Mr Lord was staring past her to Corny, and Corny, with a face that could not be straighter, was returning the old man’s scrutiny. And Mr Lord, without looking at Mary Ann, said, ‘Get in.’
Mary Ann did not obey Mr Lord. She didn’t like the tone of his voice. She knew what it portended: a lecture. She also knew that Mr Lord didn’t like Corny, and instinct told her that she could disobey Mr Lord without losing him, but should she reject Corny at this moment he would be gone from her forever.
‘I’m going to bus it home,’ she said.
Mr Lord’s eyes seemed to take a high jump from Corny to land on her, and his beetling brows drew together until they formed a bushy line across his wrinkled forehead. ‘You heard what I said.’ His voice was very quiet now.
‘Get in, Mary Ann.’ It was Tony speaking; his request was calm, with no implied insult to her companion threading it, and in the moment that she hesitated before also rejecting Tony’s command Corny spoke with his voice and his hand. Pushing her roughly in the back, he cried, ‘Go on, get in when they tell you.’ And then, lowering his head down to the window and Mr Lord’s face, he stared at the old man for a moment before declaring with deep, painful emphasis, ‘Aa’m as good as you lot any day. Aye, Aa am. Aa’ll show you. By God, Aa will that.’
Mary Ann shivered. Deep within her she shivered. The shiver spread to every vein of her body. She closed her eyes against it. She could have understood Corny swearing, but to take our Lord’s name in vain like that, that was dreadful. It would have been dreadful if Mr Lord hadn’t heard it, but Corny had almost spat it in his face. Slowly she opened the car door, got in, and sat down. She could not bear to look at Corny; she could not bear to look at anybody; she hung her head, and when the car jerked away there was only the sound of the engine. When the silence held all the way to the farm Mary Ann realised that the situation was serious and that there would be a dust-up when she reached the house.
Mary Ann’s surmise was right. Mr Lord ordered Tony to take the main road and not turn up the hill. When Tony stopped the car outside the farmhouse Mr Lord, getting out and ignoring Mary Ann completely, strode through the gate and up the path to the house.
Tony, turning now and leaning over the back of his seat, opened the door for Mary Ann, and as she went to get out, her head still bowed, he stopped her with his hand and, lifting her face upwards, he said softly, ‘Do you like Corny?’
Near to tears and with drooping lids, she said, in an indifferent tone, ‘He’s all right.’
‘I like him.’
Her lids came up and she stared at him as he asked, ‘Where does he work?’
‘He doesn’t work, he’s still at school.’ She saw that this surprised Tony.
‘He’s a big fella to be still at school.’
She nodded dismally. ‘That’s why he’s growing out of his clothes. There’s a lot of them and his mother can’t buy him things. He has jeans, but they look worse.’
Tony nodded without speaking for a moment, then asked, ‘Where do they live? In Burton Street?’
‘No, he only came there to see Mrs McBride; he lives across the water in Howdon, but I don’t know where.’
Tony nodded again. Then, leaning farther towards her, he asked quietly, ‘What were you talking about when we came up?’
Mary Ann blinked as she tried to remember what Corny and she had been saying before Mr Lord barked her name, and she couldn’t remember; she could only recall, and faintly now, the weird sensation about the mist, and she said to Tony, ‘We weren’t talking, at least I don’t think we were. Why d’you want to know?’
‘Oh, no reason.’ Tony couldn’t say that the look that the big gangling boy and the diminutive Mary Ann had been exchanging as they stood stock still on the pavement in the middle of a busy thoroughfare had even astonished him, so the effect on his grandfather must have been electric. He patted Mary Ann’s head now, saying, ‘Go on, face it. There’ll be high jinks, but stick to your guns and no matter what he says you pick your own friends.’ He emphasised this with two taps on her head as he added, ‘I’m with you.’
She smiled at him sweetly now. Tony was nice; she liked Tony, oh, she did. Nearer tears than ever, she climbed out of the car and made her way to the kitchen and the battle.
‘Look, Mike’—Lizzie’s face was as stiff as her voice—‘she cannot bring that boy to her party.’
