With Love From Ma Maguire

by Ruth Hamilton

  Bella’s face widened as she beamed broadly. ‘You wanted a word, Ma?’

  ‘Aye, right enough.’ Yes, she would need this awful person on her side, for she was at least a dependable sort – and surely nobody on God’s blessed earth could be completely bad to the bones? ‘I shall be grateful for your support, Mrs Seddon.’

  ‘Me? What for?’

  ‘To look after my two youngest grandchildren. We shall be away, the rest of us, working in town – Janet at Swainbank’s number one, the rest of us in the shop.’

  ‘Oh.’ There followed a short pause and a clanking of curlers as Bella Seddon patted her head in pretended disinterest. But curiosity overcame her, just as Ma had felt it would. ‘What shop?’ she asked after a few seconds.

  ‘Have you not been to town lately, Mrs Seddon?’

  ‘Not for a week or two, no.’ All this politeness was getting to Bella, chewing away at her insides like a badly cooked black pudding. It was as if both of them had put the claws aside – or sent them away for sharpening was more likely.

  ‘Ah well, that would account for it. We open next week – Maguire’s Market, we’re to be called. It’s a café and a bike shop with another part where Molly can sell fabrics and such. Of course, once the two little ones return to their schooling, they’ll need caring for. And I can think of no one more suited to the task than your good self.’ And a great big lie that was, for hadn’t Bella Seddon’s children flown the nest almost as soon as they’d left their learning? Still, at least she was on hand, being right next door. And Michael and Daisy were resilient enough.

  The woman’s jaw dropped, displaying bare gums where she had left out the lower set. ‘But . . . er . . . if you don’t mind me asking, like—’

  ‘Not at all! Ask away!’ Ma’s voice dripped honey.

  ‘Well. How can you afford to open a shop, like?’

  ‘A legacy.’

  Bella swallowed audibly. ‘Oh. Were it a lot of money?’

  ‘Enough.’

  Both women took a sudden close interest in the street, each staring at a fixed point as if riveted by some unusual happening. Ma studied a bit of loose guttering where the renovators had not finished, while Bella fixed her attention on a window of Leatherbarrow’s mill. But Ma knew she had won this particular round; the line was baited and Bella would rise any minute now.

  ‘So.’ There was a slight stiffening of shoulders. ‘I’m . . . right glad to hear about your good fortune, Ma.’ The tone conveyed little of this verbally expressed delight. ‘But I’m not so sure, like. I’m not used to kids, not since me own lot left.’

  And no wonder, thought Ma, though she continued to smile at the section of detached rainwater troughing. ‘They can come in their own house, Mrs Seddon, no need for you to keep them by you all the while. Michael can be a sensible lad when he chooses and Daisy has a fine head on her too.’

  ‘What about her turns?’

  Ma could no longer pretend to be distracted by the buildings across the way. ‘What turns?’ Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘She goes all funny and still, can’t hear you!’

  Ma Maguire fought with her tongue, using every bit of her strength as if holding back a rampaging stallion. ‘They pass,’ was all she said now. ‘All I’m asking is that you watch over the pair of them, give them a meal at your table. And having tasted your cooking, I’d say my grandchildren would be privileged.’ She closed her mouth firmly.

  This new feather sat well in Bella Seddon’s bonnet. ‘Very kind of you.’ she muttered, pleased beyond measure.

  ‘Three pounds a week?’

  ‘Eh?’ The mouth opened and closed rapidly, putting Ma in mind of a baby practising for the first time on solids. ‘Ooh! Ooh, I couldn’t!’

  ‘Then I’ll have to find somebody else, which is a great pity—’

  ‘No.’ Bella touched Ma’s arm. ‘I’ll have to think on it. But three pounds is a right lot of money—’

  ‘Away with your bother! For one thing, I want this on a proper business footing. And for a second, I know the cost of food. Then there’s your fuel for cooking and the inconvenience of staying in to mind my family. No, ’tis well worth the three pounds. A great weight off my mind, this would be.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘Another matter – I’m tired out now, so how will I be when I’m cooking and serving all the day? Who’s going to watch her at number seven with her filthy ways? Did you know she was seen emptying the contents of the child’s chamber pot in the ashpit last week?’

