She stood with her thick forearm on the edge of the mantelpiece and stared down into the fire until the red leaping flames brought a red leaping anger into her heart, and its intensity promised to consume her. And as her head came up preparatory to her hand striking out blindly to swipe the mantelpiece clear of cards her eye was caught by a tinsel-bespangled picture of the Nativity, and her anger melted as, joining her hands together before it, she began to pray, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, mother of a son…’
Chapter Ten
It was about one o’clock on Christmas Eve and there was a lull in The ladies when Maggie, supping noisily at a cup of cocoa into which she had slyly poured a drop of rum, said to Fanny, ‘You know somethin’, this is the happiest Christmas I’ve ever known.’
‘Well, I’m glad of that,’ said Fanny, looking down on the little woman.
‘Oh, I wish you were stayin’, Fan…for good, I mean. Mary Prout’s all right, but she’s not like you.’ Maggie dug Fanny in the hip, and Fanny said, ‘Give over now or I’ll have you up for assault and battery.’
This set Maggie off into a gurgle of laughter, and she was in the act of taking another gulp of her cocoa when she nearly choked herself on the sight of Mrs Proctor coming through the door. Pushing the mug onto a shelf and under cover of an old apron, she hurried out of the little cubicle to meet her boss, but Mrs Proctor apparently had not come to see her, for there she was, standing opposite Fanny at the glass partition, her head lowered to the aperture.
‘You’re not wantin’ a ticket?’ Fanny was laughing at the solemn face of Mrs Proctor, and Mrs Proctor, taking her seriously, said hastily, ‘No. No, thank you.’
‘I thought you wouldn’t be. If you can’t go free I wonder who can.’
‘I’m in a bit of a fix, Mrs McBride.’
‘Oh, aye?’ Fanny’s eyes widened.
‘I’ve just had a note from Mrs Craig saying that she won’t be able to come, and I’ve no-one to fill her place, and I can’t leave Maggie here on her own.’ She cast a swift glance towards where Maggie was standing, her ears wide. ‘Do you think you could stay on, Mrs McBride?’
Fanny’s chin dropped and her eyes lowered to the counter. It was Christmas Eve and she had a lot to do, but something more than that, she wanted to get home, the reason being the ever-present one. What if he came and she wasn’t in?
‘I’ll see that you get time and a half.’
‘Oh, I’m not worrying about that.’
‘And I’ll have some dinner sent to you from the central kitchen.’
‘You’re very kind,’ said Fanny. What could she do but stay? ‘I’ll have to send a note to me son,’ she said. ‘He’ll be wondering what’s happened to me if I don’t turn up.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Mrs Proctor. ‘I’ll see that he gets it. I’m going that way, I’ll drop it in myself. It’s very good of you, and I won’t forget you.’
Fanny took a scrap of paper and wrote a note to Philip, telling him briefly why she would not be home; then she handed it to Mrs Proctor, who said, ‘Thank you very much, Mrs McBride,’ in a tone which made Fanny comment to herself that certain folks could be very civil when they were getting what they wanted.
When the door had closed on Mrs Proctor, Maggie said, ‘Aye, thank you very much, and I won’t forget you. And that’s all you’ll ever get out of her. Not even a tanner.’ Then going and joining Fanny in the cubicle and uncovering her now cold cocoa, she added, ‘What did I tell you, Fan? I told you I saw that madam coming out of the station last night sozzled. I knew it was her, although she dodged me. She’s got a hangover, that’s what’s the matter with her. Wait till I see her, she won’t put on any airs with me again…But Fan—’ She dug Fanny again in her fleshy hip, then ended, ‘Eeh! But I’m glad you’re stayin’ on, ’specially the day, it makes it more Christmasy somehow.’
‘Oh, aye,’ said Fanny briefly, while forcing a smile to her face. Wouldn’t it be just like fate if he landed in this afternoon, probably straight after work, and she not in.
The door opened, admitting a customer, and she banged on the puncher thinking, ‘Why the devil didn’t I tell her to punch the blasted tickets herself? Convenience, that’s all she’s makin’ of me…convenience.’
