Mary Ann and Bill Read online

  ‘Mary…Mary Ann.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m…Oh God, Mary Ann, I’m sorry.’ He gazed up at her, his voice low and thick. ‘Oh God, Mary Ann, I am, I am. To the very heart of me I’m sorry. As long as I live I’ll never hurt you again.’ His eyes were tightly closed now, screwed deep into their sockets, and when her arms went round him and he pulled her onto his knee, she held his head tightly against her and for a moment she couldn’t believe that the shaking of his body was caused by his crying. Corny crying. She had first met him when she was seven and he had been in her life since and she had never known him to cry.

  The tears were raining from her own eyes now, dropping down her cheeks and onto his hair, and she moved her face in it and tried to stop him talking. Some of his words she couldn’t catch, they were so thick and broken and mumbled, but others she picked out and hugged to her heart, such as ‘Nothing happened, nothing, ever. Believe me, believe me—never touched her—not her hand. Like madness…as long as I live I swear to you I’ll never hurt you again…never in that way. Oh, Mary Ann. Why? Why?’

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’ She held his head more tightly and rocked him as she repeated, ‘It’s all right. It’s all over now, it’s all right,’ and while she rocked him she thought of the time just before she got married when her da had become fascinated by that young girl, and after she herself had exposed the girl for what she was her da had struck her, and then he had gone out into the night and the storm, and her mother had thought he had gone for good, but in the early dawn Michael had found him in the barn, exhausted, and her mother had taken the lantern and gone to him. It was odd, she thought, how patterns of life were repeated.

  Chapter Sixteen: Fanny

  The children bounced on the back seat of the chair chanting, ‘Great…gran…Mac…Bride’s!’ and each time they bounced Bill fell against one or the other, until he felt forced to protest.

  Mary Ann, screwing up her face against his howling, turned round and, dragging him up, hoisted him over the seat onto her knee.

  ‘Ah, Mam, he was all right.’

  Mary Ann looked over her shoulder at Rose Mary and said, ‘He sounded all right, didn’t he? A little more of that and he would have been sick.’

  Bill settled down quietly on her knee, and the children took up their chant again, and Corny drove in silence. He felt washed out, drained, but quiet inside. The turmoil had gone.

  Mary Ann, too, felt quiet inside, spent. She had to talk to the children but all the while her mind was on other things. She thought in a way it was a good thing they were going to Fanny’s. Life became normal when in Fanny’s company.

  Most of the Jarrow that they passed through wasn’t familiar any longer. New blocks of flats, new squares, new roads; soon even Burton Street and Mulhattans’ Hall would be gone. As a child she had longed to get away from the poverty of this district, from the meanness of Burton Street and the cramping quarters of Mulhattans’ Hall where there were five two-roomed flats and privacy was a thing you could only dream of. Yet now, as the car drew towards the house, she thought, Once they pull it down that’ll be the end of Jarrow—at least for me. And, what was more serious, once they pulled it down it certainly would be the end of Jarrow for the Hall’s oldest occupant.

  Fanny spied them from the window and she was at the door to greet them in her characteristic fashion.

  ‘In the name of God, has your place been burned down! It’s no use coming here for lodgings, I can’t put you up…Hello, me bairns. Good God Almighty! What’s this you’ve brought?’ She pointed to the dog and Rose Mary shouted, ‘Can’t you see, Great-gran, it’s a dog.’

  ‘It’s Bill. I told you about him, Great-gran,’ said David. ‘You know.’

  Fanny bent towards David and, digging him in the chest with her finger, said, ‘Aye, you told me about a dog, but you wouldn’t call him a dog, would you? Snakes alive! I’ve never seen anything so ugly in me life. Get your things off, get your things off all of you, the kettle’s on. How are you, lass?’ She bent and kissed Mary Ann. Then looking at her grandson, she said, ‘It’s no use askin’ you how you are, you’re never anythin’ but all right.’ She paused now and added, ‘There’s always a first time. What’s the matter with you? Have you got a cold?’

  Corny stretched his face and rubbed at his eyes, saying, ‘Yes, I’ve got a bit of a snifter.’

  ‘It looks like it an’ all. Well, you keep it to yourself, I don’t want any of it. Well, sit yourselves down, can’t you? Go on.’

