Mary Ann's Angels

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘SHE ACTS LIKE A WOMAN.’

  ‘Look!’ shouted Corny above the falsetto pitch. ‘Drop it a minute.’

  Duke, his fringe of red hair making him look more odd than the rest, glanced towards Corny and said, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I say so,’ shouted Corny.

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘Look,’ Corny said, ‘we won’t talk about liking or disliking anything at the moment. What I want to point out is that this isn’t the place for practising.’

  Duke stared at Corny, and his eyes narrowed as he said, ‘I thought you were all right; Jimmy said you didn’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t mind Jimmy practisin’ when he’s got nothing else to do, but he’ll certainly not do it on the main drive.’

  ‘Aw.’ Duke’s head nodded backwards. ‘See what you mean. But do you like it? It’s the thing your missis wrote. I had to alter bits here and there you know…’

  Corny rubbed his hand hard across his face, then said patiently, ‘It was very good of you to take it up, but look, go to the back,’ He pointed to the garage. ‘Go and play it there; you won’t be in anybody’s way there; then perhaps I’ll tell you what I think of it.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you, I’m sure.’ This cocky comment came from Poodle and brought Corny flashing round to say, ‘Now look, me young cock-a-doodle or whatever you’re supposed to be; mind what you say and how you say it. Now’—he spread his hands out indicating the lot of them—‘get yourselves through there before I change me mind.’

  The four boys went past him and into the garage; their steps were slow, and the glances they bestowed on him told him they were quite indifferent to anything his mind might do.

  ‘For two pins!’

  ‘Corny!’ Mary Ann touched his sleeve, and he turned quickly to her. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Now he gave a forced laugh. ‘What’s there to be sorry about? But you see’—his voice dropped—‘I couldn’t have them on the drive, could I?’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’ She agreed wholly with him. ‘But I’m sorry that I ever thought about writing that bloomin’ stuff.’

  ‘Don’t you be sorry.’ He grinned widely at her. ‘They’ve made something out of it; they’re going to play out at the back. Come on upstairs and let’s have a look at the words and see how it goes.’

  ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ Her voice was very small, and he became quite still as he looked at her, and after a moment he said, ‘I mind nothing, nothing at all as long as you’re with me.’

  ‘Oh, Corny.’ Their hands held and gripped painfully for a moment; then they were out on the drive, their hands still joined, running towards the front door. But when about three steps from it, Mary Ann pulled them to a stop and on a groan, she said, ‘Oh no! Oh, no!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Look down there. Am I seeing things or is that me granny?’

  ‘Good God! It’s her all right.’

  ‘Oh, Corny. Today of all days. And remember what happened when she was here last. Oh, Corny!’

  ‘Look. Go upstairs and warn the others. I’ll hold her off for a minute; I’ll go and meet her.’

  Mary Ann seemed glued to the ground, until he pushed her, saying, ‘Go on, go on. You’re not the only one who’s going to welcome this visit…think of Mike.’

  The next minute Mary Ann was racing up the stairs.

  ‘Ma! Da!’ She burst into the kitchen where they were all gathered now, and, after swallowing deeply, she brought out, ‘Me granny! She’s coming up the road.’

  ‘What?’ Lizzie, the teapot in her hand, swung round, ‘No!’

  ‘It is. It is. Corny’s gone to meet her.’

  Mike turned slowly from the window and looked at Lizzie, and Lizzie, looking straight back at him, said, ‘She must have gone to the house and found nobody there.’

  Mike moved farther from the window. He didn’t speak, only lowered his lids and rubbed his teeth across each other, making a sound that wasn’t quite a grind.

  ‘How she can come back here after the things I said to her the other day, I don’t know.’ Mary Ann was shaking her head when Mike said, ‘The one that can snub that woman won’t be from this earth, lass; he’ll have to be from another planet, with powers greater than any we can dream of; that woman’s got a hide like a herd of rhinoceroses pressed together.’

  ‘Laugh at her.’

  They all turned their eyes towards Sarah, and she smiled her beautiful smile, saying, ‘It’s about the only thing, failing a man from another planet, that will make a dent in the rhinoceros’s hide.’ She was looking at Mike as she spoke.

