Mary Ann and Bill Read online

  Mr Newman was laughing again, then he said, ‘I may have to tighten things up here and there, do you mind?’

  ‘No, not at all. I’m only too pleased that you like them.’

  ‘Oh, I like them all right. I only hope that they catch on. You can never tell. I aim to print one each Saturday for a few weeks. It would be very nice if the younger generation scrambled for the paper to find out what Bill had been up to during the week, wouldn’t it?’

  She shook her head slowly. ‘It would be marvellous.’

  ‘Well, now, down to basic facts. How about ten guineas.’

  ‘Ten guineas?’ Her brows puckered slightly, and at this he said, ‘For each publication,’ and as her face cleared he laughed and added, ‘Oh, we’re not as bad as that.’

  ‘I’d be very grateful for ten guineas.’

  He rose to his feet and, holding out his hand, said, ‘Let’s hope this is the beginning of a long and successful series concerning one Bill, a bull terrier.’

  ‘I hope so, too…’

  When she was outside she walked in a daze until she reached the bottom of Northumberland Street, and there she thought, I’ll phone him and tell him. She knew it would be better this way, because under the circumstances she couldn’t go back and look at him and say ‘I’m going to do a series for The Courier,’ not with this other thing between them. And also, on the phone she wouldn’t see his face, or witness his reactions, and so there was a chance she would remain calm.

  When she heard his voice she said, ‘It’s me, Corny.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I’m…in Newcastle.’

  ‘So you’re in Newcastle!’

  She closed her eyes. ‘I…I thought I would phone you, I’ve something to tell you.’

  There was a short silence, and then his voice came rasping at her, ‘Oh, you have, have you? And you haven’t the courage to face me. Whose idea was it that you should phone it? Is he holding your hand…breathing down your neck?’ The last was almost a yell and she took the earphone away from her face and stared at it in utter perplexity for a moment, until his voice came at her again, louder now, ‘If you’re there, Mr Murgatroyd, let me tell you this…’

  She didn’t hear his next words for his voice was so loud it blurred the line and she mouthed to herself, ‘Murgatroyd! Murgatroyd! He must be barmy.’

  When the line became silent again she said, ‘Are you finished?’ and the answer she got was, ‘Go to hell!’

  When she heard the receiver being banged down she leant against the wall of the kiosk. Well, if she wanted her own back she was certainly getting it. But she didn’t want her own back, not in this way.

  It was as she was passing the station on the way to the bus terminus that a lorry drew up alongside the kerb and a voice hailed her, ‘Hi, there!’

  When she turned round and saw Johnny’s grinning face looking down at her she said aloud, ‘Oh, no! No!’

  ‘You going back home?’

  She ran across the pavement and to the door of the cab and, looking up at him, she said, ‘Yes, I’m going back, but not with you.’

  ‘What’s up?’ His face was straight.

  ‘Nothing. Nothing.’

  ‘There must be something for you to jump the gun like that. I haven’t asked you to go back with me, but I was going to.’ The grin almost reappeared and then, getting down from the cab, he said, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Look, Johnny, just leave me and get back.’

  ‘No, no, I’m not going back.’ He thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘I want to know what’s up. It concerns me doesn’t it?’

  ‘Look, Johnny, it’s like this,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I came in this afternoon to meet the editor of the Newcastle Courier and I didn’t tell Corny because, well, well we had a bit of a row. But just a minute ago I phoned him and,’ she put her hand up to her brow, ‘he nearly bawled my head off; he…he thinks I’m here with you.’

  ‘Huh! You’re kiddin’. What gave him that idea?’

  ‘You know as much as I do about that.’

  ‘He must be do-lally.’

  ‘I think we’re all going do-lally.’

  He laughed at her now. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t embarrass you for the world…Mrs Boyle. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go straight to the garage when I get back and…’

  ‘Oh, no! No!’

