A Grand Man Read online

  Going up to the small side altar she knelt down below the life-size statues of the Virgin, with the Child in her arms, and St Joseph standing protectingly near. She gazed up at them for some moments in silence before beginning her routine. First she blessed herself; then she lifted the Sacred Heart Medal that was reposing on her chest at the end of a narrow brass chain, which she would have assured you was solid gold, and she laid this on the front of her coat so that it would not escape the notice of the influential ones. Then bringing to her face what she called her ‘good look’, she said, in a voice that was a mixture of Tyneside and Irish, ‘Oh, Holy Family, I’ve come to ask you something; and I’ll do anything you like for you if you’ll grant my request.’

  She waited, as if to let her offer sink in, before going on, ‘I want you to keep me da from being sick at the weekend, ’cause he’s a lovely da, as you know, and he doesn’t mean to make me ma cry. He told her so last night himself when he thought I was asleep in bed. He told her it was sorry he was to the heart, and if only we could all get back into the country he’d give up the…I mean he wouldn’t be sick any more; it’s having to work in the shipyard and them factories that makes him want to be sick. And there’s nothing but yards round here to work in. But mind,’ she put in, hastily, ‘I’m not blaming you for making so many yards; you’ve had to put them some place.’ She nodded, expressing her sympathy at what must have been a dilemma to them.

  Then she went on, ‘But you see, me da doesn’t like them; he likes the country. And he won’t go into it to work without me ma and me and our Michael. And that’s where the cottage comes in. You’ll mind I asked you about it last week. If only you could see your way clear to getting us a cottage, just a little weeny one would do, I’d do anything for you, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I’ll even stop telling lies about the servants and the horses. I will, honest to God.’

  She had a vague idea that something should happen at this point, a clapping of hands at least. She gazed up at the group of statuary in strained, expectant silence, and had to be content when the infant child looked up at his mother with a ‘Well, what about it?’ look on his face.

  The Virgin must have taken the cue, for quite suddenly Mary Ann experienced a feeling of relief, and tears, which she was sure she had not started, ran down her cheeks, and she was powerless to stop them.

  She blessed herself, and, having risen, she genuflected deeply; then turned away and walked almost into the arms of Father Owen.

  The old priest, with his bald head and long solemn face, hung over her for a moment and affected astonishment at seeing her. He made not the smallest reference to her tear-stained face, but he bent down and whispered, ‘You’ve a great devotion to the Holy Family, I notice, Mary Ann.’

  Blinking, smiling and sniffing, all in one movement, she whispered back confidentially, ‘Yes, Father, ’cause it’s nearly the same size as our family.’

  ‘Oh, of course. Yes, yes,’ he nodded at her. ‘You’re a good girl.’ He patted her cheek, and the smile left her face and her head drooped, and she took small, quiet steps on her toes up the aisle, the priest walking as noiselessly by her side.

  When she whispered something that he could not catch, he bent his long frame towards her, asking, ‘What is it?’ And, still with eyes averted, she whispered, ‘I’m not a good girl, Father, I’m a howling liar.’

  The priest’s eyebrows moved slightly, and he said, ‘Oh, indeed?’

  And Mary Ann nodded to the heating grid over which she stepped carefully, and said, ‘Yes.’

  In silence they reached the end of the church and came to a halt where the holy water font was attached to a pillar. Mary Ann dipped in her fingers and once again blessed herself, and the priest, standing looking at her, sighed and exclaimed, ‘Ah well. It’s a good thing when we know what we are, but I think you’re too hard on yourself. That’s a bit too strong a name for you, Mary Ann.’

  ‘It isn’t, Father. Oh, it isn’t,’ she whispered emphatically.

  She had called herself a howling liar, and the priest must take her word that that was what she was; he mustn’t take things lightly like this. She stretched up to him and went on to explain, still in a whisper, ‘You see, Father, I tell people we’ve got cars and horses and servants, and we haven’t.’

  ‘Oh, you do?’ The priest’s eyebrows moved again.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dear, dear. Cars, horses and servants?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They stared at each other.

