ Mr Dobson said emphatically. ‘You can tell he’s new to money, like. There’s two ways they can go, you see. Now, one type’ll take hold and spend the lot before you can say knife. But the other kind – and he’s one of them – looks after every brass farthing as if it were a king’s ransom.’

  ‘Tight,’ pronounced Mona.

  ‘A right Scrooge,’ agreed Tilly.

  The undertaker looked over his shoulder. ‘Then there’s the cellar.’ He straightened, smoothed his waistcoat, nodded three times, then bent his head again. ‘Funny goings-on,’ he whispered.

  ‘You what?’ Tilly’s quadruple chin went into overdrive as she glanced furtively about the room. ‘There isn’t no cellar round here,’ she said eventually. ‘Unless it’s where they keep the ale in the Red Lion.’

  ‘Not here,’ said Mr Dobson. ‘Up yonder. Pendleton Grange.’

  ‘Go on,’ urged Mona.

  ‘Nay, I’m saying nowt,’ answered the dark-clad man.

  Tilly grabbed his hand, then released it suddenly. The trouble with an undertaker was that you could never work out where his hands had been, but imagination filled in the gaps. ‘Hey, you’re not leaving us here with the tale half told. That’d keep me awake all night, wondering about doings in a cellar.’

  ‘Me and all.’ Mona was not to be outdone in the gossip stakes.

  Dobson continued reluctant. ‘It’s only summat and nowt.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that,’ challenged Tilly.

  ‘Me and all.’ Mona pointed a fat finger at the customer.

  ‘I don’t know as I should rightly say. A man in my profession has to be discreet, same as a doctor or a lawyer.’ He paused for effect. ‘Only a friend of mine has a lass who works for Mulligan – a sleeping-in job. Mary, she’s called. She comes home on her days off and she . . . well . . . lets a few things slip.’

  ‘Does she?’ Tilly’s eyebrows were almost in her hairline. ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Cellar.’ Seth Dobson’s voice was almost inaudible.

  ‘What about the cellar?’ Tilly was getting cross. It was nearly closing time, and this fellow was getting on her nerves. He was a miserable-looking bloke, with a squint. Thin as a rake, he was every inch the professional mourner, face like a smacked bum, stringy neck, not a muscle to brag about. And his skin was yellow like old paper, as if he was nearly dead himself.

  He inclined his head even further. ‘Well, the family – the proper family – used to keep wine in a part of it. Big house, big cellar, so most of it’s been empty except for rubbish – worn-out furniture and that. Then there’s coal at the back, near the kitchen. But now, nobody knows what’s going on down there. First thing every morning, his nibs goes down for about an hour, then he comes back up, locks the door, wears the key on a chain round his neck.’

&n
bsp; Mona shivered. ‘Just once a day?’

  ‘No,’ answered Dobson. ‘Sometimes it’s twice, sometimes three or four times.’

  ‘What does he do in there?’ asked Tilly.

  Mona clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘If folk could see through doors, happen there’d be an answer.’ She turned her attention to Mr Dobson. ‘Can they hear anything while he’s down there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied.

  ‘Ooh, heck,’ exclaimed Tilly. ‘He could have a mad wife locked up – like that feller in Jane Eyre, him that ended up burnt.’

  ‘Bigamist, he were.’ Mona’s tone was disapproving.

  ‘Mulligan might be a mad scientist doing experiments on animals,’ offered Tilly. ‘Or on people.’

  ‘They’d scream,’ scoffed Mona.

  ‘Not if they were tied up and gagged.’

  Tired of the women’s prattling, Seth Dobson began to wish he’d kept the news to himself. The trouble with women was that they made too many boils out of pimples. Give them an inch and they ran a flaming marathon. He turned to leave.

  ‘Hang on,’ Tilly ordered. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘What about?’ he asked.

  ‘The cellar.’

  He shrugged non-existent shoulders. ‘It’s a mystery, that’s what I think. He must have something to hide. Nobody goes underground unless they’ve got to.’

