A Grand Man (The Mary Ann Stories)

by Catherine Cookson

  Not only was Mike solid and sober but he had on a new suit, and to crown his well-set-up appearance he was wearing on his head not the usual cap but a trilby. Mary Ann’s gaze continually lifted from his face to the hat, and her heart was so swollen with pride that it was ready to burst from her body. Oh, he looked lovely in his new hat. Never, never in the world was there anybody who looked so wonderful as her da. Only one cloud touched him and the morning – Sarah Flannagan’s eyes had not beheld the glory of him. Before they had left the house she had watched Sarah depart for Mass, and she had failed to induce her da to walk round by the church on their journey to the country in the hope that they would encounter Sarah coming out.

  The thought of her enemy made Mary Ann once again put her hand tentatively towards the back of her head and feel the lump that even after a week had subsided very little. She touched it almost lovingly, for had she not received it in defence of her da?

  On the morning following the events of Coronation Day Sarah had cornered her round the bottom of the back lane between the store shed of Tullis’ outdoor beer shop and the Colyers’ backyard wall. There in the narrow alley she had pinned her against the wall, and in language not strictly of school standard had accused Mike of making her da drunk and making her ma nearly throw a fit, and keeping them all up half the night, and, what was more, causing her da to lose the first shift in years because his head was so bad he couldn’t raise it from the pillow.

  Mary Ann had stoutly denied these accusations, saying that her da was solid and sober as everybody in the street knew, and he had never been inside a bar or smelt beer. As for Mr Flannagan, he was a disgrace. Hadn’t she seen him with her very own eyes being dragged into the house by Mrs Flannagan? That was when her da was taking them all to see the bonfires. And hadn’t Mr Flannagan made a show of himself by fighting Mrs Flannagan because he wanted to go along with her da?

  That Sarah’s rage only led her to bang Mary Ann’s head repeatedly against the wall said something for her control. Whether she would have continued this restrained retaliation until she had accomplished Mary Ann’s entire insensibility cannot be known, for Mary Ann’s cries brought Mrs Colyer from her house, and Sarah reluctantly departed at a run.

  The attitude of her parents concerning this attack was not quite clear to Mary Ann; even her da gave her little sympathy, and her ma did not show the slightest sign of going to Mrs Flannagan and telling her off. There was, she felt, injustice somewhere; but to explain it, even to herself, was beyond her. Only one thing was sure in her mind concerning the affair, she had got this great bump on her head and nearly died in defence of her da.

  ‘That’s the farm,’ said Mike.

  ‘Oh.’

  Mary Ann looked over the yellow-green fields towards the flat-faced red-brick house and asked, ‘Will the cottage be that size?’

  ‘No. No, of course not,’ said Mike. ‘You know the size of cottages; they’re like the little houses at the Quay Corner, two or three rooms at the most. But there’s bound to be a good patch of garden.’

  ‘And how’ll I get to school?’

  ‘You’ll have to take the bus. But wait, I haven’t got it yet.’

  The altered tone of her father’s voice made her lift her eyes searchingly up to him. His smile had gone and there was a stiff straightness about his face that brought the shadow of anxiety back for a moment to dim the sun, and caused her to resort to praying rapidly that the job might be his.

  There was no-one in the farmyard except a sow with its stomach almost trailing the ground, and the sight of it brought Mary Ann from an anxious conversation with the Holy Family. She had never seen such a fat pig. She stared at it amazed, fascinated by the wobbling enormity of its flesh.

  Mike left her to her wonderment and went towards a brick cowshed standing stark in its newness from amongst the time-worn, rather tumbledown buildings of the yard.

  ‘Mr Campbell?’ He spoke to a man who was unscrewing a nozzle from a pipe, and the man turned his head and said peremptorily, ‘Yes, I’m Campbell. What is it?’

  The tone slightly nonplussed Mike. But he went forward, and in a carefully guarded voice, said, ‘I’ve come about the job; I was told you wanted a hand.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ Mr Campbell straightened his back, his eyes still directed towards the nozzle. ‘You’re too late, that’s been filled nearly a week.’