  ‘Well, well; this is serious. They couldn’t be just nice daydreams you’ve been having?’

  ‘No, oh no, Father.’

  ‘Dear, dear me. Cars, horses and servants. What are we going to do about it?’

  ‘I’ve talked to the Holy Family, Father.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Yes, Father. And I promised them I won’t lie again. And I meant to promise them I won’t get into any more rages either, but…’

  ‘Do you get into rages, Mary Ann?’

  ‘I do, Father; when anybody says me da…’ She hesitated and her eyes drooped once more, and she toyed with her hair ribbon which was hanging perilously on the end of one plait.

  ‘Yes, Mary Ann,’ prompted Father Owen. ‘And what do they say?’

  ‘Well’—she looked straight up into the priest’s eyes—‘people say me da drinks; and you know yourself, Father, he doesn’t. You know he never touches a drop.’

  The child and the priest regarded each other intently; and as Mary Ann watched the priest’s nostrils quiver and his right eyebrow jerk spasmodically, very like the head of Mr Lavey, who lived on the ground floor of their house and who had the tick, she felt forced to press her point again.

  ‘He might get sick now and then, but he doesn’t drink. Does he, Father?’

  The appeal in the great eyes, the strain visible in the thin wisp of a body, did not touch the priest as much as did the unseen but evident conflict of loyalties raging in the heart of this child who had the art of conjuring up and of living numbers of separate lives, each with the same focal point, her father…and him a drunken agitator, and not of the faith either! Which, in a way, was something to be thankful for. No, no—he chided himself for his thoughts—it could be the saving of him if he’d come in.

  ‘Does he, Father?’ The whispered insistence made him pinch his quivering nose between his finger and thumb, and with a sliding glance at the cross hanging above the holy water font, he said, almost defiantly, ‘Not a drop, Mary Ann. Not a drop. I know that.’

  Mary Ann sighed, and she smiled, and her young mouth stretched wide in happiness as she said, ‘I knew you would speak the truth, Father.’

  Her pleasure, however, turned to immediate concern when she saw her dear, dear Father Owen almost choke. Something must have stuck in his throat, for he was going red in the face with coughing.

  Still coughing, the priest led Mary Ann to the door, and patting her head, he nodded to her in farewell, for he was unable to speak.

  In grave concern, Mary Ann watched him re-enter the church. Poor Father Owen; he had a bad cold. Eeh…the thought swept over her making her hot…what if he were to get the ’flu and die? Oh, but he wouldn’t. God wouldn’t let Father Owen die. She could not see the Creator being such a cold-blooded monster as to take away her confidant, friend, and what was more, her ally in defence of her father.

  Suddenly she skipped off the church step. Wouldn’t that be one in the eye for Sarah Flannagan when she told her what Father Owen had said? ‘Sarah Flannagan,’ she would say to her, ‘now shut your big gob and listen to this. Father Owen said…and mind he was standing near the holy water font and the cross above him when he said it, and not even you’ll dare to say Father Owen tells lies…Well, standing here, he said, “I’ve never known your da to touch a drop of drink, Mary Ann. And anybody that says it will go to Hell and be shrivelled up.” So there!’ By, that would be like a slap across her nasty big face.

  For the moment she felt very hap
py. Father Owen was the bestest man in the world, next to her da. Eeh. Well, was her da better than the priest?

  She spent most of the time that it took her to reach home in debating in which position of goodness she should place the two men who were a power in her life.

  Chapter Two: Mulhattans’ Hall

  Mulhattans’ Hall was a small tenement house jammed between two-storey houses, consisting of two rooms upstairs and two down. In any other part of the country these would have been termed flats, but in Jarrow and the surrounding towns two rooms so placed were called a house, and if, as sometimes happened, the backyard had been designed that each occupant had a slit of private concrete with a high wall cutting him off from his near neighbour, then that occupant had a right to feel that he was socially on the upgrade. It can therefore be guessed how far down the social scale were the five families living in Mulhattans’ Hall, for here there was only one communal backyard, and from it water for all uses had to be carried.