  The two women pondered. ‘Photographs or paintings of naked people,’ said Tilly, with the air of someone who has just conquered Everest. ‘I bet he’s one of them perverts. They do all sorts, perverts. They muck about with kiddies, look through bathroom windows, follow women all over the show. There were one in the paper a few weeks back, kept pinching unmentionables off washing-lines. Thirty pairs of wotsernames were found in his allotment shed up Tonge Moor.’

  The undertaker returned to the fold. ‘Careful what you say,’ he warned. ‘He’s just the sort to have you done for defamation.’

  When a cough was heard, all three froze. Tilly and Mona raised their heads and stiffened. The undertaker turned slowly. ‘Mr Mulligan,’ he uttered, his tone more shrill than usual.

  The Misses Walsh appeared to shrink in height, though not in girth. Tilly, the elder and the leader, bent to tidy the under-counter shelf. Mona simply stood still and exhaled, fat fingers spread out before her as if the stretch of counter would support her if and when she fell completely. How long had he been there? What had he heard?

  Seth Dobson swallowed audibly, his thyroid cartilage seeming to scrape like sandpaper against the unhealthy, sepia-tinged skin of his scrawny neck.

  Mulligan doffed his tall, dated hat and entered the wash-house.

  The undertaker, galvanized, collected his own headgear and fled the scene.

  Mona waited. Tilly was still fiddling with bleach and Oxydol washing powder on a low shelf. Tilly, always one for pushing herself to the front of life, was suddenly reduced to hiding. Mona was not going to take evasive action; she would show them both that she wasn’t afeared of him.

  The room was quieter. Only two clients remained, and they had reached the folding and packing-up stage.

  Mulligan gazed around the building. It was vast, with twenty sinks, a large, coal-fuelled drying rack, dolly tubs, several boilers, benches for sorting and folding, a pile of washboards, a barrel filled with possers.

  ‘Can . . . can I help you?’ asked Mona.

  He turned and looked at her. ‘Perhaps,’ he replied.

  Mona and Tilly were not experienced with men. Both claimed to be unaffected by them, each declaring frequently that marriage was drudgery. But this man was . . . different, Mona decided, with extreme reluctance. She could well imagine young women falling all over him – if only he would take an interest.

  ‘How much would you charge to do my domestic linen?’ he asked. ‘You do provide such a service, I take it?’

  Mona cleared her throat. ‘Yes, Tilly and I do laundry for people who haven’t time. As for the cost, that depends on the number of items.’

  He nodded gravely, acting in the manner of a diplomat at the signing of a treaty, all deep thoughts and internationally important clauses.

  ‘Not on Mondays, though,’ continued Mona. ‘We get a bit busy on Mondays.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was as if he had to consult some invisible dictionary before uttering a single syllable. He wasn’t shy, Mona thought. He didn’t blush, didn’t go to pieces when approached. And what a sight for sore eyes, especially in here, where attractive men were as rare as Welsh gold. He had shoulders broad enough for Atlas, dark brown eyes surrounded by thick, curled lashes. His limbs were long, probably muscular under the black cloth, while teeth, skin and hair were all better than merely satisfactory. If he had a visible fault, it was his tendency to frown.

  ‘Miss Walsh?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Did you say something?’ And what a voice.

  ‘I suggested Tuesdays.’

  ‘Right.’ She could feel the heat in her face. Fancy a woman of fifty-odd having her head turned by a man half her age, a miserable blighter into the bargain. She was already in enough trouble with Mr Wilkinson for swearing. No way would she and Tilly enter the Light Eternal if they kept using bad words. But eyeing up a man? Ooh, that was probably the biggest sin of all.

  Tilly surfaced at last. ‘Oh, you’re still here,’ she informed the new customer.

  Mona vowed to tackle her sister later. Five minutes with her head down, then all she could do was state the obvious.

  ‘Who does your washing now?’ asked Mona. She flinched when Tilly’s clog made sharp contact with her leg. It was a fair question, wasn’t it? What was wrong about asking a fair question?

