A Grand Man

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Michael.’

  ‘He’s in the scullery.’ Mary Ann’s words were cut short by being knocked on her bottom in Lizzie’s dive for the door.

  ‘Wha’s up? Wha’s the row?’ Mike’s voice, thick with sleep, came from the bed, and Mary Ann, scrambling to him, shook him by his slack hanging arm, crying, ‘It’s Michael—he’s in the scullery and the gas is on.’

  Again she was almost knocked flat, and by the time she reached the door she heard her father’s voice coming from the other side of the kitchen, saying, ‘God in Heaven, what’s he done?’

  It was many hours later that Mary Ann recollected they were the only words she heard her da speak that night. It was her ma who did the talking. Fiercely she whispered, ‘Open the window, and the scullery one, too, and let a draught through…and do it quietly.’

  As Mike swiftly obeyed her command she said to Mary Ann, ‘Get me the torch from the cupboard—mind the table.’

  Mary Ann groped her way to the cupboard, groped for the torch, then groped her way back to where her mother was kneeling on the floor. Lizzie snatched the torch from her fingers and, switching it on, plunged its light onto Michael’s face.

  Mary Ann stared down at her brother. His face looked pink and smooth and swollen. He looked sound asleep, very sound asleep. She watched her mother grab him by the shoulders and shake him. She allowed her eyes to travel to her father’s legs and up to where they disappeared beneath his shirt tail, but she could not lift them to his face…until he bent his body over his son and his face came into the beam of the torch, and then she saw it was grey, an awful whitish grey, and that his eyes, although sunk deep into his head, had, at the same time, a popping look. His whole appearance looked wild and not a little fantastic. His strong wiry hair was standing up from his head in points and his shirt seemed too short and tight for his body.

  Mary Ann moved swiftly back as he hauled Michael from the floor and carried him to the window. Her mother followed, directing the light towards the floor. Mary Ann looked to where her father, silhouetted against the darkness of the night and the blackness of the houses opposite, was shaking Michael, and when after a moment Michael’s head lolled against his shoulder Lizzie turned to Mary Ann gasping, ‘Get your things on, quick.’ And she followed her to the bed saying, ‘Run for the doctor, the nearest—that one off Ormond Road—Pimsel.’ Her talking was in staccato whispers. ‘Tell him…tell him that Michael…wait.’ She stopped, and Mary Ann saw her turn to the window. ‘No, don’t go yet. Look, run down to Mrs McBride’s. Go quietly without your shoes. Let yourself out the back door. She sleeps with the window open a bit. Try not to raise the house. Ask her to come. Go on now.’ She pushed Mary Ann to the door, putting a coat about her petticoat and her thin bare arms as she went.

  Mary Ann did not need to be told to hurry or to make no noise. She was used to the stairs in the dark, and when her swift light tread made them creak she took no notice for she knew they always creaked at night—it was the souls in purgatory being made to use them as a treadmill that caused the creaking.

  The cold of the yard struck up through her stockinged feet as she closed the back hall door softly after her and she knew a moment of fear at finding herself in the backyard, made unfamiliar with the night. When she reached Mrs McBride’s bedroom window she raised herself to the sill by digging her toes into the wall, and she called softly through the narrow opening, ‘Mrs McBride.’ On her third call she heard a rustling and she knew that she had woken the old woman, but not until she had repeated the call did she hear her speak.

  ‘Holy Mother of God,’ said Mrs McBride; and Mary Ann said, ‘It’s me, Mrs McBride…Mary Ann.’

  There was a pause before Mrs McBride answered, ‘Mary Ann Shaughnessy? In the name of God, what’s up?’

  ‘Sh!’ said Mary Ann. ‘Listen. Me ma sent me for you…our Michael’s bad.’

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mrs McBride didn’t seem to be unduly disturbed by this and Mary Ann had to say the dreaded words, ‘He’s put his head in the gas oven.’

