by A. J. Cronin
Suddenly he started, his heart gave a great and unbelieving bound. In the street below, slowly approaching, like a barque navigating strange and dangerous waters, was a hat, a thing of memory, unique, unmistakable. Yes, yes: and the gold-handled umbrella, tightly rolled, the short sealskin jacket with the braided buttons. He cried out weakly, with pale lips: ‘Aunt Polly.’
The shop door pinged below. Dithering to his feet, he crept downstairs, poised himself, trembling, behind the half-glazed door.
Polly was standing, very erect, in the centre of the floor, her lips pursed, her gaze sweeping the shop, as though amusedly inspecting it. Mrs Glennie had half-risen, to confront her. Lounging against the counter, his mouth half-open, gaping from one to the other, was Malcom.
Aunt Polly’s vision came to rest above the baker’s wife. ‘Mrs Glennie, if I remember right!’
Mrs Glennie was at her worst: still unchanged, wearing her dirty forenoon wrapper, her blouse open at the neck, a loose tape hanging from her waist.
‘What do you want?’
Aunt Polly raised her eyebrows. ‘I have come to see Francis Chisholm.’
‘He’s out.’
‘Indeed! Then I’ll wait till he comes in.’ Polly arranged herself on the chair by the counter as though prepared to remain all day.
There was a pause. Mrs Glennie’s face had turned a dirty red. She remarked, aside: ‘Malcom! Run round to the bakehouse and fetch your father.’
Malcom answered shortly: ‘He went to the Hall five minutes ago. He won’t be back till tea.’
Polly removed her gaze from the ceiling, brought it critically to bear on Malcom. She smiled slightly when he flushed, then, entertained, she glanced away.
For the first time Mrs Glennie showed signs of uneasiness. She burst out angrily: ‘ We’re busy people here, we can’t sit about all day. I’ve told you the boy is out. Like enough he won’t be back till all hours – with the company he keeps. He’s a regular worry with his late hours and bad habits. Isn’t that so, Malcom?’
‘Malcom nodded sulkily.
‘You see!’ Mrs Glennie rushed on. ‘ If I was to tell you everything you’d be amazed. But it makes no difference, we’re Christian people here, we look after him. You have my word for it – he’s perfectly well and happy.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Polly spoke primly; politely stifling a slight yawn with her glove, ‘for I’ve come to take him away.’
‘What!’ Taken aback, Mrs Glennie fumbled at the neck of her blouse, the colour flooding, then fading from her face.
‘I have a doctor’s certificate,’ Aunt Polly enunciated, almost masticated, the formidable phrase with a deadly relish, ‘that the boy is underfed, overworked and threatened with pleurisy.’
‘It’s not true.’
Polly pulled a letter from her muff and tapped it significantly with the head of her umbrella. ‘ Can you read the Queen’s English?’
‘It’s a lie, a wicked lie. He’s as fat and well fed as my own son!’
There was an interruption. Francis, flat against the door, following the scene in an agony of suspense, leaned too heavily against the rickety catch. The door flew open, he shot into the middle of the shop. There was a silence.
Aunt Polly’s preternatural calm had deepened. ‘Come over, boy. And stop shaking. Do you want to stay here?’
‘No, I don’t.’
Polly threw a look of justification towards the ceiling. ‘Then go and pack your things.’
‘I haven’t anything to pack.’
Polly stood up slowly, pulling on her gloves. ‘There’s nothing to keep us.’
Mrs Glennie took a step forward, white with fury. ‘You can’t walk over me. I’ll have the law on you.’
‘Go ahead, my woman.’ Polly meaningly restored the letter to her muff. ‘Then maybe we’ll find out how much of the money that came from the sale of poor Elizabeth’s furniture has been spent on her son and how much on yours.’
Again there was a shattered silence. The baker’s wife stood, pale, malignant and defeated, one hand clutching at her bosom.
‘Oh, let him go, Mother,’ Malcom whined. ‘It’ll be good riddance.’
Aunt Polly, cradling her umbrella, examined him from top to toe.
‘Young man, you’re a fool!’ She swung round towards Mrs Glennie. ‘As for you, woman,’ looking straight over her head, ‘you’re another!’
Taking Francis triumphantly by the shoulder, she propelled him, bare-headed, from the shop.
