The Devil and Mary Ann Read online

  ‘You know my views. Anyway, we’ll talk of that later.’

  This hesitation on her mother’s part to talk of Mrs Polinski was, Mary Ann knew without any undue hurt to her feelings, because she was there. But from the little she had overheard, Mary Ann’s opinion of her own judgment took on a heightened glow. Her mother didn’t cotton on to Mrs Polinski either.

  ‘Sit up…come on.’ Lizzie turned from the stove and brought her hand in an affectionate slap on Mary Ann’s bottom, and Mary Ann, grabbing at Mike’s neck, yelled, ‘She’s braying me, da, she’s braying me.’

  This causing them all to laugh, even Michael, Mary Ann ascended into her seventh heaven, while tomorrow sprang into the far future, leaving her all the day. Her ma and da were happy and laughing, joined by a band of love that she could almost feel. Their Michael was nice, and there, with an egg on top of it, was a thick slice of Irish roll for her breakfast, not half a slice, as was usual, and that, too, only after she had pushed down a great bowl of porridge.

  After they were all seated and the grace said, in which Mike did not join, and had started to eat, the chatter suddenly ceased, and Mary Ann, in the middle of chewing on and relishing the superb flavour of a mouthful of bacon, felt her mouth drop open as she watched her mother rise quickly from the table and go into the scullery. Was her ma crying?…And then her da, his eyes fixed on his plate, stopped eating. And then their Michael, his cheek full of fried bread, gulped down some tea, and her ma had told him, time without number, not to drink while he was eating. Then almost as quickly as she had gone, Lizzie came back into the room bringing bread with her, and there, before Mary Ann’s eyes, was a plateful not touched already on the table.

  The silence shrieked in Mary Ann’s ears, becoming almost unbearable, and her innate sense of requirement told her that a diversion was needed, and a strong one. And without further thought she heard herself saying, ‘When I see Sarah Flannagan again I won’t half tell her something. I’ll say, “Your da can’t buy you clothes like this.”’

  ‘And your da hasn’t.’ Mike’s tone was flat and held just a thread of bitterness.

  Mary Ann looked across the table into Mike’s eyes, then turned her gaze to her mother. Lizzie was busily eating and did not raise her head. She had said the wrong thing—her da hadn’t bought her clothes, Mr Lord had, boxes of them. Well, two big cases full, right from vests to one black felt school hat and one grey one for Sundays. And her name was on everything—Mary Ann Shaughnessy. Her ma had sewed at them for days. Everything she had had been given to her by Mr Lord, and her da didn’t like it. She was daft for saying such a thing…she was daft, she was. The lump, coming swiftly from nowhere, blocked her throat, but past it struggled the words: ‘I don’t want to…I don’t want t…to. Oh, Da!’

  ‘There! See what you’ve started.’ Lizzie was on her feet, pulling Mary Ann to her and pressing her head into her waist.

  Mike, rising from the table, went to the mantelpiece and, grabbing at his pipe, growled, ‘I’m sorry.’ And Michael, making the greatest effort of his life in an attempt at small talk, put out his hand and stabbed gently at his sister’s shoulders, and in a not-at-all-steady voice said, ‘Now I’ll be able to get my own back on you, you were always chipping me about the Grammar School. But a convent’s worse. You’ll be so swanky when you come back we won’t know a word you’re saying. You’ll be all South Country.’

  Mary Ann’s crying ceased, and with a shuddering sob she turned from her mother and answered Michael: ‘I won’t then…so! Nobody’ll make me swanky…will they? Will they, Da?’

  Her voice brought Mike round to her, and over the distance of the long shining kitchen he smiled gently at her and moved his head slowly.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Make up your mind finally on that, at any rate. Let nobody make you swanky…You still want to go?’ He asked this quietly, yet his voice filled the kitchen.

  Now Lizzie’s eyes darted between the two of them, and she brought Mary Ann’s to hers. What Mary Ann saw there stilled the truth hovering on her lips and reminded her forcibly of the bargain with Mr Lord, and she said, ‘Yes, Da.’

  ‘You sure?’ said Mike.

  ‘Yes, Da.’