  The official name of Mulhattans’ Hall was sixteen Burton Street. It had come by its title from a family of that name who had lived there some years before, and from occupying one ‘house’ the family, through marriage, had spread into the other four parts; and since they were all sons who had married the house had become a hive of Mulhattans, and far from a peaceful hive; and although the last of these Mulhattans had long since gone the name still remained.

  Five families still occupied the Hall; the Shaughnessys on the attic floor, Miss Harper and the Quigleys on the first floor, and on the ground floor, on one side the McBrides, on the other the Laveys.

  Tonight being Friday was bath night. Mary Ann didn’t mind the bath, in fact she liked it, but she hated having to provide the means for it, for no matter how she talked to herself or what games she played she found that, even with their Michael on the other side of the handle, a bucket of water weighed a ton by the time she had reached the twenty-eighth step and the top landing. If possible she would have preferred to carry the bucket herself, for their Michael was the worst one on earth for playing games. What was more, tonight being Friday her granny was sure to be visiting. That together with the bath was enough to try an angel with nothing on her mind; Mary Ann was no angel and she had a lot on her mind.

  Once upon a time, she had hated to go into the house and find her granny there, for as sure as life her granny would want her to go and stay with her for the weekend, and to be in her granny’s company for just one hour seemed like a long nightmare, but now, although she still hated to find her there, all fear that she would make any such disagreeable request of her was past. If she thought her granny was going to be so foolish as to ask her to go and stay with her, she had just to look at her with a certain look, which she kept especially for her granny, and that terrible old lady would dry up.

  For years Mrs McMullen had put so many fears into Mary Ann’s mind that it became difficult for the child to know which she was afraid of most…of hell, where she’d be made to sit on a red-hot gridiron all day without her knickers on, of being thrown clean out of the Catholic Church plumb into the Salvation Army, or of being put away in a home so that she would never be able to see her ma or her da again till she would be an old woman of twenty. But now the old lady no longer instilled fear into Mary Ann with her prophecies; if possible, she kept out of her granddaughter’s way, for Mary Ann had at last got her, if not exactly where she wanted her, at least under a certain control, and here she hoped to keep her. But Mary Ann knew she could only do this if she remained strong enough not to tell her da what had changed her granny, for once she divulged the reason, her power, she knew, would vanish as quickly as a soap bubble, for he would roar for a month, and nothing she could think of would keep him from throwing his knowledge at his mother-in-law by way of a small repayment for what he had suffered at her hands during the past years.

  Panting, Mary Ann reached the eighteenth stair and the landing before her own, and there, as usual, was Miss Harper, with her door open and sitting just where she could see who passed up and down.

  ‘Hallo, there, Mary Ann,’ Miss Harper called; ‘your granny’s up.’

  ‘Hallo, Miss Harper,’ said Mary Ann. ‘Is she?’

  Unsmiling, she mounted her own flight of stairs. Miss Harper knew everybody’s business, and she was the biggest borrower from here to John O’ Groats.

  She pushed open her own door, and there was her granny, sitting like a lady in her astrakhan coat, and her hat, with the blue feather and veil on, cocked high upon her head.

  ‘Hallo, Mary Ann,’ said Mrs McMullen primly.

  ‘Hallo, Granny,’ said Mary Ann.

  ‘Have you just come from school?’

  ‘Yes, Granny.’ What a silly daft question. Where would she have come from? Whitley Bay?

  ‘Get your hands washed, and you can have your tea now,’ said her mother.

  ‘Aw…w,’ Mary Ann protested, her face screwed up; ‘can’t I wait until me da comes?’

  ‘Get your hands washed.’

  When her mother spoke in that tone there was nothing to do but get your hands washed.

  The ritual over, Mary Ann held up her hands for her mother’s inspection, then sat down at the table. It was adorned with the best cloth, with the fancy work at the corners, and on a tray stood the three best cups, which if you held them up to the light you could see through, and the best teapot, which was of the same blue colour as the cups, but didn’t match and had an odd lid.

