Hannah Massey Read online

  Hannah lifted her head and looked at the priest. She had to take a chance. There mightn’t be anything wrong with the wireless, there mightn’t be a part of it that could be recognised as the firm’s, but she couldn’t tell if this was so or not, only Barny could do that…or them, if they came and searched the house. If she kept her mouth shut the priest would walk out of the door and leave it, and where could she hide a big thing like that? She could burn the case. Aye, she could do that. But what could she do with the innards? Even if she could take it to bits, and she couldn’t, there mightn’t be time to get it into the box mattress. She couldn’t risk it. She looked straight into the priest’s eyes and said, ‘Barny gets pieces on the cheap now and again; that’s how he makes them up.’ She stumbled awhile. ‘But…but the factory’s got a bee in its bonnet. It’s after some of them that have been helpin’ themselves too freely, not being able to restrain themselves to a bit here and there, and so, from what I understand, they’re goin’ to do the rounds like…’

  The priest looked from Hannah to the wireless. He looked at it for a long while before saying, ‘All that stuff in Barny’s workshop? He told me he bought it from bankrupt stock. In the name of God, Hannah’—he turned on her, his voice angry now—‘you shouldn’t have done this to me. You’ve got me involved in more ways than one, but enough at the moment is that I’m a receiver of stolen goods! Innocent or not, I’m a receiver of stolen goods. You shouldn’t have involved me, Hannah.’

  Hannah’s head was up, her lower lip thrust out. For the moment she forgot she was addressing the priest. She forgot…the cloth. Before her she saw only an ungrateful old man, and she cried at him, ‘You were involved enough during the war, Father, God’s truth you were. Did I ever see you short of socks or shirts? Or sugar or tea? An’ throw your mind back, throw it back to the side of bacon, Father, a whole side, just to mention a few things. Involved, you say? What’s black now was black then.’

  ‘The circumstances were different, Hannah, we were in a war. They were different.’

  ‘No, begod, Father, not as I see it.’

  ‘I’m not going to argue with you, Hannah. This present situation goes deeper than you have the insight to realise. I know now where some of the firm’s stolen goods are. Don’t you see, woman? You shouldn’t have done this to me.’

  As he walked towards the door, not even saying goodbye to Rosie, Hannah’s voice checked him with, ‘What about this, Father?’ She pointed to the wireless.

  ‘What about it?’ He was looking at her over his shoulder.

  ‘You’re taking it with you?’

  ‘I don’t want it any longer.’

  ‘Look, Father.’ Hannah hurried towards him, her hands extended outwards. ‘In the name of God, get it out of here. Take it away with you. If Barny was here I wouldn’t ask you, but as it is, the very sight of it might put the kibosh on him if they were to come around.’

  The old priest drew in a breath that pushed his black coat sharply outwards. Then turning back into the room he grabbed up the wireless and made for the hall, Hannah after him. As she opened the door for him he said, ‘Get yourself to confession tonight, Hannah, and make a clean sweep; be finished with it for good and all.’

  ‘I will, Father, I will that.’ Hannah’s voice now held a soft, conciliatory note, and she ended as if he was leaving after one of his usual friendly and laughter-filled visits. ‘Goodbye. Father. Mind how you go. Goodbye.’

  In the living room once more she went straight for a chair and sat down, and, lifting up her apron, she wiped the sweat from around her face.

  As Rosie moved from the fireplace towards the hall door, Hannah asked, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Just upstairs.’

  Hannah made no reply to this, nor did she try to stop her by going into a tirade about the priest.

  As Rosie went up the last flight of stairs to her room she was shaking her head. She wouldn’t be able to stand this for long. It was the same thing over and over again. But her mother was right about one thing, what was black now was black in the war. Somehow it seemed to her that the priest had lost points in the game of morality.

  Hannah was her usual self when the men came in at dinner time. To Barny’s query, ‘Everything all right, Ma?’ she answered, ‘Right as rain.’ She did not tell him about the priest’s visit; she would wait until she got him on the quiet. Then she would warn him what to expect from Father Lafflin.