‘Now, Liz, you look here.’ Mike’s tone was cool, it even suggested indifference to the seriousness of the situation. ‘I don’t care what the old boy said or what he didn’t say, she asked him and he’s comin’—that’s if he wants to. But very likely after this morning’s business he’ll think twice about it.’
Lizzie pressed her lips together and moved her head slowly before saying, ‘It’s all very well you taking this “don’t forget your class” stand, but who will have to bear the brunt of it? He expects you to put your foot down.’ Lizzie laid emphasis on the ‘you’.
‘Well, let him tell me that, Liz, and I’ll give him his answer.’
Lizzie stared at him. She couldn’t make him out. Oh, she was fed up, tired and weary, sick to the heart, and she asked herself why she was worrying about the outcome of Mary Ann’s invitation to this lad. If Mike got it in the neck, then serve him right. Yes, serve him right. He was asking for it. He was asking for more than that. On any other occasion he would have been up in the air about the old man leading off over things that didn’t concern him, over one person who didn’t concern him. On other occasions he would have been shouting about his right of ownership. But since he had come in, from wherever he had been, he had looked so pleased with himself that nothing could upset him.
‘Come here.’ She felt herself swung round by his one big hand, but she would not look at him, and when he said softly, ‘Don’t you want to hear what I’ve got to say?’ she answered tartly, ‘All I want to hear is you telling her that she can’t have that boy to her party.’ The hand lifted from her shoulder and as it did so she chided herself, saying, ‘Oh, you fool.’ And when he turned from her, his voice no longer pleasant, he said, ‘Well, you’ll have to wait a long time afore you’ll hear me tell her that, Liz, so there you have it. And don’t keep on, because it won’t be any use.’
When the door closed on him Lizzie turned towards her daughter who had been sitting unusually quiet in the big, high-backed chair, and she cried at her, ‘You’re the cause of all this.’
‘Oh, Ma.’ It was so small as to be almost a whimper.
‘The trouble you start. You never have any sense. Mr Lord is right. Your three years at the convent might never have been; you’ve no idea of the fitness of things, and you nearly thirteen. And if you haven’t sense now you never will have.’
Lizzie turned from the round, bright eyes, and, placing her hands on the table, she bent forward and took a number of deep breaths, and when in the next moment she felt Mary Ann’s hands on her arm she shrugged them off, saying, ‘Don’t come near me.’
‘I’ll tell him, Ma. I…I’ll tell him.’
Mary Ann’s voice was breaking, but Lizzie took no notice of it, and without looking at her she said, ‘The trouble’s caused now; get yourself away from me.’
Mary Ann got away, she got away at a run, her hand tightly pressed over her mouth. She ran down the path into the road, hesitated for a moment and turned into the empty farmyard, her blurred vision searching wildly for some place quiet. Her eyes picked out the great barn with the steps leading to the loft. She had never been in the loft since the day she nearly fell through the trapdoor into the combine harvester and her da had got hurt, so hurt. The hook on the end of his hand showed to what extent. But now at a run she made for the stairs. The door at the top was closed, indicating that no-one was inside, and when she entered the dim loft and was enveloped in the sweet, dry smell of hay she gave vent to her pent-up crying. Stumbling to the farthest corner, she flung herself down on some straw behind a bale of hay and cried unrestrainedly into her arms.
She cried until she could cry no more, and then for a long time she lay shuddering at intervals.
All afternoon she lay enveloped in the dim light and the quietness. Up here the familiar farm sounds seemed a long distance away; cushioned by the bales of hay, all sound was muted. After a while she sat up, and with her back against a bale began slowly to plait some long straws. After she had made a number of plaits she then plaited them together and by the time she had finished the thick braids her fingers were moving very slowly. When as from far off she heard Len calling his particular call that brought in the cows she knew it was teatime. But this knowledge did not arouse her hunger; she only wanted a drink.
Some time after this the light in the barn, she noticed, began to change and she thought she had better get out before it got too dark. But she didn’t move; it was as if she was drugged with a mixture of the subdued light, warmth and the sweet smell that pervaded the barn. Coupled to this the feeling of exhaustion brought about by her long, violent weeping produced a form of inertia, and when she knew she was falling asleep she did nothing to try to prevent it because, as she knew, when you were asleep you didn’t think about things …
Some hours later Mary Ann slowly awoke from a long, deep, refreshing sleep to the sound of her mother’s voice. For a moment she thought that her mother was speaking from the landing until the light flashed onto the great beams above her head, and as she dimly realised she was still in the loft she heard Lizzie’s voice saying, ‘It’s no use looking along there, she would never come up here. She’s never been near the place for years.’ She did not say ‘Since you lost your hand’.
