She turned from the window and began brushing her hair again. Then she stopped abruptly. It was a waste of time. She must get out of the habit; it would prepare her for what was to come.
Mr Mullen was singing ‘The Spaniard That Blighted My Life’. Annie stood on the doorstep and listened, and found herself laughing.
‘I’ll catch that big bounder, I will—’ His voice cracked, and was drowned by a chorus of ‘Pom-poms’.
‘The blighter I’ll kill;
He shall die, he shall die.’
There was a concerted shout of ‘He shall die, he shall die!’
‘He shall die, tiddly-i-tie, i-tie-tie,
I-tie, he shall die, he shall die,
For I’ll raise such a bunion on his Spanish onion,
If I catch him bending tonight . . .’
Annie pressed her hand over her mouth. What was it about the Mullens that always made you laugh? Perhaps because they laughed at themselves. It was odd, but she always felt at home with them. In spite of their roughness, they seemed to be…her folk. She hadn’t wanted to come tonight, because the thought of meeting people disturbed her and distracted her thoughts from their set course. But now it was like coming home…She felt she was going to enjoy herself, and—a sad little thought—it would be her last first-footing party. And another thing, she must take the opportunity tonight to tell Rosie she was going into the convent. Rosie was her friend, and should know. It was ridiculous of Kate to expect her to keep it a closed secret, as if it was something to be ashamed of.
Rosie opened the door and cried, ‘Oh, Annie! A happy New Year!’ She drew her into the room, saying, ‘Listen! The singer’s on his feet…Have you been knocking long?’
‘No. I’ve been standing on the step laughing…That’s your father’s favourite, isn’t it? Remember the night he sang it to us when we were small? He did it with actions, and knocked over the frying-pan full of panhacklety…remember? And your mother chased him with the pan yelling, “I’ll blight yer life for yer!”’
They hung on each other, laughing at the memory. Through the door leading into the kitchen Annie could see three of the Mullen boys and their wives arranged tightly along one wall. She waved to them, and they shouted, ‘It’s Annie! Hello there, Annie. Happy New Year.’
As Annie returned the greeting, Rosie ran to the intervening door and closed it. She came back, saying, ‘Give me your things.’
‘What have you done with the bed?’ Annie exclaimed, looking round the front room.
‘It’s upstairs,’ Rosie laughed. ‘The back room is now a correct illustration of a “bed”room…Annie’—Rosie turned and poked the fire—‘Annie, promise you won’t be vexed with me.’
‘Vexed? Why on earth should I? What do you mean? I can’t ever remember being vexed with you.’
‘I’ve done something, and now I’m a bit afraid.’ She turned from the fire, her face serious and pleading. ‘Oh, Annie, I want you to be happy. You above all people. And I reckon it this way: one of us should be.’
Annie stiffened; the hand that was arranging her hair remained still, and without moving she seemed to withdraw from Rosie. What did she mean?…Terence? She couldn’t mean Terence, Rosie hardly knew him…Then what?
‘I thought if you …’ Rosie was saying when the door opened and Mr Mullen yelled:
‘What yer hidin’ in there for? Come on oot of that…Why, Annie lass, I’ve been waitin’ fer ye all the neet.’ He put his arm about her waist and pulled her into the kitchen, crying, ‘Best-lukking lass on the Tyne! What d’ye say, lads?’
In the kitchen were the four married sons and their wives and children, together with Nancy, Jimmy and Florrie. And, in the corner of the horsehair couch near the fireplace, sat Terence.
He rose slowly to his feet and, as the Mullens chaffed and shouted, and Mrs Mullen said, ‘There’s no need to introduce you two, you’re neighbours,’ he stood looking at her, not shyly or fearfully, but squarely, his grey eyes steady.
After the first trembling shock of seeing him, Annie was filled with anger against Rosie. How could she place her in such a position? And Kate had known! They were all in it. What did they think she was? An imbecile who didn’t know her own mind? Someone who could be led and turned by their combined efforts?
