Life and Mary Ann

by Catherine Cookson

  Mike screwed up his eyes. ‘Aye, it is. I wonder what’s up. He’s waitin’…he seems as if he’s on the lookout for us…’

  Before Mike had finished speaking, Michael came towards them at a run, and Mary Ann’s heart began to pound with painful intensity. Something had happened to her ma. She knew it had. That was the feeling that had been with her all day. In spite of the joy of her father’s company, and the brief happiness she had experienced this morning, there had been a heaviness around her, and Mike endorsed this feeling in himself when he muttered under his breath, ‘I’ve been waitin’ for this.’

  But when Michael’s face loomed up through the dusk and he came panting to their side, both their expressions took on a similar glint to his own, for Mary Ann was smiling, and Mike’s eyebrows were raised in pleasant inquiry.

  It was Mike who spoke first, saying, ‘It can’t be the sweep, the results won’t be through yet…What are you looking so happy about?’

  ‘It’s me ma.’ Michael, in this moment of high excitement, had dropped what was to him the familiar use of mother. ‘You’ll never believe it. But come on…come on, hurry up. I’ve been on the lookout for you on and off for the last couple of hours. Where’ve you been?’

  ‘To the pictures. But what is it?’ Mary Ann tried to catch hold of his coat as they now hurried on. ‘What’s me ma done?’

  ‘Wait and see.’ Michael was one step ahead of them, practically at a trot.

  ‘Here, hold your hand a minute.’ Mike gripped his son’s arm. ‘What’s happened? It’s something nice for a change anyway to make you look like that.’

  ‘Just you wait and see…just wait and see. No, don’t go in the back way.’ He turned and pulled at Mary Ann as she was about to enter the farm gate. ‘Come on in the front.’

  ‘With our slushy boots on? Do you want us to get murdered?’ Mike was still following Michael, and Michael threw over his shoulder, ‘You won’t get murdered this time.’

  When they reached the front door, he stopped and, looking from one to the other, he said, ‘Shut your eyes.’

  ‘Shut me eyes!’ Mike pulled his chin into the side of his neck, and slanted his eyes at his son. ‘What’s the game?’

  ‘Go on, Da. Shut your eyes.’

  Mary Ann didn’t need a double bidding to shut her eyes. She screwed them up, anticipating as she did so a happiness streaked with wonder. It must be something wonderful that Michael had to show them because his face was portraying a look that she had never seen on it before. It radiated a feeling of deep, deep happiness.

  After opening the door she felt Michael grip her hands, and her da joggled her as they tried to get through the framework together. She wanted to giggle, but it was not the moment for giggling, she knew that. When she felt Michael turning them in the direction of the front room she sensed immediately what she would see. Yet the surprise was so great that she was for the moment struck speechless. She was looking at what had been her ma’s room. Now, as if a giant hand had swept the house, mixing up the furniture, she was gazing wide-eyed at a complete bed-sitting room, and there, sitting propped up in bed, looking almost like her old self, was Sarah.

  Michael, standing near the head of the bed gripping Sarah’s hand, looked at them, saying softly, ‘Would you believe it?’

  ‘No, no, I wouldn’t.’ Mike came slowly across the room, and when he was standing at the foot of the bed he looked down at Sarah and said, with what might have been a break in his voice, ‘Hello, lass…you got here then.’ It sounded as if he knew she had been coming. So much so that Michael exclaimed in a surprised whisper, ‘You didn’t know, did you, Father?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know. Not an inkling.’

  ‘Nor me.’ Michael gave a series of quick shakes to his head. ‘It’s amazing.’

  Mary Ann came and stood by Michael’s side, and putting her hand out she touched Sarah’s face, and there was no disguising the cracking of her voice as she said, ‘This is what me ma’s been up to all week, isn’t it?’

  Sarah nodded. She was unable to speak.

  Mike now said, ‘I’ll be seeing you, lass,’ and turning quietly from the bed, went out of the room.

  Sarah, looking from Michael towards Mary Ann, brought out brokenly, ‘I’ll love her all me life.’

  It was too much emotion for Mary Ann to cope with without openly breaking down, and she too went hastily from the room, thinking as she made her way towards the kitchen, ‘An’ I will an’ all.’ In moments of great stress she always dropped into the old vernacular.

