Mary Ann and Bill Read online

  ‘Mam.’

  ‘Mam?’

  ‘Yes, ’bout Samson.’

  ‘Samson?’

  ‘Don’t be so mutton-nappered. You remember, she told us the story about Samson. When he had his hair cut off he couldn’t do nothin’.’

  ‘But Samson was a man.’

  ‘It’s all the same. And she would look different with her hair off, all like that.’ He took one hand from the edge of the bunk and traced his finger in a jagged line around his neck, and Rose Mary exclaimed on a horrified note, ‘Eeh! You dursen’t.’

  ‘I dare.’

  And as she stared at him she knew he dared.

  ‘They’re still not kind,’ he said.

  ‘I asked Mr Blenkinsop to send her away.’

  David swung himself down from the bunk and, crouching on the floor at her side, exclaimed incredulously, ‘When?’

  ‘Last Monday, when I pretended I was sick,’ She crimped her face at him. ‘I only wanted to stay off so I could see Mr Blenkinsop.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He said I hadn’t to worry; he would see to it.’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t, has he?’

  She shook her head slowly, and he stared back at her through the dim light, looking deep into her eyes and appealing to her to solve this problem, as he had been wont to do, but inarticulately, before he could speak; and she answered the look in his eyes by whispering very low, ‘I’ll die if she takes me dad away.’

  As he continued to stare at her, his mind registered the death-like process they would go through if Diana Blenkinsop did take their dad away. At the end of his thinking he added to himself, And Jimmy and all. But he comforted himself on this point. Jimmy wouldn’t go; he could stop that, he would see to that the morrow.

  Rose Mary broke into his thoughts now, saying, ‘But you couldn’t reach.’

  ‘If the sun’s shining and it’s hot like it was the day, she’ll go down and lie on the bank sunbathing. She lies with her hair all out at the back. The men on the scaffolding were watchin’ her the day, and laughin’.’

  ‘But you’ve got to go to school.’

  ‘I could have a headache.’

  Again they were staring at each other. Then Rose Mary whispered, ‘But me mam won’t stand for me being off again, I can’t say I’m sick again.’

  ‘I’ll do it on me own.’

  ‘Eeh! No, our David, I should be with you.’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’ He nodded at her. ‘If it’s sunny in the mornin’ I’ll say me head’s bad.’

  The door opening suddenly brought both their heads towards the light and their mother.

  ‘What are you doing out of bed?’

  ‘I’ve…I’ve got a bad head.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything about a bad head when you came to bed. Go on, get up.’ She hoisted him up into the bunk, then tucked the clothes around him and said, ‘Go to sleep and your headache will be gone when you wake up.’ Then she tucked Rose Mary in again and, going towards the door, said, ‘Now no more talking. Get yourselves to sleep.’

  Back in the living room she sat down near the fire. Bill was lying on the mat, and when he rose and went to climb onto her knee she said, ‘No, no!’ But he stood with his front paws on her lap looking at her and again she said, ‘No!’ and on this he dropped his heavy body down and lay by the side of her chair.

  There was a magazine lying on the little table to the side of her. She picked it up, then put it down again. She couldn’t read, she couldn’t settle to anything. She felt that she was moving into a world of delirium. She still wanted to cry when she thought of Ben and what he had done for her, but she mustn’t start that again.

  Last night she had cried until she fell asleep, and this morning she had felt terrible; and the feeling wasn’t caused by her crying alone but by Corny’s attitude to this great slice of luck that had befallen her. He wasn’t pleased that Ben had left her the money, in fact he was angry. She had wanted to say to him, ‘But we’ll share it, we’ve shared everything’; yet she didn’t because they weren’t sharing everything as of old. She couldn’t share even the surface of his affection with Diana Blenkinsop.

  The odd thing about the money was that she hadn’t brought up the subject to him, or he to her. She had hardly seen him since this morning. He had come up to dinner and eaten it in silence and then had gone straight down again. The same had happened at teatime. And now it was almost nine o’clock and he was still downstairs. He would have to come up some time and he’d have to talk about it some time.