  The expression on Mike’s face did not change, but he stood staring down at the bowed head of this undersized little man and making a great effort to check a swift rush of temper. He hadn’t got the job. That was bad, but by now he was, in a way, inured to disappointment; it was the offhandedness of the man that angered him. He was still intent on the pipe; it was as if he were alone, that nothing existed for him but the nozzle of the artificial milker.

  Abruptly Mike turned and walked away, out of the cowshed, across the yard towards the road again, holding out his hand silently to Mary Ann as he went. His return was so quick and unexpected that she had to drag her thoughts back from the fascinating ugliness of the pig to take in exactly what this quick departure meant.

  She moved towards him and put her hand in his. And so swift was his stride that she had to run to keep abreast of him. She could see he was flaming mad – she used his own expression to describe his temper – and she was sensible enough not to anger him further by asking senseless questions.

  They had gone some way down the road when they were both halted by a shout. ‘Hi! Hi, there!’

  Mike turned slowly, paused a moment, then walked back towards the farmer. They stopped within a few yards of each other, and there was no prelude in the farmer’s speech. ‘Old Lord will be needing men; he’s bought Coffin’s farm . . . You know Lord’s place?’

  Mike nodded.

  ‘It was only sold yesterday. Coffin’s taking his men with him. There’ll be two empty cottages . . . I suppose you want a cottage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I would try there.’ Then as if to explain his previous disinterest he added before turning away, ‘I’m having trouble with the new machine. Not used to it yet.’

  He had almost reached his farm gate when Mike shouted, ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The man raised his hand in acknowledgment, and Mike and Mary Ann went on their way again.

  ‘Are we going to Mr Lord’s, Da?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What for not?’

  ‘Because it would be no use.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh.’ Mike moved his head impatiently.

  ‘If there’s a cottage, Da?’

  ‘You know who Mr Lord is, don’t you?’

  At the moment Mary Ann didn’t know; she had to delve back in her mind . . . Mr Lord? . . . Mr Lord? . . . ‘Oh yes.’ She smiled. ‘He’s the man with the big stone walls round his house, with the big trees inside. You can’t see the house. It’s up beyond the cemetery.’

  Mike nodded.

  ‘And he’s got a wood farther along with barbed wire round and you can’t get in.’

  Mike nodded again.

  But Mary Ann could see no reason why this should keep them from visiting Mr Lord. Her mind groped to understand all her da had left unsaid. Then suddenly she understood. Mr Lord was . . . the Lord. It was the nickname the men gave him in the yard, and her da had once worked in Lord’s yard. And he had left when he was having a lot of talk about his theories . . . Mr Lord and the Lord were the same person. Her spirits sank to a still lower ebb, and any hope of the cottage sank with them.

  They boarded a bus that took them into Hebburn and then on to Jarrow, and when they alighted at the Ben Lomond, Mike said, ‘You run off home, I won’t be long.’ And after one long look at him, Mary Ann turned silently away. The sun had gone, the day was dull, almost dark again.

  She walked through the empty streets. The shops were shut and there was no-one even sitting on a step, because it was Sunday. Everywhere looked bare and deserted and the atmosphere touched her low spirits and sent her off a
t a run to seek the security of the kitchen and the comfort of her mother. But her running ceased abruptly when she entered her street, for there she saw a small group gathered together on the pavement. There must, she surmised, have been a row. But not on a Sunday, surely. You could have rows up to quite late on a Saturday night, and they’d be quite in order, but it was shocking to have them on a Sunday. Smugly the thought came to her that it couldn’t be her family, anyway. No, but it was in Mulhattans’ Hall where the row was. She had evidence of this as she neared her home, and her surprise was almost stupefying as she mounted the stairs, for the shouting was coming right from the top of the house, and it was Mrs McBride who was doing it.

  She passed Miss Harper’s open door, and also the Quigleys’, and when she reached her own landing Mrs McBride was shouting at her mother, ‘Why didn’t you tell me, you could have tipped me the wink?’