  ‘Now look.’ He lifted his hand and patted her shoulder gently. ‘Leave this to me. I’m the soul of tact. I am. I am. I’ll do it innocently; I’ll tell him exactly what I came into Newcastle for, it’s in the back there.’ He pointed to an odd-shaped piece of machinery in the lorry. ‘I’ll do it when he’s filling me up. I’ll ask after you and the children and when you get home he’ll be eating out of your hand. Now go and have a cup of tea. Don’t get the next bus, give me time.’

  ‘Oh, Johnny.’ Her shoulders drooped. ‘What a mess!’

  ‘We all find ourselves in it some time or other. The only consolation I can offer you is you’re not alone. Go on now, have a cuppa. Be seeing you.’ He pulled himself up into the cab and she walked away and did as he advised and went into a cafe and had a cup of tea.

  Corny didn’t exactly eat out of her hand when she arrived home. He looked at her as she crossed the drive going towards the front door, then turned away, and it was a full fifteen minutes before he came upstairs and stood inside the kitchen with his back to the door and watched her as she stood cutting bread at the side table. After gulping deep in his throat he muttered, ‘I’m sorry about this afternoon.’

  She didn’t move, nor speak, but when she felt him standing behind her she began to tremble.

  ‘I’m sorry I went on like that.’

  Still she didn’t answer. She piled the bread on the plate now and when she went to move away he touched her lightly on the arm, saying quietly, ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Come on now.’ He pulled her round to him, but she held the plate in both hands, and it kept them apart.

  ‘You didn’t get dressed up and go into Newcastle and then go into a phone box and call me for nothing. I said I’m sorry. In a way…well, you should be glad I’m jealous of him.’

  She didn’t speak or look at him as he took the plate from her hands and put it on the table, but when he went to put his arms around her she drew back from him, and his brows gathered and his teeth met tightly for a moment. But he forced himself to repeat quietly, ‘Come on, tell me what it is.’

  She looked at him now and, her voice cool, she said, ‘I’ve had some articles accepted by The Courier. The editor asked to see them this afternoon.’

  ‘You have?’ His expression was one of surprise and pleasure and he repeated, ‘You have. And by The Courier! Lord, that’s a good start. Well, well.’ He nodded his head to her. ‘I’ve told you all along you’d do it. And to get into The Courier is something. By, I’d say it is. What are they about?’

  ‘Bill.’

  ‘What!’ His cheeks were pushing his eyes into deep hollows; his whole face was screwed up with astonishment. ‘Bill? You’ve written articles on Bill?’

  ‘Yes, on Bill.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Oh!’ She turned to the table. ‘Just the things he does.’

  ‘Well I never!’ His voice sounded a little flat now. ‘Are they funny like?’

  ‘You’ll have to judge for yourself when you read them.’

  ‘I will. Yes,’ he nodded at her again, ‘I’ll read them after tea. By the way, what are they giving you?’

  ‘Ten guineas.’

  ‘Each?’ His voice was high.

  ‘Yes,’ she paused, then added, ‘He’s got six. If they take on I’ll be doing them every week.’

  Into the silence that now fell on them Jimmy’s voice came from the bottom of the stairs, calling, ‘Are you there, boss?’ and when Corny went onto the landing Jimmy looked up at him and said, ‘Bloke’s asking for you.’

  ‘
All right, I’ll be down.’ Corny looked back towards the kitchen but he didn’t return to it; he went slowly down the stairs, and at the bottom he paused for a moment. Ten guineas a time. It would make her feel independent of him. He didn’t like it, he didn’t like it at all. It was a thing he had about money. He never wanted her to have anything in that line but what he provided.

  Chapter Eleven: The Will

  Ben was buried on Wednesday. It was the first time Mary Ann had been to a cremation, and although the disposal seemed more final than burying, there was a greater sense of peace about the whole thing than if they had stood round an open grave. She’d always had a horror of graves and coffins, but this way of going was clean somehow.