It was all she could do to stay in the room. But if she were to go now, besides making a spectacle of herself, he would likely follow her…Well, she would show them just how futile was their planning. She would be calm. She would laugh and talk as if nothing unusual had occurred. She would play them at their own game; calmness was the hardest of all weapons to fight…What business was it of theirs, anyway? Why couldn’t they let her alone? Why? No. Don’t probe, she said to herself. Don’t argue; keep calm.
‘Sit down, man,’ John Mullen said to Terence. ‘What ye on yer feet for?’
Terence sat down beside John again.
‘Luk,’ went on John; ‘Aa’m interested in what ye wor saying just a while ago.’ Terence looked at him questioningly. ‘About miracles, ye know. We was just gettin’ warmed up when me da decided to render.’
‘Don’t start talkin’ about religion,’ said Mrs Mullen, ‘else I’ll throw you out.’
‘Aw shurrup, Ma! We’re not…t’aint religion.’
‘Let’s have a drink,’ cried Mr Mullen. ‘What’s it fer you, Terry me lad?’
‘Nothing, thank you, I’ve already had one.’
‘Weel, have another to keep it company. We may not be together like this fer a long time again.’
‘No,’ put in George, the family Jonah; ‘likely be on the road with the other blokes this time next year…down to two shifts noo. How do they expect you to live?’
‘My God, he’s off again!’ cried John. ‘Give him a stiff un, Da.’
‘But he’s right,’ said George’s wife. ‘How do they? How do they think we’re goin’ to get through? With bairns, dole …?’
‘Give her a double too,’ chimed in Harry.
‘Here,’ said Mr Mullen, handing George a glass of whisky. ‘Get that down yer kite! It’ll help to keep yer strength up fer when ye get on the road. What yer worryin’ aboot, anyway? Our Rosie’s gaan buy a castle, and she’s gaan take us all in…ain’t yer, lass?’
Rosie, helping her mother with the food, turned and grinned at her father. But her eyes slid from him to Annie, and a sigh of relief escaped her when she saw that Annie was engaged in conversation with Hilda, John’s wife.
‘Let’s have another song!’ cried Mr Mullen. ‘What about it, lass?’ He put his arm affectionately round his daughter’s waist.
‘Shurrup a minute, can’t yer!’ cried John; ‘I can’t hear a word Terence is saying.’
Out of deference to the visitor, a hush came over the kitchen. And Terence laughed, and said, ‘It was nothing…We’ll have a talk about this another time, John.’
John had married a Protestant, who hadn’t ‘turned’—he was the second of the family to commit this ‘error’—and Annie knew that it was about religion that he was talking, and was getting Terence to air his views. No doubt he was hoping they’d coincide with his own. Although she was listening to Hilda, she was also straining to hear what those views were. She was sitting a few feet from Terence, with her back half turned towards him, and in the general buzz of conversation and shouting of the children she could only catch odd sentences.
John was saying, ‘But what was that ye were saying aboot faith, Terry?’
Looking intently at Hilda, but shutting her mind to her voice, Annie keyed her ears to hear the reply.
‘Well, faith itself is a miracle, John. Apply faith to anything and you get results. There you have the basis of the miracles in your religion. The faith of a particular person can be so strong that the mind is affected in the way desired; and in the mind’s action on the body is the miracle.’
‘Then you don’t believe in God, Terry?’
‘Well, not the one with the beard,’ laughed Terence. ‘Nor the one
divided up into three persons. I see God as Mind, operating in everything.’
The awe in John’s voice conveyed itself to Annie, as he said, ‘Ye don’t believe in Jesus then, Terry?’
‘Yes, John. I believe him to be the greatest man ever to be born on this earth, and that he was in closer contact than anyone else with Him whom you think of as God and with what I think of as Mind. But they both mean the same in the long run, John.’
The last vestige of anger against Rosie and Kate fell away from Annie. This had to be: it was ordained that she should be sitting here tonight. They had contrived to get her here, and it had been for a purpose…but not the one they supposed. The purpose was that she should hear his views. It was all so plain now. She saw it as another example of the workings of God to ease her mind. How had she imagined for one moment that there could be anything between him and her! She never even thought of religion in connection with him. Or, if she had, it was as a foregone conclusion that he would convert. But what did he say?…God was Mind. In other words, each of us was a little god unto himself, and you created your own miracles. She was staggered at his audacity, and trembled at the blasphemy.
