Fanny McBride

by Catherine Cookson

  Corny had already started on a piece of boiled ham, a cold sausage and a tomato, and after eyeing his uncle for a time as he applied himself to his food, his gaze slid to Marian’s uninteresting back. Then still chewing, he turned his attention to his grandmother.

  Fanny was sitting in the armchair, her hand placed under her left breast, gently rubbing her ribs. After gazing at her intently for a moment, he enquired solicitously, ‘You got the wind, Gran?’

  ‘Get on with your tea,’ said Fanny, without looking at him.

  ‘Why don’t you let off, Gran? Me ma does and it eases…’

  The solicitous advice was cut short. The crash of Philip’s knife and fork onto his plate and his outraged cry caused Corny’s mouthful of food to make a rapid exit, which in turn caused him to choke and splutter.

  ‘Leave the table!’

  ‘Here, hold your hand a bit.’ Fanny was on her feet.

  ‘Hold my hand!’ Philip, too, had risen. ‘Did you ever allow any of us to say a thing like that to you?’

  ‘No, perhaps not, but …’

  ‘There’s no but about it. It isn’t right that you should allow him to take such liberties…’

  Oh, my God! He was off again. The last time a thing like this happened was when Peggy’s young Joe had said backside. He had gone on for hours trying to make it clear to Joe that bottom would have done. Now if the child had said arse she could have understood it…but backside! He could go on for days and hardly open his mouth until his nice, fine sensibilities were shocked, and then he forgot to close it. Now all because the lad had offered his advice on the best way to help nature get rid of a painful indignity which itself had created, he would keep on for days. Corny could be thankful he didn’t live here…Oh, she supposed it wasn’t a proper thing for a bairn to say, but somehow she liked them better that way. Anyway, she understood them better.

  ‘Just imagine if someone had been in,’ Philip said. ‘And what about…?’ He nodded angrily to where Marian was now recovered enough to take an interest in the proceedings.

  ‘She won’t hear much in this house that will do her any harm,’ said Fanny.

  ‘I don’t know so much.’ Philip sat down. ‘It all depends on what you consider harmful.’

  ‘Uncle Phil.’ Corny was coughing into a none too clean piece of rag. ‘Uncle Phil, I didn’t mean nowt, honest…I wasn’t trying to be funny or owt.’

  The disarmingness of this ugly piece of humanity was too potent. In the face of it Philip could not retain his righteous indignation.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But try to remember you don’t say things like that.’

  ‘OK, Uncle Phil.’

  ‘No matter what you hear in the streets, or what you think—’

  ‘Be quiet, the pair of you,’ said Fanny sharply, ‘there’s somebody coming from up top.’

  They all waited now, listening, and when the knock came on the door Fanny said to the child, ‘Go and open it, it’s your sister.’

  As the young woman came into the room Philip rose to his feet, causing Fanny momentarily to close her eyes. That was another daft habit he had acquired which put everybody on tenterhooks.

  ‘Come in, lass,’ she said. ‘Is everything all right now?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, thank you.’ The girl’s face was as white as lint and she kept her eyes on Fanny as she spoke. ‘You’ve been very kind. And I understand my mother ran short of change for the meter this morning.’ She held out a shilling to Fanny, and as she did so Marian, in a whimpering voice, said, ‘She sent me…she made me, Margaret.’

  ‘All right, be quiet.’ The sister’s tone was sharp and had the command in it that Fanny had sensed before, but she drew the child to her, and with her arm about her shoulders, pressed her to her side.

  ‘You caught up with her then,’ said Fanny.

  ‘Yes. She had just gone out shopping.’

  ‘Aye well, we all have to do that sometimes.’

  ‘Goodbye. And thank you Mrs…McBride, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, McBride it is, but I answer better to Fan.’

  Fanny watched the girl smile, a slow, small smile which softened her face and brought youth to it again.

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘So long,’ said Fanny.

  When the door had closed Fanny turned towards the table again and there was Philip, still standing as if he were glued to the spot. That was an odd thing, wasn’t it? The lass hadn’t even cast a glance to the side he was on. Give him his due, for all his pernickety ways he was worth looking at. And then about the mother going shopping—she hadn’t had a basket with her and not even a quarter of tea in her hand when she came back.