  As the curtains glided on silent rails and covered up the last move Ben’s earthly body was to experience, she fancied she saw him young again. Yet she had never even seen a picture of Ben when he was young. His back had been bent the first time she had clapped eyes on him when he had opened the door to her that morning in the far, far past, the morning she had gone in search of…‘the Lord’ to beg him to give her da a job. It was Ben who had tried to throw her out of the house; it was Ben who had been jealous of her; but it was Ben who had, in his own strange way, come to depend on her because he realised that through her, and only her, would his master know life again.

  She walked with Corny out of the little chapel. They followed behind Tony and Lettice. Then came her mother and father, and Michael and Sarah. Sarah always came last so that her shambling walk would not impede others. Mr Lord was not at the funeral, it would have been too much for him.

  Tony, looking at Mary Ann, now said, ‘Will you come back to the house?’

  ‘If you don’t mind, Tony, I’d rather go home. I’ll—’

  ‘He asked for you. There’s a will to be read and he asked us all to be there.’

  She glanced at Corny but his look was non-committal. It said, ‘It’s up to you.’

  ‘It won’t take long.’ It was Mike speaking to her now. ‘And you could do with a cup of tea. There’s nothing to rush for anyway. The children will be all right with Jimmy when they get back from school.’

  When they reached the house they took their coats off in the hall, then filed into the drawing room. The day was very warm, almost like a June day, not one in early September, but Mr Lord was sitting close to the fire.

  Mary Ann went straight to him. She did not, as usual, say, ‘Hello,’ nor did he speak to her, but when she put her hand on his he took it and held it gently, and she sat down by his side.

  When they were all seated Lettice served the tea that the daily woman had brought in; then she tried, with the help of Tony, to make conversation, but found it rather difficult with Mr Lord sitting silent, and Mary Ann having little to say either.

  It was almost twenty minutes later when, the trolley removed, Mr Lord looked at Tony and said, ‘Will you bring me that letter from the desk?’ And when the letter was in his hand he looked at it, then at the assembled company and said. ‘This is Ben’s will. I don’t know what it holds, only that it wasn’t drawn up by a solicitor. He wrote it out himself about five or six years ago and had it witnessed by my gardener and his wife, then he put it into my keeping, and he didn’t mention it from that day.’ He paused and swallowed and his Adam’s apple sent ripples down the loose skin of his neck. ‘I will get my grandson to read it to you. Whatever it holds, his wishes will be carried out to the letter.’

  Tony split the long envelope open with a paperknife, then drew out a single foolscap sheet, and after unfolding it he scanned the heading, then looked from one to the other before he began to read. ‘This is my last will and testament and I make it on the first day of December, nineteen hundred and sixty-two. My estate is invested in three building societies and up to date the total is nine thousand three hundred and twenty-five pounds, and God willing it may grow. I’m in my right mind and I wish to dispose of it as follows: I wish to leave one thousand pounds to Peter Brown, my master’s great-grandson. This to be kept in trust for him until the age of sixteen, because at sixteen I think a boy needs a lot of things, which are mostly not good for him, at least so he is told, but by the age of twenty-one when it appears right and proper he should have these things very often the taste for them has gone.

  ‘When I say I leave nothing to my young master, Mr Tony Brown, I am sure he will understand, because he has all he needs and more. To his wife, Madam Lettice, I leave my grateful thanks for the kindness and consideration she has shewn me since she has become mistress of this house. Never did I think I could tolerate a woman running my master’s house but I found that my young master’s wife was an exception.

  ‘To my master, I leave the memory of my utter devotion. There has been no-one in my life for fifty-two years other than himself; he knows this.

  ‘To Michael Shaughnessy, farmer on my master’s estate, I leave the sum of three hundred pounds because here was a man big enough and bold enough to overcome the dirty deals life has a habit of dealing out.’

  At this point Tony raised his eyes and smiled towards Mike, and Mike, his eyes wide, his lips apart, his head moving slightly, looked back at him in amazement. Then Tony resumed his reading.