  After the meal she said to Broderick, ‘Will you see to the dishes for me? Rosie here and me are going out on a jaunt, just to have a look round the shops; I’ve never been in Newcastle for weeks. I want vests for Jimmy and some shirts for Shane. That fellow must rasp his collars with a razor blade, he goes through them so quickly.’

  ‘Get yersels away.’ Broderick smiled at his daughter. ‘But I’d have thought you’d have been better in than out the day, the weather the way it is.’

  ‘Aw, she wants to pick her things up from the station,’ said Hannah. ‘An’ we’ll come back by taxi. We’ll do the thing in style, won’t we, Rosie girl?’ Hannah put out her hand to Rosie’s shoulder and, pushing it gently, said, ‘Go on up now and get ready; I’ll be with you in two shakes.’

  As Rosie passed her father, Broderick pulled her to a halt, saying, ‘You’re quiet this time, lass. There’s hardly a peep out of you.’

  She smiled at him, and in an attempt at jocularity she said, ‘I talk when I can, Da, but it’s difficult to get a word in.’

  There was loud laughter at this, and Shane said from across the table, ‘There’s a dance at the club the night. Why don’t you come along and have a fling? They do some old time ones an’ all. There’s high jinks on a Saturday night, and variety they have…the lot, just like on Fridays.’

  ‘I’ll see, Shane. Thanks.’ She nodded at him.

  On the first landing she met Karen dressed ready for outdoors, and as she went to pass her Karen stopped dead in front of her, and looking up into her face, said pointedly, ‘What brought you back anyway?’

  ‘I…I told you, I had the flu.’

  ‘The flu! You can’t hoodwink me, I’m not a fool.’

  Somewhere in the back of Rosie’s mind she was saying, She’s right. Like me ma, she’s no fool. But aloud she said, ‘You surprise me.’ The cheap quip was her only counter to the forthright attack.

  The colour deepened in Karen’s cheeks. Her small, full mouth pursed itself further. ‘You think you’re clever, don’t you? Smart…the London lady…well, you don’t impress me. You’re in trouble, aren’t you?’

  No muscle of Rosie’s face moved, her whole body was still. She had the desire, and not for the first time, to lift her hand and slap the small, pert face of her niece. Her voice betrayed her anger as she said below her breath, ‘You would like to think that I’ve come home to have a baby, wouldn’t you? Well I’m sorry to disappoint you. That’s the only trouble you can think of, isn’t it, being landed with a baby? You would have loved it to happen in my case…oh, I know. But just you be careful that your wishful thinking doesn’t come home to roost.’

  ‘Well’—Karen took a step to the side as she spoke—‘I might be wrong on one count, but I’m not altogether, I know that. And I’ll tell you another thing: if you’ve got the idea into your head to stay home, I’m going.’

  ‘Good, you’d better look out for digs then, hadn’t you?’ Rosie turned from the small, bitter face and was aware, as she crossed the landing, that Karen was still standing staring at her, and she knew that her jaws would be working, viciously.

  In her room she stood looking out through the small attic window at the white-coated roofs opposite. She had her arms crossed tightly about her, her hands pressed against her ribs as if giving herself support, and she stood like this until she heard her mother’s voice calling from below, ‘Are you ready, Rosie? Rosie! Do you hear me? Are you ready?’ She did not swing round and grab up her things, but slowly she got into her coat and pulled on her hat, and when her mother’s voic
e came to her again, calling, ‘Are you up there, lass?’ she clenched her hands tightly before calling back, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming, Ma.’

  PART TWO

  HUGHIE

  Sunday

  Hughie was sitting in the back of the cobbler’s shop. He was sitting in his shirt sleeves and wearing a pullover, and he looked at home, as he never did in Hannah’s house. The little room had no window, and no light but that which came in from the shop through the half-glazed door. But it was extremely bright now, being lit by an electric bulb beneath a pink plastic shade, and the light was reflected from the rough mauve-painted walls. Along one wall was a narrow desk-cum-cupboard, above which were shelves holding books. One step from the desk and against the opposite wall stood two chairs—a straight-backed one and an old extending bed-chair. At the far end of the room was a shallow sink, with a table at its side holding a small grill, on which stood a kettle, now coming up to the boil. To the side of the sink a curtain hung from a rod, which was used to cut off the kitchen section of the tiny compartment. On the floor below the sink was a rough mat, and a piece of carpet ran the length of the room to the far wall, where stood an oil heater. The tiny room gave off an air of compact snugness, and had been Hughie Geary’s real home for so long that now, when he was about to leave it, it tugged at him, saying, Don’t go yet, there’s plenty of time.

