Once more in the office he pulled the till open and looked at it. There had been a ten shilling note there just before he went upstairs. He had been checking the takings when he saw Diana crossing the drive. He had purposely gone out of the office and into the garage because he didn’t want her coming in here. He didn’t admit to himself the place was too small to hold both of them without coming into contact, and he feared contact with her. No petrol had been sold while he was talking to her, nor when Mary Ann came on the scene. How long had he been upstairs? Five minutes, ten minutes, not more. But Jimmy could have filled a tank during that time. Well, he could soon check on that.
He went out and looked at the registers on the tanks and when he returned the number corresponded with the amounts he had put in the book earlier.
Here was another problem.
Again he dropped his elbows on the desk and supported his head. There were only two people had access to this till, Jimmy and himself.
Jimmy had been with him since he was a nipper and he had never done this before. But there was always a first time, there was always a circumstance that pressed you just a little bit too much, and the group’s car was the circumstance in Jimmy’s case. But pinching from him! He had only noticed the deficiencies during the past three weeks, but it could have been going on for months, even years; not notes, but a bit of silver here and there. But now apparently he was getting reckless. Or, on the other hand—Corny’s jaw tightened—he might be thinking that his boss’s mind was preoccupied with other things and would be above noticing the cash desk. Aye, that was likely it. What had he wanted to say to him before he left? He’d a guilty look on his face; perhaps he had wanted to own up.
Well, there were two courses he could take. He could tackle him with it and perhaps give him the sack, or take temptation out of his way by getting a cash register in. But if he did the latter he still wouldn’t be able to trust him.
Aw, God above, what with one thing and another life wasn’t worth living. Why was it things had turned out like this? He had thought that when his break came he would be on top of the world; and he wasn’t on top of the world, the world was on top of him.
Chapter Four: Sunday Afternoon
Sunday’s pattern ran along set lines. Corny went to first Mass; the children went to ten o’clock, often accompanied by Mary Ann, after she had prepared a cold lunch to come back to.
The afternoon pattern varied slightly. Either they went to the farm or the children’s grandparents visited them, or they all went to Michael’s and Sarah’s. Sometimes if the day was very fine the combined family would take a run out to the coast, but once a week they all met, and today Mike and Lizzie Shaughnessy were coming. Michael and Sarah would have accompanied them but they were on holiday.
At lunch Rose Mary tried to break the unhappy silence, but only succeeded in creating more tension when she remarked, ‘Me granda loves Bill ’cos he’s like me granda, somehow, is Bill.’
This remark had brought her mother’s wrath on her and Mary Ann had exclaimed on a high note, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rose Mary. And don’t dare say any such thing when your granda arrives.’
Yet when the silence fell on them again and there was only the sound of their eating and the scraping of cutlery on the plates she thought that, in a strange way, Rose Mary was right; that dog was like her father, not in looks, because it was an ugly beast, and her father, although nearing fifty, was still a handsome-looking man, but the animal had traits very like those in her da. Once he had set his mind on a thing nothing or no-one would turn him away from it.
In the dog’s case it was bent on making this room its headquarters. Three times this morning she had pushed him downstairs; the last time she had almost thrown him down.
At two o’clock they stood before her, all scrubbed and clean, wearing their Sunday best, and she looked from one to the other as she said, ‘Now, you get messed up before your granda and grandma comes and see what I’ll do.’ She wagged her finger, first at Rose Mary, and then at David. ‘Let him out of that shed if you dare. Mind I’m warning you.’
As they stared back at her she read their minds. ‘She’s cruel. Mam’s cruel.’
The phone ringing broke their concentration; the phone was connected with the office downstairs and Corny was downstairs. Mary Ann hesitated a moment before picking it up, and then his voice came to her.
‘Your mother’s just phoned. She says Gran’s arrived; she’ll have to bring her along.’
Mary Ann closed her eyes.
‘Are you there?’
She forced herself to say ‘Yes.’ Where did he think she was?
‘Look, honey.’ His voice was low. ‘This has got to stop.’