  It was half an hour later when he entered the room. She had his supper ready on the table and she said to him, ‘Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea,’ he answered.

  That was all, just ‘Tea’. When she had made the tea and they were seated at the table she said quietly, ‘Tony phoned. He…he wants me to go to Newcastle on Monday to see the bank manager and Mr Lord’s solicitor.’

  He had a piece of cold ham poised before his mouth when, turning his head slightly towards her, he said flatly, ‘Well, what about it?’

  ‘O…oh!’ She was on her feet, her hands gripping the edge of the table. ‘You’re wild, aren’t you? You’re wild because Ben left me that money.’

  He put the ham in his mouth and chewed on it before he replied grimly, ‘The word isn’t wild, I just think it’s a mistake you being left it. It was hard enough living with you before, but God knows what it’ll be like now with fame and fortune hitting you at one go.’

  Her face slowly stretched in amazement as she looked at him and she repeated, ‘What did you say?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Yes, I heard you. It was hard enough living with me before. Well, well! Now I’m learning something. Hard enough living with me…’ Her voice rose almost to a squeak.

  ‘Yes, yes, it was if you want to know, because for years I’ve had to contend with your home. This was never your home, as I’ve told you before. This was just a little shack that I provided for you, it wasn’t home, you never referred to it as home. But the farm was home, wasn’t it? Then your mother never wanting me to have you, because I was just a mechanic, and she’s never let me forget it.’

  ‘Oh, Corny Boyle! How can you sit there and spit out such lies. Mam’s been wonderful to you; she’s been…’

  ‘Oh yes, she’s been wonderful to me, like Tony has, the great Mr Lord’s grandson, the man you should have married, the man your mother wanted you to marry, the man Mr Lord created for you. Aye, created.’ He raised his hand high in the air. ‘And did he not prepare you for such an elevated station by sending you to a convent and giving you big ideas…? Oh aye, they’re all wonderful.’

  Mary Ann stepped back from the table, still keeping her eyes on him. She had never imagined for a moment he thought like this, but all these things must have been fermenting in his mind for years.

  He had stopped his eating and was staring down at his plate, and she had the urge to run to him and put her arms about him and say ‘Oh, you silly billy! You’re jealous, and you haven’t got one real reason in the world to be jealous of me. As for the money, take the lot, put it in the business, do what you like with it, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that everything should be all right between us, that we should be…kind.’ But she smothered the urge; nothing had changed, there was still Diana Blenkinsop.

  She turned away and went into the kitchen and stood looking out of the small window and watched the lights of the cars flashing by on the main road half a mile away.

  After a while she heard him pushing his chair back, and then his voice came from the scullery door, saying, ‘I’m sorry. You enjoy your money. Take the holiday you’ve always been on about. I’m off to bed, I’m tired.’

  She made no response by word or movement. He had said he was sorry in a voice that was still full of bitterness. ‘Take a holiday,’ he had said. Well, perhaps she would do that. She would take the children and go away some place. It would give him time to th
ink and sort himself out. On the other hand it might give him time to throw himself into the waiting arms of Diana Blenkinsop. Well, if that’s what he wanted then he must have it. She could see no greater purgatory in life than living with someone who didn’t really want you.

  Chapter Thirteen: Mr Blenkinsop’s Strategy

  On Friday morning Mr Blenkinsop arrived at the office not at nine o’clock, but nearer ten, because he hadn’t come from Newcastle, where he stayed during the week, but from his home in Doncaster.

  Last night, unknown to his daughter, he had returned home because he wanted to talk to his wife privately, and urgently.

  During the journey he had rehearsed what he was going to say to her. He would begin with: ‘Now look here, Ida, you’ve been against her going to America.’ And doubtless she would come back at him immediately and he would let her have her say because he, too, hadn’t taken to the idea when his cousin, Rodney, first suggested that Diana should go out to Detroit. The idea was that mixing business with pleasure she would take up a post in the factory out there with a view to coming back and acting as manageress over the women’s department. Recently, however, he had changed his views about this matter and had put it to his wife that it might be a good thing for their daughter to have this experience. But Ida wouldn’t hear of it. The family would be broken up soon enough, she had protested; she wasn’t going to force any member to leave it.