  ‘She looks ill.’

  ‘What?’ Fanny looked up at her son.

  ‘The girl, she looks ill and worried. It’s odd that type coming here. And the mother’s so…’ He paused, and Fanny, sidetracking anything to do with higher education, purposely misconstrued his meaning.

  ‘Aye, it is odd…we may be poor here, but at least there’s nothing that you can’t put your finger on…on anyone of us. Now, will you both finish your tea so’s I can clear away, for God’s sake.’

  Chapter Three

  It was nine o’clock the same evening and the house, after a quiet spell, was starting its last-minute bustle of the night. Fanny likened this stir to hens going to roost. ‘Cackling themselves onto their barks,’ she would say. And tonight, her knitting again in her hand, her eyes directed once more through the narrow aperture of the curtains towards the lamplit street, she thought, ‘There they go.’

  Even the bustle from the attics reached her. There was a lot up there that even God would find difficult to get to the bottom of. She nodded emphasis to this mental comment. Then as the noise gradually died away she fell to wondering about this and that. She wondered if Philip was with his lady-love; she wondered what Mrs Flannagan was up to behind her fine curtains; she wondered if Mary Prout was having a long wait at the doctor’s. Yet she was fully aware that all this wondering was just to keep her mind away for a time from her son and the constant hope that the door would open one of these nights and he would walk in as broad and as cocky, and as casual as life.

  Then she stopped wondering, and her mind was being taken up with anxiety that thoughts of this particular son always bred when into her view hobbled Mary Prout, not making her way towards her own house on the other side of the street but to the steps of Mulhattan’s Hall. What now? thought Fanny, for by the look of Mary she was in a stew.

  Her voice filled the room before Mary’s knock had sounded on the door. ‘Come away in.’

  Mary came in, closing the door hastily behind her and hobbling right to Fanny’s side before speaking. Then she brought out tearfully, ‘I’ve got to stay off, Fan.’

  Fanny laid down her knitting. ‘He’s put you off?’

  Mary nodded disconsolately. ‘For a fortnight at least, he says. What am I going to do, Fan? If I lose me job I’ll not get another, not a sittin’-down one. And it’s a good ’un.’

  ‘Well, surely they’ll keep it open for you?’

  ‘Not unless I can get somebody to stand in, Fan, temperally like. You wouldn’t believe there’s that many breaking their necks for such a job. ’Cos it’s sit-down, you see, Fan. Most of the time it’s sit-down.’

  ‘All right, I know by now it’s sit-down. That’s about the tenth time you’ve told me in as many seconds. Well, sit yourself down and stop your agitation. Your life hasn’t come to an end yet. What’s he say about your leg?’

  Mary, easing herself gently onto a chair, exclaimed dolefully, ‘I’ll be able to carry on if I get a bit of rest now. If I don’t me number’s up. At least he didn’t say that, but I knew what he meant. I can read them.’

  ‘Don’t be so daft…your number up! Talk sense, lass…Well, what d’you ’tend to do?’

  Under Fanny’s bracing tone Mary recovered herself somewhat. ‘I don’t know, Fan. If I could only get somebody to stand in for me for a
fortnight. Mrs Proctor would keep it open for me—she’s the one that gives out the jobs—but it’s got to be somebody I know because if she puts a stranger in the devil in hell won’t get them out, because you see it’s—’

  ‘Aye, aye, I know,’ said Fanny, waving her hand. ‘It’s sitting-down.’

  Mary gulped and blinked, then started to clean her thumbnail by the simple process of using a fingernail.

  ‘Is there nobody who’ll stand in for you for a couple of weeks?’

  ‘Nobody that I know of, nobody that I could trust not to stand in for me good, once they got set behind that glass plate. Nobody that is, except yourself, Fan.’

  This last remark of Mary’s seemed to surprise herself as much as it did Fanny, for she looked scared for a moment as she stared at her friend.