  It seemed to Mary Ann that almost in a single blinking of her eyelids Mrs McBride was at the back door. Dragging a coat over her dirty nightdress with one hand, she pulled Mary Ann into the scullery with the other and pushed her ahead into the room and across it; then quietly unbolting her door she drew Mary Ann into the hallway and preceded her up the stairs. She did all this, to Mary Ann’s amazement, with the quietness and swiftness of a cat.

  From the moment Mrs McBride entered the room she took command of the situation. She bent over Michael where he was now lying on the bed and put her hand inside his pyjama jacket for a moment, then turning to Mike, she said, ‘Hoist him up and get him walking, he’s not gone…That’s it.’ She got on one side of him. ‘Come on now, keep him going. Make up a good dose of hot salt water, Lizzie.’ She turned her head in Lizzie’s direction without pausing in her walk. ‘He’ll come to. That’s it, keep him at it Mike, it’s air he wants.’

  In the light of the torch Mary Ann stood watching her da and Mrs McBride dragging Michael back and forward between the window and the bed, his feet trailing like dead things. It was a strange and weird trio, made more fantastic still by the torchlight. Suddenly Michael’s body stiffened, his head came up and his chest swelled out and he retched and was sick over the floor.

  ‘That’s the ticket, get it up, lad. He won’t need the salt water now.’ When they got him back to the bed again and Lizzie held a dish under his head, Mrs McBride exclaimed in much the same tone as another would use when viewing an objet d’art, ‘Lovely…beautiful.’

  Mary Ann moved a little closer. Michael was lying gasping now, his head moving heavily from side to side, and she could have thrown herself into Mrs McBride’s arms when she heard her say, ‘He’ll be as right as rain; there’s no need to worry.’

  ‘Could I light the gas now?’ asked Lizzie.

  ‘Aye, of course, it’ll all be gone by now. But I’d pull down the blinds,’ said Fanny, ‘or Nancy Cooper’ll have her two bleary eyes glued to her window…she never sleeps.’

  It was not until the gas was lit that Mary Ann saw her father clearly. He didn’t seem like her da at all…his face seemed altered completely. It looked to her as if something had sucked all the blood from it, and his eyes looked—she could not allow herself even to think how his eyes looked, for fear was the last thing she would associate with her da.

  It wasn’t until Mike dragged his eyes from his son’s face to gaze from one to the other of them in stupefied perplexity that he became conscious of his state of undress. He turned from the bed and went slowly into the room, and Lizzie, bending over the boy, called softly, ‘Michael, Michael.’ For answer he rolled his head and retched again, and Fanny, straightening her back with an effort, said, ‘Ah, he’ll do fine. There’s nothing to worry about. You should have seen my Florrie the night she did it, when she found young Bob Lancaster had given her a bellyful. It was nearly touch and go that night and many’s the time I’ve wondered since if it wouldn’t have been better to let her go, for there she is now with seven round her, and to a no-good waster like Fred Boyle, and her young Bob gone off God knows where, and him the only one she gives a hoot for. Life’s crazy, I’ve said it afore, but thank God even at the longest it’s short. And it can’t be short enough for me.’ She sighed heavily, and Mary Ann knew she was thinking of Jack who was really going to marry Joyce Scallen. But what was that to worry about compared with what had nearly happened?

  She shivered, and Mrs McBride turned to her, saying, ‘What, are you cold, hinny? Why don’t you jump into bed?’ She bent over her, her breasts pressing out the front of her coat like great inflated balloons. And Mary Ann wanted to lay her head between them and put her arms about the not-too-clean neck and cry with relief, for had she not saved their Michael and was she not as anxious as her ma to keep the disgrace from the neighbours, for Mary Ann was fully aware of the disgrace that clung to a family should one of them
stick their head in the gas oven. You were put in the papers then and everybody knew about you. That was why her mother had stopped her going for the doctor, for if the doctor had come it would have been all over the place and her da would have got all the blame. She glanced towards the bedroom door and Mrs McBride said, ‘Don’t worry, hinny, he’ll be all right an’ all, he’s only getting into his things. Jump into bed with you now.’

