Pure as the Lily

by Catherine Cookson

  but nevertheless there was sufficient temper left in her to make her say, “I can’t stand that fellow. What does he know about Catholics anyway?”

  Philip stood looking at her. His arms were folded and he said stiffly, “More than you, I should say. You’ve told me that your father is a Catholic and your mother a Protestant and neither of them practise.

  You said only last week that you were fortunate in being able to look in from the outside. That’s what you said, wasn’t it? “

  She didn’t answer, but stared back at him.

  “Well, what you don’t know is that Angus is well and truly enclosed on his side of the fence, he’s a practising Catholic, a very practising Catholic.”

  Him! “

  Him. “

  “He can’t be or he wouldn’t say things like that.”

  “Oh my God! don’t talk so wet. This is 1972 remember;

  you don’t sweep the muck under the carpet any longer. “

  Philip now threw himself on the couch, spread his arms wide along the back of it and stared up at her. He took in her thin legs, her small pointed bust, the clear pallor of her face, her dark brown eyes, and her hair which was looped in a loose bun on the nape of her neck, and he knew what he had known for some time, that he wanted her, and he was going to have her. There was in him a deep urge to break the alabaster of both her mind and her body. She was so damned narrow in her thinking, so plebeian, provincial. Yes, it was odd; possessing that startlingly keen maths facility, she still remained provincial, low Tyne, back street he would call it. And she was a virgin. He had no doubt about that, from what Cliff had said. Altogether she was a rare commodity.

  Assuming an exaggerated drawl now, he said, ‘you know, Pat, you intrigue me, you worry me, and you fill me with, well, a sort of pity for you. “

  When she frowned and pulled her chin in he said, “Yes,

  pity, because you are missing so much. You won’t let your self go. But at the same time I’m afraid of you, I’m afraid of your mind. “ He always found this worked.

  “I’ve always stood in awe of female mathematicians. Women shouldn’t do maths. Oh ... I know all about it, equality, equality, Women’s Liberation.” He flapped the couch to the side of him now.

  “Come and sit down, come on, down to my level. But you’ll have to unbend some way to get there.” He laughed.

  Slowly and like a child now, a chastised, deflated child, she came and sat by his side, and he put his arms around her and hugged her close, saying, “What is it? What are you frightened of? Look at me. Pat. I’m going to ask you some thing and I want a straight answer, just yes or no. But promise me’—he patted her lips with his fingers ‘promise me you’ll tell me the truth.”

  “I always speak the truth.”

  “Oh my God!” He put his head down now and held his brow in his hand.

  “That’s another thing, you’re such a mass of contradictions.” He pulled himself back from her, and surveyed her through half closed eyes.

  “They say you’ll be coming out top this year, yet you’re so damned naive, it’s as if you’d been brought up in a monunstery.”

  A what? “

  “A monunstery’—he gave a high laugh ‘a cross between a convent and a monastery, because the male in you is trying to dominate the female, and the female is petrified.”

  “Don’t talk such rot.... And don’t try to be another Angus Mills.”

  “Angus speaks the truth and I’m speaking it too, and you know it, and with regards to you and truth, that’s why you don’t get on with people, isn’t it? Oh, I know it’s unfair, because you’d imagine that a truthful person should be loved, whereas in fact a truthful person is more likely to engender hate.... Don’t you realize that people don’t want to know the truth, they cannot face it? They cannot face it in themselves, so it’s not likely they’re going to take it from another.

  Have you ever thought of that beautiful, beautiful word . diplomacy? “ He waited while he looked at her, and when she made no comment he said, “ It is a beautiful word. All right, it coats lies, but it does more good than harm for it provides the lovely hot running butter to pour over the cobblestones of truth. I like that bit. “He laughed.

  “The cobblestones of truth. But tact and diplomacy, that’s what you should take up. Pat, tact and diplomacy.”

  “Thank you.” Her mouth was tight.