  When they were all seated she looked from one to the other and said, ‘You might have given me a bit of warnin’, to descend on me like this. You’re not exactly manna from heaven, an’ I haven’t a thing in for tea.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t want us we can go.’

  She took her hand and pushed at Corny’s head. ‘You’ll go soon enough if I have any of your old buck.’

  ‘How you keeping, Fanny?’ Mary Ann now asked, and Fanny, lowering her flabby body down onto a straight-backed chair, said, ‘Aw, well, lass, you know by rights I should be dead. Sometimes I think I am and they’ve forgotten to screw me down. Look, what’s he up to, sniffing over there?’ She pointed to Bill who was investigating beneath the bed in the far corner of the room.

  ‘It’s likely the last two months’ washing attracting his attention,’ said Corny.

  ‘Mind it, you. I don’t put me dirty washing under the bed.’ She nodded straight-faced at him. ‘All my dirty washing goes on the line, outside.’

  They were all laughing together now and Mary Ann thought, Oh, it’s good to be with Fanny.

  ‘And what have me bonny bairns been doin’?’ Fanny embraced the two standing before her, and Rose Mary, laughing up at her, said, ‘Oh, lots and lots, Great-gran.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  Oh. Rose Mary looked at David, then glanced back at her mother, and when she finally looked at Fanny again she was nipping her lower lip, and Fanny said, ‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’

  ‘It’s like that,’ said Mary Ann. ‘We won’t go into it now, it’s too painful.’

  ‘Aw.’ Fanny nodded her head while she cast a glance down on the averted eyes of her great-grandson, and, bending down to him, she whispered, ‘What you been up to this time, young fellow me lad? You murdered somebody?’

  When David’s head began to swing and his lips to work one against the other, Mary Ann put in, ‘I might as well tell you. They both ran away from school this morning.’

  ‘You’re jokin’!’

  ‘I’m not joking, Fanny; they’re both very wicked. You won’t believe what I’m going to tell you, but Rose Mary there slapped her teacher, and David, well, he not only kicked her in the shins but swore at her. Now I bet you won’t believe that of your great-grandchildren.’

  Fanny, dropping her gaze to the two lowered heads, said, ‘Never in this wide world, I wouldn’t believe it if the Lord himself came down and said, “Fanny McBride, if you don’t take my word for it you’ll go to hell”.’

  Rose Mary’s head came up with a jerk. ‘That’s what he said, Great-gran. It’s true, it is, it’s true. He did, he said that word to Miss Plum.’

  ‘Hell? Never!’

  ‘He did, didn’t you, David?’

  There was pride in Rose Mary’s tone now, and Fanny, pulling herself to her feet and pressing her forearm over her great sagging breasts, turned away, saying, ‘This is too much. It’s the biggest surprise of me life. I’m away to get the cups, I must have a sup tea to get over that shock…Mary Ann, can you help me a minute?’

  Mary Ann reached the scullery just seconds after Fanny and found her standing near the shallow stone sink over which there was no tap. Fanny motioned her to close the door. Then her body shaking all over, she gave way to her laughter, and Mary Ann, standing close to her, laughed with her.

  ‘He told her to go to hell?’

  ‘As far as I can gather.’

  ‘And he kicked her shins?’

/>   ‘Yes, oh yes. The headmistress was on the phone a minute or so after they got in.’

  ‘He’s a lad; he’s going to be a handful.’

  ‘You’re telling me, Fanny.’

  Fanny dried her eyes; then patting Mary Ann on the cheek she said, ‘Aw, it’s good to see you, lass. I had the blues this mornin’. You know, I get them every now and again, but they were of a very dark hue the day, and I lay thinkin’, Tuesday, what’m I gonna do with meself all day. But I said a little prayer and left it to Him, and here you all are, lass. But tell me,’ she bent her face close to Mary Ann, ‘is everything all right?’

  There was a pause before Mary Ann said, ‘Yes, Fanny.’

  ‘There’s been somethin’ up, hasn’t there?’

  Mary Ann now lowered her head and said in a whisper, ‘Yes, Fanny.’

  ‘I knew it. When he popped in last weekend there was somethin’ about him. It’s gone now. I looked at his face when he came in at the door and I knew it was gone. But he’s been in trouble, hasn’t he?’