  Yet how would she react when she learnt that the member in question could be preparing to fly from the nest at any moment. He wasn’t considering Corny’s power of resistance, because few men, he imagined, could resist anyone as luscious as his daughter, especially a man who had been married for seven or eight years. It was a crucial time in marriage; there was a great deal of truth in the seven year itch. Moreover, he knew that when Diana set her mind on anything she would have it, even if when she got it she smashed it into smithereens, as she had done with many a toy she had craved for as a child. Now her toys were men.

  But when Mr Blenkinsop reached home he found his wife knew all about the business. At least that was the impression he got as soon as he entered the house. She was entertaining three friends to tea. From the drawing-room window she had seen him getting out of his car on the drive and had met him in the hall, saying rapidly under her breath, ‘I expected you. Say nothing about it though when you come in; Florence and Kate are here. Jessie Reeves popped in unexpectedly. I’m wondering if she knows anything; Kate gave me a funny look when she came in. The Reeveses were out Chalford way on Sunday too. They might have seen them, but say nothing.’ She turned from him and led the way back into the drawing room and, a little mystified, he followed her.

  Chalford! It wasn’t likely Boyle took her to Chalford on Sunday.

  He greeted the three ladies, talked with them, joked with them and half an hour later saw them to their cars. Yet again he was obstructed from having any private conversation with his wife by his family descending on him and demanding to know what had brought him back on a Thursday night.

  ‘It’s my house. I can come back any time I like.’ He pushed at the boys’ heads, hugged Susan to him, then demanded to know what was happening to their homework; and eventually he returned to the drawing room and closed the door. Looking at his wife he let out a long slow breath and said, ‘Well!’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Ida Blenkinsop draped one arm over the head of the couch and lifted her slim legs up onto it before adding, ‘You can exclaim, well! Of all the people she could take up with! When I think of her turning her nose up at Reg Foster, and Brian, and Charles. And look what Charles will be one of these days, he’s nearly reached three thousand now. The trouble with this one is, he looks all right, too all right I understand, but what he’ll sound like is another thing, and how he’ll act is yet another.’

  Dan Blenkinsop stood with his back to the fire, his hands in his pockets, looking at his wife. He was puzzled and becoming more puzzled every moment. He said now, ‘How did you get to know?’

  ‘Well, Kate ran into them on Sunday. She thought nothing of it; they were on the bridge looking at the water near Chalford. She saw them getting into this big car and thought, Oh! But then on Wednesday she was with John in Newcastle and there they met them again, and John recognised the fellow. He says he is well over thirty and a womaniser. He worked on a building in Newcastle that John designed…’

  ‘What! Look, Ida.’ Dan screwed up his eyes and flapped his hand in front of his face in an effort to check her flow. ‘Look, stop a minute and tell me who you’re talking about.’

  ‘Who I’m talking about?’ She swung her legs off the couch. ‘Diana, of course, and your ganger.’

  ‘My ganger?’ He stepped off the Chinese hearthrug and moved towards her, his chin thrust out enquiringly, and he repeated, ‘My ganger?’

  ‘Yes, a man called Murgatroyd. John Murgatroyd.’

  There was a chair near the head of the couch and Dan lowered himself onto it; then bending towards his wife he said, ‘You mean that Diana’s going out with Murgatroyd, the ganger?’

  ‘What do you think I’ve been talking about? And’—she spread out her hands widely—‘what’s brought you back tonight? I thought that’s what you’d come about.’

  Dan took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow.

  ‘It wasn’t that?’

  He now looked up under his lids at his wife and said slowly, ‘It was about Diana, but not with Murgatroyd. You mean to say she’s been going out with Johnny Murgatroyd?’

  ‘You know him?’ She shook her head. ‘Of course you know him; what am I talking about? But what is he like? He’s just an ordinary workman isn’t he? And why have you come if not about that? Is anything else wrong?’