  As she pushed open the kitchen door it was to see her mother held tight in her da’s arm, and to hear him saying over and over again, ‘Oh, Liz! Liz.’ And as her mother raised her head quickly from his shoulder, he finished, ‘You won’t regret it, we’ll all see to that.’

  Lizzie braced herself against Mary Ann’s rushing onslaught. It was indeed as if they had all slipped back three or four years. And as Lizzie’s arms went round her daughter, she said, ‘There now, there now, stop it, and let me get on.’

  ‘Oh, Ma, I think you’re wonderful.’

  Lizzie made no open comment on this but a section of her mind, speaking with a touch of sadness, said: ‘All my married life I’ve done what one or the other wanted and they never thought to say I was wonderful, until now.’ The feeling she thought she had conquered during the early part of the week returned, and for a moment she felt the bitterness rise in her again. She had created a beautiful room—it was the symbol of her personal success—worthy in its taste of the finest house, and then they had succeeded, with their innuendoes of silence and suggestion, to bulldoze the ultimatum at her…the room or us…Either you let Sarah have the room or you keep it…just to yourself, for we’ll have none of it.

  ‘But how did you manage it?’ Mike was following her round like a kitten—a better description would have been a huge cat—purring on her, and when his arm, coming swiftly out and round her waist, almost lifted her off her feet as he pulled her to him again, the action seemed to slam the door shut on her self-pity. She had been right. Oh, yes, she knew she had been right. Sarah was happy and would likely get better much quicker here. And although she had only been in the house a matter of three hours, her gratitude had been so touching that it didn’t seem to matter any more about the room. There would be times, she told herself, being a level-headed woman, when she would want her room to herself, but they would be few and far between. The main thing was she had her family with her again going her way. How, she wondered now, had she ever let them go so far from her? She must have been mad. She pushed off Mike’s arm, saying, ‘And you stop it, an’ all. I’ve got to think of the tea, nobody else seems to be going to bother.’

  ‘But how did you do it, Liz? I want to hear.’

  ‘I went out three times this week, didn’t I?’

  ‘You did, Mrs Shaughnessy!’ He nodded his head deeply at her.

  ‘I went off jaunting to the pictures!’

  ‘You did, Mrs Shaughnessy.’ His head was moving slower and deeper now, and Mary Ann began to laugh. The laugh was high and thin. It spun upwards in a spiral of sound ending almost on a squeak, and the next minute Mary Ann had her head resting in the crook of her elbow on top of the sideboard and Mike was saying, ‘Ah, there now, there now, give over. It’s no time for crying.’ With his one good arm he swung her up and carried her like a child towards the chair, then, sitting down, dumped her on his knee, and as he stroked the back of her head he muttered into her hair, ‘You’re always the one for enjoyment, aren’t you? It’s like old times; when anything nice happened you always had to bubble.’ Mike looked to where Lizzie was now flicking the cloth across the table and their gaze met and held. They were both thinking back to the ending of many of their rows and disagreements, and they couldn’t think of one where Mary Ann had not howled her eyes out with happiness. Or was it just relief?

  ‘Now that’s all right, Mr Flannagan.’ Mike laid his heavy hand on the small man’s shoulder. ‘She would
have been coming into the family soon in any case.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know that. They would have got married, yes, I know that, Mr Shaughnessy.’ Mr Flannagan had always addressed Mike as Mr Shaughnessy. From that faraway day of the peace tea, when the little man had rebelled openly against his wife’s tyranny and had marched down the street with Mike to get blind drunk for the first time in many years. From that day, whenever he had spoken to him since, he had always given Mike his full title, and Mike had returned the compliment.

  Mike liked the little bloke, and in a way admired him, for he had showed his missis he was no worm, although she had treated him as one for years.

  ‘That room was so poky.’ Mr Flannagan moved his head from side to side. ‘I’d think about her at odd times of the day stuck in there and her loving the open air, but here it’s so wide looking, so free. And the view from that window does your heart good. I’m not being hoodwinked by what you’re sayin’, Mr Shaughnessy. It’s the goodness of yourself and your wife’s heart that have brought this about. And if she gets better, I mean if she gets her legs back, then it’ll be thanks to the pair of you.’