It seemed strange to her now that she had expected him to fall in with her ideas, to be in harmony with her way of life…Oh, things would be much easier now. There was less and less to regret. She was not losing anything. It was no wonder he was immoral and behaved as he did.
Others had now joined in the discussion, and the stronger Catholic element amongst them, with the help of the whisky, was becoming a little heated, when Mr Mullen clinched the whole matter with a crude but profound truth when he stated that morbid introspection on religion was generally a case of constipation, and that a well-regulated bowel made God much more understandable. To put it in his own words: ‘Eat plenty o’ cabbage and gan to the lav three times a day, and God nor nebody else’ll worry ye.’
This remark was greeted as all truth is greeted until it is proved—it was howled down by the entire family.
‘Da, talkin’ like that, an’ people here!’
‘Da, ye get worse. Shut up!’
‘Make him stop, Ma.’
‘I hope ye don’t mind him, Terry,’ said Mrs Mullen; ‘Annie there’s used to him, ain’t ye, lass?’
Annie, a little red in the face, said nothing, but Terence laughed and said, ‘He’s right. There might never have been a Lutheran church if Martin Luther hadn’t been troubled that way; it was a trial to him. It’s a point that needs debating.’
The name ‘Luther’ made no impression on the Mullens, but to Annie, in her present frame of mind, Martin Luther was in the same category as the Black Mass and witchcraft. Luther and all his followers were the enemies of the Catholic Church, and Terence Macbane had laughed. Oh, she was glad she had come! Yes, indeed!
The evening passed swiftly. More than once their eyes met, and she returned his look steadily. After two glasses of whisky and the same of beer, he became amusing to everyone but her. His characterisation of particular schoolboys brought roars of laughter from the Mullens.
It was close on a quarter to twelve when they decided he should be their first-foot in place of Mr Mullen. He was dark and, as young Nancy Mullen said through her adenoids, he was ‘nearly nansom’.
Terence was standing in the middle of the kitchen, with a lump of coal and a bottle of whisky in his hands, ready to leave by the back door, when the knocker of the front door banged so loudly that he and all the others in the kitchen started.
‘Who on earth can this be?’ cried Mrs Mullen. ‘Close on twelve, too! You go and see, Father.’
‘Some bloke three sheets in the wind, got to the wrong door!’ exclaimed Mr Mullen, shambling through the front room.
‘There’ll be two of them when they meet, then,’ laughed Harry.
Mrs Mullen cried, ‘Sh! the lot of yer. Listen!’
As Annie listened, the blood slowly mounted to her face. She heard Mr Mullen say, ‘Yes. Yes, she’s here. Cum in, whoever ye are, and welcome.’
When Brian stood, filling up the room doorway, he faced a solid battery of eyes, which in no way perturbed him. He looked straight at Annie, and said thickly, ‘Hello there! It’s like being in a circus chasing you around. Why couldn’t you let a fellow know?’
Annie could make no reply; she could only stare at him. A nameless dread was asssailing her. She felt that she would never, ever be able to get away from Brian. Others she could ward off, but never him.
‘Funny Kate didn’t know where you were,’ said Brian.
There was a moment of uneasy silence, which Mrs Mullen broke by exclaiming, ‘Well, well, now ye’re here, come and sit down so we can get on with the first-footing. This is my son Harry, and this is his wife. And this is …’ She went the round of introductions, after which she gave him a seat on the other side of the room from Annie. Then, going into the scullery, she encountered Rosie, so furious she could hardly speak.
‘Him! He would have to come! And he’s nasty drunk, Ma. He means trouble.’
‘I’ll see to him, never fear…Oh, are you off, lad?’ She turned to Terence on his way out.
Rosie caught Terence’s arm. ‘Oh, Terence, I’m sorry; he’s spoilt everything.’
