Mary Ann's Angels

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Do that, sir. If there’s nothing very serious I should have her ready by then.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no hurry. I’ll enjoy driving the old lady.’

  ‘Corny.’

  The American now looked over Corny’s shoulder to where a petite young girl—this was how he saw Mary Ann—was standing at the door of the house. Corny, following the American’s gaze, turned to see Mary Ann, and Mary Ann, her head drooping slightly, said quickly, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were busy. I just came to tell you…’ Her voice trailed off.

  The American was smiling towards Mary Ann, and Corny, motioning towards her with his hand, said, ‘This is my wife, sir.’ Whereupon, with characteristic friendliness, the American held out his hand as he walked towards her, saying, ‘The name’s Blenkinsop.’

  ‘How do you do, Mr Blenkinsop.’ Mary Ann smiled up at the American and liked what she saw. And now Corny said, ‘Mr Blenkinsop’s taking our car for a day or so while I do his.’

  ‘Our c…car?’ Her mouth opened wide and she looked towards the Chevrolet. Then she turned her gaze towards Corny, and he said, ‘Mr Blenkinsop knows she’s an old ’un but he’s driven Rovers before.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mary Ann gave a small smile, but she still couldn’t see how a man who drove this great chrome and cream machine could even bear to get into their old Rover.

  At this moment Rose Mary and David put in an appearance. They came tearing out of the garage, and when they reached Mary Ann, Rose Mary didn’t take in the presence of the American for a moment before she said, ‘You wouldn’t break up Jimmy’s trombone, would you, Mam? I told him you were only funnin’.’

  Mary Ann looked at the American; she looked at Corny; then, shaking her head, she looked at her daughter and said, ‘I’m not funning, and you go back and tell Jimmy that I’m not funning.’

  There was a pause before she added, ‘He’s practising the trombone and he makes a dreadful racket.’ She was addressing the American now, and she was surprised when he let out a deep rumbling laugh as he said. ‘I know.’ Then, the smile slipping from his face, he asked her in all seriousness, ‘You don’t think he’s funny?’

  ‘Funny! Making that noise?’ Mary Ann screwed up her face. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Well, well, well! It just goes to show. You know, Mrs Boyle, he’s the only thing that’s given me a belly laugh since I came to England. Plays, musical comedies, the lot, I’ve seen them all and I’ve never had a good laugh until I saw that boy’s face as he sat blowing that trombone. As I was just saying to your husband, he’s got a face for the trombone.’

  Mary Ann smiled. She smiled with her mouth closed, and she looked at Corny as she did so. Then looking back at the American, she said, ‘The difference is, you don’t have to live above the racket.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘You wouldn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, there’s a pair of you.’ She nodded to Corny. ‘He doesn’t mind it at all, but I really can’t stand it, it gets on my nerves.’

  The American now lowered his head and moved it from side to side, looking at Corny as he remarked, ‘It’s as I said, she acts like a woman. They’re unpredictable.’ He turned his head now towards Mary Ann and smiled broadly, then added, ‘Well now, I must be off. I’ve got a lunch appointment for one o’clock…Here.’ He beckoned to the children. Then, putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out his wallet, he flicked a pound note from a bundle and handed it to Rose Mary, saying. ‘Split that between you and get some pop and candy.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’

  Before Rose Mary had finished speaking, Mary Ann said, ‘Oh, sir, no; that’s too much.’ She took the note from Rose Mary, whose fingers were reluctant to release it, and she handed it back to Mr Blenkinsop, and he, his face looking blank, now asked rather sharply, ‘What’s the matter? Don’t they have ice creams or candies or such?’

  ‘Yes, yes, but this is too—’

  ‘Nonsense.’ His tone was sharp, and he turned abruptly from her and, speaking to Corny in the same manner, he said, ‘Well, I’ll be off. See you tomorrow.’

  Mr Blenkinsop got in the Rover and started her up; then, leaning out of the window, he said, ‘How’s she off for petrol?’

  ‘She’s full.’

  ‘That’s good. See you.’

  ‘Yes. See you, sir.’ Corny smiled at Mr Blenkinsop, then raised his hand and stood watching the car going down the road before turning to Mary Ann.