  ‘What? She never did! The dirty little madam—’

  Ma placed a finger to her lips and pointed along the row to warn her companion about ears and tongues. ‘You and I have set the standard in Delia Street, Mrs Seddon,’ she whispered. ‘I could eat me dinner off your scullery floor and you could do the same in my house. It took years to make these people clean. So. From now, you must take complete responsibility for tenants, because I shall have no time. Furthermore, included in the three pounds, I’d be asking you to stone our step when you do your own. Is it settled, then?’

  Bella Seddon went through the motions of considering the pros and cons. It would not pay to refuse, but to jump at the offer would be equally ill-advised. ‘Right,’ she said eventually. ‘You’re on.’

  ‘Good. It’s pleased I am to hear it. Will we shake on that?’ The two enemies shook hands gravely while several children from neighbouring streets gaped at the sight of this unprecedented event.

  ‘Off with you!’ screamed Ma. ‘Go ride a kench up to the wall, for we could used something to smile at.’

  Bella Seddon and Philomena Maguire hugged their sides throughout this game – an advanced form of leapfrog. Half a dozen boys bent low one behind the other, while the rest ran a great distance to see how many backs they could clear without tumbling to the floor. When seven were on the kench, the whole collapsed with the front boy, who had been leaning against the wall, emerging last from the tangle of arms and legs.

  Ma clapped her hands together. With sights such as this, who needed the theatre for entertainment? The boys regrouped and began to produce diablos and tops, balls, jacks and bobbers. A game of cops and robbers broke out at one end of the street, while at the other kick-a-ball-out seemed favourite for the day.

  Then a parade advanced along the front of Leatherbarrow’s, an answer to last May’s display of female finery by May-queens. ‘Hippy-chippy-Charlie, round and round we go . . .’ sang this discordant group of miscreants. The boys carried a crude Maypole, probably some poor mother’s decapitated yardbrush. To this were nailed several pieces of rope, each with a boy attached to its end. These lads were dressed in their fathers’ old clothes, trousers rolled to half-mast, tattered coat hems sweeping the ground in their wake, shirt tails flapping, caps back to front. Faces, decorated with Zebo, shoepolish, cocoa and coal-dust, were twisted into deliberately silly expressions and a separate boy, his face completely blackened, carried a tin for contributions. Ma threw a penny, thereby forcing the travelling players to attend her door, where they performed a travesty of the Maypole dance, clog-irons sparking against the cobblestones.

  Ma and Bella dried streaming eyes. ‘Did you see the feller with the great gaping hole on the backside?’ roared Ma. ‘And him without a stitch between fresh air and nature!’

  ‘Aye. His mam’ll kill him when he gets home. The others won’t tell him, you know. They’ll let him carry on with the bare bum on show – eeh, I’ve not laughed this much since the war finished!’

  They sobered up gradually, then Bella asked, ‘What do you think to our houses, then? All done up and not a penny on the rent. Baths and ’lectric lights – getting to be posh, aren’t we?’

  Ma reached for her dish and handed it back. ‘Swainbank’s bought them. Perhaps he’s gone soft in the head with his wife and sons gone.’

  ‘Funny though. They’re not worth much, these houses. I reckon he’s spent more on them than they cost in the first place. Nowt as queer as folk with too m
uch brass, eh?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. It may be because we’ve always been a decent street. This could be our reward for good housekeeping.’

  ‘Except for number seven.’

  ‘As you say.’ Ma rose stiffly and made for the door. ‘Well, I’ll see does Molly need a hand. And I’ll be calling on you about the details of that other little matter.’

  The two antagonists parted as near friends as they had ever been, each hopeful that the treaty would last. Inside, Ma found Daisy still at her painting, much of which had spread itself over the green between-meals table cover. ‘Oh Daisy!’ She tutted and placed her hands on her hips. ‘Whatever have you done to the new cloth? And why did you not come out to see the hippy-chippy-Charlies?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just now – in the street. Oh, have you been off again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You heard nothing?’

  ‘No.’ The child hung her head. ‘Sometimes a long while is just a minute for me. I missed four catechisms last week.’