Terence said nothing but, patting her hand, smiled ruefully and went out. He groped his way down the back yard and into the back lane, his thoughts as black as the night about him. Blast Brian! Acting as if he owned her! If he dared to touch her…as much as to lay a hand on her, he’d…Well, what would he do? he asked himself. What could he do? Oh, God, it was maddening! He had wanted things to go quietly, smoothly. If he could have taken her home, just spoken to her ordinarily, shown her there was no need to shun him, got on a friendly footing! But now what would happen?…And she was afraid of Stannard, he could see that. Well, she needn’t be afraid.
He shook his head violently, trying to chase the muzziness away. Why did he have that whisky? He was a fool to take it when he wasn’t used to it…Trying to work up Dutch courage?
He was now one of a group of men standing at the corner of the street. Similar groups were standing at the ends of all the fifteen streets. Many of the men were already drunk. Nevertheless, they were quiet, talking only in loud whispers and laughing with restraint, as men do in a house where there are sleeping children.
Someone said, ‘A minute to go.’
A silence fell on them, which was punctured by a hiccuping drunk, and someone else cautioned, ‘Quiet there, lad.’
Then the ships’ horns, the dock hooters and the church bells all spoke at once. There was a swelling of voices: ‘Here they come!’, ‘There they go!’, ‘Happy New Year, lad,’ ‘Same to ye. Many of them,’ ‘Full shifts, full bellies,’ ‘Happy New Year.’ They dispersed, still calling to each other. Knockers were banged briskly and fists were beaten on doors, which opened to laughter and muffled greetings.
Terence rapped the knocker smartly. Endeavouring to fall into the role of a first-footer, he called, ‘A happy New Year!’ as the door was opened.
They were all crowded into the front room now; the men shook his hand and the women kissed him as if he were a long-lost relation.
In the surge of greetings, his mind was still on Annie. He noticed she wasn’t in the front room; nor was Brian. He made his way through the throng to the kitchen, apparently to get rid of the lump of coal he was carrying, Mr Mullen having already relieved him of the bottle of whisky.
Annie and Brian were in the kitchen, but Mrs Mullen was there too. She said, ‘A happy New Year, lad…Here, give me that coal.’
Brian ignored Terence. He was leaning with his elbow on the high mantelpiece, looking down on Annie, who was sitting, with her head lowered, staring into the fire. ‘I wonder where you and I’ll be this time next year, Annihan?’ Annie did not reply, and Brian turned to Terence as if only now becoming aware of his presence: ‘A happy New Year, Macbane.’ His tone was insolent and full of threat.
Terence answered coolly, ‘I w
ish you exactly the same.’
He looked at Annie. Her face was turned from him, but the strain she was under was evident in the whiteness of her cheeks. He went and stood near her, having to stand almost in front of Brian to do so. ‘A happy New Year, Annie.’
She looked up, startled, and stared into his eyes. They were soft and kind and, as on that day when he took her hand and led her through the arches, they were telling her not to be afraid.
The words would not come; she had to force them out: ‘A…happy New Year.’ They were drowned in Mr Mullen’s shouts and the bustle of the family trooping into the kitchen again.
‘Cum on noo,’ Mr Mullen was crying. ‘Get yer glasses! Drink in the New Year! And wor George an’ the wife an’ bairns gannin’ on the road!’
A roar of laughter greeted this sally, and George said dolefully, ‘Aye, there’s mony a true word spoken in a joke,’ which sent the family off into hysterics.
Rosie busied herself in getting the crowd seated again and handing out the food. But do what she might she couldn’t separate Brian from Annie, who sat crushed in the corner of the horsehair couch.
The kitchen was stifling and full of the smell of beer and spirits, tobacco fumes and breath…The evening had turned into a nightmare for Annie. If only it were one o’clock and the car were here, and she could leave…Brian’s flesh seemed to flow over her; her thigh was lost in his. It was impossible to ease herself from him. If she got up and went into the front room the Mullens would think it was odd, and anyway she would only have to come back again. And Brian would see that her place was kept for her. The combination of smells that was wafting from Brian, a mixture of spirits and the peculiar body smell that was distinctly his own, sickened her.
She was conscious of Terence’s eyes fixed, not on her, but on Brian. He was sitting opposite, and when anyone came into the line of his vision, which was often, he would shift his position, which made him appear to be swaying.
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