Maggie Rowan

by Catherine Cookson

  His heart began to race. At four o’clock he would see Beattie. It would be for only a short while, but he would see her. And then at six o’clock he would stand in a little chapel and talk…His heart continued to beat fast. Yes, life was good.

  Then, as had happened often of late, his thoughts suddenly flew off along an uncomfortable tangent. Why should men be dying under hails of bullets while he was living this kind of life? He had the urge now, as often, to question God’s purpose, but instead, he lifted his head further back to the heavens, and the answer seemed to fall on him. Man fought against man to preserve the life that God had made good, he wasn’t fighting against God…it was man who caused the Dunkirk beaches, not God. This soothing hand-made philosophy made him at one with the world again.

  ‘Come on; it’s too blooming early in the morning to stand there making up poetry.’ David hurried past him.

  ‘Who’s making up poetry? A fellow can look at the sky, can’t he?’

  ‘What I want to look at now,’ said David, ‘is a plate of grub.’

  They were passing out of the gates and into the main road when they were hailed by a group of men on the further pavement: ‘Look here, Tom, somebody’s come to meet you. Isn’t this your sister’s bairn?’

  Both Tom and David came to a stop and stared across the road in amazement; and the child, who had been looking up at the man and chattering, shouted, ‘Hallo, Uncle Tom. Hallo, Uncle Dave.’

  Then he darted across the road towards them, and a man shouted, ‘He says he’s going down the pit when he grows up. Well, he’s eager enough, anyhow. But his mother’ll likely eager him when she gets her hands on him. Frightened stiff she’ll be.’

  ‘What you doing here?’ David’s voice was harsh.

  ‘I come to meet you.’ The child gazed joyfully up, first at one man then at the other. ‘You said when I grew up you’d take me down the pit, Uncle Dave. How long will I be to be growed up?’

  David glanced at Tom, who said to the child, ‘You’re a naughty boy. How did you get out?’

  ‘The sun was shining and I put on me clothes by meself, and I crept out. It wasn’t dark or anything. An’ I turned the key. It stuck though.’

  Again the men looked at each other. ‘Maggie’ll be nearly mad. Come on.’ Tom held out his hand and the child took it, confidently offering his other to David, and walked jauntily in between them, skipping every third or fourth step.

  ‘This’ll cause a hell of a row. You want your backside smacked.’ David looked down on the upturned face, thin and alert and almost a replica of George Rowan’s, and the adoring look in the boy’s eyes swept all harshness out of him. He loosened his hand from the child’s and cuffed his head playfully; whereupon the boy swung round and hugged his leg, and David, stooping swiftly, hoisted him up into his arms.

  ‘You little devil. You know you’ve been told, haven’t you?’

  For answer the child chuckled and rubbed his nose up and down against David’s, saying, ‘You’re a rabbit. Can I go and have me breakfast with Auntie Ann?’

  ‘No, you can’t.’

  David looked at Tom and repeated, ‘There’ll be a hell of a row.’

  ‘Yes, likely. But what can you do? He can’t be tied up; he’s kept in enough as it is. That’s what’s wrong…her not allowing him to play on the street with the other bairns. He would come to no harm running wild a bit.’

  ‘Me mother’s going to send me to school, Uncle Tom. I’m getting new clothes. They’re all green.’

  The men said nothing but it seemed as if they groaned together. David thought: She’s going to make a cissy out of him if she gets her way; and she’ll get her way in this all right. Why doesn’t Chris make a stand?

  ‘Your neck’s nice and clean, Uncle David.’ The child worked his fingers inside David’s collar. ‘You said one day I’d see you all black. When, Uncle Dave? When?’ He brought his face close to David’s.

  ‘When you grow up.’

  ‘Oh, I’m going down to get black by meself when I grow up.’

  ‘What can you do?’ David said, turning to Tom.

  Tom shook his head and laughed. And David hugged the boy closer to him.