They proceeded in this fashion towards the station, her glove grasping the fabric of his jacket firmly, as though he were some rare and captive creature who might at any moment escape. Outside the station, she bought him, without comment, a bag of Abernethy biscuits, some cough drops, and a brand-new bowler hat. Seated opposite him in the train, serene, singular, erect, observing him moisten the dry biscuits with tears of thankfulness, extinguished almost by his new hat which enveloped him to the ears, she remarked with half-closed, judicial eyes: –
‘I always knew that creature was no lady, I could see it in her face. You made an awful mistake letting her get hold of you, Francis dear. The next thing we’ll do is get your hair cut!’
III
It was wonderful these frosty mornings to lie warm in bed until Aunt Polly brought his breakfast, a great plate of bacon and eggs still sizzling, boiling black tea and a pile of hot toast, all on an oval metal tray stamped Allgood’s Old Ale. Sometimes he woke early, in an agony of apprehension; then came the blessed knowledge that he need no longer fear the hooter. With a sob of relief he burrowed more deeply into his thick yellow blankets, in his cosy bedroom with its paper of climbing sweet peas, its stained boards and woolwork rug, a lithograph of Allgood’s Prize Brewery Dray Horse on one wall, of Pope Gregory on another, and a little china holywater font with a sprig of Easter palm stuck sideways in it by the door. The pain in his side was gone, he seldom coughed, his cheeks were filling out. The novelty of leisure was like a strange caress and, though the uncertainty of his future still troubled him, he received it gratefully.
On this fine morning of the last day of October, Aunt Polly sat down on the edge of his bed exhorting him to eat. ‘ Lay in, boy! That’ll stick to your ribs!’ There were three eggs on the plate, the bacon was crisp and streaky, he had forgotten that food could taste so good.
As he balanced the tray on his knees, he sensed an unusual festivity in her manner. And soon she gave him one of her profound nods.
‘I’ve news for you today, young man – if you can stand it.’
‘News, Aunt Polly?’
‘A little excitement to cheer you up – after your dull month with Ned and me.’ She smiled dryly at the quick protest in his warm brown eyes. ‘ Can’t you guess what it is?’
He studied her with the deep affection which her unceasing kindness had awakened in him. The homely angular face – poor-complexioned, the long upper lip downed with hair, a tufted blemish at the angle of the cheek – was now familiar and beautiful.
‘I can’t think, Aunt Polly.’
She was moved to her short rare laugh, a little snort of satisfaction at her success in provoking his curiosity.
‘What’s happened to your wits, boy? I believe too much sleep has addled them.’
He smiled happily in sympathy. It was true that the routine of his convalescence had hitherto been tranquil. Encouraged by Polly, who had feared for his lungs – she had a dread of ‘consumption’ which ‘ran’ in her family – he had usually lain abed until ten. Dressed, he accompanied her on her shopping, a stately progress through the main streets of Tynecastle which, since Ned ate largely and nothing but the best, demanded great prodding of poultry and sniffing of steak. These excursions were revealing. He could see that it pleased Aunt Polly to be ‘known’, deferred to, in the best stores. She would wait, aloof and prim, until her favourite shopman was free to serve her. Above all, she was ladylike. That word was her touchstone, the criterion of her actions, even of her
dresses made by the local milliner in such dreadful taste they sometimes evoked a covert snigger from the vulgar. In the street she had a graduated series of bows. To be recognized, greeted by some local personage – the surveyor, the sanitary inspector or the chief constable – afforded her a joy which, though sternly concealed, was very great. Erect, the bird in her hat atwitter, she would murmur to Francis: ‘That was Mr Austin, the tramway manager … a friend of your uncle’s … a fine man.’ The height of her gratification was reached when Father Gerald Fitzgerald, the handsome portly priest of St Dominic’s, gave her in passing his gracious and slightly condescending smile. Every forenoon they would stop in at the church and, kneeling, Francis would be conscious of Polly’s intent profile, the lips moving silently, above her rough chapped reverent hands. Afterwards she bought him something for himself, a stout pair of shoes, a book, a bag of aniseed drops. When he protested, often with tears in his eyes, as she opened her worn purse, she would simply press his arm and shake her head. ‘Your uncle won’t take “no”.’ She was touchingly proud of her relationship with Ned, her association with the Union Tavern.