  ‘You’re a remarkable girl, Daisy.’

  Blue eyes looked up hopefully. ‘I know that. Sister Vincentia said I was remarka-bubble. She thinks I could learn fast but must not become proud. Pride is what she calls a deadly sin – so she’ll go to hell for a kick off.’

  ‘What are you saying, child?’

  ‘She’s always looking in the mirror, forever bending down in the girls’ toilet to straighten her veil and see how pretty she is in the glass. She’s proud, so she’d best watch out.’

  Ma threw back her head and laughed. ‘Never lose that, mavourneen. ’Tis a sense of humour carries you through this life.’

  Janet and Joey burst in simultaneously, obviously in the middle of yet another argument. The girl threw her schoolbag on to the table, almost upsetting Daisy’s jam jar of dirty paint water. ‘I’d never have come if I’d known! You said you wanted advice over the colour scheme.’

  ‘I’m not having powder blue in a bike shop!’

  ‘So there I was with me bag full of pictures and colours – and you’d already made your mind up! Bottle green? It’ll look like a school or a flaming hospital!’

  ‘At least it won’t look soft.’

  ‘Well, what did you need me for, then? To give me another lecture about how I should be working in the shop instead of going in for weaving? You’re wasting your time, our Joey. That there Mr Swainbank thinks a lot of me, I can tell. I shall do all right in number one, you just mark my words.’

  Joey flung himself into a fireside chair, propping his feet on the fireguard so that he might admire his new shoes. ‘I think you should be grateful to Gran, that’s all. She got us these shops and now you’re . . .’

  ‘After what you said? After what you-said only weeks ago? About certain people being . . . ’ She looked at her grandmother. No, she couldn’t say it, not now, wouldn’t upset Gran by coming out with that lot. He was two-faced was their Joey. He’d been for getting rid of Gran and Dad, calling them useless and a waste of time. Not now though. Oh no, he was getting his own road at the moment.

  ‘I’ve learned me lesson, Janet,’ he said quietly.

  ‘By practising on deaf old women!’ Janet could not resist this barbed remark.

  ‘Enough of that!’ shouted Ma. ‘Hasn’t he suffered enough already for it? Stop judging everybody in your path, Janet Maguire! A person would think that you were perfect – or that you believed yourself so! There’s many a wrong you’ll do, madam! I agree in part with Joey – you should be helping this family establish a business. But no. You want your own way as surely as your twin wants his.’

  Janet grabbed her bag from the table and glared at everybody in the room. ‘Why are you all picking on me, eh? He was the one who wanted to leave home! He was the one who nearly fetched the police to the door! I don’t want to work with him!’

  Ma lifted up Daisy’s soggy work and draped it over the guard away from Joey’s feet. ‘Climb down off the horse before the saddle slips, girl,’ she said quietly. ‘One of these days, you’ll take a tumble from the pedestal and then you might be needing us to pick you up. And you can wipe away the tears, for they don’t fool me for a minute. He did wrong – we all know that. And the less said about that, in front of your little sister, the better. Stop condemning him.’

  Molly came in from the scullery with a pie for the oven. ‘What’s going on now?’ She opened the oven door and pushed the dish on to a shelf. ‘Are they fighting?’

  ‘Your daughter has not a forgiving nature, Molly.’ Ma removed the cover from the table. ‘She’d have Joey doing penance the rest of his days.’

  Molly slammed the door and straightened. ‘The thing he did takes a bit of getting used to, Ma.’

  ‘What?’ Paintbox and brush were banged on to the highly polished dresser. ‘Jesus Christ hung there on that Cross with six-inch nails in his hands. And what did He say? Lock them up and swallow the key? No! He said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do”! Are you above all that, Janet Maguire? You too?’ She glared at Molly. ‘Did you never make a mistake? Have you gone through life with a sheet so clean that you needed no priest to get it washed? It’s quick enough you are to tell me what I did wrong, just as your daughter now tells Joey.’ She glanced at her grandson. ‘Take the smile off, lad, before I shift it meself! Your debt will be repaid when you-know-who gets out of hospital. But I will not have these carryings-on in my house!’