  Not much chance of him ever going down the pit with Maggie for his mother. But if he was his lad, would he want him to go down the pit? No, by God, he’d want something better for him than the pit. He could understand Maggie in this. And thinking along these lines, he could also understand Ann’s fear and hate of the pit.

  The boy’s soft cheek against his caused a feeling that was akin to pain to assail him…five years now and not a sign of one. Why was it that two people who were mad about bairns didn’t have them while others did things to prevent their coming? Ann, he remembered, was going to have ten. Now one would do…just one. One, he thought, would put her on her feet, for she had never been the same girl since that time she went down the pit; she was quieter, drawn inwards somehow; she didn’t sparkle like she had done when they were first married. Oh, why worry about having bairns? It was only her that mattered, and getting her back to where she had been; although he sometimes feared that would be impossible. Anyway, he’d go and hear Tom preach the night; that would please her. Although, by God, if Father McSweeney heard of it, or his mother, there’d be hell to pay.

  ‘Can I go and have me breakfast with Auntie Ann, then?’ persisted the child.

  ‘No, I’ve told you, you can’t. You’re going home, me lad. And you’ll likely get a skelped backside. And serve you right.’

  ‘I won’t cry if I do.’ The boy’s face lost its softness and stiffened into a nearer resemblance than ever to that of his grandfather. ‘I got wrong when I went to me granny’s last week, but I didn’t cry.’

  ‘Ah-ah,’ said Tom, under his breath. ‘Look along there. Now you’re for it, me boy.’

  The child swung round in David’s arms and gazed along the road to where his mother came scurrying towards them, and the light died completely out of his face. And he said to no-one in particular, ‘Well, I don’t care.’

  Whether it was anxiety or anger that was blanching Maggie’s face David couldn’t be sure, but as she came up to them he could see she was in a state, and he put the child down and greeted her soothingly with, ‘Now he’s all right, Maggie; and don’t worry.’

  Maggie looked at neither of the men for a moment, but stared down on her son, her throat working in and out and her thin lips lost under their own pressure. The boy stared unblinkingly up at her, and his defiant attitude seemed almost to break down her struggle for composure.

  ‘He’s all right; there’s no harm done.’

  Maggie pounced on her brother. ‘No harm done! Not yet. But there soon will be with the lot of you. Getting a child out of his bed at this time in the morning! Whose child is he, anyway? This is your father’s fault!’ She turned on David.

  ‘Me da?’

  ‘Yes. He’s always talking to him about the pit.’

  ‘Well, I can’t see how you make that out, Maggie, you seldom let him go round.’ David’s voice was quiet.

  ‘He goes round…you know he does…when I’m not in. And the lot of you egg him on; then pump him up to keep quiet. I know.’

  ‘He’s got to get out some time; you can’t keep him in all the time.’

  ‘He gets out.’ Maggie again turned on her brother.

  ‘He should play with other bairns.’

  ‘It’s my business who he plays with. And remember that…Come on here!’ She stooped and grabbed her son’s hand. ‘It would suit you lot to see him running the streets, wouldn’t it? There’s quite enough around here who do that, and I’ll see he doesn’t.’

  ‘You’ll never tie him to you by force or using your ownership. Give him his head, and you’ve got a chance to keep him.’

  Tom’s philosophy maddened Maggie at any time, and she almost spat at him as she said, ‘Give him his head! That means let the two families make a lout of him, like the rest of you…Well, let me tell you, and you can
pass it on to them an’ all, he’s going the road I choose, and no other. Tell them that.’

  On this she swung off down the road, a thin gaunt string of a woman, dragging the child reluctantly after her.

  When at last she turned off the main road and she knew the men could see her no more, her pace eased, and with it her temper, and she looked down on her son. And when she spoke to him now her tone bore no comparison with that she had used to the men. ‘You know you’ve been a naughty boy, Stephen, don’t you?’

  The child did not answer, only tried to tug his hand from her; and she held it more firmly and went on, ‘Your mummy has been worried. Didn’t you know she’d be worried?’