  ‘You’re right. You’re right.’ Mike nodded his head at her. ‘As always, Sarah, you’re right. And that’s what we’ll do, eh?’ He looked from one to the other now with the eagerness of a boy, finally letting his eyes come to rest on Mary Ann, and he added, ‘What do you say?’

  ‘You know me.’ Mary Ann gave a quizzical smile. ‘I’ll promise God’s honour, and then she’s only to open her mouth and say something nasty about Corny, the bairns, or…well, any one of you.’ She spread her arms wide. ‘You know me.’

  They all looked at her; there was a chuckle here and there, then they were all laughing, and at the height of it the group outside suddenly blared forth ‘She Acts Like a Woman’. But even this combination couldn’t drown Mrs McMullen’s voice as she came up the stairs.

  No-one went towards the door, and when Corny thrust it open and ushered the old woman in he did so with a flourish. ‘Look!’ he cried. ‘It’s Gran. I saw her coming up the road…’

  ‘All right. All right,’ Mrs McMullen interrupted him sharply. ‘Don’t go on. I don’t need any introduction; they know me now. No need to act like a circus master.’ She moved forward, her glance sweeping over the crowded room. ‘Looks like a cattle market,’ she said. ‘Still, it doesn’t take many to fill this place. Let’s sit down.’

  It was Michael who brought a chair towards her; and when she was seated she looked directly at Lizzie, saying, ‘You could have told me, couldn’t you, you were all going out jaunting? It would have saved me legs. But I’m of no importance; I’m young enough to trek the Godforsaken road.’

  ‘I didn’t see any need to tell you we were going out, Mother; I didn’t know you were coming.’

  ‘You know if I’m coming any day I come on a Sunday.’

  ‘It must be five weeks since you came; do you expect me to wait in for you?’

  ‘No, I don’t; I don’t expect any consideration from anybody, so I’m not disappointed when I don’t get it…What’s that racket out there?’ She turned her head sharply towards the window. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a group.’ Corny now walked past her and looked down into the yard before turning to her and saying, ‘They’re playing a thing of Mary Ann’s; she wrote the words. It’ll likely get into the Top Twenty.’ He winked at Mike, who was standing to the side of him.

  ‘Am I going to get a drink of tea?’ Mrs McMullen was again looking at her daughter—she was adept at turning conversations into side channels when the subject wasn’t pleasing to her, and any achievement of her granddaughter’s was certainly not pleasing to her.

  ‘Well, give yourself a chance to get your hat and coat off; the tea’s all ready, just waiting for you.’

  Lizzie accompanied this with small shakes of her head that spoke plainly of her irritation, and Mrs McMullen, after raising her eyebrows, folded her hands on her lap and bowed her head, and her whole attitude said, There now. Would you believe it? Would you believe that anybody could speak to me in such a fashion after asking them a civil question?

  Then her head was brought up quickly by a concerted drawn-out wail and she cried, ‘Stop that lot! Who are they, anyway? And why do you let them carry on here?’ She pulled herself to her feet and moved a few steps to the window and glared down onto the group, and its open-mouthed audience of Rose Mary and David.

  All those standing behind her mingled their glan
ces knowingly. Mrs McMullen remained silent for a moment; then, turning her head over her shoulder, she looked at Corny and asked, ‘What are they?’

  ‘What do you mean, Gran, what are they?’

  ‘Just what I said: what are they? They’re not human beings; don’t tell me that; they look like something Doctor Who left lying around.’

  There was a splutter of laughter from Michael and Sarah, and Mary Ann, too, had her work cut out not to bellow, but on principle she wouldn’t laugh at anything her granny said.

  ‘What are they singing? She…what?’

  ‘“She Acts Like a Woman”,’ said Corny, his grin wide now. ‘It’s the title of the song Mary Ann wrote. Look, the words are here.’ He looked about him, and Mike, picking up the sheet of paper from the table, handed it to him with an exchange of glances.

  ‘Look.’ Corny thrust the paper in front of Mrs McMullen. ‘Read them; then you’ll be able to sing with the group.’