  Mary Ann turned her face away as she said, ‘You could call it that, Fanny.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Oh, no, Fanny.’

  ‘Not the business then?’ Fanny’s eyebrows moved upwards.

  ‘No.’

  There was a longer pause before Fanny whispered, ‘You’re not tellin’ me that my Corny would ever look at…’

  ‘Fanny.’ Mary Ann gripped the old woman’s hands. ‘I’ll pop in some time towards the weekend, when I’m down for my shopping, and tell you about it, eh?’

  Fanny’s head moved stiffly and she said, ‘Aye, lass, do that, do that.’ Then, turning to the rack where the cups hung, she asked in a louder tone, ‘What brought you down the day, anyway?’

  Now her tone lighter and louder, Mary Ann answered, ‘Well, we wanted to see you.’

  ‘I’m flattered, I’m sure, but is that all? I’ve never seen the gang of you on a Tuesday afore in me life.’

  ‘I had a present for you and I wanted to give it to you myself.’

  Fanny turned round with four cups in her hand and she said, ‘A present for me? Well now; why do you have to bring me a present on a Tuesday afternoon? It isn’t me birthday. And it’s neither a feast, fast, or day of obligation as far as I can gather, and it’s weeks off Christmas. Why a present?’

  ‘Must there be a reason why I want to give you a present?’ Mary Ann poked her face at Fanny across the table. ‘I just want to give you a present, that’s all. Here, give me those.’ She took the cups from Fanny’s hands and placed them on the saucers on the tray, and as she did so she said, ‘You could do with some new ones.’

  ‘Aye, I could that. Those that aren’t cracked or chipped haven’t a handle to support them. Aw, but what does it matter? Go on, I want to see this present you’ve brought me.’

  She stopped just within the kitchen and, nodding towards Bill where he lay on the floor by the side of the bed, she said, ‘I’m glad of one thing, it’s not him.’

  As she went to the hob to lift up the teapot that was forever stewing there she said, ‘Well, come on, where’s that present?’ And when she turned round, the teapot in her hand, Mary Ann handed her the envelope.

  Fanny put the teapot on the table, then with her two hands she felt all round the envelope, and the thickness of it, and she looked at Mary Ann, then at Corny, and from him to the children, and they all looked at her, waiting for her reactions. ‘Well, go on, open it.’ Mary Ann could have been back twelve years in the past, bringing her friend a present on her birthday, or at Christmas, and saying to her, ‘Well, go on, open it!’

  Fanny put her finger under the flap but had some difficulty in splitting open the long brown envelope, and when at last the jagged edges sprang apart she stared at the money.

  Slowly she withdrew the notes. They were five pound notes and were held together by an elastic band, and her mouth dropped into a huge gape as she flicked the edge of them one after the other. They appeared to her as a never-ending stream. She lifted her eyes and looked at Mary Ann. Her expression didn’t show pleasure, and you couldn’t say she looked surprised, not just surprised; amazed, yes. She now looked at Corny and said, ‘What is this?’ Then, her eyes blinking a little and the suspicion of a smile reaching her lips, she said, ‘You won the pools?’

  ‘No.’ Corny shook his head. ‘Mary Ann’s come into some money.’

  Fanny now looked at Mary Ann again and she said, ‘You’ve come into money, lass? From where?’

  ‘You remember Ben, Fanny, you know who used to look after Mr Lord.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well, he died, and…and he left me nearly all his money, over eight thousand pounds.’

  ‘Eight thousand pounds!’ It was only a whisper from Fanny now, and Corny, sensing the flood of emotion that was rising in his granny, hoped to check it by saying, ‘Aye, and she’s throwing it about right, left and centre; she’s thrown half of it my way.’

  ‘Half of it?’ Fanny turned her attention to Corny now, but her eyes seemed glazed and out of focus. ‘Well, aye, that’s understandable. But me. All this?’

  ‘It isn’t that much, Fanny, it’s only fifty pounds.’ Mary Ann’s voice was soft, and Fanny now looked at her and her lips trembled before she brought out, ‘Fifty you say? Only fifty pounds. Lass, do you realise that I’ve never had fifty pounds in me hand in me life afore. I’ve…I’ve never seen fifty pounds all at once in me life afore. And…and what am I going to do with it?’