  She stood in the doorway watching them. Mrs McBride was all dressed up in her Mass clothes, the tight black coat and the black felt hat she wore only on Sundays. Her mother was wearing the big apron she put round her when she was doing the dinner; she had the oven cloth in one hand and she kept pulling it through the other; but she didn’t answer Mrs McBride; and Fanny cried, ‘The whole place has known except me, and never a thing would I have heard yet but for something Mary Prout said at the church door. She was talking to May Brice. “Join the army and see the world,” she said, “and join the Salvation Army and see the other world. Wait till old Fan gets wind of it, Jack’ll wonder which cuddy’s kicked him.” It wasn’t long afore I had it out of her, and I nearly died when I heard. And let her take what she got, for I wouldn’t believe a word of it. Yet there’s no smoke without fire, and I came tearing home and tackled him, and he admitted it.’

  She became silent for a moment, and her gaze turned inwards. She was seeing the astonishment on her son’s face and feeling the tearing hurt of his words. ‘Yes, it’s Joyce Scallen. And I’m going to marry her. And just you try and stop me. And you make that rowdy tongue of yours go about it and I’ll do it right away, I won’t wait.’

  But her tongue was her only weapon, the only weapon she knew of, and she had lashed it at him, and not only at him but at the whole family of Scallens.

  Lizzie said gently, ‘It might turn out all right. Just give them a chance.’

  ‘A chance! A chance to do what, I ask you? Lead a hell of a life? What chance is there for happiness between a Hallelujah and a Catholic . . . because she won’t turn? Do you know what her old father said to me? “It must be the will of God,” he said. And he said that God was showing Jack the way and he’d be saved yet.’

  ‘You see,’ said Lizzie, ‘Mr Scallen’s taking it quietly. There’d be more chance with Jack if you could take it quietly an’ all; you’d best Mr Scallen at his own game then.’

  ‘So you think like me,’ cried Fanny, ‘he means something? Perhaps he’s known about it all along, although the old swine said he hadn’t.’ She flung her short arms wide apart and lifted her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Oh, what am I to do? Before you know it there’ll be our Jack leading the band and knocking bloody hell out of the big drum, and I’ll never be able to raise me head again on the whole Tyneside.’

  Try as she might Lizzie could not suppress a smile, but her concern for the old woman was genuine, so much so that she addressed her by her Christian name as she said, ‘Don’t worry, Fanny, he’ll not do anything silly; he’s a sensible lad, is Jack; only be patient with him.’

  ‘Patient!’ Fanny spoke quietly now. She looked suddenly deflated. ‘I’ve always been patient with him. Now if our Phil had done this I could have understood it. But not Jack. Not him.’ Shaking her head, she moved towards the door, saying, ‘This is what comes of missing Mass and neglecting his duties. It’s two years since he was at them.’ She paused near Mary Ann, and in a broken voice, said, ‘There’s worse things than drink, hinny. Remember that.’ She patted her on the head, then went slowly down the stairs.

  Mary Ann watched her. There was a lump the size of an egg in her throat – Mrs McBride was crying.

  Her mother was standing by the table waiting for her to speak, but she couldn’t for the moment, and Lizzie said, ‘He didn’t get it?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘At the Ben Lomond. He won’t be long.’

  Lizzie turned away and Mary Ann said, ‘The farmer was nice . . . He was sorry and he told me da about another job.’

  ‘Where?’ Lizzie turned about again.

  ‘At Mr Lord’s.’

  ‘Lord’s?’

  ‘Yes. Beyond the cemetery.’

  ‘The shipyard man?’

  ‘Yes. Me da said it was no use going.’

  ‘He was right.’

  Mary Ann watched her mother go into the scullery. She too looked deflated. There was no comfort or security even here; and the whole world must be sad when Mrs McBride was crying.

  Chapter Seven: The Last Straw

  Although during the following week Mike was never paralytic, his inability to reach this stage being, he himself confessed, merely owing to the weakness of the beer, he was at times well set. Yet he had made no oration in the street, and hadn’t sung until he reached the stairs. And although on this particular night he had to be alternately pulled and coaxed away from Miss Harper’s fast-closed door, where he insisted on serenading her, not untunefully, with ‘He was her man, but he did her wrong’, this had been the only incident of the week.

  But this incident, which had amused everyone in the house with the exception of Miss Harper and the Shaughnessys themselves, was the means of snapping the taut thread of Michael’s strained nerves. He had sat for the examination, and during the waiting period prior to the results being made known, he was up in the clouds and down in the depths ten times a day . . . yes, he would be telling Lizzie, he felt he had answered most of the questions correctly; or no, he was sure he hadn’t and had mugged everything.