  Mary Ann, with the pound note still in her hand, held it towards him, saying, ‘He must be rolling, and he must be bats or a bit eccentric to go off in ours.’

  ‘What do you mean, bats or a bit eccentric? There’s nothing wrong with our car.’

  ‘No, I’m not saying there is, but you know what I mean. Look at it compared with that.’ She pointed to the Chevrolet.

  ‘You’re just going by externals. Let me tell you that the engine in the Rover will still be going when this one’s on the scrap heap.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose so, but it’s the looks of the thing. Anyway,’ she sighed, ‘he seems a nice enough man.’

  ‘Nice enough?’ said Corny, walking towards the car. ‘He’s a godsend.’

  ‘I wonder what he’s doing round these parts,’ said Mary Ann.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Corny, ‘but I hope he stays.’

  ‘Can we keep it, Mam?’

  ‘What?’ Mary Ann looked down at her daughter, then said, ‘Oh yes. Yes, you may, but you’re not going to spend it all, either of you. You can have half a crown each, and the rest goes in your boxes.’

  ‘Oh, splash!’ said Rose Mary. ‘I know what I’m going to buy. Can we go into Felling this afternoon, Mam?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Mary Ann turned abruptly towards Corny, saying, ‘By the way, what did he mean, I act like a woman?’

  Corny brought his head from under the bonnet of the car and, laughing towards her, said, ‘He took you for a young girl, a real young girl, and then when he heard you going for Jimmy he said you acted like a woman.’

  ‘Well, I should hope I do act like a woman. What did he expect me to act like, a chimpanzee?’

  There was a splutter of a laugh from the garage doorway, and Mary Ann turned her head towards Jimmy. But she had to turn it away again quickly before she, too, laughed. It would never do to let Jimmy think she was softening up.

  ‘Don’t stand there with your mouth open.’ Corny was shouting towards Jimmy now. ‘We’ve got a job in.’

  ‘That!’ said Jimmy, moving slowly towards the big cream car. ‘The American’s?’

  ‘Yes, the American’s.’

  ‘An’ she’s in for repair?’

  ‘She’s in for repair,’ said Corny.

  ‘And it all happened when you were concentrating on your trombone, Jimmy.’ This last, said quietly, but with telling emphasis, was from Mary Ann, as she stood at the corner of the building, and, with a deep bow of her head, she moved slowly from their view.

  Corny and Jimmy exchanged glances; then Jimmy, jerking his head upwards, muttered under his breath, ‘It’s as that American says, she acts like a woman, boss.’

  ‘Go on, get on with it.’

  And Jimmy got on with it. But after a while he said, ‘You know what, boss? That has something.’

  ‘What has?’ asked Corny from where he was sitting in the pit under the car. ‘What you talking about?’

  ‘What the American said: she acts like a woman. It’s a punchline, boss. Could make a pop Da-da-da-da-da-daa. She acts like a woo…man,’ He sang the words, and Corny, stopping in the process of unscrewing a nut, closed his eyes, bit on his lip and grinned before bawling, ‘I’ll act like a man if I come up there to you. Get on with it.’

  Chapter Five

  Mary Ann was sitting at the corner of her dressing table. She had a pencil in her hand and a sheet of paper in front of her, and she sat looking through the curtains over the road in front of the garage, over the fence and
to the far side of Weaver’s Field, where four men had been moving up and down for a long time, at least all the time she had been sitting here. The far side of Weaver’s Field was a long way off and she couldn’t see what they were doing. But she wasn’t very interested; they were only a focal point for her eyes, for her mind was on composing a song.

  Last week, after the American had been and left his car, Corny had come upstairs and said, ‘You know, Jimmy’s all there, in this music line, I mean.’ And she had turned on him scornfully, saying, ‘Music line! You don’t put the word music to the sounds he makes.’ And to this he had replied, ‘Well, he’s got ideas. Things strike him that wouldn’t strike me.’

  ‘I should hope so,’ she had said indignantly; then had added, ‘He’s a nice enough lad, but he’s a nitwit in some ways.’

  ‘He’s no nitwit,’ Corny had protested. ‘You’ve got him scared, and that’s how he acts with you. You don’t know Jimmy. I tell you he’s a nice lad, and he’s got it up top.’