  You’re welcome. Now where was I? Oh yes, I asked you to speak the truth, but for the last time. Make it that last time. “

  He became silent now as he stared into her eyes, then slowly and softly he asked, “Have you ever been with a man?”

  The alabaster skin was flushed to a deep pink.

  “Now! Now! Now!” He was leaning back from her, wagging the fingers of both hands, “Come on, say it, yes or no. Say it. I know the answer, you’ve just given it to me, but I want to hear you say it.” He now bent swiftly forward and pulled her into his arms, and they overbalanced on to the couch and as he held her stiff body to him he kept repeating as he laughed into her face, “Say it. Go on, be a devil and say it.”

  He didn’t know how he came to roll on to the floor; she seemed to twist herself and then there he was on the floor. He got to his feet and looked at her where she was standing now pulling on her coat, and he went to her and said, “Ah look, Pat, I was only kiddin’. And I’m glad, I am. Of course I am. But I still say that it’s a position that should be rectified, and soon, for your own sake. You’d feel better.”

  He was looking into her eyes, and his voice was a whisper as he ended, “I promise you, you’ll feel better.”

  As he stared at her he thought for a moment that she was going to cry, and he said with an eager softness, “Oh, Pat, I’m sorry. But I’m fond of you, I could go for you head over. I’ve been trying to stop myself.

  I might as well tell you I have, for I didn’t want to go in off the deep end. But I’m

  afraid I’m toppling. And . and I want you to be happy. You like me, don’t you? Or should I say, do you like me? “

  Did she like him? Yes, yes, she supposed she was attracted to him in a peculiar sort of way.

  “Well?”

  “I came here tonight, didn’t I, a half-hour bus journey and frozen stiff?”

  “Then stay.” His voice was soft, coaxing.

  “We can have it to ourselves.” He looked round the room, then went quickly to the far corner and pulled open a drawer and took out a piece of board, on which was written in large type: in session.

  “When we want to work we pin it to the door. We call it rule 6.” He pulled a face at her.

  “We could ... work in peace.”

  Quite suddenly she felt sick, and she had the instinct to run, while at the same time she was saying to herself, “Well, you could get it over with here and now. No more conflict.”

  She walked slowly towards the door.

  “I’m ... I’m going to Jarrow; I promised them I’d be there by eight.”

  He had her by the arms again, pulling her round. ‘you did nothing of the sort. And you’re not going. “

  “I did. I am.”

  He was two steps away from her now. His look was puzzled; she had a way of snapping her arms down. She looked fragile, yet she was strong enough to push him, almost throw him off.

  “All right, all right. Good night,” he said loudly and pulled open the door.

  She went out into the little hall, then into the street. She kept her head down as she walked. Never before had she felt so young, silly and old-fashioned. or so alone

  Chapter Two

  mary supported the glass in Alec’s hand, and when he had drained the last of the hot whisky she wiped his mouth and said, “There now; get yourself off to sleep.”

  “Aye, lass, aye. By! that was grand, warmin’, lovely. Eeh! there’s nothin’ heats your belly more on a winter’s night than a drop of the hard.”

  As she straightened the sheet under his chin he caught hold of her hand and murmur
ed, “Aw! lass. Lass.” And she said briskly.

  “There now!

  There now! get yourself off to sleep. “ She stroked the thin strand of hair across the top of his scalp and added, ‘now mind, don’t forget.

  Ring that bell if you want anything in the night, do you hear? “

  “Aye, lass, I will. Good night and God bless you.”

  “Good night. Da,” She switched on a bedside lamp, then moved towards the door to turn out the main light, but before she reached it the door opened and a blond head was thrust round it, well above hers.

  “Good night, Granda.”

  “Good night, lad. Where you off to the night?”

  “Oh ... the high spots bunny girls and strippers. Scampi and chips.”

  “Are you takin’ the Rolls, lad?”

  “No, the Bentley, Granda.”