  Slowly she did as she was told and when Fanny’s lips came down to hers she did not offer her cheek but returned the old woman’s kiss. She watched her go and bend over Michael again, then walk towards the door pulling her coat about her. She saw her ma follow and she could hear them talking but not what they said. She saw Mrs McBride patting her mother, then she went out and her mother closed the door softly after her and returned to Michael.

  It was some little time before her father came out of the room. He did not go to the bed but stood looking towards it to where Lizzie knelt stroking the boy’s head. Michael was recovered sufficiently to cry again, but softly, and after a time, during which Lizzie gave no heed to Mike’s presence, he went back into the room. Mary Ann watched her mother make a drink for Michael, she watched him refuse it and then be coaxed to drink it, then she saw Lizzie lie on top of the bed and put her arms about him, and she felt nothing but pity, until once again her father entered the kitchen. And when he stood silently looking at his wife and son the pity for Michael and sorrow for her mother combined into a fear, and the fear was formed around their allegiance and what it would mean to her da.

  When once again her father returned to the room she saw her mother gently disengage herself from Michael and follow him. She had not turned out the light, so that meant she was coming back. Mary Ann sat swiftly up in bed and pressed her ears in the direction of the bedroom but the only sound she could hear was of a low murmur, and it was of her mother’s voice. Her ears were so attuned to listening that she could distinguish what emotion was present in the murmuring of her parents’ speech, but even without this facility she would have recognised disaster from the low, dead murmur of her mother’s voice.

  Knowing that she might be caught in the act did not prevent her from getting out of bed and moving swiftly towards the door. She had no need to bend down to the keyhole, for the door was ajar. She stood at the side nearest the opening, close to the wall, and listened to her mother. At first she could not disentangle the quick, low speech, but then she began to make out the words. They were dead words, yet alive with dread significance. They came to Mary Ann, bearing all the sorrow in the world. ‘Don’t think this silent, remorseful attitude of yours will touch me. You’ve tried everything in the past. You found talking yourself silly didn’t work; well, you can save yourself this effort for it won’t work either. If he had died I would have killed you, do you hear? Oh how I loathe you, you great weak hulk…Well, it’s finished, finally finished. I’m going.’

  In the awful silence that followed, into which Mike threw no plea, Mary Ann stumbled back to bed; whatever more there was to be said could not surpass this. She lay watching the door. Her breathing seemed to have ceased, until suddenly, her lungs demanding air, she drew into her narrow chest deep gulps that almost choked her.

  Lizzie came out of the room and stood for a moment, her hand pressed to her throat, before slowly moving towards the light and turning it down to a mere glimmer. After the springs of Michael’s bed creaked, there was no more sound.

  Mary Ann lay for a long time trying to discern objects through the glimmer, trying to shut out the thoughts that conjured up the future without her da, trying to stave off the dawn. Yet when its first light showed on the paper blind she realised she must have fallen asleep, for the gas was out and she hadn’t seen her mother get up and turn it off. Soon she knew her da would come out of the room and get ready for work, and he would leave the house, and perhaps before he returned her mother would have taken them away to their granny’s. This might be the last time she would see him leave for work. The thought brought her from the bed. She must say something to him, tell him she would always love him and when she grew up she would look after him.

  Gently she pushed the open door wider, and her eyes peered towards the bed. But he wasn’t in it, he was sitting on the box to the side of the window. She could see the great dark huddled shape of him, and she was about to move softly forward when her step was checked by a sound coming from him. It was a familiar enough sound when connected with herself or Michael, or her mother, or anyone else in the world, but not with her da. It filled her body with a great, deep, unbearable pity. She stood listening to the sound until she could stand it no longer. It did not drive her to him to spread her comfort over him but back to her bed to lie huddled and sobbing herself. A god had fallen, not through his sins but through his weakness—for gods did not cry.

  By the nine o’clock post the letter had arrived to say that Michael had passed for the Grammar School, but it did not make much difference; it had come too late.

