Part 1 (2/2)
”You needn't help me with the dishes this morning. Go on, put your good things on and then you can get off. And, oh, by the way-” her voice stopped Mary Ann at the kitchen door-”wasn't there somebody else you forgot to put on your visiting list?”
”Who, Ma?” .
”Mr. Lord.”
”Oh, but I'll see him in the morning.”
”But only on the way to the station, and we'll all be in the car then. I would call in on your way back'and
have a word with him. Are you going to stay and have something at Mrs. McBride's?”
”No, Ma. I was coming back for me dinner.”
”Very well, you can go to Mr. Lord's this afternoon then.”
”But Ma, he might come here-he's been nearly every afternoon.”
Lizzie turned her back on Mary Ann and went to the stove and said slowly, ”Well, in that case I wouldn't
bother him. He'll likely want to talk to your da, and they can never do business with people about. You understand?”
”Yes, Ma.”
Soberly Mary Ann went upstairs, a weight pressing on her shoulders. She understood she wasn't to chatter and jump round Mr. Lord in front of her da. She understood all right; her rna needn't have told her.
Again Mary Ann was telling herself something for the very last time; she was sitting in the bus on her way to Jarrow. With newly awakened eyes, she looked out of the window. Never had she seen a field of rhubarb running in scarlet and green waves, nor the long, flat patches of land stretching away into the distance aboil with molten yellow. Even the great chimneys, sticking up like pipe shanks on the horizon, looked beautiful; and the gigantic, gear-bespangled gantries that reared up from the river were like fairy tracery edging and hemming in this beautiful world she was leaving.
A rainbow, actually appearing in the sky at that moment, filled her small chest with wonder. And when it stretched its magnet ends over Jarrow, Hebburn and Pelaw and lifted them iclean up from the earth to suspend them in dazzling light, it was too much for her. Her nose started to run; she sniffed and choked and groped for her hankie in the band of her knickers, forgetting that she had on her best clothes. Then, retrieving the neatly folded handkerchief, one which bore her name, from her pocket, she was in the act of desecrating it when the real purpose of its presence on her person at all today came back to her, and gently she pushed it into its folds again, name up, and carried out the operation on her nose with her thumb, but covertly, for this procedure was most strictly forbidden.
On raising her eyes, she saw they were now pa.s.sing the gates of Mr. Lord's house, and her head swung round to catch one last glimpse of them. They seemed to be guarding the entry to celestial bliss. Never more would she go up that drive ... oh well, she might this afternoon, but that would be the last time, for when she came back for the summer holidays Mr. Lord would be living in his new house up at the farm.
M The bus was now skimming past the grounds, past the hedge and the barbed wire through which she had once forced her way. But that was a long time ago, years and years-in fact, last summer.
The bus was moving now among the close-packed houses, and when she alighted at Ferry Street it was raining, pelting down, yet the sun was still s.h.i.+ning, and the conductor said, ”You'll have to run, hinny, or you'll be soaked.”
Running had not been laid down in her plans at all for today; she was to walk to the top of Burton Street and then slow down, taking her time, until she came to Mulhattans' Hall, for everybody in Burton Street knew her, and they would stop her and exclaim in tones of admiration, that is, all except Mrs. Flannagan. ”Oh, Mary Ann,” they would say, ”you do look lovely and I hear you're going away to a posh school. And your da's somebody now, isn't he? . . .eh? Manager of the farm and gives orders. Well, well.” And here it was, raining cats and dogs.
She dashed from the bus into a shop doorway for shelter. But inactivity never being her strong point, she was soon out again and, hugging the walls, she ran as quickly as her legs could carry her along the street. This procedure she even had to carry out in Burton Street, where, but for three toddlers blocking up the water in the gutter with their feet and freshly compounded mud, there wasn't a soul to be seen.
She galloped up the steps of Mulhattans' Hall to the testy exclamations of, ”Hang and bast it!” and as she stood shaking the rain from herself Mrs. McBride's door was pulled open and the aperture was almost filled by the great bulk of f.a.n.n.y herself.
”Hullo there, hinny. This is nice weather to bring. Come on in, don't stand there dripping like a cheap umbrella. Come inside.”
”I'm all wet, Mrs. McBride.”
”Aye. Well, you've been wet afore. . . . But by, what a shame, and them your new things. Let me have a look at you.” Stooping, f.a.n.n.y held her at arm's length. ”By! you look bonny, real bonny.”
Mary Ann's soul was soothed. ”Do I, Mrs. McBride?”
”You do, hinny. But there, get them off. It's a good job I've a bit fire on, for sun or no sun it's cold. And
then we'll have a sup tea, eh?”
Taking Mary Ann's coat, f.a.n.n.y hung it over a chair, exclaiming of its colour as she did so, ”Never seen a bonnier bluenever. And your hat matches an' all. ... Sit down and tell me all your news. How's Mike?”
”He's grand.”
”Ah, that's it. There's a miracle for you, if ever. . . . And now for a cup of tea. And there's some griddle cake, I made it last night. . . . What's he got to say 'bout you going away?”
”Oh, he says ” Mary Ann stopped and looked at the enormous rump of Mrs. McBride as she bent over
the fire, placing the kettle into its heart. There was no need to pretend here. Mrs. McBride was the only person in the world with whom she needn't pretend; that was, with the exception of Father Owen, yet he being a close relation of G.o.d's was not in the same category as Mrs. McBride. Like G.o.d, she felt, the priest had an unfair advantage; he knew what she was thinking and was going to say even before she started ... at least, Father Owen had this power ”when in the confessional.
^ f.a.n.n.y turned from the fire and, slowly straightening her creaking back, looked at Mary Ann.
”He doesn't want me to go.”
”Well, that doesn't surprise me. It would only have surprised me if it had been t'other way round. What
does he say?”
”Nothing much.”
”That's bad. Always is with Mike. . . . And-and Mr. Lord. How does your da get on with him now?”
”All right. Fine . . . well ”
”Aye. . . . Aye well, we'll leave it at that then, eh? And you're going away in the mornin'?”
”Yes.”
f.a.n.n.y sat down opposite to Mary Ann and, stretching her arm across the table, patted her young friend's
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