She glanced round at the children. They were both still looking at her, and she motioned them away with her hand, and as they went out of the door she said stiffly into the phone, ‘I didn’t start it.’
‘Well, neither did I. Look, love, I tell you there’s not a thing in it. Believe me…Look, your mam and dad’s coming; they’ll smell a rat if we go on like this.’
‘Is that all you’re afraid of?’
The shout he gave into the phone made her pull her head sharply back.
‘I’m afraid of nothing. I’ve told you I’ve done nothing to be afraid of. You’d drive a man mad. I’m tellin’ you, mind, if you go on like this you’ll get what you’re askin’ for.’
When she heard the phone being banged down she put the receiver back and put her hand up to her lips to stop their trembling. She had her head bowed as she went onto the landing but she brought it up with a jerk when she saw the two of them standing looking at her. The next minute they were on her. Their arms about her, their heads buried in her waist, they enfolded her in silent sympathy, and she had to bite tight on her lips to stop herself from breaking down.
‘Come on. Come on.’ She ruffled their heads; then exclaimed, ‘Aw, now look what I’ve gone and done, and me going for you to keep tidy.’ She looked down into their faces, and they stared back at her. Then she said brokenly, ‘Come on, I’ll tidy you up,’ and, still clinging to her, they went into the bedroom. And as she combed their hair she thought, They’re so big a part of me, there’s nothing I think that they don’t sense, and she pulled them towards her again and kissed them one after the other. And then she was crying softly, and Rose Mary was crying softly, and David was blinking hard and sucking his bottom lip right into his mouth.
‘If you wanted a dog, why didn’t you get a dog, not an ugly beast like that?’ Gran was addressing Mary Ann pointedly, and Mary Ann, as always, was praying that she be given the power to answer her grandmother civilly. This woman who had been the torment of her da’s life, the thorn in the side of her mother, and the constant pinprick—and that was putting it mildly—in her own.
Grandma McMullen never seemed to get any older. Her well-preserved body, her jet black hair piled high on her head, her thick-skinned face and round black eyes looked ageless. Mary Ann could never imagine her dying, although she wished it every time they met; but this, she knew, was the vainest of all her wishes.
She replied to her now, ‘I didn’t want the dog; I didn’t bring it here.’
‘Oh! Oh!’ Mrs McMullen swung her head widely, taking in her daughter Lizzie and her son-in-law Mike, and Corny, and then she appealed to an invisible figure standing somewhere near the window. ‘Did you hear that? The world is coming to an end; somebody’s got one over on her at last…’
As Mary Ann went into the scullery, Lizzie rose to her feet, saying, ‘You’re in one of your good moods today, aren’t you, Mother?’ Then she went hastily towards the door between the kitchen and scullery and closed it and, coming towards her mother again, ended, ‘Now I warned you before we came away, no-one’s got to put up with your tongue.’
Mrs McMullen slowly bowed her head, then brought it up sideways and again she appealed to the imaginary figure near the window, ‘Well! Do you hear that?’ she said. ‘Do you hear that? It’s come
to something when you can’t open your mouth. Look.’ She now confronted her daughter with a hard black stare. ‘I was meaning to be funny. Hasn’t anybody got a sense of humour around here?’
‘You could have fooled me.’
‘What?’ The old lady turned and glared at her son-in-law’s back as it moved towards the door leading out onto the landing, and as Mike went through it she said in no small voice, ‘Yes, I could have fooled you; it wouldn’t take much to do that.’
Lizzie almost sprang towards the other door now and, banging it closed, she cried under her breath, ‘Now that’s finished it. Now I warned you; this is the last time you come out with us.’
Mrs McMullen stared at her daughter again. Then, her head wagging and her mouth working as if she was chewing on gum, she said, ‘You were glad enough to come in me car.’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ Lizzie put her hand to her head and was about to turn from her mother but confronted her again, crying, ‘Your reasoning has always been a mystery to me, Mother. It still is. We’ve got a car of our own; we didn’t need yours to come in. You got Fred Tyler to bring you to the farm today so that Corny could look it over.’