  Chapter Eight: Some Call It Auto-Suggestion (It’s Their Ignorance, God Help Them)

  As Father Owen listened to the child his heart grew heavy, not only with the weight of her sorrow but with the sorrow that seemed to be the heritage of all such as Mary Ann. Their very joy was tinged with sorrow, made so by their sensitiveness, a quality which should have been used merely to appreciate the finer things of life but which was deformed by constant worry. As he listened to her voice relating the happening of the last few days his mind rebelled against the sentence inflicted on childhood, a sentence inflicted by the parents themselves. Life at this stage should be a joyous thing; God made it so; away with all the twaddle that it was He who sent suffering.

  Mary Ann was saying, ‘He doesn’t talk, Father…he says nothing, and he hasn’t been full. He went out last night but he came back solid and sober.’

  ‘When is your mother going?’

  ‘Saturday, Father, I think.’

  ‘And you’re not going to your grandmother’s?’

  ‘No. She said only last night she’d got a furnished room round Hope Street and we go in on Saturday, and she’s got the promise of a job, and Michael and me are to have our dinner at school.’

  ‘And your da says nothing?’

  ‘No, nothing; and he wouldn’t let me pour the water over his head when he washed.’

  ‘And does he seem upset at your mother going?’

  Mary Ann did not answer the priest for the moment—upset could not describe the state her da was in, he seemed gone away somehow, dead. She was no consolation to him, and she knew, without knowing how she had come to the knowledge, that without her mother she had no power of her own to hold him. She herself could have done without even her mother as long as she had him, but in him it was her ma that infused the power to live. So she answered, ‘When me ma goes I don’t know what he’ll do. I’m frightened, Father.’

  ‘Now there’s no need to be frightened. Just trust in God and everything will come out all right. For your penance, say one Our Father and one Hail Mary…make a good act of contrition.’

  Slowly Mary Ann said the set piece—it was as if she were loath to leave the confessional and the comfort of the priest—she spread it out and was only induced to finish when Father Owen said, ‘Now, goodnight, my child, and trust in God.’

  ‘Goodnight, Father.’

  When she left the box the priest, after a murmured prayer, followed her. There would be no other children after Mary Ann. He was so used to her manoeuvres that he almost judged the time by her now. He saw her light a candle, then kneel with uplifted face to the altar of the Holy Family, and he turned to the church door and went through the porch and stood on a step, drawing in the fresh air as he looked up and down the street.

  It was quiet now, the traffic of the day having eased. The shops on the other side were closed, their doors locked and barred, all except the door leading to the office of Mayland’s, the solicitor. Likely, Father Owen surmised, there was a meeting going on u
p in the boardroom there. Ah, he shook his head at himself, he wished he had just the smell of the money that had changed hands in that room today…But what was he thinking about? There would be no board meeting at this time of the evening. It was now six o’clock. Didn’t his stomach tell him so? And what was more there were no cars about except one, and if he was not mistaken it was old Lord’s. Likely it was him up there alone, settling the business of more land. What did he hope to do with it all? One thing was sure, he couldn’t take it with him. Oh dear, dear; what men strove for. He shook his head again, this time at Mr Lord.

  Peter Lord was an old man now, and what was in his life? Money and land. Yet God help him, he wasn’t to blame entirely. Thirty years ago he had been a man splendid in his prime and if he had only managed his private affairs with the same sagacity as he did his business he would undoubtedly have had an exceptionally happy life, but like many another able man before him he had to go and pick on a feather-brained vain piece of a girl, and what a life she had led him. And she had given him nothing, not even a child; and then to leave him when she thought he was going broke. Oh, she had been a right bad piece that. And there he was alone in that barracks of a house where he lived like a hermit. Life was strange. Just imagine, if he had had someone to pour out love on him as did that child back in the church there on that hot-headed devil of a father of hers, it would have made all the difference in the world.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Mary Ann.’ He stood to one side and made room for her on the step beside him in the half-open doorway. ‘Have you been to confession?’

  He was well aware, perhaps not that he was blind in the confessional, but that he was to Mary Ann an entirely different being once out of the box, and of being quite incapable of recognising her as the same child who a few minutes before had poured her heart out to him.