The Union stood near the docks at the corner of Canal and Dyke Streets, with an excellent view of the adjacent tenements, of coal barges, and the terminus of the new horse tramway. The brown painted stucco building was of two stories, and the Bannons lived above the tavern. Every morning, at half-past seven Maggie Magoon, the scrubwoman, opened the saloon and began, talking to herself, to clean it. At eight precisely Ned Bannon came down, in his braces, but closely shaved, with his forelock oiled, and strewed the floor with fresh sawdust from the box behind the bar. It was unnecessary: a kind of ritual. Next, he inspected the morning, took in the milk and crossed the back yard to feed his whippets. He kept thirteen – to prove he was not superstitious.
Soon the first of the regulars began to drop in, Scanty Magoon always in the van, hobbling on his leather padded stumps to his favourite corner, followed by a few dockers, a tram driver or two, returning from the night shift. These workmen did not stop: only long enough to down their half of spirits and chase it with a glass, a schooner, or a pint of beer. But Scanty was a permanent, a kind of faithful watchdog, gazing propitiatingly at Ned as he stood bland, unconscious, behind the bar with its sombre woodwork and the framed notice: GENTLEMEN BEHAVE OTHERS MUST.
Ned, at fifty, was a big thick figure of a man. His face was full and yellowish, with prominent eyes, very solemn in repose, matching his dark clothes. He was neither genial nor flashy, the qualities popularly attributed to a publican. He had a kind of solemn, bilious dignity. He was proud of his reputation, his establishment. His parents had been driven out of Ireland by the potato famine, he had known poverty and starvation as a boy, but he had succeeded against inconceivable odds. He had a ‘free’ house, stood well with the licensing authorities and the brewers, had many influential friends. He said, in effect, The drink trade is respectable and I prove it. He set his face against young men drinking and refused rudely to serve any woman under forty: there was no Family Department in the Union Tavern. He hated disorder, at the first sound of it he would rap crossly with an old shoe – maintained handy for that purpose – on the bar, and keep rapping till the discord ceased. Though a heavy drinker himself he was never seen the worse for it. Perhaps his grin was loose, his eye inclined to wander on those rare evenings which he deemed ‘an occasion’, such as St Patrick’s night, Halloween, Hogmanay, or after a day’s dog racing when one of his whippets had added another medal to the galaxy on the heavy watch-chain that spanned his stomach. At any rate, on the following day he would wear a sheepish air and send Scanty up for Father Clancy, the curate at St Dominic’s. When he had made his confession he rose heavily, dusting his knees, from the boards of the back room and pressed a sovereign for the poor-box into the young priest’s hand. He had a healthy respect for the clergy. For Father Fitzgerald, the parish priest, he had, indeed, considerable awe.
Ned was reputed ‘comfortable’, he ate well, gave freely and, distrusting stocks and shares, had money invested in ‘bricks and mortar’. Since Polly had a competence of her own, inherited from Michael, the dead brother, he had no anxiety on her account.
Though slow to form an affection, Ned was, in his own cautious word, ‘ taken’ with Francis. He liked the boy’s unobtrusiveness, the sparseness of his speech, the quiet way he held himself, his silent gratitude. The sombreness of the young face, caught unguarded, in repose, made him frown dumbly, and scratch his head.
In the afternoon Francis would sit with him in the half-empty bar, drowsy with food, the sunlight slanting church-wise through the musty air, listening with Scanty to Ned’s genial talk. Scanty Magoon, husband and encumbrance of the worthy witless Maggie, was so named because there was not enough of him, only in fact a torso. He had lost his legs from gangrene caused by some obscure disorder of the circulation. Capitalizing on his complaint, he had promptly ‘sold himself to the doctors’, signing a document which would deliver his body to the dissecting slab on his demise. Once the purchase price was drunk, a sinister aura settled on the bleary, loquacious, wily, unfortunate old scamp. An object now of popular awe, in his cups he indignantly declared himself defrauded. ‘I never got enough for myself. Them bloody scalpers! But they’ll never get hold of me poor old Adam! God damn the fear! I’ll enlist for a sailor and drown myself.’