The afternoon was a long one, even with business pretty brisk and Maggie’s chatter and laughter at its height. The door opened and banged with incessant regularity, for it was a biting day and people seemed to be glad to get out of the snow-filled wind for a few minutes. Fanny had seen so many faces that by now they were all beginning to run into one, until, the door bursting open yet once again, Mrs Leigh-Petty came in.
Slowly Fanny slipped from her seat to her feet and stared at the woman, for she looked as if she had seen a ghost, and not one but a company of them. She came and stood with her face close to the glass and attempted to say something. Then after glancing furtively back towards the door she turned away into the corridor, and when a few seconds later she came stumbling into the office Fanny exclaimed, ‘What’s up with you, woman?’
‘Look after them for me, will you?’ The shivering creature thrust into Fanny’s hands a holdall and a leather bag. ‘I’m very tired…I’m not well. Will you—will you take them home for me?’
‘Take them home?’ Fanny dropped the bags on the floor as if they were red-hot, and said, ‘Now look here, woman, what you up to? What’s in these bags?’
‘Nothing, nothing. I’ve just been doing some shopping. Keep them there for me, will you, please? Oh, please.’ She leant towards Fanny, touching her as she made this entreaty. Then before Fanny could make any retort whatsoever she had dived out of the office and into one of the cubicles.
Fanny stood staring down at the bags until the sound of the door opening again drew her attention, and when she saw the blue uniform of a policewoman she suppressed a muttered, ‘My God!’ and looked her straight in the face over the distance, while dribbling the bags under the counter with her feet. Then casually gathering up a newspaper from a shelf she shook it out and threw it down beside the bags before going to the window.
‘Good afternoon.’
‘Good afternoon.’ Fanny hawked in her throat, then blew her nose loudly. ‘You come to pick me up?’ She forced a smile to her face.
‘Now I shouldn’t be surprised at that,’ laughed the policewoman. ‘I’m sure it isn’t all flesh you’ve got under that apron.’
Fanny had come to know this lass over the weeks she had been in The Ladies, and she replied jocosely now, ‘I have a witness, I’ll have you up on that. What do you say, Maggie?’
Maggie came out of the corridor asking, ‘What’s that you say, Fan?’ then seeing the young woman she exclaimed, ‘Oh, hallo, who you after?’
‘Oh, just a light-fingered lady. Had anybody in here with too much to carry?’
Maggie shook her head and looked at Fanny, and Fanny said, ‘Drunk, you mean?’
‘No, not drunk, light-fingered I said.’
‘Are you on somebody’s trail?’ said Fanny.
‘Yes, close enough, she came this way.’
‘Do you know her?’
‘Yes, we know her. She’s tried to clear most of the shops in the main street today.’
Fanny gulped and forced a laugh as she said, ‘Good luck to her. I wish she had taken me along with her.’
‘You would have had a free Christmas dinner then at any rate.’
‘Aye,’ laughed Maggie, ‘and free beer and a party on Christmas Day, that’s what they give prisoners, Fan.’ Then looking up at the policewoman, she added, ‘There’s been nobody in here, only…’
‘Only herself,’ put in Fanny, hastily, ‘and she’s the biggest lifter from here to the Swing Bridge, she’s even tried to lift me.’
This remark sent Maggie into a fit of laughter.
Then as Fanny watched the policewoman move away to take in the complete view of the cubicles she went hastily out to join her. There were only three doors closed now and when after a f
ew moments and the thundering clang of the cisterns there remained only one door still shut, Fanny, in spite of her knowledge of…the creature, felt a surge of pity for her. God in heaven, it was awful! Christmas Eve and all. But surprise brought her head back and her eyes stretching when, the door opening, a fat middle-aged woman emerged, who certainly wasn’t Mrs Leigh-Petty.
The policewoman nodded decisively at Fanny, then to Maggie, and turning on her heels she went out, and Fanny as quickly made her way to the yard.
The yard in which there was no exit was small and the light from the corridor flooded it, but peer as she would, Fanny could see neither hilt nor hair of Mrs Leigh-Petty. Then her astonished gaze took in a stack of boxes in the corner. In the name of God, the woman had climbed the wall! But how had she managed to get down the other side? It was a good eight feet drop if an inch. The wall formed part of an alleyway, separating The Ladies from a builder’s yard. The alley was unlit, and it was unlikely that anyone would have seen her drop into it. She could be lying on the other side with broken bones for all anyone knew.
