Agnes Owens

by Agnes Owens

  I saw a barman serving a woman seated at the counter, which surprised me since the pub was supposed to be closed. Two men I had not seen before came over and sat beside her with glasses in their hands, drinking and laughing and smoking in a totally relaxed manner. What’s this? I wondered. Did it happen every night after the pub closed? And where was my stepfather? The woman turned and I saw she was my stepfather wearing a head-scarf, a long pleated skirt and a tweed jacket. Before I could make sense of this the man beside him planted a kiss on his cheek and I would have fallen in through the door with the shock, if it hadn’t been locked. At first I thought it was some kind of joke, but something else told me it wasn’t and I didn’t wait to see more.

  That night it was I who waited up for Joe. ‘Why aren’t you in bed?’ he said. ‘Do you want a belt in the mouth?’

  ‘No. Do you?’ I said, adding the word, ‘Poofter.’

  Joe dropped on the floor the belt he had been unwinding.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I thought you were a rapist but you’re only a poofter. Wait till mother hears about this. And the neighbours. And all those folk who think you’re so great.’

  ‘I’ll deny everything,’ he said, but his voice was shaking.

  ‘The chances are they’ll want to believe it.’

  Looking at me with eyes that were as tight as gimlets he said, ‘Keep your mouth shut and I’ll make it worth your while, otherwise I’ll beat you to within an inch of your life.’

  I thought about that and decided it wasn’t worth getting more scars for.

  ‘How about twenty quid for a start?’

  He gave me the twenty quid, then had the temerity to shake my hand as if we’d come to some business agreement, but before the week was up he had gone.

  My mother couldn’t understand what made him leave without a word but on the whole she was pleased.

  ‘Probably found another woman,’ she said, ‘but I don’t mind, as long as he doesn’t come back.’

  ‘Believe me, he won’t.’ I said, ‘I hear he’s left town.’

  It’s a funny thing but the phantom rapist never struck again. Some folk said it had all been a pack of lies told by women well past their prime who’d do anything for a bit of attention. That’s what my mother says and she is now an authority on the subject of men. But I have warned her not to go visiting pubs on her own, because if my stepfather wasn’t the phantom rapist, who was?

  Annie Rogerson

  When I was a child my mother sent me to Sunday School hoping it would make me a happy, spirited youngster instead of the sullen one I’d become.

  ‘Why can’t you be more like Annie Rogerson?’ she would say. ‘Look how she goes walks with her mother, and sweeps the stairs and hangs out the washing without any arguments, unlike you who wouldn’t do a hand’s turn of work, not even if you were paid for it.’

  ‘Yeah, and everybody laughs at her for being such a goody-two-shoes,’ I said. ‘No way do I want to be like her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want my daughter laughed at,’ said my mother, ‘on the other hand –’

  I walked out before she finished the sentence but had to smile. First she wanted me to go walking with her, then to sweep the stairs and hang out washing. Next thing she’d be wanting me to take piano lessons, yet she didn’t want me to be laughed at, which would surely happen if the big shots at school got to hear of it. But it’s a fact that my mother is a snob. I had annoyed her by stopping going to Sunday School long ago, though she’s told me umpteen times that she doesn’t believe in God. She’d say, ‘I’m what they call a Humanist. I go to church if I feel like it, and if not –’

  Then she’d snap her fingers in the air like a Spanish dancer. I thought her a real pain in the neck, chopping and changing her mind about nearly everything. I was ashamed of her twittery laugh and how she couldn’t pass a shop window without admiring herself in it.

  ‘Yes Mum, you are beautiful,’ I would say, then she’d tell me it was only because she was unsure of herself, not because she was conceited. I didn’t like the subject because I was always looking in mirrors too, hoping to see a better version of my long skinny body and head that was far too small.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t slouch,’ she’d say when we went out together, so I added slouching to my list of bad points. I was the ugliest person in the street except for my mother, who was small and dumpy with legs like a boxer’s. When we were out one day I spied some school acquaintances on the far side of the road and said, ‘I must go now.’