  They looked at each other until Lizzie could bear it no longer, and grabbing up the dishes with a clatter and saying as she did so, ‘Well, this is a breakfast spoilt, I must say,’ she went into the scullery, and after depositing the crockery in the sink she leant against the table for a moment, one hand gripping the front of her blouse. What if the child had said no! He would, and like a shot, have put his foot down. And then, as like as not, the whole situation would have exploded.

  Lizzie knew that Mr Lord, thwarted of his ambition to educate Mary Ann, was not likely to treat Mike as he was doing now, even though Mike was carrying out the difficult task of managing the farm much better than she had imagined he could do. Both Mr Lord and Mary Ann, she knew, were under the impression that they, and they alone, knew of the bargain between them, the bargain being that, if Mary Ann agreed to going away to school, her father would be given the chance to run the farm. How it had all come about she didn’t know, but certain circumstances that led up to Mike’s appointment showed only too plainly Mary Ann’s finger guiding Mike’s destiny. Any faint suspicion Mike might have felt had been lulled by Mary Ann herself. Mike did not know Mary Ann as she did. Somehow his very love for her blinded his vision, and should it ever come out that he owed all his present success not alone to his ability but to his child selling herself—and that is how he would put it—away would go the farm and their life of security. She could even see him making use of the six months’ trial which he was now working to bring their life here to an end in order to keep his self-respect.

  Tomorrow night, when she left the child all those miles away in the south, near St Leonards, she would, she knew, leave part of her own life behind her. But even so, she was longing now for the moment to arrive when Mary Ann would be safely installed, when the worst part of this business would be over and the future of them all secure…well, as secure as anybody’s future could be allowing for fate, in the form of the bottle which had dogged their married life. But, strangely enough, at this moment Mike’s weakness was troubling her least. It was Mary Ann’s strength that was worrying her. Would it carry the child through these final stages? After all, she was but a child, she was not yet nine. She had only recently, Lizzie thought fondly, been a baby. Wasn’t it too much to expect of her that she should be parted from Mike, who was the very breath of her life, when she had only to make a sign and he would say, ‘To hell with education! She doesn’t want to go and she’s not going.’

  Lizzie let out a long painful breath. If only it was tomorrow morning and they were on their way. The thing to do was to keep her occupied today, and away from Mike as much as possible without arousing any comment from him. And so, going into the kitchen now, she said briskly, ‘Well, what are you going to do?’

  ‘Who, me, Ma?’

  ‘Yes, you. Who else? I generally know what the rest of my family are up to.’

  Lizzie laughed, and Mary Ann said, with just a touch of importance, ‘Eeh, well, I’ve got a lot of people to see. I must go and see Mrs McBride, and say “Ta-ra” to Agnes and Cissy. And, oh, I must go and see Father Owen and…and who else?’ As she pondered with her head on one side, Mike and Michael looked from her to each other, and nodding they both said together, mimicking her voice and manner, ‘And, oh, that Sarah Flannagan.’

  Laughter filled the kitchen again, and Mary Ann dashed from her father to Michael, crying, ‘Oh, you! You! Go on, you cheeky things, you.’ And into Lizzie’s worry came a thin thread of happiness. That little action of Michael in joining his father in this bit of teasing warmed her heart. Perhaps with Mary Ann gone Mike would turn more to the boy, and Michael’s brooding nature would expand towards him, and he would forget the past and look up to this man whom he so closely resembled.

  ‘Well, that’s settled, at least.’ Lizzie b
ustled about, while Michael took up his bag and after making brief goodbyes went off to school—his term had already started. And Mike, after kissing Lizzie, lifted Mary Ann up and looked at her hard for a moment, then held her close for another brief moment before going quickly out, leaving behind him a strained silence, into which Lizzie poured her words with an attempt at lightness.

  ‘You needn’t help me with the dishes this morning. Go on, put your good things on and then you can get off. And, oh, by the way’—her voice stopped Mary Ann at the kitchen door—‘wasn’t there somebody else you forgot to put on your visiting list?’

  ‘Who, Ma?’

  ‘Mr Lord.’

  ‘Oh, but I’ll see him in the morning.’

  ‘But only on the way to the station, and we’ll all be in the car then. I would call in on your way back and have a word with him. Are you going to stay and have something at Mrs McBride’s?’

