Hannah Massey

by Catherine Cookson

  Hannah, with all the power of her big body concentrated in her right hand, had grabbed the thing nearest to her, a heavy glass fruit dish, and she had flung it like a disc, and it had held most of its contents until it reached its object.

  Rosie was the first one to reach Hughie. He hadn’t fallen but had staggered back against the door. Then her father and Arthur were on either side of him. ‘Are you all right, lad?’ shouted Broderick above the screaming voice of Hannah and the cries of Jimmy, Shane and Barny, as they restrained her from sending the other articles on the table in the same direction as the glass dish.

  Hughie looked dazed. Slowly he flicked a peach from off the lapel of his coat; then pushing his hand out in an assuring gesture towards Broderick, he nodded before going into the kitchen.

  ‘Are you fit enough to go?’ Broderick closed the kitchen door behind him as he asked the question.

  And Hughie said, ‘Yes, I’m all right.’

  ‘Go with him, Arthur,’ said Broderick.

  Arthur did not speak and Hughie said, ‘No. No, thanks, Arthur. I’m all right. I’d rather be on my own. It’s nothing.’

  ‘You’re bleeding behind the ear, Hughie.’ Rosie’s voice was full of sympathy.

  ‘Am I?’ He still seemed dazed, and when he put his fingers to his neck, then looked at the blood on them, he said, ‘Oh, it isn’t much.’

  She took a tea towel and wiped the syrup from his jacket, then she held his top coat and he got into it, and as he buttoned it slowly he said, ‘Thanks, Rosie, thanks.’ And looking at Broderick, he added, ‘I’m sorry, Broderick. I shouldn’t have done it like this. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m sorry too, lad, but it’s done. An’ you wouldn’t have been human not to have hit back. I understand, I understand. But go now, if you’re able to.’

  Hughie lowered his head, then pulled on his cap and, turning about, went out of the back door.

  When he was gone Broderick looked from Arthur to Rosie and said, ‘Who’d have believed it? God Almighty, who’d have believed it? Him Karen’s father, an’ I never knew! All these years livin’ with her and I never knew.’ He shook his head.

  He looked at Rosie now. ‘Your mother’s a strange woman, lass, a strange woman. She’s got power in her that’s too big for her body.’ Still shaking his head, he turned from her and went towards the room door, and as he opened it the sound of her mother’s crying came to Rosie.

  Arthur, standing near her, waited until his father had closed the door, then turning to her, he said under his breath, ‘This has been an eye-opener for all of us, I’d say. But it’s learnt me one thing; she’s not going to keep me fastened the same way she did him. You don’t blame me, do you?’

  Rosie didn’t answer his question but whispered back, her voice shaking, ‘I think you’d better go after him, he looked dazed. He might collapse in the street, and there’ll be few people about tonight.’

  Arthur shook his head. ‘He won’t take it that way, not kindly, he’ll think I’m sucking up, an’ I don’t want any of his bloody money. Not that I don’t think he’s a mean swine to go off like that. He could have given us all a night at the club to show there was no ill feeling, that wouldn’t have hurt him. No, I’m not goin’ after him.’ On this, he too went into the living room, leaving Rosie alone in the kitchen. For a moment or two she stood nipping rapidly at the ends of her fingers, then she pulled her coat off the peg and got quickly into it, and wrapping one of the men’s mufflers round her head, she opened the back door quietly and ran, slithering, down the garden path and into the back lane, then along its length and round the corner and into the street. The knowledge that Hughie would likely make for the shop took her in that direction, and she came upon him walking like someone slightly drunk as he crossed the road towards the school.

  Gasping for breath from running and the cold snow-filled air, she caught at his arm, saying, ‘Hughie, Hughie, are you all right?’

  He stopped for a moment in the middle of the road. Then as the headlights of a car approached he moved forward to the opposite pavement, and there he stopped again, peering at her through the dim light. ‘You shouldn’t have come out a night like this,’ he said. ‘Go on back, I’m all right.’

  ‘Your neck’s all blood.’

  ‘I’ll…I’ll soon see to that…there’ll only be trouble for you. I’ve caused enough the night.’