  “Get out of it!” Mary pushed at the tall figure, then glanced back towards the bed. Alee was chuckling and she said, “Get yourself to sleep, you’re as bad as him.”

  As she passed Ben on the landing where he was getting into his coat, she said, “I don’t know about strippers and bunny girls, but you won’t get to the dub before it closes if you don’t get yourself away.”

  “Well, that won’t trouble me; I’m in two minds whether to go or not.

  Look, why not get Eva to come over and give an eye to Granda, an’ come with me. There’s bound to be some thing on. If not there’s always bingo. What d’you say? “

  What did she say! Could she say that the clubs with their pile carpets, their last word in furnishing, their concert halls, their organs, irritated her more than they afforded her entertainment or relief from her mundane life?

  Why was it she couldn’t be ordinary and let herself go, have a drink and a laugh, a bit carry on, in fact? No, what ever club she went to.

  And she’d been to a few from Shields to Sunderland and Newcastle, from the social clubs, as they now called the glorified working man’s clubs, to the night clubs, where it always amazed her to see ordinary women gambling, women who, twenty years ago, would have had one main concern, whether they’d have enough money for the rent-man on Monday.

  But in all of them she experienced a particular irritation, and she wondered whether it was be cause she felt an outsider, in that she hadn’t her own man, for young Ben, no matter how he tried, could never fill that category. Or was it that she couldn’t disassociate the women she saw at the tables from the years of dealing with bad payers. Bad payers always left a nasty taste in her mouth, like the ones who insisted on custard creams and boiled ham, when it should have been bread and tat ties and she knew you couldn’t do a night out at a club for less than three pounds, and that was putting it low. And some of them went two and three times a week.

  But when she thought about it coolly in retrospect, she supposed that the social clubs did open up a new way of life for the women, and God knew that after what they had gone through in her time they needed a break. But still, they weren’t her cup of tea. Could it be sour grapes because they had, in her case, come too late for her really to enjoy them? Could be, at that. Yet look at the old dears who went there, some of them dolled up like lasses. Aw, why was she yarping on . ?

  “What you standing dreaming about?”

  “Who’s dreaming? Me? Get yourself away out of it.” She pushed at him, then exclaimed, “You haven’t got a scarf on! Go and get a scarf.”

  “I don’t want a scarf, I never feel the cold, you know I don’t.”

  “Go and get a scarf on!”

  “Aw, you!” He pushed at her now, but gently, and he went into his bedroom and she into the sitting-room.

  The sitting-room was furnished differently from what it had been twenty-eight years ago, more expensively, but nevertheless it still retained the comfort of the earlier days. A chesterfield couch, its back supported with individual down cushions matching those of the seat, stood at right angles to the fireplace, which now held a low, all-night burning grate. The carpet was thick and plum coloured; a small modern piano stood to the right of the window. There were two sets of coffee tables, together with two occasional tables, dotted here and there; and the occasional tables at least had a period attached to them.

  Mary herself, like the room, had changed. She was now fifty-five. She, could have passed for forty-five and no one would have doubted her age. The only lines on her face were under her eyes, and these were a mere tracery. Her hair, which had begun to go grey about five years ago, she now camouflaged with a light brown tint. Anyone who hadn’t seen her for twenty years would have found that the greatest change lay in her dress.

  The expensive outfit she had bought for Annie’s wedding in 1952 seemed to have given her a taste for dress. Before, she had never bothered much about dress, she’d never had time. But within one year the house had seemed to become empty, at least of half its occupants.