  ‘Where?’ she asked.

  ‘Into that shop – I see someone I know.’

  Before she could open her mouth I sped along the street and joined another gang of acquaintances, hoping anybody watching would think I was part of it. As if anybody cared, but that’s how I was in those days.

  ‘I suppose you’re going to the annual school dance?’ said my mother.

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  ‘Oh, but you must. I don’t want anyone thinking I can’t afford to buy you a dress. I’ll sew you one, and don’t worry. It will be in a modern style.’

  ‘Then I’m definitely not going.’

  ‘Annie Rogerson is going. Her mother told me.’

  ‘Then that makes it a certainty I won’t be.’

  My mother nagged so much that I ended by going and bumped into Annie also heading for the school hall. Of course from our point of view the dance was a failure. I stood at one end of the orange-juice counter and Annie at the other. The only ones who came near us were some who ordered orange juice because they thought we were serving it. I wasn’t pleased when Annie Rogerson approached and whispered something in my ear. I was about to push her away when I saw she was pointing to the opening in her cheap-looking handbag, and inside was a half-bottle of vodka that seemed to be full. ‘Are you offering me some?’ I said in a hushed voice.

  ‘If you want,’ she said. ‘You can take it with orange juice.’

  I was surprised to see how quick and expert she was at pouring some vodka into a paper cup then filling it up with the juice.

  ‘Do you always take vodka with you wherever you go?’ I asked.

  ‘Nearly always. Sometimes it’s other stuff.’

  My admiration for her knew no bounds. We finished the vodka before a teacher appeared, said, ‘What’s going on here?’ and fished out the empty bottle.

  ‘Somebody must have put it in my bag,’ said Annie, all innocence. The teacher looked at both of us intently, then said, ‘Come with me. I believe you are both drunk.’

  Our parents were sent for and my mother went mad when we got home.

  ‘To think of the showing up!’ she moaned. ‘We’ll have to leave the district.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ I said. ‘It was Annie who brought in the vodka. She must have slipped some into my orange juice when I wasn’t looking.’

  ‘Are you telling the truth?’

  ‘Of course I am. I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to see her parents about it,’ said my mother. ‘I’m beginning to think they’re a funny lot. Her father’s a strange man to say the least. I heard he steals women’s knickers off clothes lines.’

  ‘At least she’s got a father,’ I said, ‘which is more than I have.’

  ‘Your father died in a coal mining accident, which is nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘Of course not, but I thought he died in a train disaster. That’s what you told me last time.’

  ‘I don’t remember telling you any such thing. You must be mistaken.’

  There was no point in arguing because she always won. She kept me indoors next day. I could easily have climbed out the bedroom window but why bother? There was nowhere to go. So I looked out of that window like a dumb dog waiting for its master, not seeing much beyond a line of green council bins and wishing I was dead. Then I stiffened. I saw Annie Rogerson leave the back end of the close. I expected her to start sweeping the path, which my mother
said she was always doing, but instead she put a big black bottle into the bin. And it wasn’t a sauce bottle.

  ‘How much vodka does she drink in a day?’ I wondered, then heard a man’s voice calling. Annie ran back into the close.

  Next day I was let out. It was Sunday and I decided to ask Annie if she’d like to come out and play with me – ‘Only if you want to,’ I would add, in case she thought I’d become desperate. I knocked on her door but there was no answer, so I tiptoed away feeling thoroughly fed up. When Monday came I was almost glad to be going to school. I met Annie on the road and by way of conversation said, ‘I haven’t seen you around lately.’

  ‘I don’t go out much.’

  ‘They tell me I was drunk at the school dance,’ I said, deciding to take the bull by the horns.

  ‘I never noticed,’ she said.

  ‘With all that vodka,’ I added.

  ‘What vodka?’

  I was astonished by the cool way she denied all knowledge of it. She frowned for a moment, then her brow cleared. She said, ‘I remember taking medicine in the hall. I have an infection and have to take it every four hours or it will only get worse.’