  ‘All right,’ she had said. ‘He’s a nice lad, but what’s struck him that’s so brilliant?’

  ‘The title of a song,’ Corny had said. ‘The Amer…Mr Blenkinsop said you acted like a woman, you remember? Well, Jimmy said it was a good title for a song, and the more I’ve been thinking about it the more I agree with him. She acts like a woman. It’s like the titles they’re having now, the things that are catching on and get into the Top Twenty. So why don’t you have a shot at writing the lyrics?’

  ‘What! Write lyrics to, She acts like a woman? Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Oh, all right, all right. It was only a suggestion. You’re always talking about wishing you had something to do, something to occupy your mind at times. And I’ve told you you should take up your writing again now that you’ve got time on your hands, with them both away at school. Anyway it was just an idea. Take it or leave it.’

  He had turned from her and stalked out, and she had looked at the door and exclaimed, ‘She acts like a woman!’ But the words had stuck with her and she had begun to think less scornfully about them when, following Mr Blenkinsop’s return and his generous payment for the hire of the car and the repairs Corny had done, there had been no further work in of any sort for four days.

  This morning, their Michael had brought the tractor over and ordered some spares, but they couldn’t keep going on family support. It was this that prompted the thought, yet again: if only she could earn some money at home.

  Years ago when Corny’s hopes were sinking with regard to the prospect of the road, she had started to write furiously, sending off short stories and poems here and there, but they all found their way back to her with ‘The editor regrets’. At the end of a year of hard trying she had to face up to the fact that they would have been better off if she hadn’t tried at all, for she had spent much-needed money on postage, paper and a second-hand typewriter.

  But this idea of writing ballads, not that she thought the words to some of the pop songs deserved the name of ballad, might have something in it. She had always been good at jingles. But that wasn’t enough these days. For a song to really catch on it had to be, well, off-beat.

  She had thought that if she could get the tune first she could put the words to it, so she had hummed herself dry for a couple of mornings until she realised that she wasn’t any good at original tune building, because most of the songs she was singing in her head were snatches and mixtures of those she heard on the radio and television. So she decided that she would have to stick to the words, and for the last three days she had written hundreds of words, all unknown to Corny. Oh, she wasn’t going to let him in on this, although he had given her the lead. She had her own ideas about what she was going to do.

  She knew what she wanted. She wanted something with a meaning, something appertaining to life as it was lived today, something a bit larger than life, nothing milk and water, or soppy-doppy; that would never go down today. It must be virile and about love, and understandable to the teenager, and to her mother and grandmother.

  She had almost beaten her head against the wall and given up the whole thing, and then this morning, lying in bed, the words ‘She acts like a woman’ going over and over in her mind, there came to her an idea. But she couldn’t do anything about it until she got Corny downstairs and the children out to play. Now she had conveyed her idea in rough rhyme, and it read like this:

  SHE ACTS LIKE A WOMAN

  SHE ACTS LIKE A WOMAN.

  Man, I’m telling you,

  SHE ACTS LIKE A WOMAN.

  She pelted me with everything,

  And then she tore her hair.

  SHE ACTS LIKE A WOMAN.

  I’d given her my lot,

  I was finished, broke,

  And then she spoke of love.

  SHE ACTS LIKE A WOMAN.

  Me, she said,

  Me, she wanted,

  Not diamonds, mink, or drink,

  SHE ACTS LIKE A WOMAN.

  I just spread my hands,

  What was I to do?

  You tell me.

  SHE ACTS LIKE A WOMAN.

  Early morning, there she stood,

  No make-up, face like mud,

  And her big eyes raining tears,

  And fears.

  SHE ACTS LIKE A WOMAN.

  Then something moved in here,

  Like daylight,

  And I could see,

  She only wanted me.

  SHE ACTS LIKE A WOMAN.

  The lead singer would sing the verse, then the rest of the group would come in with ‘She acts like a woman’, and do those falsetto bits. Again she read the words aloud. As it stood, and for what it was, it wasn’t bad, she decided. But then, it must have a tune and she wasn’t going to send it away to one of those music companies; they might pinch the idea. These things happened. No, it must be set to a tune first, and the only person she could approach who dealt in tunes was…Jimmy.