  ‘Now I come to the main recipient of my estate, namely Mary Ann Shaughnessy. Although she is now Mrs Mary Ann Boyle I still think of her as Mary Ann Shaughnessy. After the above commitments have been met I wish her to have whatever is left. I do this because when, as a loving, cheeky, fearless child, she came into my master’s life, he became alive again. She turned him from an embittered man, upon whom I, with all my devotion, was unable to make any impression, into a human being once more. You will forgive me, Master, for stating this so plainly, but you and I know it to be true. It was this child, this Mary Ann Shaughnessy, who melted the ice around your heart.

  ‘There is another reason, Mary Ann, why I want you to have and enjoy the money I have worked for, but which brought me no comfort, no pleasure. It is because right from the first you were kind to me, and concerned for me, even when you feared me, so I…’

  Tony’s words were cut off by the sound of choked, painful sobbing. Mary Ann was bent forward, her face buried in her hands.

  ‘There now, there now.’ Lizzie was at one side of her and Lettice at the other. The men were on their feet, with the exception of Mr Lord. Mr Lord’s face was turned towards the fire and his jawbones showed white under his blue-veined skin.

  Lettice now led Mary Ann into her room and there Mary Ann dropped onto the couch, her face still covered with her hands, and her sobbing increased until it racked her whole body.

  When Corny came to her side he put his hands on her shoulders and, shaking her gently, said, ‘Come on now, give over, stop it.’ But his attention only seemed to make her worse.

  Now Tony came on the scene. He had a glass in his hand and, bending over the back of the couch, he coaxed her: ‘Come on. Come on, dear, drink this.’

  But Mary Ann continued to sob and he handed the glass to Lizzie, saying, ‘Make her drink it; I must get back to Grandfather, he’s upset.’

  ‘Mary Ann, stop it! Do you hear?’ Corny had pushed Lizzie aside almost roughly and was once more gripping Mary Ann’s shoulders, and Lizzie, her voice steely now, said, ‘Don’t, Corny, don’t. Let her cry it out. She needs to cry.’ She looked at him full in the face, then more gently she said, ‘Leave her for a while, she’ll be all right.’

  He straightened up and stared at her, at this woman who had never wanted him for her daughter. They had always been good friends, but he often wondered what went on under Lizzie’s poised and tactful exterior.

  He walked slowly out of the room and closed the door behind him, and when he looked across the wide hall there was Mike standing at the bottom of the stairs, his elbow resting on the balustrade. Corny went up to him and Mike said, ‘It was the shock; it was a shock to me an’ all. Three hundred pounds!’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Fancy old Ben thinking of me.’ Then taking a deep brea
th he added, ‘This is going to make a difference, isn’t it? It’s a small fortune she’s got. Nearly eight thousand pounds I should imagine by the time it’s all worked out. Of course, there’ll be death duties to pay.’ He stared at Corny now. ‘You don’t look very happy about it, lad.’

  Corny stared back at Mike. He could speak the truth to his father-in-law; they were brothers under the skin. He said bluntly, ‘No, I’m not happy about it. What do you think it’ll do to her?’

  ‘Do to her? Well, knowing Mary Ann, not much.’

  ‘Huh!’ Corny tossed his head. ‘You think so? Well I see it differently.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ He brought his shoulders hunching up cupping his head. The action looked as if he was retreating from something, and Mike said, ‘Don’t be daft, man; money will make no difference to Mary Ann. You should know that.’

  Corny turned slowly towards him and quietly he asked him, ‘How would you have felt if it had been left to Lizzie?’

  Mike opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Aye, how would he have felt if it had been left to Lizzie? It would have made her independent of him. It didn’t do for a woman to have money, at least not more than the man she was married to. He stared back into Corny’s eyes and said, ‘Aye, I see what you mean.’

  Chapter Twelve: Samson Again

  On the Thursday night, David leant over his bunk and, looking down onto Rose Mary, whispered, ‘We could cut it off.’

  ‘What?’ she whispered back at him.

  ‘Her hair.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Don’t be goofy, you know whose, Diana Blenkinsop’s.’

  Rose Mary was sitting bolt upright now, her face only inches from her brother’s hanging upside down in mid-air, and she said, ‘Eeh, our David, that’s wicked! Whatever gave you that idea?’