Fanny returned to the corridor, where Maggie demanded, ‘What’s up, Fan? Somebody in the yard?’
‘No, who could be there? I just wanted a breath of air.’
‘Well, if you breathe much of the air the night it’ll cut your throat, and then you won’t be able to breathe at all, or worst still, all your drops of tiddly’ll run out.’ Once more Maggie went into a gale of riotous laughter, proving that the hot rum was still carrying on its exhilarating work in her stomach. But she cut off her merriment abruptly as a knock came on one of the opaque windows high up in the wall at the top of the corridor, and she exclaimed angrily now, ‘There’s them at it again, they’ll break the glass. I bet it’s them lads trying to see in, the dirty beggars.’
Taking no heed of the knocking Fanny returned to the cubicle where her eyes were drawn to the bags beneath the newspaper. What in the name of God was she going to do with them?
Before any kind of an answer came to her, her eyes were lifted upwards. The lads had evidently come round to this other side of the building, for now just above her there came another sharp rapping on the window, and the next moment she thought she was either going daft or the drop she’d had earlier on was having a delayed action for she distinctly heard a voice come hissing through the pane calling, ‘Mother! Mother!’
‘It is them lads again,’ said Maggie coming in. ‘I wish I’d told the polis on ’em.’
‘The lads?’ repeated Fanny bemusingly. ‘Aye, yes, it’s the lads.’ For a moment she had imagined she heard their Philip’s voice. There must be something wrong with her, it was that damned woman and her capers, it couldn’t be the rum.
When the rapping came on the window again, both Fanny and Maggie turned and looked upwards in a sober fashion. The knocking was a too-ordered knocking to be the pranks of lads, and Fanny was thinking, It can’t be her, she wouldn’t have the nerve to come in here again, when she almost rose from the floor as she heard a voice crying angrily,’ ‘Take your hands off me, will you, I only want…’
‘I know what you want, and I know what you’re goin’ to get!’ It was the policewoman’s voice, and it made the situation so clear to Fanny that she was out of the cubicle, along the corridor and in the street almost, she felt, before she had drawn another breath. And when in the lamplight she saw the blazing, but startled face of Philip glaring at the policewoman, and she with her strong hands on him, some part of her wondered why she didn’t laugh, why with this wonderful and unique situation she didn’t let out a great roar. A few weeks ago this would have been her instant reaction. That Phil had been pinched for trying to peep into The Ladies would have tickled her to death. Anything would have tickled her that would have taken down her gentlemanly son. But now she found herself saying anxiously, ‘What is it, Phil?’
‘You know this man, Mrs McBride?’
She looked at the policewoman and saw that the best way to tackle the situation was to take a funny line because a thing like this could easily be taken seriously, too seriously, and his good name would be gone forever. She had known things like this happen afore, so she said, ‘Well, if I don’t somebody played a dirty trick on me when he was born, he’s me youngest but one.’
The policewoman looked back at Philip and asked, ‘Why were you at that window?’
‘I’ve told you, I was trying to attract my mother’s attention.’
‘Why couldn’t you go to the door and knock?’
‘What!’ Philip pointed to where a number of women were now entering The Ladies. ‘Knock on that door!’
The policewoman saw his point, but she still stuck to her own, saying, ‘You could have asked someone to tell your mother.’
Philip’s face was red and Fanny saw that he was angry, for his words were of the crisp, polite kind that always showed his anger. ‘I wished to speak to my mother, the matter was important and I was in a hurry.’
‘How did you know she would be likely to hear you through that particular window?’
‘Because I heard her voice near it.’
At this moment onto the scene came a policeman, and his appearance didn’t evoke Fanny to any quip about the police force turning out, just the contrary, for she turned towards him with a rush of relief as she said, ‘Aw! Ned, thank God to see you. Will you straighten this out? This conscientious young lady here won’t believe that Phil was wantin’ to speak to me. You mightn’t believe it, but she imagined he was…picture-hunting…him, Phil, picture-hunting!’