  I thought she was either mad or a very cunning liar.

  ‘You must think I’m stupid,’ I said, and slapped her face.

  She ran off crying. I never saw her at school again or even around the back green. I blamed myself for this but thought it didn’t make her less of a liar.

  Then it was Sunday again, a rotten day for me at the best of times. Suddenly my mother burst into the room and said, ‘Annie Rogerson’s father is in all the papers, accused of interfering with his daughter after giving her vodka and other stuff to knock her out.’

  I digested this information for a minute then was sick on the carpet.

  ‘My good carpet!’ moaned my mother. ‘What have you been eating?’

  I pushed past her and took a bath, trying not to think of Annie crying when I slapped her. Afterwards I sat looking out the window down toward the bins, wishing Annie would come out so that I could talk to her, maybe have a laugh with her at the idea of vodka being medicine. But I couldn’t have done that, it was too serious. The back green had a desolate look. Likely Annie’s house was empty.

  ‘Come and get your breakfast,’ I heard my mother shout.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ I told her in the kitchen. ‘But I might as well go to Sunday School this afternoon. There’s nothing else to do.’

  My mother clapped her hands.

  ‘Oh, I am so glad! Sunday School could be the making of you, for no matter what we say it’s always better to believe in God, don’t you think?’

  Visiting the Elderly

  Every Wednesday my friend Maisie and I visited Mary Mountbank who was one hundred and one years old. Maisie and I were in our eighties so felt comparatively young. We mainly visited her because we knew nobody else older than us. Mary always put out a nice pot of tea with some Campbell’s shortbread fingers, but she never washed and always went back to bed after letting us in so we usually avoided the shortbread. She did not add much to our conversation and mostly lay silent and brooding. When it became too obvious that she was being ignored we would ask how she was keeping and with a hostile stare she always answered, ‘Fine.’

  ‘Do you still take a wee dram of whisky, now and again?’ I would ask and she’d say ‘yes’ and nothing else. This annoyed me as I was only trying to be friendly to an old woman nobody else could bother with. Maisie was better with questions, saying things like, ‘Does your daughter still come in to do your washing?’ though Mary would reply unpleasantly, ‘Not a bit of it.’

  Once I asked if she had thought of going into an old folk’s home?

  ‘Indeed no,’ said Mary. ‘I’m not thinking of going anywhere.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ I said, ‘I hear the inmates get beaten up a lot and the food leaves a lot to be desired.’

  Maisie gave me a dunt with her elbow to make me shut up.

  ‘Anyway I’m not going,’ said Mary. ‘And you can tell my daughter that.’

  Little did she know her daughter had already told us, ‘She’s going in next September, if we’re lucky.’

  ‘She won’t like it,’ Maisie had said.

  ‘She’s got no choice,’ said the daughter. ‘She can’t be left alone or she’ll set the house on fire.’

  ‘It’ll come to us all,’ I had said, hoping it would never come to me. ‘But I’d rather fall under a bus.’

  The daughter walked away and we had stared after her, Maisie saying, ‘That woman has a callous streak.’

  I had agreed and said the family should roast in hell for their miserable attitude toward an old woman. And here we were again, visiting Mary who did not know she would get put away in September.

  ‘Mind you,’ I told her, ‘there’s a lot of fine old folks’ homes where you could be happy as Larry watching the television and eating good quality meals three times a day and having a game of bingo if you like it. Do you not fancy that?’

  She said, ‘I told you already I won’t be going. So shut your gob and have one of those Campbell’s shortbreads.’

  Gamely we took one each and I shoved mine into a pocket so hard it burst the lining.

  ‘And anyway,’ said Mary, ‘they say the doctor in some types of home gets up early and rapes the old while they’re doped up with their happy pills.’

  Maisie and I howled with laughter at the idea.

  ‘If that’s so,’ I said, ‘I’ll sign myself into one of those homes tomorrow.’

  Next moment Mary was sound asleep and snoring.

