Mulligan's Yard

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘The – the bush burnings are a mystery,’ stammered Peter Wilkinson.

  ‘So is your hypocrisy. Watch yourself. One of these days, you’ll go too far. Oh, by the way, I own the woods known as Sniggery. Stay off my land, please.’

  Crooked teeth were bared in a travesty of a smile. ‘You own nothing, you Irish thief.’

  James agreed, noticing at the same time how quickly Wilkinson’s anger rose to the surface. A fragile personality, then. ‘We arrive with nothing, and we leave the world in the same condition,’ he said, with exaggerated patience. ‘Our value is contained in what we choose to do with the years between those two events. So look after your Light, Mr Wilkinson. Lights have a habit of extinguishing themselves. Mrs Burton-Massey is today’s illustration of that certainty.’ He mustered his strength and walked away.

  Peter Wilkinson felt the blood draining from his head. He had done nothing wrong. He had never done anything wrong. He simply performed the tasks required within his ministry. Boys, less vulnerable than young females,cleansed themselves by doing good works within the community. But girls could not be left to wander in the wilderness. They were tomorrow’s mothers, producers of laudators and bearers, even of guardians. The guardian had to be the first to touch the flesh of innocents, the first to guide them into the Light and away from danger.

  His collar tightened. White dresses, pale limbs, warm bodies, trusting faces. Nothing ever happened, nothing unseemly. He simply poured his spirit into them by praying and soothing, words and sympathy, no more than that. It was not sexual, he reminded himself yet again. His particular guardianship went above and beyond all that; he was as virginal as the girls he blessed. But, oh, if only he could . . . if only.

  He made sure that Mulligan had disappeared completely before returning his attention to the church. They would come out in a minute, those three beautiful girls, grief in their eyes, loveliness on their faces. Perhaps one day, he might help to save them. If only . . . Dear Lord, if only somebody would . . . would love him for himself, for who and what he was. He could not help his appearance. Being ugly did not remove need or desire; being almost impotent did not render him numb. If only, if only.

  The Light was his hope, his faith and his life. The Light had given him dignity, a place in society, the chance to make contact with his fellow man. And woman.

  They were coming out now. All three girls were blonde, though each head of hair was individual in its shade. The youngest was pretty enough, alive, wayward, he suspected. Eliza was perfection; like a goddess, she seemed untouchable. Amy was his favourite, yet he recognized that she lived beyond his sphere, that she was less biddable than the others.

  But it was almost noon and there was money to collect. After allowing his eyes to soak up beauty for a few more precious seconds, he set off again on his rounds. The rain continued to hold off – there was even a bit of sunshine peeping through the clouds. All was well, so Peter Wilkinson praised the Lord.

  ‘I can find very little wrong with you in the constitutional sense.’ Gordon James shook his head. ‘It’s a mystery to me, Mrs Hewitt. Your muscles are, perhaps, a little weak, but that is only to be expected, since you spend ninety per cent of your life in bed.’ He pushed the stethoscope into his bag. ‘You will need a tonic, fresh air, good food and exercise. To begin with, walk just the length of your street and back.’

  Ida was not best suited. Doctors knew next to nothing these days. How could anyone guess how she felt and what went on inside her head and body? And what did he mean by fresh air? The industrial core of Bolton had not suffered an invasion of oxygen for more than sixty years.

  Dr Jones snapped shut the clasps on his case, then turned to look at her. Having lost her son, the woman had resigned her position as a member of the race. In a sense, she reminded him of poor Louisa, who had reacted in a similar way after the death of Alex. The difference was that Louisa had still possessed a mite with which to feed herself and the girls, whereas Ida Hewitt was just a breath away from starvation. Still, this one was alive, at least, while Louisa had passed away younger and, to the naked eye, apparently healthier. Doctoring was a strange job.

  She glared at him balefully. ‘I can’t go back in that mill,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t stand the din nor the heat before, so I’m sure it’d be even worse after so long away from it.’

  He sat on the edge of the bed. ‘It’s your soul that’s sick, Mrs Hewitt.’

  She bridled visibly. ‘There’s nowt wrong with my soul. I’m of the Light, so the miracle comes to this house at least once a week.’