  Mrs McMullen’s look should have withered Corny. She grabbed the paper from his hand and, holding it well from her as if it smelt, she read aloud, ‘She acts like a woman. Man, I’m telling you she acts like a woman.’ Then only her muttering was heard until she came to the end. And now, handing the sheet back to Corny, she stared at him a moment blankly before emitting one word, ‘Edifying!’ She turned about and resumed her seat; then repeated, ‘Edifying. Very edifying, I must say. But I’m not surprised; nothing could surprise me.’

  Mary Ann’s face looked tight now, and Corny was signalling to her above the head of her granny when that old lady explained the reason for her visit. She did it in dipped, precise tones, talking rapidly.

  ‘Well, I didn’t come here to read trash, or to look at four imbeciles; nor yet to listen to that awful wailing. I came to tell you me news.’

  Her statement, and the way she issued it, had the power to catch and hold all their attention.

  ‘I’ve won a car,’ said Mrs McMullen flatly.

  There was a long pause before anybody spoke; then Lizzie said, ‘A car, Mother?’

  ‘Yes; you’re not deaf, are you? I said a car. An’ don’t look so surprised. Why shouldn’t I win a car? There’s no law against an elderly person winning a car, is there?’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’ Lizzie’s voice was sharp. ‘I was only surprised that you had won a car. But I’m glad, I’m glad.’

  ‘You won a car, Gran?’ Corny was standing in front of the old lady. ‘What make is it?’

  ‘They call it a Wolseley.’

  ‘A Wolseley!’ The expanse of Corny’s face widened.

  ‘Do I have to repeat everything? A Wolseley.’

  Corny now looked towards Mary Ann; then to Lizzie; then his glance flashed to Mike, Michael and Sarah, before coming to rest on Mrs McMullen’s unblinking eyes again. Now he asked, ‘How did you win it, Gran? Bingo?’

  ‘I don’t go to bingo, I’ll have you understand. No, I won it with a couplet for Pieman’s Pies. A good couplet that had a real rhyme in it, and sense: “Don’t buy a pig in a poke, buy a pig in a pie, Pieman’s pie”.’

  Now the old lady’s eyes flicked for a moment in Mary Ann’s direction, and Mary Ann caught their malevolent gleam. Oh, she was an old bitch. Yes, that’s what she was, an old bitch. A couplet that rhymed, with sense in it. “Don’t buy a pig-in-a-poke, buy a pig in a pie”. But fancy her of all women writing a couplet of any kind! She herself had sent in slogans for years; slogans for cornflakes, sauce, soap, boot polish, the lot, and what had she got? Nothing; not even a consolation prize. Yet here, this old tyke could win a car. There was no justice. It wouldn’t have mattered if anyone else in the world had won a car with a couplet except her granny, because her granny was the least deserving of luck.

  ‘And that’s not all.’ Mrs McMullen’s head was now swaying like a golliwog’s.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve won the chauffeur and all.’ This was from Michael, and his grandmother turned her head swiftly in his direction and said, ‘No. No, I didn’t win a chauffeur, but I won a fortnight’s holiday in Spain.’

  Nobody spoke; nobody moved. It would have to be her, thought Sarah. Why couldn’t it have been my mam and dad? What use will she make of a car, or a fortnight in Spain?

  Mike thought that the truest saying in the world was that the devil looked after his own.

  Lizzie thought, ‘What is this going to mean?’

  And Mary Ann thought, ‘I just can’t believe it. It isn’t fair.’ And some small section of her mind took up her childhood attitude and asked what God was about anyway, for in dealing out prizes to this old witch he had certainly slipped up.

  Corny, still standing in front of the old lady, said, ‘A fortnight in Spain? That’s hard lines all round.’

  ‘Hard lines all round? What do you mean?’ Mrs McMullen picked him up even before he fell.

  ‘Well, I mean you not being able to go to Spain, or use the car.’

  ‘What makes you think that I’m not going to use the car or go to Spain?’

  Corny opened his mouth, straightened his shoulders, blinked his eyes, then closed his mouth as he continued to look at this amazing old woman. And she, staring back at him with her round dark eyes, said, ‘I’m going to use me car all right.’

  ‘But you’ll have to get somebody to drive it,’ Michael put in.