Occasionally Ned would let Francis draw a beer for Scanty, partly for charity, partly to give the boy the thrill of the ‘engine’. As the ivory-handled pull came back, filling the mug – Scanty prompting anxiously, ‘Get a head on her, boy!’ – the foamy brew smelled so nutty and good Francis wanted to taste it. Ned nodded permission, then smiled in slow delight at the wryness of his nephew’s face. ‘It’s a acquired taste,’ he gravely asserted. He had a number of such clichés, from ‘Women and beer don’t mix’, to ‘A man’s best friend is his own pound note’, which, through frequency and profundity of utterance, had been hallowed into epigrams.
Ned’s gravest, most tender affection was reserved for Nora, daughter of Michael Bannon. He was devoted to his niece who when three had lost her brother from tuberculosis, and her father through that same murderous malady, so fatal to the Celtic race, two years later. Ned had brought her up, sent her off at the age of thirteen to St Elizabeth’s, the best convent boarding school in Northumberland. It was a genuine pleasure for him to pay the heavy fees. He watched her progress with a fond indulgent eye. When she came home for the holidays he was a new man: spryer, never seen in braces, ponderously devising excursions and amusements and, lest anything should offend her, much stricter in the bar.
‘Well –’ Aunt Polly was gazing half-reproachfully across the breakfast tray at Francis. ‘I see I’ll have to tell you what it’s all about. In the first place your uncle’s decided to give a party tonight to celebrate Halloween … and’ – momentarily she dropped her eyes – ‘for another reason. We’ll have a goose, a four-pound black bun, raisins for the snapdragon, and of course the apples – your uncle gets special ones at Lang’s market garden in Gosforth. Maybe you’ll go over for them this afternoon. It’s a nice walk.’
‘Certainly, Aunt Polly. Only, I’m not quite sure of where it is.’
‘Someone’ll show you the way.’ Polly composedly produced her main surprise. ‘Someone who’s coming home from her school to spend a long week-end with us.’
‘Nora!’ he exclaimed abruptly.
‘The same.’ She nodded, took up his tray and rose. ‘Your uncle’s pleased as punch she’s got leave. Hurry up and dress now, like a good boy. We’re all going to the station to meet the little monkey at eleven.’
When she had gone Francis lay staring in front of him with a queer perplexity. This unexpected announcement of Nora’s arrival had taken him aback, and strangely thrilled him. He had always liked her, of course. But now he faced the prospect of meeting her again with an odd new feeling, between diffidence and eagerness. To his surprise and confusion he suddenly found himself
reddening to the roots of his hair. He jumped up hurriedly and began to pull on his clothes.
Francis and Nora started off, at two o’clock, on their excursion, taking the tram across the city to the suburb of Clermont, then walking across country towards Gosforth, each with a hand on the big wicker basket, swinging it between them.
It was four years since Francis had seen Nora and, stupidly tongue-tied all through lunch, when Ned had surpassed himself in massive playfulness, he was still painfully shy of her. He remembered her as a child. Now she was nearly fifteen and, in her modestly long navy-blue skirt and bodice, she seemed quite grown-up, more elusive and unreadable than ever before. She had small hands and feet and a small, alert provoking face, which could be brave or suddenly timid. Though she was tall and awkward from her growth her bones were fine and slender. Her eyes were teasing, darkly blue against her pale skin. The cold made them sparkle, made her little nostrils pink.
Occasionally, across the basket handle, his fingers touched Nora’s. The sensation was remarkable: sweet and warmly confusing. Her hands were the nicest things to touch that he had ever known. He could not speak, did not dare look at her, though from time to time he felt her looking at him and smiling. Though the golden blaze of the autumn was past, the woods still glowed with bright red embers. To Francis the colours of the trees, of the fields and sky, had never appeared more vivid. They were like a singing in his ears.
Suddenly she laughed outright and, tossing back her hair, began to run. Attached to her by the basket he raced like the wind alongside until she drew up, gasping, her eyes sparkling like frost on a sunny morning.
‘Don’t mind me, Francis. I get wild sometimes. I can’t help it. It’s being out of school, perhaps.’
‘Don’t you like it there?’
‘I do and I don’t. It’s funny and strict. Could you believe it?’ She laughed, with a little rush of disconcerting innocence. ‘They make us wear our nightgowns when we take a bath! Tell me, did you ever think of me all the time you were away?’