  ‘Ah.’

  What did ‘ah’ mean? she wondered.

  ‘Do you feel tired all the time?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye, that’s right. And I get shooting pains in my legs.’

  ‘Exercise,’ he reminded her.

  She met his enquiring gaze, insisting inwardly that she should not feel ashamed. She was constantly exhausted, permanently sad. It was as if there was nothing sufficiently important to make her want to stay alive. ‘If it weren’t for the Temple, we’d be in a right mess,’ she informed him. ‘Then our Diane earns a few bob and—’

  ‘And the boy?’

  Ida shrugged. ‘He does what he can, bless him.’

  ‘His legs are terrible.’ Gordon Jones had sent the two children into the parlour, had noticed that Joe’s legs were badly misshapen due to rickets. ‘Those two young ones will be taken from you if you make no effort. I’ve seen it happen before. Then, there would be no-one to help you if the children left.’ He paused fractionally. ‘As for the Temple of Eternal Light, in my opinion that is a sect that does nobody any good.’ He held up his hand when her mouth opened to air her objections. ‘My opinion, Mrs Hewitt. I do know of others who share my view, but that does not mean that we are right. However, I have to say that Mr Wilkinson and others of his ilk do seem to draw in the more vulnerable members of society.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  He pondered for a moment. ‘I hope that you will not regret having thrown your lot in with the Light. These minority religions are often well to one side of the beaten track – rather strange, in fact.’

  ‘There’s nowt funny about the Temple,’ she insisted.

  He patted her hand. ‘Just concentrate on getting well and looking after your grandchildren. I shall see you again just before Christmas.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To report on your progress, of course. Just in a general sense, that is. I shall divulge nothing that is personal, though I shall have to say whether you are up and about, whether the children are still fending for themselves.’

  Ida stepped out of the Light for long enough to swear under her breath. Bloody Mulligan. ‘I suppose his lordship will want that report?’

  ‘He’s paying the bill.’

  ‘Aye, that’s about the size of it. Money talks, money rules the world. If I’d sent you to look at him that’d be a different story, because I can’t pay. Whichever road round you look, they’ve got us. They run the factories, the town, even the country. What about our rights, eh? Nobody takes a rich man’s kids away if he’s ill.’

  ‘True,’ replied the doctor. ‘But I’m sure Mr Mulligan has the welfare of your family at heart. In fact, he is outside in my car at this very minute.’

  Ida blanched. ‘Under the wheels of your car might be a better place for him, Dr Jones.’

  He suffocated a laugh with the back of a closed fist. ‘That’s hardly a charitable attitude, Mrs Hewitt. He’s actually a very fine man, does a lot for orphans up at the Chiverton Children’s Home. From what I’ve heard, he did not have a very good childhood himself.’

  Ida groaned. ‘I can’t be doing with do-gooders. They do a lot of harm – they’d happen be better called bad-doers. And he’s picked me – me and my grandchildren.’ She lay back and closed her eyes, listened as the doctor left the room. Five minutes later, doors opened again. Ida took a deep breath. ‘I suppose that’ll be you.’

  ‘That’s th
e truth of it, so,’ James replied.

  ‘Sounding bog-Irish, as ever.’

  ‘Another truth.’

  She opened her eyes and, oh, he was a sight for them, all right. Straight as a ramrod, broad-shouldered, eyes full of . . . laughter? He was just about the best-looking bloke she’d seen for years. But then, as she reminded herself quickly, she hadn’t been out of the house for years, so how was she to be the judge?

  As before, he sat down uninvited. ‘I hear you’re planning on getting better.’

  She emitted a sound that was suspiciously like a growl. ‘I wish you’d get yourself back to Ireland where you belong.’

  ‘That would suit me fine, so it would.’

  She eyed him up and down. ‘Any road, a nice-looking fellow like yoursen should be thinking on settling down, couple of kiddies, nice wife with a sense of humour.’ She sniffed. ‘Let’s face it, she’d need one.’

  The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘Will I tell you something just now, Mrs Hewitt? Something I’ve never told another living soul?’

  She sat on her curiosity. ‘Please yourself,’ she replied, with laboured nonchalance. ‘I can take it or leave it, but it’d go no further and that’s a promise.’