  She didn’t relish the idea of putting her plan to Jimmy. Still, he was in a group and perhaps one of them could knock up a tune. Of course, if they made the tune up they’d have to share the profits. Well, she supposed half a loaf was better than no bread, and the way things were going down below they’d be lucky if they got half a loaf.

  She got slowly to her feet, still staring across the field. She could see her song in the Top Twenty. Young housewife makes the pop grade, Mary Ann Boyle—she wished it could have been Shaughnessy—jumps from number 19 to number 4…No, number 2, with her ‘She acts like a woman’.

  What were they doing over there, those men? Ploughing? Oh no; they could never grow anything in that field, it was full of boulders and outcrops of rock. Her mind, coming down from the heights of fame, concentrated now on the moving figures. What were they doing going up and down? Then screwing her eyes up and peering hard, she realised they were measuring something, measuring the ground.

  She took the stairs two at a time.

  ‘Corny! Corny!’ She dashed into the office, only to find it empty, then ran into the garage, still calling, and Corny, from the top end, came towards her hurriedly, saying, ‘What’s up? What’s up? The bairns?’

  ‘No, no.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘There’s something going on in Weaver’s Field.’

  ‘Going on? What?’

  ‘I don’t know. I saw them out of the bedroom window, men with a theodolite. They looked like surveyors measuring the ground.’

  He stared down at her for a moment, then repeated her words again, ‘Measuring the ground?’

  ‘Yes. Come up and have a look.’

  They both ran upstairs now and stood at the bedroom window, and after a moment Corny said, ‘Aye, that’s what they’re doing, all right. But it’s yon side, and what for?’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve been round this side and we haven’t heard them. They could have been, you know; they could have been at yon side of the hedge and we wouldn’t have seen or heard them.’

  ‘They could that,’ said Corny. ‘But
why?…Anyway, whatever they’re going to do, you bet your life they’ll do at yon side, they wouldn’t come over here.’

  ‘Aw, don’t sound like that.’ She sought his hand and gripped it.

  ‘Well, it always happens, doesn’t it? Look at Riley. He’s made a little packet out of the buildings going up at yon side, and he’s got a new lot of pumps set up now. I actually see my hands turning green when I pass the place.’

  She leant her head against him and remained quiet. She, too, turned green when she passed Riley’s garage. His garage had been no better than theirs when he started, at least not as good—Riley never kept the place like Corny did—but because of a new estate over there and the factories sprouting up, he had got on like a house on fire. And now Riley acted as if he had been born to the purple; his wife had her own car, and the ordinary schools weren’t good enough for the children; two of them were at the Convent, and the young one at a private school…Would they ever be able to send Rose Mary to the Convent and David…? Her thinking stopped as to where they would send David, and, straightening herself abruptly, she said, ‘Why don’t you take a run round that way and make a few enquiries?’

  ‘It’s not a bad idea. But no matter what I find out it won’t be that they’re going to build this end of the field, for this part’s so rock-strewn it even frightens off the speculators.’

  ‘Well, go and see.’

  ‘Aye, yes, there’s no harm in having a look.’

  He was on the point of turning away from her when he paused, and, gripping her chin in his big hand, he bent down and kissed her, then hurried out of the room.

  Mary Ann didn’t follow him. There had been a sadness about the kiss and she wanted to cry. The kiss had said, ‘I’m sorry for the way things have turned out, that my dream was a bubble. I’m sorry for all the things I’ve deprived you of, I’m sorry for you having to put on that don’t-care attitude, and this is the way I want it, when you go to the farm.’

  ‘Bust! Blast!’ The ghost of the old impatient, demanding, I’ll-fix-it Mary Ann, came surging up, and she beat the flat of her hand on the dressing table. Why? Why? He worked hard, he tried every avenue, he was honest…perhaps too honest. But could you be too honest? There was more fiddling in cars than there was in the Hallé Orchestra, and he could have been in on that lucrative racket. Three times he had been approached last year, and from different sources, but he would have none of it. You’re a mug, they had said. He had nearly hit one of them who wanted to rent ‘this forgotten dump’, as he had called it, for a place to transform his stolen cars.