  The knitting had dropped into Fanny’s lap, and her nose was wrinkled and pushing up the bags beneath her eyes, and her lips stretching back over her four remaining teeth made her mouth one large, dark gap, from which she brought the words slowly, ‘And what would you be meaning by that, Mary Prout? What’s in the back of your mind?’

  ‘Nothing, Fan. I didn’t mean nowt. It only came to me as I was comin’ out of the surgery, then I would have none of it. Fan couldn’t do it, I said. But she’s the only one who could, if she would. If you know what I mean, Fan.’

  After this somewhat candid piece of diplomacy Mary looked hard at Fanny, then blinked wildly as Fanny let out a bellow of a laugh.

  ‘Do you know what you’re saying, Mary Prout? Me, in The Ladies. My God! That’ll be the day.’ Fanny rose to her feet and perhaps there was just the slightest tilt to her chin as she repeated, ‘Me in The Ladies!’

  She walked to the fireplace and stood looking down into the dull embers. Then addressing them, she remarked, ‘And why not? Indeed!’ Now turning to Mary she asked sharply, ‘What’s it like? What d’you do?’

  ‘Nothing much, Fan. Maggie’s on all day. She takes the tickets and wipes the seats and sees that none of them holds the door open for each other, unless, of course, it’s somebody she knows with bairns, or her relations. You just sit in the little glass place and punch the tickets.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Aye. But mind, Fan, you’ve got to look respectable.’

  The sudden rising of Fanny’s bust caused Mary to add hastily and soothingly, ‘Not that you can’t when you like, Fan. But you know what I mean, Fan. You’d have to put your corsets on.’

  ‘What difference will me corsets make to punching tickets for a lavatory?’ Fanny asked this question in a low, aggressive tone, and this caused Mary to move uneasily on her chair, and knock her bad leg as she fought unsuccessfully for words with which to placate her friend.

  ‘Anyway, I’m not goin’, so me corsets won’t matter.’

  ‘Aw! Fan.’

  ‘Never mind “Aw! Fan”. By the sound of it, it’s a title you want before you get to work in a lav!’

  ‘I didn’t mean that, Fan…Oh dear!’ Mary was leaning forward towards the window as she gave this exclamation. ‘Here’s your Philip coming up the steps. By, he’s early, isn’t he?’

  ‘Phil?’ Fanny, too, looked towards the window, then added hastily, ‘Say nowt about this if you don’t want him to throw a fit at your feet.’

  ‘No, of course not, Fan. Philip wouldn’t be for it, I know that. He’d never hear of your doing it.’

  This statement caused another rearing of Fanny’s bust, and she looked hard at Mary for a moment, wondering if the little woman was fully aware of her incendiary remarks or was she just simply being Mary Prout.

  ‘I’ll be going, Fan, but will you think it over? I’ll pop across first thing in the mornin’. I’d get our Monica to write a note for you to take down if you’d do it.’

  ‘There’s time enough in the morning to talk about that.’

  ‘Aye, Fan.’

  As Mary opened the door to take her leave, Philip entered, saying, ‘Hallo, Mrs Prout.’

  ‘Hallo, Philip. Nice evenin’.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Goodnight, Philip.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mrs Prout.’

  Fanny moved impatiently towards the table. Oh, the pleasantries. They would choke each other with them in a minute. What had brought him back so early? Had a row with his lady-love, she supposed.

  She turned to her son, saying, ‘I haven’t got your supper ready yet. You’re early the night, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got work to do. I thought I may as well get started on it. I won’t want any supper, just a drink.’

  ‘Well, you’re easy served. Tea or cocoa?’

  ‘Tea, please.’

  As Fanny made the tea Philip called from the bedroom, ‘Have you heard any more from those upstairs?’

  ‘You mean in the attic? No, except the young one squealing her head off a few minutes ago.’

  ‘What do you think was wrong with the mother?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘The girl looked ill.’

  Fanny lifted her eyes towards the bedroom door. He seemed very interested in the family all at once. Perhaps it was because, like himself, they had a twang.