  He studied her for several seconds. She didn’t like him, while he was not very fond of her, but there was a strange kind of trust between them, as if they had known each other for a long time. ‘One of my earliest memories is of my father trying to kick the life out of my mother,’ he told her.

  Ida caught her breath, held it for a few beats of time.

  ‘I would stay with her when I should have been at the village school. I’d brush her hair for ages – she had thick black hair – unless he’d beaten her about the head, of course, in which case I’d hold her hand instead. She never said much, you know. I suppose I’ve been a bit like her, though I seem to be coming out of it just lately. In fact, I’d talk the back leg off your horse compared to . . . compared to how I was.’

  Ida saw the trouble in his face, the pain these memories were giving him. A grudging respect for him was threatening to put in an appearance. She squashed it determinedly. Let him tell his tale and be off – she was dying for a mug of tea.

  He paused, looked into the flickering fire, recalled a white cottage with a huge fireplace where peat was burnt, where pots hung from iron rods, where Mammy sat, day in and day out. ‘She just sat. Days on end, she looked into the fire while I brushed her hair and peeled the spuds and waited for her to move.’ He swallowed a lump of agony. ‘At about the same time every afternoon, she would jump up and do his dinner. Then he’d come home, eat it, beat her, eat and beat almost every day, eat and beat.’

  Ida blinked. She could not hate such a man, could she?

  ‘No-one else knows this. I am telling you because I feel that these truths will help you. You are like my mother.’

  Ida blinked again. ‘Nay, lad. Nobody’s ever laid a finger across me. If they had, they’d have finished up in a coffin, no time for questions or police. I might be short, but I wield a fair poker and a man has to sleep. It’s easy to clout a man while he’s sleeping.’

  He spoke softly now. ‘Your boy died and your daughter-in-law was a disappointment. You got all your beatings at the one time. It’s easy to think of you as lazy, but I know different. You’ve dead eyes, Mrs Hewitt. Like my mammy’s.’

  Ida gulped audibly. This Irishman, this papist, understood her. He was the only one so far who really empathized, who knew how long-term sadness felt. ‘Is your mam dead?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Was she took young?’

  ‘Aye, she was. She sent me off to boarding-school, because she knew I couldn’t watch the goings-on much longer. I was growing big enough to choke him. So, off I went. By the time I was sixteen, she was dead. He never informed my school until after the funeral, so she was buried over a fortnight when I found out.’ He gazed silently at the wall for a minute or so. ‘I didn’t go to his funeral, either.’ He lowered his chin, was obviously deep in thought. ‘When I got my degree, Daddy heard about it and came to Dublin, drunk as a lord, bragging about my honours. I did not attend the ceremony.’

  Ida tutted. ‘What did she die of, your mam?’

  He lifted his head slowly. ‘A farming accident, they called it. He murdered her. She was thirty-eight years old.’

  ‘God.’

  ‘Exactly. I was raised a member of the strongest Christianity on the earth, yet I doubted God for years after her death. Where was He? Why was Mammy’s life so terrible? Why did Thomas Mulligan thrive?’

  ‘Then he died, too.’

  ‘Yes.’

  A sob rose in the woman’s throat. She changed it to a cough, but the result was a very poor imitation. Soon, she was crying openly. When she looked at him through saline-misted eyes, she saw that he, too, was not an inch away from tears. Why had he chosen her?

  ‘I loved her so much,’ he managed finally.

  ‘I know you did, lad.’

  ‘Really Irish, she was, with that clean milky skin and clouds of soft dark hair.’ His voice threatened to crack, then steadied. ‘I could never marry, just in case he might be in me. I do have a temper.’

  Ida was too choked for speech.

  ‘So.’ He rubbed at his eyes with a sparkling white handkerchief. ‘I do what I can when I can. You and yours are my latest project, Mrs Hewitt.’

  ‘Ida.’ The single word was fractured on its way out.

  ‘You’ll come and stay up yonder for a while, I hope. Diane and Joe can go to the village school while you learn to milk cows.’

  Ida’s tears disappeared as if by magic. ‘You what?’