  But there wasn’t plenty of time. There wasn’t all that time left, for he was thirty-five. Already there was grey in his hair; already the dreams of travelling that had haunted him for years were fading; at least they had been until a couple of months ago when they had been pleasantly startled into life.

  Before him now on the desk lay numbers of travel brochures; there were dozens of them dating back for years. They had been part of his recreation; he knew every route on every map of every folder. He could have told you, without referring to the appropriate brochure, the route to Baghdad as easily as another man could have pointed out the route to the Lake District, yet never in his life had he been more than a hundred miles from Fellburn, never in his life had he had a holiday. But then there was nothing so strange about that. As Hannah had said to him on several occasions, ‘Broderick and me have never slept away from home for a night,’ so if Hannah Massey didn’t need a holiday, why should he?

  He lifted his head and looked at the blank wall before him. How much could you hate someone and still live with them? How deep could the hate go before you wanted to kill the object of it? At times he thought he could measure his hate for Hannah; it was so many inches long, and so many inches thick, and it was wedged tight within him. But at other times he knew his thin body could not be measured from his chest to his backbone, for it was stretched wide with hate, hate for the woman who had dominated him since he was twelve years old; who had for a period from the age of fifteen put the fear of God in him, and who had stripped him of his manhood as certainly as if she had performed an operation on him. And she had performed an operation on him, on his mind. But this time next week he would be away, and from the time he left the house he would never look on her again. And yet he knew that he would never forget her, for her personality was imprinted on him as indelibly as the stamp of a concentration camp. But there was one bit of enjoyment he was going to give himself before they parted; he was going to keep his eyes tight on her face when he told her about the money; he was going to draw into himself and hold, like some precious gift, her fury when she realised she had thrown away, not only the fatted calf, but the golden calf.

  As the kettle began to whistle the shop door shook and the bell rang, and rising hastily, he pulled the kettle aside, pushed all the travel folders into a drawer, and went out through the shop and opened the door.

  ‘Did I hear the kettle boiling?’

  ‘Oh, hello, Dennis. Aye, you did.’

  Dennis hurried around the counter, ‘Lord, it’s cold…ugh!’ He took off his coat as he entered the room, then went towards the stove and held his hands above it as Hughie mashed the tea. And for a moment there was a silence between them, the silence of two men who were past the need to fill every minute with sound.

  ‘It won’t be a tick, I’ll let it draw. Sit yourself down.’

  Hughie was speaking to Dennis’ back now. It was a thin back, narrow shoulders topped by a longish head with dark hair, close cut, almost black as were his eyes. There was no look of Hannah about Dennis, and very little of Broderick. They said he took after Broderick’s father. His face wore a keen, sharp look, and when he turned it towards Hughie the expression was tight and the eyes hard. ‘I suppose you’ve heard the latest?’ he said.

  ‘A bit of it.’

  ‘My God!’ Dennis shook his head as he sat down. ‘What will she think of next? Brampton Hill, number eight of all places! But there’s one thing about it; this time the lads are making a stand.’

  ‘Their lines will break.’

  ‘Yes, Hughie, as you say, their lines will break; as they’ve done before. The woman’s mad…Brampton Hill with our lot. Can you imagine it? But she’s determined as I’ve never seen her before. The house was like hell let loose this morning. Did you know she broke the news to them last night after she came back from the club?’

  ‘Yes, I heard the racket from up in my room.’