  ‘Are you going to the shop?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to Dennis’. Florence will see to you; you’re all shaken up.’

  ‘I’ll be all right when I get to the shop. Go on now…’ He went to push her away but his hand didn’t touch her, it groped at the air as he swayed; and she caught at his arm and steadied him, then said firmly, ‘Come on.’

  ‘No, no, Rosie.’ He still protested weakly, until she moved him forward. Then he became quiet and they spoke no more during the journey, except once as they were going up the hill towards the shop, when he said to her, ‘Can you stop a moment, Rosie? I’m out of breath.’

  When they reached the shop he gave her the key and she opened the door; in the back room he dropped down into a chair and, putting his head on his folded arms on the desk, muttered, ‘There’s some whisky in the cupboard beneath here, Rosie.’

  She had to move his legs before she could get at the bottle. She poured him out a good measure, but had to hold the cup while he drank it. Then he lit the oil stove and put the kettle on the gas ring; and when she turned to him again he was attempting to lift the seat of the chair.

  ‘The foot comes out and makes a sort of bed,’ he said; ‘I’d feel better if I could lie back.’

  ‘Let me do it.’ When she had fixed the chair and he was lying on it he smiled at her faintly and said, ‘That’s better. It’ll pass in a minute, I just feel dizzy.’

  As she stood looking down into his grey face she murmured, ‘She could have killed you.’

  ‘I’ll take a lot of killing.’ Again he smiled, but kept his eyes closed.

  When the water was hot she bathed his neck. The cut was just behind his ear and about half an inch long.

  ‘You should have a doctor, Hughie, it’s quite open.’

  ‘Just put a bit of sticking plaster on, there’s some in that drawer.’ He pointed.

  When she had done so, he said, ‘Thanks…thanks, Rosie, I’m all right now; you’d better get home. She’ll only go for you if she—’

  ‘I don’t care.’ She had her back to him now, speaking from the sink. ‘I don’t care what she says…I’m getting out as quick as possible. I’ll know tomorrow if I’m to have this job and then I’ll get myself a room. I couldn’t stay there, not after tonight I couldn’t.’

  ‘Rosie.’

  When she came to his side, he had his eyes closed again, but his face was turned up to her as he said, ‘I can think what I like and say what I like about her because she’s not my mother, but she’s yours and she’s been good to you; she…she thinks the sun shines out of you.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ She turned quickly about and walked the short distance to the oil stove and back before she continued, ‘That’s what nearly drives me mad. She steals from the others…because that’s what it amounts to, and then gives it to me with both hands. It frightens me. It always has, but more so since I came back this time. I’ve got to get away from her. I was in a hole…I was near my wits’ end or I wouldn’t have come back this time, but now I know I must get away and stay away.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I know, you’ve got to get away or she’ll eat you alive. People like her can. All their emotions have power, their hate equally as much as their love. Were you…were you shocked at what you learned the night, Rosie?’

  ‘Shocked?’ She gave a ‘Huh!’ of a laugh, as she looked down at him. ‘Shocked at that? No, Hughie. Surprised, yes, because she’s not like you; Karen, I mean, not any part of her. We’ve never got on as you know, and if there’d been anything of you in her we would have.’ She smiled weakly
at him; then bit on her lip before she ended, ‘She must have put you through the mill all these years…me mother.’

  ‘It was my own fault entirely. I should have up and gone. When I got older I mean, but in the beginning she scared me to death, she seemed to melt the spine in me. I suppose before I die I’ll forgive her many things, all, I think, with the exception of one.’ He opened his eyes with an effort and said, ‘She made me afraid of women, Rosie.’

  ‘Aw, Hughie.’ She was gazing down at him with pity and compassion in her face and her voice fell on him softly as she said, ‘There’s plenty of time. What are you, thirty-five? You’ll meet some nice woman, and she’ll be lucky, very lucky. I could tell her that. Because you know’—she shook her head at him—‘you’re quite attractive. Oh, you don’t need looks to be attractive, you’ve got something in your make-up. And then…then you’re kind, Hughie, besides.’