  It was earlier in the evening of Mike’s serenading that Michael’s pal had dashed in to say his parents had received a letter saying he had passed for the Grammar School. The last post of the day had been to Mulhattans’ Hall and Michael had done his best to be pleased for his pal, but even his best was a poor effort, and Lizzie, keen disappointment filling her together with a heart torn with pity for her son, tried to reassure him that there was still tomorrow and that they wouldn’t send all the notices out together. Michael had made no response to this except to shrug her hand off his shoulder and go into the other room and close the door after him.

  It was eleven o’clock the same night, when Lizzie had to arouse Mary Ann from her bed to go down and coax Mike from Miss Harper’s door, that Michael had begun to cry. His crying at first had been the broken sobs of a child, but when his father staggered into the room his sobs turned to angry gasps and when Mike, still singing, flopped into a chair he sat up and screamed at him: ‘Shut up, you drunken pig, you! I hate you, you rotten drunken pig!’

  There followed a short surprised silence, which was suddenly broken by Michael crying again, ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ He thumped the bedclothes with his fist, and when Lizzie rushing to the bed tried to draw him to her he sprang up, thrusting her aside, and ran to where Mike, silent now, was surveying him. ‘I wish you were dead, do you hear?’ He pushed his face towards his father, who was now wearing a fuddled, surprised expression. ‘They wouldn’t let me pass because they knew about you . . . everybody knows about you. I wish you’d fall from the top of a mast and be smashed to bits.’

  ‘Michael!’ Lizzie dragged at him, but with the strength of his passion he again thrust her off, crying at her now, ‘Why don’t you go away and leave him? Why do you make us stay here? I won’t stay; I’ll go to me granny’s.’

  With the aid of the chair Mike rose. He seemed much steadier than when he had sat down and his voice was only slightly fuddled when he said, ‘Be quiet, do you hear?’

  ‘I won’t! I won’t! I l
oathe you. I wish you were . . . ’

  ‘Quiet!’ The shout vibrated from the walls, and in the silence that followed they all stood still, seeming to be stunned by the force of the order.

  Mike was staring down into his son’s face and his expression was frightening, but it seemed powerless wholly to intimidate Michael, who continued to glare up at him, and after a moment Mike turned from the loathing in the boy’s eyes and, with only a slight sway in his walk, went towards the room.

  Mary Ann watched her mother lead Michael to the bed. She watched her tenderly cover him up, then lie down on top of the bed beside him, and not until she began to shiver did she go to the corner where her bed was, and, climbing in, turn her face to the wall and thrust her fingers into her ears to shut out the sound of Michael’s crying.

  It was a long time later when her mother came and stood over her. She did not let her know she was awake, but kept her eyes closed. She heard her walk softly away and turn the light out, and when the darkness fell on her lids she opened her eyes and stared into the blackness. She felt her mother move across the room and into the bedroom. The door clicked softly. Then there was no sound. She could not even hear Michael’s breathing. Poor Michael. Her thoughts were tender towards him. If only he had passed the exam, then he might not have minded about her da so much.

  The words Michael had used to her father had not shocked her, for he had expressed them many times to her, and whereas she had always fought him when he upbraided Mike, tonight for the first time she felt in sympathy with him. But this did not mean she was less sorry for her father or that she condemned him, it only meant that within her small body was the capacity for understanding the agony of the personal disappointments of childhood.

  For what seemed to her hours and hours she lay on her back staring into the darkness. Once a car passed down the street, and once Miss Harper had a fit of coughing and it sounded as if she was in the room. She was slowly falling into sleep when she was recalled to her wakefulness by the foghorn wailing up the river, and she felt a little guilty that she should sleep when there was all this trouble in the house. Hastily she determined that she must keep awake. This was her last thought before sleep overtook her, but then it was a troubled sleep, for her dreams were on the surface and once or twice as was usual with her she told herself she was dreaming. Once she imagined she heard Michael get out of bed and go into the scullery, the door of which was near the foot of her bed, but it was all mixed up in her dreams.