  And when he still did not answer, she stopped and drew him into a shop doorway in the yet unawakened street and, bending down, held him by the arms. ‘What did you promise your mummy?’

  His eyes as they gazed back at her took on a look that she hated, because it brought her father into his flesh that she deemed entirely hers. But she went on, still soft and coaxing, ‘Didn’t you promise your mummy that you wouldn’t go to either of your grandmas’ alone? Didn’t you? You promised me you wouldn’t go, and I promised you I’d send you to that nice school.’

  The child’s voice too bore no resemblance to the one he had used with his uncles; it was surly now: ‘I didn’t go to me granny’s, I went to the pit.’

  ‘Say grandma, not granny, like I told you.’

  ‘Grandma.’

  ‘Now promise me you won’t go to the pit any more. Promise mummy.’

  ‘Well, can I go to me Auntie Ann’s?’

  Maggie drew in her breath sharply; then said in an even quieter tone, ‘When I take you.’

  ‘Will you take me now, and we can have our breakfast with Uncle Davie?’

  ‘No. Not now.’

  ‘But I want to go now.’

  ‘Mummy’s busy this morning.’

  ‘Then can me daddy take me?’

  ‘He’s busy too. Now listen, Stephen.’

  ‘No!’ He shrugged violently away from her hand and pressed himself up against the shop window. ‘I’ll go meself. I will go! Auntie Ann’s telling me a story about a camel, and it’s nearly at the end. I will go!’

  Slowly Maggie raised herself up. ‘You’ve been going to your Auntie Ann’s then?’

  From her voice the child realised he had given himself away, and his lips trembled, then stiffened; and she saw her father more clearly than ever in his face. ‘Come on.’ She took his hand again, and once more they hurried homewards. This settled it. He had been going to Ann’s on the quiet! But he couldn’t have gone without Christopher’s knowledge. It was one thing him going to the grannies’, but entirely another going to Ann’s…Oh, if only she could be at home all day!

  But was it not for him and him alone that she went out to work? And she told herself, she had laid her plans too well in the laundry to let them drop now. With the scarcity of labour and Mrs Thornton’s state of health, she could see herself not only manageress, but part owner; she held the whiphand, and both she and Mrs Thornton knew it.

  She’d have money, money for Stephen. There was the scrap, and the possibility of making money from that was colossal. If only this war kept on! But there was one snag in the scrap business: legally she had no finger in it. Her lips tightened when she thought where it would have been but for her. It was she who had insisted that Christopher kept it on. If he’d had his way he would have let it drop when he took the shop over. But now he considered it entirely his, although it was her brain that had thought everything out. Well, she’d think out too where the money was to be spent. And that would be on her son, to give him the right background. In any case, this morning’s business had made up her mind on one point that had been fermenting for a long time. They were moving! And as soon as possible.

  Six months ago it would have been impossible to get even a vacant room in Fellburn, but now, since the scare of Dunkirk, those who could were flying inland, away from a county whose name spelt ships and shipyards, mines and factories.

  Maggie’s thoughts went to Brampton Hill. The empty houses up there had been requisitioned by the Ministry. But it was all the same, for she knew she was still a long way from Brampton Hill. But at its foot there were bungalows, select little residences; and only yesterday she had seen a number of them up for sale. And although people, even if they wanted a house badly, wouldn’t dream of buying one these days, she would buy, because they’d be going dirt cheap, and she’d take the chance of it being bombed or the Germans coming. And in doing this, she’d be on the fringe of Brampton Hill and nearer the dream of her life; and this move would take her son from the influence of the Taggarts and Ann. If only she could take Stephen there alone, leaving Christopher above the shop. But no. She waved the idea away. Left to himself and his family, she could see what would happen to the scrap, and out of the scrap bigger things than she alone could hope to achieve were beginning to loom.

  As they turned the corner of the street she saw Christopher hurrying away from the house, and she called to him softly so as not to arouse the curiosity of the neighbours at this early hour. He came back towards them; but Maggie did not stop to give him any explanation; and he looked questioningly from one to the other, then walked by the side of his son. And after a little while he asked, ‘Where was he?’