  Early in 1952 Cousin Annie had died, and Jimmy shortly afterwards. And later in the year, young Annie, at nineteen, had been married. From then on there had been only Ben and her da to look after, and neither of them was much

  trouble. She remembered she had gone daft for a time buying everything she set her eyes on. She supposed, in looking back, it was the release from the irritation of Cousin Annie and the lifting of the weight from her shoulders of the responsibility of Jimmy She had been thinking a lot about Jimmy this last week. It was the clearing out of the store cupboard and coming across his books again and all his scribblings. She had made an assault on the store cupboard because she didn’t want to have to tackle all the clearing up at the last minute. She wasn’t going to take a lot of rubbish with her wherever she went.

  t! It was odd but the nearer the time came for her to leave this place the more reluctant she became to move; and yet for years she had looked upon it almost as a prison, wondering when she’d be free, when she’d be able to be her own mistress and go where she willed; but now, with demolition almost on them, she was acting like a sentimental girl hugging souvenirs to her.

  She had just put her feet up on the couch when Ben came in. She watched him striding down the room towards her, and, as always when she looked at him from a distance, she was struck anew by his likeness to Lally. Naturally he would take after his mother, but her looks, represented in him, were quite uncanny. He was her all over again, except that he didn’t appear flamboyant; he was too lean for that.

  Inside too, he was like her, for his heart was kind. But there was ii;

  also a good bit of Jimmy in him. He had Jimmy’s mannerisms, his humour. Yet in one way he wasn’t at all like his father, for he had no use for poetry. Nor did he dream; he was practical, was Ben, and he had known what he wanted to do since he was twelve years old.

  “I want to build cars, Mam,” he had said. He had always called her main, never aunt. Well, he hadn’t built cars but he had serviced and sold them;

  and in his own business an’ all, she had seen to that.

  Young Ben was more like her son than Annie was her

  daughter. Annie was her own Ben’s child, and therefore she should have loved her dearly; but Annie hadn’t taken after Ben, strangely she had taken after her grandmother, not too much, but just enough to make her mean, and contrary, and selfish where her own needs were concerned.

  But young Ben she had loved with a passion that a mother has for an only son. Perhaps it was because in his early years he had needed her so much. How often had she travelled with him down to the Shields Institution until he was five? She had lost count of the times she had walked up Talbot Road to those iron gates, the workhouse gates, as they were known. And her journeys had been in vain because he was now stone deaf in one ear.

  Because she loved him so much she knew that she must try to throw him off, and the best way, she had considered, of doing this was to get herself married, but when it came to the push she couldn’t go through with it. Three times she had made a fool of herself, and the men. And he was as bad as she in letting people down.
Look at the girls he’d had, they were round him like flies. They lasted a month or two. One had even lasted a year, but when he began to hear wedding bells he turned tail and bolted. She knew that people round about blamed her because he wasn’t married. A big hulking fellow like him, and twenty-seven years old, carting her around, they said. Wasn’t natural, they said. He should be married with a family, they said. Oh, she knew what they said.

  She said to him now, “What you dithering for? Get yourself away, I’ve told you.”

  He looked down at her.

  “I don’t like leaving you on your own, you look lost.”

  She drew in a deep breath, then pointed to a side table.

  “I’ve got a good book, a box of chocolates ... drink through there if I want it’ she stabbed her finger towards the dining—room wall ‘the telly, and if you don’t mind I’d like an hour to me self

  You’re an ungrateful old. “ He put his hands on each side of the couch above her shoulders and bent his face down

  17 W

  to hers. Then wagging his head, he said, “I don’t know whether to say bitch or witch.”

  “I’ll thank you to say neither.”

  He pushed his lips out and kissed her lightly, then grinned at her as he straightened himself, saying, You’re an old faggot. “

  She grinned back at him but with her mouth compressed, then said, “I’ll faggot you one of these days.”

  He was walking towards the door when he turned round.

  “Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you. You know what young Taylor said the day when you came in to fill up?”

  “No, what did young Taylor say the day?”

  “He said you looked a smasher and you smelt nice. What have you got to say to that from a seventeen-year-old?”

  “I would say he needed his ears boxed.”

  He went out laughing, and she lay back her head in the crook of the couch and repeated, “She looks a smasher and smells nice.” Frank used to say that to her.