  Again he mopped his brow as he said patiently, ‘Not wrong; I would say a little complicated. I came out tonight, dear, to suggest that it would be as well if you changed your mind about her going to America. You know she wanted to go, but you were so dead against it she allowed herself to be persuaded.’

  ‘Now don’t rub it in, Dan.’ Ida Blenkinsop turned her face away, and her husband said quickly, ‘I’m not rubbing it in, but I think it would be the best thing under the circumstances, because I’ve got something else to tell you.’

  Her face was towards him again, her eyes wide with enquiry.

  ‘She’s causing havoc in the Boyle family.’

  ‘You mean with him…Corny?’

  ‘Yes, with him, Corny.’

  ‘You’re joking. That’s as bad as the ganger.’

  ‘It might appear so on the surface. To my mind it’s much worse. The ganger happens to be single; Corny’s got a wife and two children, and even the children are aware of the situation.’

  ‘Oh Dan!’ She had risen to her feet. ‘You’re exaggerating.’ Her tone was airy.

  Dan now got to his feet and, his voice patient no longer, he snapped, ‘I’m not exaggerating, Ida, and I’m really concerned, not for our daughter but for the Boyle family. I tell you the children know. That little girl came to me, and you know what she said? She asked me if I would send Diana away because she didn’t want to lose her daddy.’

  ‘Good gracious! I’ve never heard of such a thing. That’s precociousness. She’s like her mother, that child…’

  ‘Ida! You’ve got to face up to this. If Diana doesn’t go haywire with Boyle she’ll go it with Murgatroyd. But I want to see that she doesn’t go it with young Boyle. That’s a nice family and I would never forgive myself if she broke it up. But I know what you’re thinking. Oh, yes I do. You would rather she amused herself in that direction than go for Murgatroyd, because you think she’s safe with Boyle, him being married, whereas she could get tied up with…the ganger, and then you’d have to bury your head in the sand. Now from tomorrow night I’m going to tell her she’s finished down there at the factory. I’m going to tell her I’ve heard from Rodney and he’s renewed his invitation for her to go out to him. I’m going to get through to Rodney tonight and ex
plain things, and there’ll be a letter for her from him early next week endorsing all I’ve said.’

  Ida Blenkinsop put her hand up to her cheek and walked across the room to the window, where she stood for a few minutes before coming back. Then looking at her husband she said, ‘What if she meets a Boyle or a Murgatroyd out there?’

  ‘We’ll have to take our chance on that. But there’s one thing I’m determined on, she’s not going to break up the Boyle family to afford herself a little amusement, and as long as she’s within walking distance of him, or driving distance for that matter, she’ll see him as a challenge.’

  ‘It’s his wife’s fault.’ Ida Blenkinsop jerked her chin to the side. ‘She should look after her man and see that he doesn’t stray. Little women are all alike; they’re all tongue and no talent. I could never stand little women, not really.’

  As he took her arm and smiled at her and said, ‘Come on, let’s have something to eat, I’m hungry,’ he was thinking: And neither can your daughter, for he now sensed that Diana’s hunting of Corny was as much to vex his wife as to satisfy her craving for male adulation.

  It was about twenty past ten on the Friday morning when Mr Blenkinsop came into the garage. Corny was at the far door and when he saw him he felt the muscles of his stomach tense. Diana had left the garage only a few minutes earlier. He had been in the pit under the car and he had caught sight of her legs first, long, slim, brown…and bare. She was wearing a miniskirt but he couldn’t see the bottom of it, only the length of her legs.

  When she bent down and her face came on a level with his he couldn’t look at it for a moment, yet when he looked away his eyes were drawn to her thighs, which were partly exposed and within inches of his hands.

  ‘Good morning.’ That was all she had said but she could make it sound like the opening bars of an overture. She was wearing a scent that wiped out the smell of the petrol and oil. She looked fresh, young, and beautiful, so beautiful that he ached as he looked at her. He wetted his lips and said, ‘Hello, there.’