  ‘I’ll get you a cottage, then you’ll be able to walk about in your little garden. We’ll soon have you on your feet.’

  ‘Cows?’ Ida had never seen a cow, except in a photograph or a film at the Lido or the Regent. Cows’ produce simply appeared via the milkman or the Co-op. ‘I don’t know as I’ll take to cows.’ But a country cottage? Yes, she would have something to live for, wouldn’t she? The children would be healthier, too.

  ‘I’ll leave you to think on it,’ he said.

  She didn’t need to think. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said impulsively. ‘Ta very much. A cottage’d be lovely.’

  He picked up his hat and made for the door. ‘What about the Temple?’

  Ida looked at James for a long time before answering. ‘Diane and Joe first, eh? They’ve been neglected long enough by me.’

  ‘Depression’s a terrible thing, Ida. Still, the cows will kick it out of you.’ He left the house.

  Ida dried her damp cheeks on the flannelette sheet, then called out to her grandchildren. For ages all she’d needed was a leg up. Well, she had one now. God bless him, he wasn’t bad. For an Irish Catholic.

  Nine

  Sally Hayes was fed up to the back teeth with Mary Whitworth. The job would have been wonderful except for the red-haired madam with her loud opinions and her sticky fingers. The house was almost closed, because Mr Mulligan used just a small part of it, but Mary and Sally were expected to clean the closed rooms on a rota basis. Up to now, this had meant that Sally and the dailies did the cleaning, while Mary messed about, talked a load of rubbish and flicked the odd duster when she felt like it.

  The two girls sat in the kitchen with their morning tea, Mary slurping loudly from a saucer, Sally trying to be rather more ladylike. Kate Kenny, the fierce Irish housekeeper, had gone shopping, so Mary was taking her ease, feet up on the fireguard, skirt lifted to allow coals to toast her rather plump thighs.

  ‘She’ll kill you,’ said Sally. ‘She doesn’t let anybody put their feet up on her bit of brass.’

  ‘She won’t see me. She’ll not be back for a good half-hour.’

  Sally bit into a piece of shortbread. ‘If they open this hydro, you’ll have to shape.’

  Mary snorted. ‘If they open the bloody hydro, you’ll not see me for dust. Can you imagine it? Fat old women lolling about al
l over the place, their dirty old husbands trying to grab hold of us. Some life that would be. Any road, I’m fed up working for the queer fellow. He’s off his rocker.’

  Sally kept her counsel.

  ‘There’s summat not right in that cellar,’ continued Mary. ‘He takes food down. Why would he want food in a cellar, eh? And sometimes he comes straight back up again, so who’s eating it? He’s not, I can tell you that for no money. But you don’t take food down and just leave it there. Somebody has to be eating it. Who’s he got locked in his dungeon?’

  Sally took another bite.

  ‘You don’t care, do you?’ Mary’s voice had risen in pitch.

  ‘I care about the tablecloths and sheets,’ answered Sally. ‘And you’d best start caring and all, because Mrs Kenny’s going to have what she calls a stock-take.’

  Mary pursed her lips. ‘Well,’ she said, after a pause, ‘nowt to do with me. I don’t wash and iron, do I? You’ll be the one getting asked questions.’

  Sally knew that Mary was up to no good. A few ornaments had gone missing, too, and a couple of Mr Mulligan’s shirts. Not that he would notice, she mused. He wouldn’t care if he was got up like a tramp on fire, because he didn’t seem to bother much about appearances. As for the cellar, well, that was his business and nobody else’s. Mind, it was a rum do . . .

  ‘What are you grinning about?’ Mary asked.

  ‘I’m not grinning.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you are. You fancy him, don’t you?’

  Sally decided not to reply to the stupid question, as an answer would have awarded dignity to its silliness. She did have a secret, but it was nothing to do with Mr Mulligan.

  Mary pulled off her cap to scratch her scalp through its dense covering of red hair. ‘I hope I’ve got no walkers,’ she said. ‘My mam’ll kill me if I take nits home.’

  ‘But not if you take a nice china figurine home,’ stated Sally baldly. She stood up. ‘I’ve had enough, Mary. Now, you can either fetch all that stuff back on your day off – tomorrow – or I tell.’