The policeman looked at Philip, then said in a light fashion, ‘You’ve got yourself in a jam this time, Phil.’ Then to Fanny’s dismay she saw that Philip was in no mood to take anything lightly, not even his reprieve, for he turned on Constable Bolton and with his meaning directed towards the policewoman he said, ‘Instead of the police trying to concoct cases they should be out after shoplifters and such. It may be news to you that there’s one been rampaging round the town all day today.’
Proof of Fanny’s gasp came when her escaping breath floated in a misty cloud in the lamplight. She never thought he would give the old ’un away like this, no matter what the circumstances. It was another thing if you were caught out by the polis but to let on on anyone in a jam! She felt a wave of shame warming her against the raw wind.
‘What do you mean, Phil?’ asked Constable Bolton quietly.
‘Just what I say,’ said Philip.
‘Keep your tongue quiet!’ Fanny’s tone was her old, loud, arbitrary one.
‘It’s no use,’ said Philip, turning on her, ‘it’s got to come out. You should see what she’s done. There’s things in all our cupboards…even under your mattress.’
‘Under me mattress!’ Fanny’s voice was high in her head. ‘What’d you mean?’
‘Just what I say.’ He was talking now as if they were alone. ‘The woman’s gone stark, staring mad since Margaret told her about us. She’s bound to be caught, and she knows it and is trying to incriminate you and me, especially me. You should see the things she’s put in my room and the places she found to hide them. You wouldn’t believe it.’
‘You mean to say all this has happened since I left the house this morning?’
‘It must have. It was Corny who put me wise. He came to see you and couldn’t get in, but he heard somebody in the room and looked through the window, and there she was. The boy even tackled her, and you know what she said, she told him that if he opened his mouth his grannie would go to prison for receiving stolen goods, for you and her worked hand in hand. And the stuff’s so cleverly mixed up with our things that we wouldn’t have spotted them for some time, not until it was too late, if it hadn’t been for Corny.’
‘I think we’d better go and investigate.’ Constable Bolton’s voice was quiet as he addressed himself to Philip. But it was Fanny who answered in a long cry, ‘Aye, and the sooner the better. Hold your hand a minute till I get me coat.’
Fanny disappeared into The Ladie
s again, and grabbing her coat and hat from the hook, she gabbled at Maggie, ‘I’m sorry, lass, but I’ve got to go. Anyway, we’re not far off closing time. There’s trouble at home.’
‘Trouble, Fanny? What trouble?’
‘Well, it isn’t ours, not rightly, but we’re in it. Oh—’ she shook her head—‘I can’t explain now, but I’ll see you after the holidays and tell you everything.’ As she pushed a hatpin through her hat, her downcast eyes were brought to the crumpled newspapers and she thought, ‘My God, what am I gonna do with them?’
‘Look, Maggie—’ she pulled her into the office—‘you see these two bags?’ She lifted the papers. ‘Don’t touch them on your life. Don’t give them to anybody except meself or a polis.’
‘Polis!’ The word was an awestricken whisper.
‘Aye, a polis. Now mind what I’ve told you, and if I don’t see you, a Merry Christmas, lass.’ She patted Maggie’s head, and Maggie, hurrying out after her, said, ‘But, Fan, what’s it all about?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ called Fanny. ‘A Merry Christmas, and I’m sorry to go like this.’
It hadn’t taken her more than a few minutes to get her things, but when she reached the street again she saw a police car standing at the kerb, and when Philip, taking her arm, said, ‘Come, get in,’ she pulled back saying, ‘I’ll do no such thing. How did this get here anyway? I’ve never been in one in me life and I’m not goin’ to start now.’
‘Jungle telegraph,’ explained Constable Bolton laughing. ‘And it’s all right, Fanny, it isn’t the Black Maria.’
‘Get in, Mother,’ urged Philip under his breath. ‘I don’t know what’s happening back there, but I’m scared, I’m scared for Margaret and all of them. That woman’s insane.’
Seated at the back of the car, Fanny told herself ironically that the first car she had ever sat in would have to be a police car.
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