  ‘No, Ma. I was coming back for me dinner.’

  ‘Very well, you can go to Mr Lord’s this afternoon then.’

  ‘But Ma, he might come here—he’s been nearly every afternoon.’

  Lizzie turned her back on Mary Ann and went to the stove and said slowly, ‘Well, in that case I wouldn’t bother him. He’ll likely want to talk to your da, and they can never do business with people about. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  Soberly Mary Ann went upstairs, a weight pressing on her shoulders. She understood she wasn’t to chatter and jump round Mr Lord in front of her da. She understood all right; her ma needn’t have told her.

  Chapter Two

  Again Mary Ann was telling herself something for the very last time; she was sitting in the bus on her way to Jarrow. With newly awakened eyes, she looked out of the window. Never had she seen a field of rhubarb running in scarlet and green waves, nor the long, flat patches of land stretching away into the distance aboil with molten yellow. Even the great chimneys, sticking up like pipe shanks on the horizon, looked beautiful; and the gigantic, gear-bespangled gantries that reared up from the river were like fairy tracery edging and hemming in this beautiful world she was leaving.

  A rainbow, actually appearing in the sky at that moment, filled her small chest with wonder. And when it stretched its magnet ends over Jarrow, Hebburn and Pelaw and lifted them clean up from the earth to suspend them in dazzling light, it was too much for her. Her nose started to run; she sniffed and choked and groped for her hanky in the band of her knickers, forgetting that she had on her best clothes. Then, retrieving the neatly folded handkerchief, one which bore her name, from her pocket, she was in the act of desecrating it when the real purpose of its presence on her person at all today came back to her, and gently she pushed it into its folds again, name up, and carried out the operation on her nose with her thumb, but covertly, for this procedure was most strictly forbidden.

  On raising her eyes, she saw they were now passing the gates of Mr Lord’s house, and her head swung round to catch one last glimpse of them. They seemed to be guarding the entry to celestial bliss. Never more would she go up that drive…oh well, she might this afternoon, but that would be the last time, for when she came back for the summer holidays Mr Lord would be living in his new house up at the farm.

  The bus was now skimming past the grounds, past the hedge and the barbed wire through which she had once forced her way. But that was a long time ago, years and years—in fact, last summer.

  The bus was moving now among the close-packed houses, and when she alighted at Ferry Street it was raining, pelting down, yet the sun was still shining, and the conductor said, ‘You’ll have to run, hinny, or you’ll be soaked.’

  Running had not been laid down in her plans at all for today; she was to walk to the top of Burton Street and then slow down, taking her time, until she came to Mulhattans’ Hall, for everybody in Burton Street knew her, and they would stop her and exclaim in tones of admiration, that is, all except Mrs Flannagan. ‘Oh, Mary Ann,’ they would say, ‘you do look lovely and I hear you’re going away to a posh school. And your da’s somebody now, isn’t he?… eh? Manager of the farm and gives orders. Well, well.’ And here it was, raining cats and dogs.

  She dashed from the bus into a shop doorway for shelter. But inactivity never being her strong point, she was soon out again and, hugging the walls she ran as quickly as her legs could carry her along the street. This procedure she even had to carry out in Burton Street, where, but for three toddlers blocking up the water in the gutter with their feet and freshly compounded mud, there wasn’t a soul to be seen.

  She galloped up the steps of Mulhattans’ Hall to the testy exclamations of, ‘Hang and bust it!’ and as she stood shaking the rain from herself Mrs McBride’s door was pulled open and the aperture was almost filled by the great bulk of Fanny herself.

  ‘Hallo there, hinny. This is nice weather to bring. Come on in, don’t stand there dripping like a cheap umbrella. Come inside.’

  ‘I’m all wet, Mrs McBride.’

  ‘Aye. Well, you’ve been wet afore…But by, what a shame, and them your new things. Let me have a look at you.’ Stooping, Fanny held her at arm’s length. ‘By! You look bonny, real bonny.’

  Mary Ann’s soul was soothed. ‘Do I, Mrs McBride?’

  ‘You do, hinny. But there, get them off. It’s a good job I’ve a bit fire on, for sun or no sun it’s cold. And then we’ll have a sup tea, eh?’