  ‘Now, now, let’s forget it. What about a little wet on the side…I’ve no hard.’ He winked at the smaller man. ‘It’s not allowed in the house, except at Christmas, and births and deaths, and we haven’t had any of them for a long while.’ They both laughed. ‘Of course, beer’s a different thing. Liz tells me that the beer hasn’t been brewed yet that could make me drunk!’ Their laughter rose, then Mike, jerking his head towards the front room, said, ‘Hark to ’em. They’re going at it in there, aren’t they?’

  ‘It sounds like a party. It does that Mr Shaughnessy. And listen there a minute…I believe I can hear her laughing above the rest.’ The her referred to his wife, and Mr Flannagan’s face was definitely stretched with amazement. There came a deep twinkle into his eye now as he looked up at Mike. ‘The age of miracles isn’t passed, is it, Mr Shaughnessy?’ Mike’s head was going back to let out a bellow of laughter when he checked it, saying, ‘I think that’s someone knocking, but I can’t hear for the noise.’

  He handed Mr Flannagan a glass of beer, then went hurriedly through the scullery towards the back door, and when he opened it he exclaimed in almost startled surprise, ‘Good God!’

  ‘No, just me, Shaughnessy. I always turn up like the proverbial bad penny.’

  ‘You’re…you’re welcome, sir.’

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t expect me, you never do. May I come in?’

  ‘Yes, sir. By all means.’ Mike pulled the door wide.

  ‘Oh, you’ve got company?’ The sound of the laughter penetrated to the scullery, and Mike answered, ‘Only the family, and Sarah and her parents.’

  ‘Sarah?’ Mr Lord nodded at Mike. ‘She’s here then? Oh, that’s good, she’s getting out and about, I’m very pleased to hear that.’

  Mike did not at this moment go into any particulars. The old boy wasn’t going to like it when he heard that Michael was turning down the bungalow. He mightn’t be greatly distressed about it, but nevertheless he didn’t like any of his suggestions to be flouted, and it would be in that light he would take this business.

  In the kitchen, Mike said, ‘This is Sarah’s father. This is Mr Lord, Mr Flannagan.’

  ‘Good evening.’

  ‘Good evening, sir.’

  Mr Lord did not know Mr Flannagan, but Mr Flannagan knew Mr Lord. He received his pay packet from him every week, for he worked in his yard. It was funny when you came to think about it, Mr Flannagan’s mind told him, but if things worked out the way Mrs Flannagan said they were going to, Mr Lord here and himself would, in a way, be connected…Very distantly, admitted, but still connected. Life was indeed funny, Mr Flannagan commented.

  ‘You’re Sarah’s father?’

  ‘Yes, I am, sir; I am that, sir.’

  ‘Very nice girl, very nice. A great pity about this business. But still, wonderful things are done these days…We’ll see, we’ll see.’

  ‘Did you have a good trip, sir?’ Mike was speaking now.

  ‘Yes, Shaughnessy. A very, very good trip. I enjoyed every moment of it. I only wish I could have made it longer.’

  Mike was thinking…‘Well, why didn’t you then? Things go on just the same,’ when Mr Lord said, ‘Is Tony here?’

  ‘Tony? No, sir.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t, sir. He doesn’t usually tell me where he’s going.’ Mike gave a small smile.

  ‘He hasn’t been out with Mary Ann today?’

  Mike’s eyes dropped away. ‘No, no, not today. I took Mary Ann into Newcastle…Won’t you sit down a minute?’ He turned the chair towards the old man, then added generously, ‘I’ll tell Mary Ann you’re here. She’ll be pleased to see you.’

  ‘Thank you, Shaughnessy. I’ll be pleased to see her, too. Yes, yes, I will indeed. Thank you.’

  Mike left the kitchen and went into the front room, and held up a sharp warning finger to stop the laughter and chattering. Making sure that the door was closed behind him before he spoke, he said under his breath, ‘He’s come home. The old boy.’

  ‘What, Mr Lord?’ He looked towards Lizzie, who had risen to her feet.