  ‘At the pit.’

  Christopher made no comment, but the child and he exchanged glances.

  ‘He knows what he’s going to get, he knows you’ll give him the strap.’

  Christopher raised his head slowly and looked at Maggie, but still he said nothing; and they entered the house without further words, until they reached the kitchen, where he forestalled her orders by saying to the child, ‘Go and have a nice wash, son. Take your things off and have a wash, it’s dirty down the pit.’

  A sparkle came into the boy’s eyes at this unexpected game of pretence, and without a look towards his mother for sanction he turned and ran from the kitchen.

  Maggie stared at Christopher, and he stared back at her. During the past five years his face had undergone a change; it had lost its wide, gullible look; one would say it had hardened, that it looked almost a door, behind which were locked desires and hates that were foreign to their prison. Maggie was unable to cover the astonishment she felt as he said, ‘You think you’re subtle, don’t you?’

  Subtle. She had never even heard him use such a word; she would have said he did not know the meaning of it.

  She repeated, ‘Subtle! What d’you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean all right. I’m tired, sick and tired of it, and I’m going to have me say now.’

  ‘Say on.’ Her lip curled sarcastically.

  ‘Aye, I’ll say on. From the start I’ve been allowed no say in him.’ He nodded towards the door. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? He was yours…your bargain!’ His teeth met on the word.

  ‘Well, what if he was? You knew what you were taking on.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did. But I didn’t think you wouldn’t let me touch him or look at him if you could help it. You kept me out of the picture, until he started to show you that he wasn’t just a doll for you to play with but had a mind of his own. It was then he began to notice me. Yes, go on, you can sneer.

  ‘He didn’t see me like you did. I was his da…I am his da! And what did you do? You decided to make me a bogey, didn’t you? Every time he defied you it was, “Your daddy will punish you, mind”.’ He mimicked her as he said this. ‘You even ordered me to strap him with me belt, didn’t you? Yet you used to pretend horror at the ignorance that made women belt their bairns.’ He paused as if to give her a chance to say something. Maggie, however, made no retort, her face was stiff and her green eyes were misted, but the mist was like the smoke that covers a cauldron of boiling tar. And he went on, ‘I was on to you from the start. You’re not as clever as you think, you know. You wanted me to belt him so he’d run to his mummy.’ Again he mimicked her. ‘Well, I
can tell you this. He’s never once been belted by me. Aye, you can stare…’Cos you heard him yelling? Well, two can play at the same game…even three. Work that one out. And I’ll tell you something else while I’m at it. You’ll never keep him. You might as well try to bridle your own father, for he’s more him than either you or me.’

  Now Maggie did speak. She let flow a torrent of words so rapid that he couldn’t follow her flying thoughts. The hate of her father poured out, and the scorn of the Taggart family. The determination to keep the child hers was writ large on every denouncement. And finally she came to Christopher himself.

  And what was he before she took him in hand? Keeper of two pigs! An object of pity to all who knew him. Anything he had he had her to thank for it.

  He let her go on until she was forced to stop from sheer exhaustion. Then he said, ‘Aye. All you say is true. About me, anyway. But this much I’ve learnt in the five years we’ve been together. Folks might have pitied me afore I married you, but it was kindly pity; but now they scorn me because I’ve allowed meself to be ruled and bossed by you. They’ve seen me kept on one side and not allowed to be a father to me bairn like other men. Me own family scorn me because you’ve kept me hungry. And I’ve sat under it all like a mummy for five years. An’ five years is a long time. But it’s finished! You made a bargain. Well, up to now I’ve had damn all out of it, for any money the shop’s made you’ve utilised very cleverly…Well, you can have the shop the morrow if you like; I’ve got the scrap. I had it afore I came here, so I haven’t got you to thank for that. And getting back to the bairn. Well, he’s yours for as long as you can keep him. And that, I’m warning you, isn’t for much longer.’