  But he offered no reply.

  Mona tried again. ‘Course, you’ll be able to fetch your dirty linen in your car.’

  ‘Yes,’ he managed.

  Blood out of a stone, remarked Mona inwardly. She met his gaze, found no enmity in the features, noticed no friendliness, either. It was as if he felt nothing at all, as if he couldn’t make contact with his fellow humans. He was a funny package altogether, a man whose childhood was reputed to have been poor, yet whose vocabulary – when he chose to use it – betrayed a better than average level of education. ‘It’s a very nice car,’ she said, in yet another attempt to draw him out.

  ‘It’s convenient,’ he replied. ‘And faster than a horse.’

  ‘Right,’ offered Tilly. ‘You just fetch your stuff and we’ll see to it for you.’

  ‘Oh – we have an ironing service for special customers,’ was Mona’s next little comment.

  ‘I am not special,’ he answered.

  ‘But you’re the boss, the owner, like,’ said Mona.

  Tilly wondered whether her sister might be on the verge of lying down on the floor and giving this jumped-up Irish fellow the chance to walk all over her. A right two-faced crate-egg their Mona was turning into. All against him till he turned up, then nice as pie with cream on top. Wanted her bloody head examined, did Mona.

  ‘If you iron, I shall pay for that, too,’ he stated.

  ‘Naturally,’ said Tilly, standing as tall as she could manage.

  ‘There’s nothing free in this life, is there?’ he asked.

  Well, blood and stomach pills, thought Tilly. He had made a remark, expressed a level of opinion, of judgement. ‘We’ll do you proud, Mr Mulligan,’ she conceded. If he was prepared to make an effort, then so would she. ‘There’s no finer laundry in all England. We’ve been up to our eyes in soap and water since we could walk, me and our Mona.’

  ‘A hard life,’ he remarked. ‘And a damp one.’

  ‘It’s not been easy,’ agreed Mona, completely oblivious to the man’s small quip. ‘Especially when we first started and our Tilly mixed starch that thick – why, you could have plastered a full ceiling with it.’

  Tilly bridled. ‘Now, listen here, you,’ she barked at her sister, ‘that were nowt. What about you and that red scarf? Pink s
heets, pink tablecloths. Mam went mad.’

  A strange sound assaulted the women’s ears. He was laughing. And, Mona decided after looking at him, he was the most beautiful thing she’d seen except at the pictures on a Saturday night. So, he had a sense of humour, then.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, his face settling back into its normal expression of hard, implacable lines, ‘I am not in the habit of instigating litigation.’

  Tilly’s mouth fell open. ‘Eh?’ she said, before she could help herself.

  ‘I don’t sue gossips.’

  The sisters avoided his eyes, Tilly going back to her Oxydol and chlorine, Mona shuffling off to help a woman pack her washing.

  He turned, made his farewell, then left the building.

  Tilly righted herself, a box of Dolly Blue still clamped in a rigid fist. So, he had heard the three of them discussing the mystery of his cellar up at Pendleton Grange. What had they said? She rooted about in the canals of recent memory. Photos of naked women. Experiments on living creatures, both human and animal. Oh, heck.

  Mona was in a flat spin. Supposedly helping a woman to pack wet washing, she got towels mixed up with underwear, colours tangled with whites. ‘Sorry,’ she told the bemused client. What was he going to think of her at all? Mind, he didn’t seem one to carry a grudge, because he had laughed and said something about not suing folk for gossip.

  Tilly put down her Dolly Blue and began the business of cashing up. She kept an eye on Mona, who, once the stragglers had left, was making a bad fist of cleaning up. She was a bit on the hysterical side, was Mona. If she got herself overexcited, there might well be tears before bedtime.

  When the money was safely tucked away in canvas bags, Tilly breathed her way across the floor, lungs struggling to take in enough oxygen to fuel her huge body. She swept, mopped, pulled some odd socks from behind a sink. There must be loads of men walking about Bolton with one brown foot, one black.