  He opened his eyes wide now as he stared into her face, then his lids drooping once more, he said, ‘You’re a great comfort, Rosie.’ He remained quiet after this for a few minutes, and when he next spoke his voice was a faint whisper. ‘Rosie,’ he said, ‘I feel I’m going to pass out,’ and before she could touch him he had fainted.

  Two hours later Hughie was comfortably at rest on the studio couch in Dennis’ sitting room. The doctor had been and proclaimed that he had slight concussion, nothing serious, nothing that a couple of days’ rest wouldn’t cure. He had given him some tablets that made him drowsy, so he did not notice Rosie’s departure.

  She stood in the little cramped kitchen of the flat, opposite to Florence and Dennis. They were waiting for the sound of the taxi, and looking at his watch, Dennis said, ‘He’s late, but he’ll come. If he got here once he’ll come again.’ He smiled at Rosie. ‘It’s a good job you made the arrangements without asking him’—and he nodded towards the main room—‘else he would have slept there all night and you never know what the result might have been.’

  ‘He scared me. I thought he was dead…I thought all kinds of things.’

  ‘It isn’t her fault that he isn’t dead, is it? By!’—Dennis moved his head from shoulder to shoulder—‘that woman will do something one of these days that’ll put paid to her. I know it, I’ve always felt it.’

  ‘What will you say when you get back, Rosie?’ Florence spoke in a clear, precise way.

  ‘If she asks I’ll tell her.’

  ‘You can be sure she’ll ask all right.’

  ‘Yes, she’ll ask all right.’

  ‘Do you want me to come back with you?’ Dennis was bending towards her, but Rosie shook her head. ‘No. After tonight I’ll tell her what I think…I mean if she goes too far. But I want to get away without any trouble.’

  ‘I wish we had another room,’ said Florence.

  ‘Thanks, Florence, but…well, you know what would happen if I were to come here.’

  ‘We won’t go into it,’ said Dennis, pursing his mouth and looking down at his lips. ‘We just won’t go into that.’

  ‘There’s the car now,’ said Florence. And as she opened the door she turned to Rosie and added, ‘Come over tomorrow, you’ll want to see how Hughie is anyway.’

  ‘I’ll try, but if I don’t come you’ll understand.’

  ‘Goodbye, Rosie.’

  ‘Goodbye, Florence.’

  Before Dennis closed the taxi door on her he said under his breath, ‘I would have given a month’s pay to have heard Hughie drop his bombshell.’

  ‘It was worth hearing.’

  ‘I bet it was. Goodbye, Rosie. Keep your pecker up.’

  But the taxi hadn’t been moving for a matter of seconds before she thought, ‘It’s unnatural, we’re both glorying in her humiliation. In Dennis’ case it’s understandable, but not in mine. I was glad to have her to come home to last Friday. Yet I can’t help feeling against her, I can’t.’

  She got out of the taxi at the top end of the street and went down the back lane and up the garden and let herself quietly into the kitchen, but quiet as she was Broderick came hurrying out of the living room before she had her coat off. ‘Where’ve you been?’ he said.

  ‘I went after Hughie. And it’s as well I did, he passed out. He had to have a doctor, he’s got concussion.’

  Her father moved nearer to her. ‘Bad?’ he asked anxiously.

  The self-condemnation that she had felt in the taxi had vanished on entering the house and the nearer proximity to her mother. She wished at the moment that the news of Hughie was such as would worry her mother—that is if she was capable of feeling remorse for anything she did—and she had the desire to pile it on, but she could not distress her father. ‘He just needs a few days’ rest, the doctor says. But it could have been serious. He had to stitch it.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘At Dennis’.’

  ‘Oh, dear God, that’ll cause more trouble.’ He turned his head towards the living room, adding in a low voice, ‘Your ma’s gone up to bed.’

  Rosie drew in a long breath. The words were like a reprieve, and her relief was not lost on Broderick. His voice muttering now, he said, ‘In the mornin’, when she’s more herself, she’ll want to talk. Be kind to her, gentle, for she’s suffered a bad blow this night. No matter how things look to you or anybody else she’s suffered a bad blow.’