  ‘Should we leave while she’s so peaceful?’ said Maisie.

  I said, ‘Wait until the rain goes off.’

  The room was so stuffy that I was about to doze off myself when Maisie said, ‘The worst of a home is they don’t let you keep the bits and pieces that prove you were once a real person.’

  ‘They don’t have room for them,’ I said, ‘and they don’t care what you were like before.’

  ‘I believe I was quite attractive at one time,’ said Maisie.

  I said, ‘I never thought I was attractive at all, but I must have been because I managed to get married.’

  ‘We hardly remember anything,’ said Maisie, ‘but I remember fancying the coalman, though his face and hands were so black we daren’t even kiss.’

  ‘If he was that black,’ I said, ‘how could you fancy him? You couldn’t see what he looked like.’

  ‘He showed me a photograph,’ she said. We were silent for a while, listening to Mary’s snores, then Maisie asked if I had ever fancied anyone apart from my old man.

  ‘I never fancied my old man much. He didn’t have a lot in the way of looks and had a temper like a tiger, but according to him I fancied everyone in trousers, though I don’t remember why he said that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Maisie, ‘everything’s a blur nowadays. Do you want another of these shortbreads?’

  ‘Take one if you like,’ I said, ‘I suppose one will do you no harm if you see nothing like shit on it.’

  ‘Do you have to say that?’ said Maisie.

  We noticed Mary had gone silent and stared at her as if thinking the same thing. I said, ‘She’s not breathing.’

  Maisie put her ear close to the old woman’s chest, which was more than I could have done, then said, ‘She’s alright.’

  I said, ‘Thank God. I wouldn’t like to be the last one to see her alive.’

  ‘Nor me,’ said Maisie, ‘though it would save her from going into a home.’

  ‘True,’ I said, ‘though I’d rather she didn’t die in this hole. It’s dark.’

  We felt for the electric switch, put it on and found the room looked better in the dark. I disliked the litter on the table next to the bed recess, where a half-empty bottle of juice lay beside a bed pan. I said, ‘Let’s go, now she’s out for the count.’

  But we looked sadly at Mary for a while. I said, ‘Maybe this i
s the last time we’ll see her.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. She’s the type that will live to be two hundred. But before we leave there’s a question I’d like to ask you.’

  ‘As long as it’s not for the lend of a fiver,’ I said, laughing.

  ‘Is it true that years ago you had an affair with my old man?’

  I was so shocked I could hardly speak, but managed to say, ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Someone said that when my Alec was doing his night watchman along in Healy Street, half the time he was in your house shagging you rotten while your old man was asleep in his bed.’

  For a minute I thought I was going to pass out I was so flabbergasted, but I pulled myself together and said, ‘Whoever told you that is a terrible liar! That’s all I can say, and why did you not ask me that question sooner instead of keeping it to yourself all these years?’

  ‘I was always meaning to but I could never find the right words.’

  ‘So you had to wait until Mary was at death’s door?’

  ‘It was old Mary that told me.’

  ‘Why the dirty old bitch,’ I said, angry spittles flying from my mouth. ‘Let me tell you this, I wouldn’t have your old man touch me with a bargepole. You’d better believe me than her lying there. Don’t forget she was always a gossip and I hope she roasts in hell for all the damage she’s done in her miserable life.’

  In silence we crept down the outside stairs of the building. I looked back at Mary’s dark window. To think of her lying there, not even dead! I’ll tell you this much, I won’t be visiting her again, the old gossipmonger, and may God have mercy on her soul.

  Chairles Will Pay

  My mother’s family were a funny lot, always playing tricks and frightening each other half to death. That’s what my mother told me when we were looking through old photos, some so faded I could hardly make them out.

  ‘That’s your Uncle Sanny,’ she said, pointing to a snapshot of a young man wearing what looked like baggy dungarees. ‘He was the worst of the lot. He pinned a poster of a big stork on the wall just before my sister Agnes came home. In those days you found posters of storks all over the place advertising Stork margarine.’