  A few minutes later, as she poured out the tea, a little smile began to lift the corner of her mouth, for she was picturing the effect her words would have on him if she were to shout out this minute, ‘What d’you think? I’m off to The Ladies the morrow.’ Like as not he would come to the door and say, ‘The Ladies? What Ladies?’ There passed through her mind a cryptic description of The Ladies, but one that she knew she would never have the face to give him.

  But just what would he say if she were to tell him she was going to work in The Ladies? The thought tickled her and teased her as she watched him drink his tea, but when he said, ‘Goodnight, Mother,’ she answered offhandedly, ‘Goodnight.’

  It was round about three in the morning when she woke up and said to herself, ‘I’ll do it,’ and immediately went to sleep again, to wake at her usual time with a feeling of excitement in her stomach that outdid the pain under her ribs. She lay for some moments savouring what lay before her today, then with a sudden spurt that disturbed her bulk into a protesting waddle, she rose from the bed and going to the cupboard next to the fireplace delved into a cardboard box and retrieved her corsets. After a minute examination as to their pulling power she pushed them into the oven, then set about the business of making a cup of tea and lighting the fire. And this being a special morning she pushed down the top of her vest and washed well down her neck, and she had just finished her unusual toilet when the bedroom door opened and Philip made his appearance.

  Fanny turned to him in surprise, saying, ‘What’s got you up? Something bitten you?’

  ‘I’ve been awake for some time, I’ve been working.’

  She moved her head in small jerks as if in appreciation. But her mind refused to comprehend, or recognise messing about with figures as work. People who classed figures as working knew nothing about work. She dismissed this controversial subject which was linked up with values and asked herself when she could tell him. When he’d had his breakfast? Aye, she’d better let him get something down him, for he’d need it with the blow she was about to deliver to his dignity.

  After cooking his breakfast she sat at the corner of the table sipping her tea and watching him cut the rind from the bacon. She knew he didn’t like rind on his bacon, but it was a form of habit or cussedness with her that she had always cooked the bacon with the rind on and she always would. When, as always, he left his plate liberally covered with dip, making no attempt to sop it up with his bread, she could not help an impatient click of her tongue. His fastidiousness irritated her so much that it was with something akin to glee that she thought of the bombshell she was about to drop on his plate.

  ‘I’ve got a job.’ She took a loud gulp of her tea.

  Philip looked at her through narrowed eyes, as he repeated, ‘A job? You?’

&nbs
p; ‘Aye, me. I’m not dead yet.’

  ‘But why do you want a job?’

  ‘Why does anybody want a job? For money.’

  She watched him rise from the table and go to the mantelpiece.

  ‘You needn’t have done that…I’ll send you some each week.’

  ‘I don’t want anything off you.’ She was on her feet, aggressively gathering the dishes together. ‘I want nothin’ off nobody as long as I’ve got a pair of hands on me.’

  ‘Why are you going on like this?’ His voice was quiet, and Fanny’s hands stopped for a moment. The conversation was taking a wrong turn…she had started wrong. She should have thrown the nature of the job straight at his head.

  ‘You’re not fit to take a job.’

  ‘What do you know about it? I’m fit to cook and clean, and I’m fit to sit here and end me days in loneliness. Well, I’m not going to do it, d’you see; I’m goin’ to sit and get paid for it!’

  The expression on his face now was pitying, but she wanted neither his pity nor his sympathy, she wanted nothing from this gentleman son of hers except a big laugh from the look on his face when she sprung on him what she was going to do.

  ‘What kind of a job are you getting sitting down?’

  Her chin went up and her hands fell one on top of the other on the layer of her stomach as she emitted through primed lips, ‘The Ladies.’

  ‘The Ladies?…you mean…?’

  ‘Aye, I mean The Ladies, a penny-in-the-slot.’

  That had done it, as she knew it would. His face looked as if strings were pulling it from all angles; there was every kind of expression on it.

  The laughter was rumbling audibly in her stomach and in a moment it would have escaped and she would have laughed as she hadn’t done for many a long day. But her enjoyment was suddenly whipped away by a wave of anger as she watched her son’s face relaxing and crumbling into laughter, laughter which he was struggling hard to hide.