  There were many replies that Rosie could have given to this, such as: She’s asked for it. She’s treated him like a dog for years. The blow she’s suffering from is the awful truth that the despised Hughie could have lifted her wholesale into number eight Brampton Hill. But she said none of these things for she did not want to hurt him.

  ‘Will I make you a hot drink?’ he said.

  ‘No, Da, thanks; I had something at Dennis’. I’ll go to bed now if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Away with you then, lass, and get a good night’s rest. The morrow, things’ll look different. It’s a new day, the morrow…Forget and forgive. And what you never had, you never miss. That’s what I say.’

  Her father’s philosophy held no comfort; he was just using platitudes that had been stuffed into his ears from birth, and which he selected to fit certain situations. He didn’t believe in anything he said, but he had to say something.

  Rosie went quietly up the stairs, but as she crossed the landing her eyes were drawn to her mother’s bedroom door. It was half open and Hannah’s voice came clearly to her. It was as if she was talking to herself, but Rosie knew that her mother never wasted words on herself. She was saying, ‘Them that aren’t with me are against me. You can cut your heart out and serve it on a plate and still some folks wouldn’t be satisfied.’ There were more words in the same vein but fainter now, and the reproaches followed her up to the attic. Even when she closed the door and she could no longer hear her mother’s voice, Hannah’s power weighed on her, seeming to press her shoulders forward, making her want to double her body up.

  There was no bottle in her bed tonight, nor the oil stove warming the room. As she stood shivering inside and out, she said to herself, ‘You’ve got to get away; you mustn’t wait till next week, for if she goes too far with you, you might even tell her the truth, and then what will happen? If she thinks what Hughie’s done is bad, then what you’ve done will bring her to murder.’

  Wednesday

  In the morning Rosie escaped from the house early, leaving Hannah surly and beetle-browed. Not a single word had passed between them. Hannah needed time to come round after the shock of last night, on top of which there was the open defection of her daughter.

  Rosie had no idea what she was going to do with herself until the afternoon when she would go for the interview at the factory, and it was more to occupy her time that she called at another agency in Newcastle and was given the name of a firm of wholesalers who had just phoned in, requesting a shorthand typist.

  Within half an hour she was in an office above a warehouse demonstrating her skill to a fatherly man who smelt of bacon and nutmeg. He seemed very pleased
with the letter that she had taken down from his dictation, and then he went on to explain why they needed someone in a hurry. It appeared that his secretary, whose name was Miss Pointer and whose age was forty-five, had run off with the storekeeper, a man with a wife and three grown-up daughters. ‘The older they are the dafter they get,’ he said to Rosie; and ended, ‘The silly old trout!’

  In spite of his bald description of his late secretary, Rosie felt she would like working for this man. What was more, she would be working on her own, with no-one to boss her except the boss. When he asked her how soon she could start and she replied, ‘Now if you like,’ he slapped her on the back, saying, ‘You’re a lass after me own heart. Get at it. There’s three days’ work piled up there.’ He pointed to the desk. ‘I gave her three days to find out her mistake, but apparently it’s not long enough, and the work can’t wait. Our business depends on letters.’

  ‘You’ll want my reference,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Aye, I suppose I will,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll give you the address of the London firm.’ As she wrote the address he laughed as he asked, ‘Will they give you a good one, do you think?’ and she laughed back at him as she replied, ‘I’ve no fear of that.’ And she hadn’t.

  So Rosie started her new job at eleven o’clock on Wednesday morning, and when she left at quarter past five in the evening her new boss, looking at the pile of letters ready for the post, nodded his head and said, ‘You’ll do.’

  She felt better, not happy or elated, just a little better. When she arrived home the tea was over and there was no place set for her. Her mother must have cleared away almost before the men were finished, and she imagined she could hear her saying, ‘Well, I’m the kind of woman who, if met halfway across the river will carry you over the other half on me shoulders.’

  Hannah, bustling about the living room, neither spoke nor looked at her, but kept her broad back turned towards her all the time.