As she lifted herself dazedly up onto her elbow she heard her da’s heavy footsteps ringing on the boards. The light from his lantern swung over the bale and would have missed her had she not pulled herself to her feet and said dreamily, ‘Da, is that you, Da?’
The next minute they were both standing in front of her, not saying a word. She blinked at them, her eyes full of sleep. She saw her ma take the lantern, then her da, stooping, hoisted her up to him with his one arm and she laid her head against his neck. And still nobody spoke.
Mike carried her down the ladder, across the yard and into the house, and even when Michael came running after them, his mouth open to ask where and when, and how, he was silenced by some sign from Lizzie.
Mike went on into the house, straight up the stairs and into her bedroom, and when he had lowered Mary Ann onto the side of the bed he stroked her head for a moment before turning away and leaving her alone with her mother. And still he hadn’t spoken.
Mary Ann, coming more awake now, looked at her mother, and Lizzie, her face white and her lips trembling, put out her arms and drew her into a tight, relieved embrace, whispering as she did so, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, my dear, I’m sorry.’
At this moment Mary Ann had to recall what her ma had to be sorry for, and as she remembered she said hastily, ‘It’s all right, Ma; it’s all right.’ And then, ‘Don’t cry, Ma…oh, don’t cry.’
When Lizzie stopped crying and released Mary Ann she helped her to undress and seemed reluctant to leave her. As she was tucking her up in bed she said, ‘Do you want a drink?’
‘Please, Ma; I’m very thirsty. What time is it?’
‘About half past ten.’
‘Half past ten? Oh, I slept up there a long time. Did…did you think I was lost?’
It was some time before Lizzie answered, ‘Yes…yes, we thought you were lost.’
‘I didn’t do it on purpose, Ma.’
‘No, I know you didn’t, my dear. Don’t worry. I’ll get you a drink. There now, lie down.’
Mary Ann was now wide awake, and, getting more so every moment, she waited for her mother’s return. Without doing much thinking about it she knew that her ma and her were…kind again…very kind again; but she also realised that the same feeling was not in existence between her parents. It wasn’t because her da hadn’t spoken; she knew that was the result of him being upset because he couldn’t find her, and it wasn’t an angry silence. Mike, she sensed, was amenable and would make it up any time, but it was her ma who was still holding out. Mary Ann felt that she knew the reason, and as she lay looking towards the door she sensed there would never be an opportunity like the present to talk to her ma. Tomorrow her ma might still be nice to her, but tonight would be in the past, and the feelings that were high now, tomorrow they, too, would be in the past, and should she attempt to mention Mrs Quinton’s name her ma would shut her up. But tonight she held an advantage. Lizzie would not go for her tonight.
So when her mother came into the room with the drink and placed it on top of the bookcase by the head of the bed she hitched herself up into a sitting position and whispered, ‘Ma, can I talk to you?’
This was the second time in one day that she had said that.
Lizzie, her back stooped, turned her face towards her daughter and said, ‘It’s late. And don’t you want to go to sleep?’
‘No, Ma, I’m not tired now. Sit down, Ma.’ She pulled at Lizzie’s skirt, and Lizzie sat down and Mary Ann, taking her hand and looking into her face, said, ‘I want to tell you something, Ma, and I want you to promise on the Sacred Heart’—she drew the diagram of the Sacred Heart on her breast—‘not to open your mouth for…well, five minutes. Will you promise?’
Lizzie lowered her eyes, gave a little sigh, made the sign of the Sacred Heart on her breast and said softly, ‘I promise. Go on.’