  ‘Light the fire with it if you like, Fanny,’ Mary Ann was smiling gently.

  Fanny put the envelope down onto the table and, turning from them, her shoulders hunched, she went towards the scullery again, only to be stopped by Corny saying, ‘Come on now, none of that.’

  A moment ago Fanny’s body had been shaking with laughter, now it was shaking with her sobbing.

  When Corny sat her down in her chair, Mary Ann put her arms around her shoulders and, her own voice near tears too, she said, ‘Oh, Fanny, look. I wanted to make you happy, not to see you bubble. Come on now, come on.’

  But the more Mary Ann persuaded, the more Fanny cried, difficult, hard crying, crying that was wrenched up from far below her brusque, jocular, life-hardened exterior.

  Now the children were standing at her knees, Rose Mary with the tears running down her face and David with his tongue probing one cheek after the other in an effort not to join her.

  While this was all going on Bill had been lying quietly enough on the old clippy mat by the side of Fanny’s bed. He liked this room. There were smells here quite different from those at home; there was a spice about the smells here that reminded him of the morning he had met that girl, the one who had led him to the grab, and of the one solitary lamp-post he had yet encountered.

  From under the bed there was wafted to him at the present moment the musty, stingy, yet bracing aroma that had attracted him as soon as he entered the room. They had said he hadn’t to go near it, but it was drawing him, inching him towards it. He turned one fishy eye in the direction of his people. They were all gathered round a chair, nobody was looking at him. The smell said, ‘Come on; it’s now or never.’ And so, without rising, he wriggled forward and there it was, the source of this delight. It was soft and deep and warm. He pushed his nose into it. It gave him a tickly feeling that urged him to play, so he took a mouthful of it and shook it. But when it fell over his head he didn’t care much for that, so he wriggled to get from under it, but the more he wriggled the more it enfolded him. This was too much of a good thing. If he didn’t do something about it he’d be smothered, so, biting and scrambling, he fought until he was free.

  He had reached the other side of the bed and brought the thing with him. He was in the open now, and knew how to deal with it. The smell was more exciting in the open, it was sending shivers all over him. When he saw all the feathers floating about him he growled his delight, and dashing round the bed he dragged the old eiderdown with him.
r />   ‘Look. Look what he’s got, Dad. Bill!’

  ‘Oh, godfathers! Here, you rattlesnake, you, give that to me.’

  ‘Don’t pull it, Corny, don’t pull it, it’ll only make him worse.’

  ‘In the name of God! How did he get hold of that?’

  ‘You shouldn’t leave such things under the bed.’ Corny was yelling at Fanny now, and she, getting to her feet, flapped her hands here and there to ward off the rain of feathers.

  ‘Corny! Corny, I’m telling you, don’t pull it. I’ll get him. Leave it, just leave it; you’re making him worse. And you let go, David.’

  Bill had never had such a game in his life. He growled his delight; he knew the more he pulled the more feathers he could raise; and his people were enjoying it too. Like all his breed he loved to give pleasure to humans, if not to his own species, so he pulled and he pulled.

  ‘Let me get behind him.’ Mary Ann was yelling at the top of her voice. ‘Leave go, Rose Mary. Are you all mad? Do you hear me, the lot of you! Don’t pull it!’

  When at last it got through to the children and Corny that they were only adding havoc to chaos, Bill had sole possession of the tattered eiderdown again and they could hardly see each other through the cloud of feathers.

  They drew the down up their nostrils then sneezed it out. When they opened their mouths to speak they swallowed feathers. They were all spluttering and coughing and flapping their hands as if they were warding off a swarm of bees.

  After sneezing violently, Mary Ann cried, ‘Leave…leave him to me. Now, now just keep quiet and leave him to me.’ Then she moved slowly towards Bill who was at the far side of the table, quiet now, stretched out to his full length with his front paws lying on the edge of the eiderdown and his blunt snout resting between them.

  ‘Bill. Bill darling. Go…od boy. Give it to mother. That’s a go-od boy. Bestest boy in the worldy world.’ She was almost crooning as she approached him, and Bill looked at her lovingly. Here was his best pal, here was the one he liked best of the lot. Here was someone who understood him, who talked with him and played with him when the others weren’t around. Well now he would give her a game like she had never had before.