  ‘There’ll be plenty to drive it, falling over themselves to drive it. Oh, I’m not worried about that. They’ll break their necks for free jaunts.’

  ‘But where are you going to keep it?’ asked Michael.

  Mrs McMullen now looked back at Corny, and for a moment he thought she was going to say, ‘In your garage,’ but she didn’t.

  ‘Outside the front door,’ she said. ‘Like everybody else in the street.’

  ‘A Wolseley outside the front door!’ There was a shocked note in Corny’s voice at the thought of a Wolseley being left out in all weathers.

  ‘Why not? There’s not a garage within half a mile of my street, and there’s cars dotted all over the place. I’ve had an old wreck near my window for two years. And the Baileys across the road have just got a cover for theirs. Well, I can get a cover for mine.’

  A silence fell on the room again. Corny turned away. He didn’t look at anyone, not even at Mary Ann, for the thought in his mind was: a Wolseley, a new Wolseley, standing outside a front door, subject to hail, rain and shine. It was too much for him.

  ‘Did you win them both together, I mean the car and the trip abroad?’ asked Michael now.

  ‘Yes, I did. It depended on how many points the judges gave you for the correct answers to the puzzle and the couplet, an’ I got the highest.’

  ‘What are you going to do about Spain?’ Michael had more sense than to say, ‘You can’t go to Spain, Gran.’

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Lizzie seemed to come alive at last. She swung round, grabbed up the teapot, went to the little tea table, and began pouring out the tea.

  ‘That’s a nice attitude to take, isn’t it? I’m not in me grave yet.’

  Again Lizzie swung round, the teapot still in her hand. ‘I didn’t suggest you were in your grave; but I do maintain that you’re too old to go off to Spain on your own.’

  ‘Who said I was goin’ on me own?’

  Lizzie stood still now; they all stood still and waited.

  ‘It’s for two people.’

  Lizzie took in a deep breath, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘I suppose you think I can’t get anybody to go with me.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t bank on it,’ said Lizzie now. ‘Who’s going to go traipsing off to Spain with…?’ She just stopped herself from saying ‘with an old woman’. But Mrs McMullen supplied the missing words. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Who’s going to go traipsing off to Spain with an old woman like me?…And who should I ask but you, me own daughter?’

  ‘Me!’ Lizzie gaped at her mother. Then thrusting her arm backwards, she put the teapot on the edge of
the table. It was only Mike’s hand, moving swiftly towards it, that stopped it from toppling off.

  ‘Now look here, Mother. Now get this into your head right away—’

  ‘All right, all right, don’t start. But I’m just putting it to you. Who’s got more right to have a share of me success than me daughter? And on the other hand, whose duty is it to see to me but me daughter’s? And there’s a third thing. I remember years ago, years and years ago when you were young and bonny you saying how you’d like to go to Spain. You wanted to meet a Spaniard in those days. You thought the contrast with your fairness and his darkness would look well. Aye, and it would have. An’ it’s not too late; your life’s not over yet. And if anyone deserves a holiday, it’s you. A real holiday…a real one.’

  There was a movement behind the old woman as Mike went quietly out of the room, and now Lizzie, bending down to her mother, hissed at her, ‘Look. Now look, Mother. Don’t you start on any of your underground tactics, because they won’t work. I’m not going to Spain with you, now let that sink right in, and say no more about it, not another word.’ With this, Lizzie straightened herself up, glared at her mother for a moment; then she too went out of the room.

  It was at this moment that the group down below, after having stopped, struck up again, and Mrs McMullen, turning towards Michael with ill-concealed fury, cried, ‘Shut that blasted window or I’ll throw something out on that lot!’

  ‘The window’s closed, Gran,’ said Michael quietly.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t seem like it.’ She looked round from one to the other, Then, turning her gimlet eyes towards the window again, the said, ‘You can’t expect noise or anything else to be kept out of this little mousehole; it’s a tunnel for wind and weather.’

  Corny planted himself deliberately in front of Mary Ann and swung her round and pushed her out of the door; and when she was on the landing she stood with her face cupped in her hands. She would hit her, she would. The wicked old…! She wasn’t really stumped for words—they were all there in her mind—but she wasn’t in the habit of voicing swear words.