Mary Ann, too, gave a little sigh and then started quietly, but rapidly with, ‘Well, Ma, it was like this. You know the Saturday I went to Beatrice’s party? Well, when it was nearly over we played a game of hide-and-seek and I remembered that there were some fine big cupboards in the kitchen and when I was waiting to be found Mrs Willoughby and Mrs—Mrs Quinton came into the kitchen and they began to talk.’ Mary Ann’s voice became slower and steadier and she tried to remember faithfully the conversation that she heard between the two women. If she embellished it here and there it only eased Lizzie’s mind the more and made Mrs Quinton out to be, as had already been stated, a nice woman. And she finished up, looking now at her mother’s bowed head, ‘And she’s in love with him, Ma.’ It was about the first time Mary Ann had used that term; she had always substituted the word ‘like’ for the word ‘love’. ‘Love’ had always seemed a word belonging to the conversation of grown-ups and had a slight indecency about it, but now she said quite firmly, ‘She loves him, Ma, very much, and she’s lonely. And she looked lonely that time we went into Durrant’s and saw her. And you see, Ma, she thinks it’s you that…that…’ Mary Ann could not go on and say ‘that you are the cause of her trouble’. And there was no need now, for Lizzie’s hands were gripping her tightly and she saw that her ma was crying again, but it was a different kind of crying from what she had done at the kitchen table.
When Lizzie lifted her eyes to her daughter she stared at her for a moment through her blurred vision before suddenly pulling her for the second time that evening to her breast and hugging her tightly. Then she rose from the bed and, pressing Mary Ann gently back onto the pillow, she said softly, ‘Go to sleep now.’
‘Ma.’
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘You’ll be all right with me da?’
Lizzie tucked the clothes round her shoulders, she straightened the covers and she stroked the tuft of hair back from Mary Ann’s forehead before she said, ‘Don’t worry any more; everything will be all right now. God bless.’ Her lips stayed longer than usual on Mary Ann’s cheek and then she was gone. The door was closed, the light was out, and Mary Ann, breathing deeply, followed this by letting out a great quantity of air from her lungs before turning her head into the pillow. She was sleepy again. Everything was all right, everything—she had forgotten for the moment about Corny, Mr Lord, the looming court case with the Johnsons and the minor trouble, but still irritating one, of their Michael and Sarah Flannagan.
Chapter Nine: Getting Kind
On Sunda
y Mary Ann found that, contrary to what she had expected, her mother was still in the same mood in which she had been in the emotion-filled hours of the previous night—she was nice. Not that her mother was ever anything else, but her manner this morning held a special kind of niceness. Yet in spite of this she was quick to realise that things weren’t back on the old footing again between her parents. Her ma, she saw, was nice to her da but it was a polite niceness. Her manner left no room for chaff or that imperative sharpness which all mothers use to keep order both with husband and children and which is recognised merely as a façade. And it was because there were none of these elements present in Lizzie’s dealings with Mike and Michael and herself that Mary Ann knew that, although her mother wasn’t vexed any more, she still wasn’t kind with her da. Perhaps it was her da’s fault and he hadn’t given her the chance. Her da was like that; he’d go inside himself for days and you couldn’t get near him. And yet Mary Ann had to admit to herself that he seemed pleasant enough this morning, even happy, for hadn’t he walked with her to the bus when she was going to Mass and jollied her along with great lifts of his arm? And at the end of the road he had dusted her shoes with a hanky because she had got them messed up with the jumping. She would have said he was in very good fettle. And yet they weren’t kind.
Everybody was nice to her all day, and Tony came to tea. It was a smashing tea. Her mother had made eight different kinds of cakes. During tea Tony asked Michael if he would like a run out in the car, and Michael, brightening visibly answered, ‘Rather’, then caused a general laugh by adding, ‘You know he’s only asking me so’s he can get past the Johnsons under escort. Once he’s passed he drops me at the end of the road.’ Mary Ann kept her eyes on Tony, hoping he would include her in the invitation, and she felt slightly piqued when he didn’t. He never took her out in the car, he never took her anywhere, not like he did their Michael. But later she had at least evidence that Tony thought of her and her concerns, for after he had talked quietly to her mother in the kitchen, so quietly that she couldn’t hear a word, he went up to the house and returned some time later with a great parcel. And when her mother unrolled the paper and displayed to her eyes a conglomeration of clothes she asked quickly, and in surprise, ‘Who’s them for?’
Love and Mary Ann Page 12