  Molly, her face reddened by temper and embarrassment, stalked across the room and pulled a white tablecloth from a drawer. With quick movements that expressed her state of mind, she began to throw knives and forks on to the table. It had always been Ma’s house, Ma’s table, Ma’s flaming street. Yet Molly had been the one who’d kept things going, cleaning, shopping, washing and ironing day in and day out, never a moment to herself. And him upstairs with his stomach and his thumb . . . A thought struck her suddenly. ‘Where’s your dad? He was for coming down to the shop today.’

  Joey shrugged. ‘We never saw him, did we?’

  ‘No.’ Janet placed her bag at the foot of the stairs and came to arrange the table properly. ‘Don’t get wound up, Mam,’ she whispered.

  Molly turned to her son. ‘Happen you’d best get out and look for him. He’s got a few shillings and if he meets up with Bobby McMorrow, there’ll be trouble from here to Barrow Bridge. The police have had enough of your dad’s caperings.’

  ‘Aw Mam – I’m hungry! I’ve been stacking shelves and counting stock all afternoon.’

  Janet lifted salt and pepper from the dresser shelf. Now was as good a time as any to try for a level of peace with Joey. ‘I’ll go with you. There’s no pubs open, so we might just catch him before the bother starts.’

  ‘And we’ll save you some pie,’ promised Ma.

  Molly stared past them all to where Daisy sat on the sofa. ‘Dear God!’ Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘She’s gone blue! Daisy!’ While Molly remained riveted to the spot, Janet and Ma forced the child’s stiff body into a prone position. Her lips were pale with chill, though the evening remained fine and warm.

  Paddy was forgotten in the frenzy that followed. Janet filled hot bottles, Joey ran for the doctor, Molly and Ma heaped blankets and coats on to the tiny form. An icy sweat broke out on Daisy’s cheeks and Molly began to wail.

  ‘Hush!’ chided Ma. ‘This child is not for death – believe me, Molly. She has much to do because she is chosen.’

  ‘Don’t you start with all that now! Mumbo-jumbo, it is, a load of rubbish and at a time like this too! Can’t you see she’s hardly breathing? Janet – shove them old bricks in the oven and fetch a couple of towels to wrap them in once they’re warmed. Oh God – where is that flaming doctor? Daisy? Daisy, love? It’s your mam – can’t you hear me? Look at her little face! Daisy!’

  Joey and the doctor burst in at the front door. ‘Leave her with me,’ ordered the black-suited man. ‘Go – all of you – into the other room. This child n
eeds all the oxygen she can find.’

  The four of them went reluctantly into Ma’s bedroom, each locked in private thought as the crisis hit home. Daisy was universally loved; wherever she went the child brought laughter and happiness with her pretty smiling face, those little songs and dances and that disconcerting way she had of suddenly becoming grown-up while only five years old. Daisy had learned to read and count long before she started school. A child of great promise, sometimes a dreamer, sometimes present in body though not in mind . . .

  ‘It’s my bloody punishment,’ muttered Joey through clenched teeth. ‘Why her, eh? Why not me?’

  ‘It’s nowt to do with you.’ This from Janet who wept quietly in a corner. ‘I started the row when we both came in, I got her all worked up and worried.’

  Molly, perched tensely on the edge of the bed, cursed herself inwardly for the dishonest woman she had been. Now her precious baby was suffering. Would God pay Molly back in this cruel way, punish her so viciously for pretending that the twins were Paddy’s? Would He reach down His almighty arm and snatch the most loved, the most adored of all her children?

  Ma gazed through the window, her mind reaching out towards a heaven she was doubting for the very first time. If Daisy had been granted the gift of second sight, surely it should not hurt like this? Granny Gallagher had never fallen sick with her sight. Was the sight a sickness then, an illness that varied in degree from one to another? No! This was a fever. The child had something identifiable, no doubt, some childhood disease that would pass after running its course.

  The doctor opened the door. ‘Mrs Maguire?’ Both women leapt to their feet. ‘Come with me, please. It would be best if the young ones remained here.’

  Doctor, mother and grandmother looked down into Daisy’s ashen face.