‘No such thing. Who told you that?’
‘Fred Tyler told me that, if you want to know. You told him it would be a free ride as he wanted to visit his folks in Felling.’
‘He’s a liar.’
‘Oh well, that’s all right then, he’s a liar and you don’t want Corny to look her over.’ She glanced swiftly at Corny, and Corny who had remained silent all this while looked at Gran, and Gran looked at him, and after a moment she said, ‘I’ll pay you; I don’t want you to do it for nothing. But those other beggars in Shields, they sting me to death. They sent me in a bill for seven pounds. Where am I going to find seven pounds?’
Before Corny could answer, Lizzie said, ‘You shouldn’t be keeping the car, you can’t afford to run it. You know you can’t. You should have sold it the minute you won it. Now it’s going to rack and ruin standing outside your front door. What do you want with a car, anyway, at your age?’
‘It’s my car and I’ll keep it as long as I like, and I’ll thank you to mind your own business. As for age; if you had half as much life in you as I have you’d be more spry than you are now.’
As Lizzie looked down on her mother she wondered how, during all these long years of torment, she had prevented herself from striking her; for most of her life she’d had this kind of thing to deal with. Age had not softened her mother or changed her, except for the worse.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ asked Corny flatly now.
‘I don’t know. That’s what you’ll have to find out. She goes pink-pink-pink-pink, like that. Fred Tyler says he thinks it’s just due to verberration.’
‘Verberration? You mean vibration.’
‘I mean verberration. That’s what he said. I’m not daft.’
No, she wasn’t daft, not her. Corny, looking down on Mrs McMullen, hardened his heart enough to say, ‘If it’s anything big I won’t be able to tackle her; I’ve got too much in.’
‘How can it be anything big? It was new only a few months ago.’
‘Lots of things go wrong with new cars.’
‘Not with this one. You said it was one of the best.’
‘So it is. But still things can go wrong. And I’m telling you, if it’s anything that’s going to take time you’ll have to get it fixed elsewhere.’
He felt mean acting like this, but once he started doing her repairs she’d never be off the door. When she had won the car, he had offered to buy it from her, but no; and now it was being ruined standing out in all weathers and had depreciated by hundreds already. He turned abruptly and went out.
On the drive he found Mike. He was standing quietly smoking and looking towards the chaotic jumble of machinery on the other side of the road; he grinned at him and said, ‘I suppose you know by now why she came. She’s after you for free repairs. If you once start she’ll have you at it.’
‘She’ll not. I told her, if it’s anything big she can take it elsewhere.’
‘Aw, she’s a crafty old bitch if ever there was one.’ Mike squared his teeth on the stem of his pipe, then turned and walked with Corny towards the Wolseley. But before Corny lifted the bonnet he said, ‘I’d better put on a set of overalls else I’ll get me head in me hands.’
When he returned and began to tap various parts of the car engine, Mike stood watching him in silence for a few minutes, then he asked casually, ‘What’s up, Corny?’
Corny’s eyes flicked towards Mike; then he turned his attention again to the car. You couldn’t keep much from Mike; in any case, the feeling between himself and Mary Ann was sticking out like a sore thumb.
‘Serious?’ asked Mike quietly.
‘Could be.’ There was a pause before Corny straightened himself and, looking at Mike, said, ‘She’s mad.’
Mike was smiling tolerantly. ‘Haven’t noticed it up to now. Quick-tempered like. Takes after her male parent’—his smile widened—‘but mad? Well’—he shook his head—‘what’s made her mad, Corny?’
‘Come in here a minute.’ Corny led the way into his office, where, having closed the door, he confronted Mike and said plainly. ‘She thinks I’m gone on somebody else.’
They stared at each other. They were both about the same height, touching six foot two, and they could have been father and son in that their hair was almost the same hue of red. But whereas Corny’s body was thin and sinewy, Mike’s was heavily built.
Mike took the pipe from his mouth and tapped it against the palm of his hand, but still kept his eyes on Corny as he asked quietly, ‘Well, are you?’