  Taking Mary Ann’s coat, Fanny hung it over a chair, exclaiming of its colour as she did so, ‘Never seen a bonnier blue—never. And your hat matches an’ all…Sit down and tell me all your news. How’s Mike?’

  ‘He’s grand.’

  ‘Ah, that’s it. There’s a miracle for you, if ever…And now for a cup of tea. And there’s some griddle cake, I made it last night…What’s he got to say ’bout you going away?’

  ‘Oh, he says—’ Mary Ann stopped and looked at the enormous rump of Mrs McBride as she bent over the fire, placing the kettle into its heart. There was no need to pretend here. Mrs McBride was the only person in the world with whom she needn’t pretend; that was, with the exception of Father Owen, yet he being a close relation of God’s was not in the same category as Mrs McBride. Like God, she felt, the priest had an unfair advantage; he knew what she was thinking and was going to say even before she started…at least, Father Owen had this power when in the confessional.

  Fanny turned from the fire and, slowly straightening her creaking back, looked at Mary Ann.

  ‘He doesn’t want me to go.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me. It would only have surprised me if it had been t’other way round. What does he say?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘That’s bad. Always is with Mike…And—and Mr Lord. How does your da get on with him now?’

  ‘All right. Fine…well…’

  ‘Aye…Aye well, we’ll leave it at that then, eh? And you’re going away in the mornin’?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Fanny sat down opposite to Mary Ann and, stretching her arms across the table, patted her young friend’s hand. ‘I’ll miss you, hinny. I missed you when you left here, but now it’ll only be the holidays I’ll see you.’

  A furious tickling came into Mary Ann’s nose, worse than in the bus, and with unblinking eyes she looked at Fanny and whispered, ‘I don’t want to go, Mrs McBride.’

  After a moment of staring at her, Fanny’s fat seemed to flow back and forward above the area of the table. Then with a hitch to her bust she brought it to a standstill, and stated the fact that was already sealed in Mary Ann’s mind: ‘You’ve got to—remember there’s your da, and you’re doing it for him. And you’re going to be educated like you never dreamed. Just think what’d happen if you backed out now. Think of the old boy…he’d give everybody up there a hell of a time, because he thinks he’s God Almighty himself, does that one. And you know who’d come in for the brunt of it, don’t you?’

  Their eyes held; then Fanny, after a significant nod, r
aised her encumbering body and went to the now spluttering kettle.

  Yes, she knew all right. Mr Lord would give her da hell. Eeh! She was swearing…but not really, only thinking. And if her da got upset he might go on the…get sick again; and then her mother would look like she used to, all tightened up; and their Michael wouldn’t laugh, like he did a bit now. No, she knew her fate was sealed.

  Fanny turned towards the table once again, the great brown teapot in her hand. And now her face was split by a wide beam and her voice sounded eager and full of interest as she said, ‘Is it true, what your ma was telling me? You’re booked to learn languages?’

  Mary Ann, quick to take the cue, forced a smile to match that of this vigorous old woman whose wisdom was tempered with the hard experience of life, and resurrecting herself from the abyss of despair into which she seemed bound to fall at any moment, she said, ‘Aye, I mean yes…French and German.’

  ‘French and German! My God, it’s a scholar you’re going to be! By, won’t that be like a kick under the chin for our dear friends?’ Fanny leant forward and thumbed the window indicating the Flannagans’ house across the street, and Mary Ann, her face now springing into glee, poked her chin up and pursed her mouth as she articulated, ‘And el-e-cution an’ all.’

  ‘El-e-cution?’

  ‘Yes, talkin’ properly, you know.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Uh-huh!’

  ‘My, wait till she hears that. That’ll drive Nellie Flannagan up the lum.’

  ‘An’ I’ll be a lady.’ Now Mary Ann was getting warm. ‘A real one, and talk swanky, and look down me nose.’

  Principles were being swept away on a wave of pride when Fanny’s finger suddenly took up an admonishing position. ‘Ah, now, now!’ The finger wagged. ‘You’ve got to watch out…you don’t want this school to change you altogether, do you? For then you won’t only turn your nose up at the Flannagans, you’ll turn it up at me and your—’