  ‘But I thought Tony said another week or so,’ Michael put in.

  Mike now nodded at Michael as he whispered, ‘Well, you know him.’

  Mary Ann hadn’t moved from her position on the side of the bed near Sarah. Part of her wanted to dash into the kitchen and throw her arms around the old man’s neck in welcome, but there was a larger part that was filled with anxious fear. It was just like him, as Tony said, to do the unpredictable. They had all been so happy…happy and laughing. It had been like old times. She had felt during the last hour or so that life was going to run smoothly again. She had forgotten for the moment what Tony had told her about him and Mrs Schofield. She had forgotten what that would mean to the old man who had just come back. Her da was looking at her and speaking again, still in a whisper, ‘Come on. Get off that.’ He pointed to the bed. ‘He wants to see you.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Lizzie’s voice was soft but sharp. ‘Don’t go in looking like that. He’ll think he’s as welcome as a snake in paradise.’

  Lizzie did not often make these quips, and there was a low rumble of suppressed laughter. Mary Ann did not laugh. She pulled herself off the bed and went slowly round the foot, excusing herself as she stepped over Mrs Flannagan’s feet, and made her way towards her da who was now opening the door. There was nothing to laugh about, nothing to smile about any more. They weren’t to know that perhaps in a short time—the distance was determined on how long it would take Mr Lord and Tony to come together—he would be dead. He could not stand shocks, great shocks, at his age, with his heart in the bad state it was already.

  When she reached Mike, he stopped her passing him by saying quickly, ‘Hold your hand a minute till I bring Mr Flannagan in here, it’ll be better that way…Stay a minute.’

  Within a matter of seconds Mike came from the kitchen accompanied by Mr Flannagan, and nodding to Mary Ann he held the kitchen door open for her, and she went in to greet Mr Lord.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ said Lizzie some time later, as they piled sandwiches onto plates ready for transporting into the front room.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Mary Ann.

  ‘Now don’t be silly…nothing. You know there is something. You were all right until Mr Lord put in an appearance.’ She stopped her arranging of the sandwiches, and, turning Mary Ann towards her, she said, ‘You haven’t been up to anything, have you?’

  ‘Me, Ma?’

  ‘Yes, you. And don’t look so wide-eyed.’ Lizzie was smiling now. Smiling down on her daughter. She was relaxed and happy, it was as if she’d had a drink, like at Christmas. But the strongest drink she had taken tonight was coffee.

  Mary Ann could have told her mother what was troubling her, but she did not want to spoil th
is night, and if she said to her, ‘Tony is going to marry Mrs Schofield,’ the night would indeed be spoilt for her. She would have to know sooner or later, but not tonight, because she was happy in the sacrifice she had made. Everybody was full of praise for her, and all their gratitude flowed round her in a heart-warming wave. She could not spoil it.

  ‘Well then, if you’ve been up to nothing’—Lizzie moved her head gently—‘stop looking like that. To say the least, you don’t seem very glad to see him back. And as usual he’s been more than kind. Fancy him thinking about a camera for Michael, and such a camera. And a projector to go with it. The two must have cost sixty pounds if they cost a penny. And he’s going to get a television for Sarah. You know, he couldn’t be kinder.’

  She lifted up three plates now, and balancing two on one hand and one in the other, she went towards the hall, saying, ‘I’m looking forward to seeing his American pictures. You know he’s a marvellous old man really, going around taking pictures at his age. You remember the ones from his last holiday…Oh, that’s them now.’ She half turned. ‘They’ve got back. Bring the coffee.’

  Mary Ann picked up the tray with the percolator and milk jug, and turned from the sound of her father’s and Mr Lord’s voices coming from the scullery.

  Mary Ann, at this moment, was not interested in seeing the pictures of where Mr Lord had been. She was feeling very down and apprehensive. She wished that Mr and Mrs Flannagan would go home, and the house was quiet and they were all in bed. She wanted to think, and you couldn’t think in this chattering racket.

  The big chair was pulled up to the side of Sarah’s bed and Mr Lord directed to it.

  Michael had arranged a portable screen at the far end of the room and fixed the table for the projector. This took a little time as he had to arrange a number of books to bring it to the required height. And then all was ready.