Corny tossed his head. It was an impatient gesture, and it was some seconds before he said ‘Look; it’s like this, Mike.’ He now went on to explain how Diana Blenkinsop came into the picture, and when he had finished there was a long pause before Mike said, ‘Well, as I see it, she’s got a point, Corny. Oh! Oh!’ he held up his hand. ‘Hold your horses; don’t go down me throat. I’ve been through this meself, you remember?’ His mouth moved up at one corner. ‘It nearly spoilt your wedding. I don’t need to go through all that again, do I? But I’m just telling you I know how you feel…’
‘But Mike, man, I don’t really feel anything for her, not really. She’s nice to natter to, she gives you a sort of kick…Well…’ Again he tossed his head. ‘When anybody seeks you out it gives you a kick whether it’s man, woman or child. You know that yourself.’
‘Aye, as you say, I know that meself; but I’m going to say this to you, Corny. It’s a dangerous game to play. But for Mary Ann confronting me with the truth about that little bitch who had almost hypnotised me, well I don’t know where I’d be the day. It was a sort of madness. At least it was in my case; I was clawing my way back to youth, willing my dreams to take shape in the daylight. Aw, lad, I know all about it. But in your case you haven’t reached that stage yet; you’re young. But young or not, this could be serious. You know, Mary Ann’s nature is like a fiddle string, the slightest touch and it vibrates. God forgive me, but I made it vibrate more than enough when she was young. I was a heart scald to her, and she doesn’t want to go through that again, Corny, not in any way.’
Corny sat slowly down on the high stool and he bowed his head as he said, ‘You know how I feel about her. I don’t need to put it into words; you know the whole story. Every since I was an ignorant nipper, a loudmouth lout, she has stood by me, defended me, and I could have loved her for that alone, but I loved her for herself. I still do. God, she knows it. But Mike, that doesn’t mean to say I daren’t look at another lass.’
‘No, no, it doesn’t; of course it doesn’t…What does she look like, this Diana Blenkinsop?’
Corny raised his eyebrows and smiled wryly. ‘The lot. Straight off the front of a magazine. Long legs, no bust, flaxen hair down her back, blue eyes, red lips, and five foot ten.’
Mike took the flat of his hand and flapped
it against his brow as he said, ‘And you wonder why she’s up in the air. Why man, you know she hates being small, and for you to look at anybody an inch taller would be enough, but five foot ten, and all that thrown in, aw, Corny, that isn’t playing the game.’
‘Well,’ Corny got up from the seat and his voice was serious, ‘game or no game, Mike, I’ve got to be civil to her; she’s Dan Blenkinsop’s daughter and he’s in charge here while Mr Rodney’s in America. Even when he’s back Dan’ll still be in charge. As I tried to explain to Mary Ann, at this stage he could make me or break me.’
‘And so you’ve got to suck up to his daughter.’
‘NO!’ The word was a bark. ‘And don’t use that expression to me, Mike. I suck up to nobody; never have. If I’d been that way inclined I’d be further on the day, I suppose.’
‘I’m sorry, Corny.’ Mike put his hand on Corny’s shoulder. ‘I shouldn’t have put it like that, it was too raw. But you feel you’ve got to be nice to her?’
Corny’s face was sullen and his lips were tight as he said, ‘I feel I haven’t got to do as me wife says and tell her to stay to hell out of the garage, and when she brings a message from her father I haven’t got to say to her, “Look I don’t want anything by hand, use the phone.”’
‘Aye. Aye, I know it’s awkward, but remember, Corny, Mary Ann’s got her side to it. Anyway, we all run into patches like this, and they pass.’
‘Patches! They’re more than patches that hit me. My life is either as dull as ditchwater with nothing happening, or everything’s coming at me from all sides at once. I’ve got another thing on my mind and all…Jimmy.’
‘Jimmy?’
‘Aye, he’s helping himself to bits of cash.’ He nodded towards the till.
‘Jimmy! I can’t believe that; he’s a good lad. I would have said he’s as straight as a die.’
Mary Ann and Bill Page 6