  In front of her granny was a plate of boiled ham and a jar of pickled onions, and in the centre of the table was a plate of square, thin slices of bread which told all who beheld it that it was a ‘cut loaf’.

  Mary Ann watched her granny eyeing the plate, and she said to herself, ‘If she says a thing about it I’ll say…“Milk Bottles!” I will, you’ll see.’ And she could almost hear her granny thinking: Bought bread again, huh! Thought she didn’t hold with it…nothing but brown, home-made wholemeal for her children. Must have their fancy vitamins. She hasn’t a penny left to get the flour, that’s it. And she got the loaf and ham on tick from Funnell’s I bet.

  And Mary Ann also watched her mother avoid her granny’s eye and go to the fireplace. But she became so intent on again staring at her granny that she did not notice her mother come back to the table; and she jumped when she said, ‘Will you have jam or syrup?’

  She eyed the small amount of jam in the dish, and knowing that Michael liked jam and hated syrup and thinking of last night and the names he had called their da, she said, ‘Jam.’

  ‘Jam what?’ asked her mother.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘They hadn’t to be told in my day,’ said her granny. Then almost choking on a mouthful of ham, she added hastily and in oiled tones to make up for her censure, ‘Have you been picked for the procession, Mary Ann?

  Mary Ann attacked her jam and bread with vigour, but made no reply; and her mother said sharply, ‘You heard your granny talking to you?’

  So Mary Ann, her eyes fixed on her plate, said, ‘No, Granny.’ Oh, how she hated her granny. She always asked about things that hurt you. For two pins she’d lean across the table and look her right in her old wrinkled eyes and say, ‘Milk Bottles!’ But once she had said it her hold would be gone, so she contented herself with just staring at her granny in an irritating way and thinking back to that Sunday morning and the milk bottles.

  She could see herself—it was very early and she had wakened with a cramp in her stomach. She was staying in Shields with her granny, and as she usually did on such visits she was sleeping on the couch behind the kitchen door. It was the plums that were causing the cramp. Her granny had made her eat them because she said they shouldn’t be wasted. Yet they had been all soft and nasty. She’d got up and unbolted the back door and gone out to the lavatory. She had sat there for a long time, for the cramp kept on coming and going, and during the times her stomach was at peace she thought of home and her da and whether it had been a nice weekend. If it had he would
be taking some tea to her ma in bed; and if she had been at home she’d have got some too, just as if she were grown up.

  It was then she saw her granny through the crack in the door. She watched her coming stealthily down the yard; then she disappeared from her sight as she went to the back door. Puzzled, she had listened, and she had heard her granny open the back door and close it, and when she came within sight again she was carrying two pints of milk. She saw her stand within the shelter of the staircase wall, which also kept her out of the view of the upper window; and she watched her skilfully remove the milk-caps by inserting a needle under their edges, then pour the cream off both bottles into the screw-top jar, which she took from beneath her apron. This done, she filled one of the bottles to the brim out of the other, and after carefully replacing the cap, left the bottle inside the back door.

  It was at this point that Mary Ann showed herself, and she watched her granny hang on to the door for a moment and fight for breath as she exclaimed, ‘Eeh! I saw what you did.’

  She thought her granny was going to have a fit; but before she could add anything further to her accusation she was grabbed by the collar of the coat she was wearing over her nightie and lifted clean off her feet and run up the yard as if the devil had her by the neck.

  But if the terrifying Mrs McMullen had hoped to frighten Mary Ann she was mistaken. When at last Mary Ann was able to get a word in, with enraging calm and in her own words she reminded her granny that it was only two weeks ago that Mrs Baker from upstairs, her that was deaf, had stood in the kitchen and complained of there being no cream on the milk, and she had blamed the milkman for swiping it and feeding his large, robust family with it.

  There had followed a verbal barrage for power, which ended with Mary Ann putting on her clothes and saying she thought she’d go to mass in Jarrow this morning, and if her granny would give her the threepence now for the bus instead of the night she’d be obliged.