  ‘Huh! She must have been well fortified and thought the time was ripe. I was flabbergasted when I went in. I was expecting to get it in the neck straight away for not calling in and for what I had to tell her, but that came later. You know, the atmosphere on a Sunday in the house has generally made me laugh, because it’s always so full of restrained holy bustle; this one getting ready for this Mass, the other coming back from Communion, and the virtue of having gone to the seven o’clock Mass oozing out of her like sweat. But not this morning. It was like going into a house where a bomb had exploded, and the worst thing they could have done they did, I mean the lads, they appealed to me. What did I think of it? You can imagine how she took that.’

  Hughie jerked his chin as he poured out the tea. ‘I can imagine it. But how did she take your news?’

  ‘How did she take it?’ Dennis took the cup from Hughie’s hand and, lifting the spoon, tapped it against the saucer. It was a nervous movement. ‘You know, sometimes I want to laugh in her face, a debunking laugh, or laugh at her…but never with her. At times I forget she’s my mother and want to slap her mouth for her. I could have done it this morning quite easily. It was during one of the lulls when the lads were coming up for more breath, that I told her. We were in the kitchen alone at the time. I broke it gently, saying, “I’ve got a bit of news for you, Ma.”

  ‘“Aye?” she said; she didn’t even turn from the sink. “Florence is going to have a baby,” I said. I was grinning self-consciously as I said it, I couldn’t help it. You know Hughie, the way she turned around and looked at me was an insult in itself. And you know what she said?’

  ‘I could give a good guess.’

  ‘She kept wiping up as she turned round, and there was that tight, bitter smile on her face. “Well,” she said, “you should feel much better now that you’ve proved yourself; in fact, you should both feel different and more normal like. It’s a great stigma for a woman to bear, not to be able to have a child. She’s forever at a loss to know if the man’s no use or it’s herself…” She’s my mother, Hughie, and she said that. And then she finished, “I only hope her body’s as strong as her mind and she’s delivered safe. Brains are not important to a woman in childbirth, she’ll likely deliver hard…” I had to come out, Hughie; I just had to come out.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Dennis. Both you and Florence are in a position to laugh at her.’

  Dennis took a long drink from his cup, and he stared at the oil stove for some moments before replying, ‘Yes, I suppose we are, but you know we just can’t…you can’t laugh her off for she gets into your skin, pricking you all over like squirrel fleas…I don’t know how you stand it day in, day out…I don’t. Florence was saying the other night that
she could understand the lads putting up with her because they were nearly all as dim as doornails. As long as they are fed and clothed and have their pocket money, that’s all that matters. Like her, she said, they think God will provide, only unlike her they don’t help Him with the job. And why should they when they’ve got Ma? But she said, she just couldn’t begin to understand how you’ve put up with it all these years.’

  Hughie smiled now, a quiet, thoughtful smile, and he looked through the glass door into the shop to a shelf where rested a row of cobbled boots and shoes as he replied softly, ‘I’ve asked meself that many times, and given meself the answer, too. And it’s very simple, I haven’t much gumption.’ He cast a smile towards Dennis.

  ‘Nonsense!’ Dennis gave a disbelieving jerk to his head. ‘But really, why didn’t you just walk out?’

  ‘I did. You know I did, twice, and she had me brought back.’

  ‘But that was when you were a lad. I’ve never brought this up before; it seemed too impertinent. But what really kept you? I can’t believe it’s just what happened years ago and the hold she had over you. As I see it, there was nothing to stop you just walking out, any day of any year as far back as I can remember…just walking out.’

  Again Hughie looked through the door to the line of shoes, and his expression took on a sadness that buried itself deep in his brown eyes. ‘You belong to a family, Dennis, and anybody who has a family can’t really understand what it’s like not to be a member of one. When I first came into the house I felt I was one of you lads, because she was kind, but there were still times when, in a temper, she would say, “As for you, I’ve got enough to put up with from this horde, you’ll go into a home.” She’d forget it the next minute, but not me. I was terrified of this thing called…a home. I was terrified of not being a member of a family. And you know, on the two occasions she had me brought back I was glad. Moreover, your da was good to me when we worked together here. We could laugh and be easy, and he would make excuses for her, mostly first thing in the morning, saying, “Don’t mind Hannah; all she says is just like God bless you. She’s a great woman, a great woman.” I often wondered what he would think about me if she had told him the truth, as she threatened so often to do.’